Entry Twelve - France (1900)

So I was in the TARDIS library today (it's very extensive, I assure you) poking about because the Doctor refused to land us anywhere, he said I needed a bit more time to recover fully before any extraneous activity. And it is a fair point to note that I still wasn't feeling by absolute best and that even if we tried to go to some nice pleasure planet we'd more than likely still end up embroiled in some sort of... something that requires running, to say the least. He even let me sleep in, and then made me breakfast (okay he can cook. Specifically, he can cook some brilliant pancakes).

Then he started fiddling with the console, actually... that was adorable... he had this sort of head lamp thing and these magnifying spectacle attachments and if anyone else in the known universe had ever worn that in front of me I would have teased mercilessly, as it was I only teased a little. But eventually I ran out of trashy magazines, put them away neatly, and decided it was time to find a book in that behemoth of a library we've got. So I was going through all that and what do I find? That's right, 500 Year Diary. Of course I'd never invade the Doctor's privacy like that (...right?) but I didn't immediately know what it was so I cracked it open to find out and then I had to scan a page or two before I understood. So what do I discover? I've been going on and on about how I've never properly been to Paris and he's gone with someone called Romana. Now obviously this isn't exactly cause for jealousy or anything, but... no I wasn't jealous. Not at all.

So I went back to the console room, 500 Year Diary in hand, and tapped my foot on the grated floor until he came sliding out from under the console looking his adorably dorkiest.

"What?" he asked and then got all wide eyed at what I was holding in my hand. "Did you read that?"

That was when I started to feel a bit guilty, "Umm, no. Not really. Okay, I read maybe two pages but I didn't know it was your diary or anything, I just thought it was this massive volume of... I dunno."

The Doctor frowned a bit drawing his eyebrows together in the way that he does but then just as quickly grinned one of those grins and I ventured to smile too. "I suppose... I wouldn't really mind, I just- I haven't seen that thing in years, decades probably."

"Well," I cleared my throat, "on the two pages I read it mentions something about Paris and someone called Romana, and- does the Mona Lisa really not have eyebrows?"

He seemed very amused over that and in the end he decided that if I really wanted to go to Paris then we'd go to Paris, and if we were going to Paris (and I had a killer outfit waiting in the wings) then why not kill two birds with one stone.

We went to the Exposition Universelle in 1900 Paris.


I'd never been to a World's Fair before. Unsurprisingly really seeing as though the fad apparently died out around the forties, but it was brilliant. There were all kinds of inventions there, things that were common place now, well, in my time, and others that just looked downright archaic. But everyone was so impressed and in awe that it was hard to see them as anything other than ingenious. They talked about the first talking film, they introduced Campbell's soup, and publicised the escalator. But the Doctor's favourite bit was, unsurprisingly, the massive telescope that he told me was still the largest telescope in the world in my time. I didn't tell him so, but I thought it was quite cool too, though hardly bite sized.


After we'd had our fill of the fair the Doctor decided that if we were in Paris we had to have a meal, so we went to this posh restaurant (after a spin back to the TARDIS though cause even the Doctor had the common sense to change into the great tux of doom) that was supposed to be a very good example of the Belle Epoque, which we were apparently in. I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast (which was about twelve hours ago at this point, but I was wearing a corset so...). It all felt a bit like Gigi and I said so. The Doctor pretended to have no idea what I was talking about but later I heard him humming 'The Night they Invented Champagne'. I gave him this expression.


Afterwards we walked around a little more. It really was beautiful and everything I had hoped that it would be. But then the Doctor got a 'hankering' for a crêpe so we jumped into the TARDIS and popped forward about a hundred years before stopping at a crêperie at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower. We both got chocolate and banana, and I ate the whole thing looking up at the Tower. It looked exactly the same as it had in 1900, except maybe the hydraulic lifts were a bit newer. We finished the crêpes and then he sighed and asked if I wanted to go up. I did. So we did.

As we looked out over Paris, I asked him if he'd ever been up before and he said he did once, with Romana. I didn't ask who she was.

Just before we went back to the TARDIS a little boy with a balloon tied to his wrist came up to us and asked us if we were in a film, it took me far too long to realise he meant cause I was still all dolled up for 1900. The Doctor said that we were and to hold on for the special effects. Then we went into the TARDIS and took off.

Until next time.

Entry Eleven - Kalab Ting (3)

I did, of course, realise what was happening to me. I'd been contaminated and now I was sick, mutating, dying, either one. I couldn't decide what was worse. I wanted to stay alive, sure, but I wanted to stay me. My brain was pretty much shut off to anything accept panic, but I started thinking that if this was it. If this was going to be when I died then perhaps I should say things that I hadn't said before. So I opened my mouth and started speaking, even though I couldn't hear anything. My vision was getting a little blurry but I could see the Doctor stop struggling to get past Monlie and her makeshift spear, she must have been stronger than she looked.

And I kept talking until I realised that Monlie was looking at me a bit pityingly and the Doctor shook his head. I stopped speaking, and shook my head. I had no idea what he was trying to tell me. Then he took the psychic paper out of his pocket and held it up for me to see, still standing a couple of meters away. With my blurred vision, constant coughing, and miserable pain it took me a moment to read it; "You're not speaking." There were no words coming out of my mouth. I couldn't hear. And now I couldn't speak. I felt tears start to cut paths through the dirt now caked on my cheeks.

I was then struck by a particularly bad coughing fit, that racked my body and fuzzed my mind further. I felt my head buck and then a terrible pain went shooting through my head and then everything was black.

I woke up in hospital. A very posh hospital that was all white and minimalist. I was hooked up to some sort of intravenous pink solution and it was all a bit off-putting until I realised I wasn't in any more pain. And I wasn't having trouble breathing. And the TARDIS was parked in the middle of the ward, and the Doctor was poking around the rest of the ward looking at the patients. I opened my mouth to speak and realised that I still couldn't hear, and therefore could probably not speak. I clanged a bit off my IV stand against the metal bit of my bed and was startled to see one of the nurses move round towards the side of the bed. I was even more startled to see that she was a cat sporting a habit. I was on bloody New Earth? I spun round and glared at the Doctor, who gave me this expression:


I opened my eyes wide and then nodded my head towards the cat nun that was fiddling with my IV and the Doctor sort of shuffled his feet a bit and shrugged. I held out my hand cause I would have preferred for him not to be across the room but he put his hand out and touched this sort of force field thingy and then dug the psychic paper out of his pocket and held it up, which said "Quarantine". I wrinkled my nose and shot another disparaging glance at the cat nun, and he frowned and the psychic paper said; "Sister Lelm" and then, "You're going to be okay". I was relieved.

We communicated through him telling me things via the psychic paper for a couple of hours. What had happened. The Doctor had convinced Molnie that he needed to transport me and that he needed to get everyone of her people off this planet before it destroyed itself and them with it. I had a particularly nasty cut on my leg and this, he inferred, was how I had gotten the virus without imbibing any of the food or water and how it had taken hold so quickly. The virus, it turned out, was real, and was a particularly nasty strand of something called Marwovies, that attacked the senses, shutting them down before working on internal organs and eventually turning them to jelly. It was a slow process of death and a particularly nasty virus to get rid off. All this had been deducted from the TARDIS sick bay, of course.

Molnie, he said, at this point was wandering all about the TARDIS fascinated. He didn't even let her off before he moved the TARDIS to the best hospital he could think of in this time, New Earth. Then they spun round the Shadow Proclamation, Molnie said her story and decisive action was taken against the Piroquay Corporation, shutting down their operations and convicting most of their top operatives of manslaughter for not evacuating the planet once their terraform had failed. This was Judoon justice, the Doctor said, and didn't seem to happy about it but I have never met a Judoon and didn't really know what that meant. He personally oversaw the evacuation of the Malinkings until Kalab Ting was officially closed down as unsafe for visitation. Those who were sick were brought to hospitals and those who weren't were taken to Shadow Proclamation refugee camps, which he assured me were nothing like the ones on Earth.

After a couple of hours, while he was explaining all this I heard a sort of buzzing an my ears which grew and grew until I could fully hear, I opened my mouth. "And how long were you gone from here?" I asked.

He looked very pleased that I could speak again and said, "About ten seconds."

It wasn't long after that when Sister Lelm unhooked my IV and smiled at me. "Your partner is very dedicated, he stayed here all the while you were sick. We could not even persuade him to use the proper parking accommodation," she said nodding towards the TARDIS.

I had to stiffle a laugh and nodded, "Yeah." She was so kind to me that it was hard to remember that she was part of a sisterhood who had thousands upon thousands of humans growing in the intensive care unit being pumped full of disease. But then she lowered the barrier and I jumped out of bed and the Doctor and I hugged something like this:


Later, when we were back on the TARDIS and he was spinning dials and walking around the console while I sat on the jumpseat with my feet propped up I asked, "Didn't it bother you, going back to New Earth. The Sisterhood were there, we obviously hadn't been yet, they still had their human farm downstairs."

He hesitated for a moment, his hand hovering over a lever, and then nodded, "Yeah, no I didn't like it."

"Then why?"

"Marwovies is incurable on fifty-seven systems, Rose," he said and then went back to tinkering. "And I didn't want any Rose flavoured jelly, I prefer banana. Now," he stood back up and looked at me, crossing his arms and leaning against the console, "what was it you were trying to say back in the cave? It looked awfully important."

I laughed at his swift topic change, but sort of understood why. But the time for saying things was over. Today I lived. So I reached over to the bin under the jumpseat where I found a board with a marker and scribbled a note.


He laughed, and I laughed and he said, "I think we could both do with one," and set the coordinates for Mebdinida where they've apparently the best cider this side of M87.

Until next time.

Entry Ten - Kalab Ting (2)

I don't quite fancy being tied up and told I may be mutating. It's just... well I can't imagine anyone would like it really. I had rather hoped to get out of it myself, but things were not looking good with my new, red, best friend hovering over me and telling me I'd be required to stay here for a few weeks. But I still wasn't too concerned. The Doctor was still around somewhere and I knew he wouldn't just leave me fallen in a hole. He'd come find me. But I hate being rescued.

"Well, if I'm contaminated and may be mutating why are you here? Aren't you afraid you're going to get contaminated too?"

"I have been selected by the council," she said.

I raised my eyebrows, any other gesture was a bit beyond me at this point, "You have a council?"

She looked confused and vaguely insulted, "We have a society."

"Right yes, of course you do, didn't mean..." I trailed off, not quite knowing what to say anyway and knowing that whatever it was wasn't going to make a rit of difference.

I took this opportunity to look around. Well it was definitely some sort of cave. Like an Earth cave, but then again the topside didn't look all that different from Earth either.


"I'm called Rose," I finally said after a long time of silence, "what's your name?"

Her face sort of lit up and she said, "Like the flower! I have heard of them! I saw them in a book once, beautiful. We had flowers here once, my name is Monlie."

I asked her what had happened, and she told me. Kalab Ting was an uninhabitable planetary body made of nothing but rocks and dirt. It's orbit was far enough from it's suns that it was perpetual winter, but there was never any snow because there was no water. It could not sustain life. Until the Piroquay Corporation moved in. They specialised in some sort of newfangled technological terraforming. They created an atmospheric shell to simulate seasons, they created a water source by importing hydration and irrigation, they basically covered the entire planet in a sort of sod from the sound of it. And then it was habitable. Beautiful and pleasant.

It seemed a bit off to me, they still didn't have a natural water supply and surrounding a rock with grass doesn't mean that grass is getting nourishment. Apparently Piroquay intended to do this to thousands of planets in order to make more room for the expanding Human Empire. Or so said my dear friend, Monlie.

"So you weren't born here?"

"No no," she said, "I was born on Malinking, a beautiful planet. The grounds were red and the forests blue, I had trouble understanding the colours when I first came here."

"Why did you come here?"

"I was brought here, my whole family. Our planet was becoming more and more crowded when the humans moved in, so we were brought here."

I sat up, well, as best I could, which was not much, "You were relocated?" She nodded, "That's horrible. How long after you arrived did the virus come?"

She shrugged, and it seemed to me like she didn't want to answer. "About a month," she finally said, and I wondered how many people she'd lost. How many of her friends and family had died or been mutated or whatever, but it seemed clear to me by now that Piroquay had mucked it up.
It was about this time that I heard the familiar sounds of the TARDIS materialisation circuit and sighed a breath of relief. Monlie on the other hand jumped to her feet, grabbed her makeshift spear and stood there gaping at the police box that was now standing in front of her.

"'Bout time!" I called when the Doctor walked out of the TARDIS and stood there staring at Monlie with a bit of a shocked expression.

"You okay?" he asked me.

"Oh yeah, just fine, contaminated, mutating, tied up... nothing serious. Doctor, this is Monlie my friendly captor, don't worry she's just following orders we're getting on quite nicely, and Monlie, this is the Doctor."

He took a step forward but Monlie poked her spear at him and he stopped, raising his arms in surrender. I told him everything Monlie'd told me about the terraforming, the virus, and Piroquay.

"Of course!" he shouted, "Why didn't I see it before? It's so obvious, oh I am thick!"

I was still tied up by the way, "What? Something got mucked up, right?"

"Yeah, it's the terraforming, it's gone wrong. Terraforming is all well and good providing a stable environment, Kalab Ting didn't have that! They created it artificially! It's like, um.. Oh! Star Trek III!" I shook my head, never seen it. "Okay there's this planet and they terraform it with this Genesis thingamabobsis and it's all right as rain for a while but then it all starts collapsing. It's not really all that realisitic in the film, obviously, it is a film, the ground starts shaking and everything collapses, literally and these Klingons are doing their Klingon thing and-"

"Doctor, please can you just get to the point?" The ground really was cutting into my back at this point.

"Oh, yes, of course, point: This planet is collapsing, but it's doing so in a natural state of accelerated progression. It was made and now it's breaking. Like a transplant patient. It's rejecting the terraform. And the parasites living on it. Sorry," he said to Monlie, "that's you lot."

"But they're dying and they've got me all tied up and ho can they just be rejected? Where are they meant to go?" I asked and then coughed.

The Doctor got very pensive for a moment and I watched him trying to think of something, but then my throat felt like it was constricting, and I coughed again trying to get air through my windpipe, but couldn't quite manage. I wasn't choking or anything, but there definitely wasn't enough air coming through. If I'd been scared at all before, I was plain terrified now. And then it wasn't just my throat, it was my chest and my head. It sort of felt like I was going to explode. I realised I'd had my eyes closed and opened them. Monlie had taken a few steps back from me and was holding her spear in front of the Doctor who looked like he was trying to take a few steps forward. I could see his mouth moving, and he was saying my name, but I couldn't hear anything. Nothing. Not even the sounds of the cave.

More tomorrow.

Entry Nine - Kalab Ting

With no ideas in mind the Doctor and I decided that it was time to randomise. As I said before. I love randomise, we always get into the best adventures when we randomise. Never know where we're gonna land, when we're gonna land, could be anywhere or anywhen, it's brilliant!

So after being awakened in my usual fashion and a good proper English breakfast (I cooked, the Doctor toasted and opened tins, though he still maintains he can cook, remains to be seen), we made our way to the console room and randomised.

The TARDIS went spinning through the Vortex and we both got thrown about the console room laughing. I tried to run the opposite direction of the way she was rocking and it turned into a sort of game until abruptly, very abruptly, she came to a stop and we both went tumbling to the floor. I laughed so hard I could hardly breathe.

Once we'd picked ourselves up off the TARDIS floor we both cast glances at the door, and then at each other. He raised his eyebrows, "Anything could be out there."

I grinned and then punched him lightly in the stomach and we both ran for the door.


Outside was... nothing. Well, not nothing in the sense that there could be nothing. There were buildings, and trees, and carnival equipment, but there were no people no sign of anything living at all, no nothing.


Even the Doctor was silent for awhile. But we'd materialised on the roof of some kind of building so we decided there was just a good a place to investigate as anywhere else.

It seemed like the building we were on, henceforth known at Building A, was the center of some sort of 'main drag' as the Doctor likes to say. It was some sort of governmental building. And there were papers still around. It seemed like we were on Kalab Ting, which the Doctor only knew vaguely, nothing he could think of to warrant the complete desertion that appeared to have taken place. The only clue was the continual mention of some sort of corporation called Piroquay that did scientific things that I didn't understand but made the Doctor frown. I did not quite like that, the Doctor frowning is a scary thing. We looked round some more.



"Rose," the Doctor said in that voice that always gave me cause for concern, "stay close to me, don't go wandering off?"

He didn't have to tell me twice. I nodded and opened my mouth to respond but it was at that exact moment that I took a step forward and the ground gave way. I am not sure if it was rotting over some sort of mine shaft or if someone had dug a hole there for more sinister reasons, but while I was falling, and falling, and falling I didn't really think about why there was a hole there it was enough that there was and it seemed, after everything I'd seen, a very stupid way to go out and I thought this until everything went black.

I came to lying on something that felt very much like rock, feeling very sore but very much alive and unbroken. I looked round for the Doctor, though when I tried to sit up I couldn't, and that was when I looked at my hands. They were restrained with some sort of canvas rope, which meant two things 1) there were people here, and 2) I was probably in a lot of trouble.

"Hello?" I called and was answered by a very dirty, and very red, looking girl who couldn't have been any older than fifteen, although she had some sort of spear fashioned out of scrap metal, that did not bode well for me.

"You have come from the outside," she said and advanced very slowly, "You are contaminated, you will not be aloud among the enclave."

Contaminated?? This was getting worse and worse. And I really hoped that the Doctor was okay.

"Okay," I said, "no enclave. I can live with that. I think. Um, if you untie me I promise I wont go... contaminated with what?"

"The virus," she said, ignoring my query as to whether I'd be untied, "the lucky were killed, the unlucky were mutated."

"Mutated?!"

"Horrible things have happened here," she said and then brought me a glass of water and a sort of paste. "I have been selected to care for you while we see which one will happen for you."

I rejected the food and water, I was far too worried over the word mutated to want either. "What if neither of them happen?" I asked.

She shook her head, "That has never happened. We moved down here in order to escape the virus. It is the only way we have survived, though everyday another grows sick."

"Okay," I said again, trying to formulate some sort of plan, getting out of here was the first order of business. "How long until you'll let me go."

"Not long," she said, "a few weeks should do it."

More tomorrow.

Entry Eight - Barcelona (!)

Once, in a very stressful situation the Doctor said he wanted to take me to Barcelona. Not the city Barcelona, the planet Barcelona. Due to said stressful times... we never quite made it. Instead we ended up back at the Powell Estate fighting off invading Sycorax while the Doctor took a nap (okay, less nap and more regenerative coma). But after leaving London we realised that we didn't have anywhere specific in mind. The Doctor was all set to randomise (I love randomise, you never know what you're going to get), but then I remembered that he'd never actually managed to take me to Barcelona.

He looked like he was going to go flying through the roof. "Oh, Barcelona! I love Barcelona, we are absolutely without a single question in this great big universe going to Barcelona at this very moment." I laughed, he set the coordinates and moments later we materialised on what he assured me was Barcelona's main drag.

I almost died when we left the TARDIS. The sun is a sort of blue colour and makes everything shine with a sort of blue hue. Gorgeous really. I think different coloured suns were what confused me the most when I first started travelling. In films the suns are always yellow, I just figured they were all yellow, but apparently not. And what colour light gets shined on a planet really does make a difference. Purple is my favourite. I love purple skies to the point where he Doctor makes fun of me for it. But blue might come in a very close second.


Then of course I had to see the dogs with no noses. I really had spent a very long time imagining them in my head. I thought maybe they'd have big holes in their faces, but that doesn't really make sense. It might get very messy, plus, why would anything be born with a giant hole in the middle of their face? Anyway, they've got fur though, so it only stands to reason that they'd just have fur. I am not sure why I did not think of this.

But anyway, immediately after disembarking the TARDIS, with a little extra time for me to squee and the Doctor to look very proud of himself, I said we had to find a dog. He was already all over it. I chased him down the street as he took off, coat flapping in the wind (I swear he hit a small child in the face with his coat tails at one point), it's apparently very windy on Barcelona, until finally he found an old woman walking... what really looked like a English sheepdog and stood with his arms sticking out all akimbo (love that word, akimbo) just short of saying 'Ta da!'. But the dog had no nose. No nose! I mean, I was prepared but it looked so silly I just laughed until finally I had to say the requisite; "How does he smell?"

The lady just stared at me as I collapsed into giggles and the Doctor laughed too until finally he says "Awful!" and we got our absolute proof... as she walked away rather offended, that they do not have Monty Python on Barcelona.

Anyway, here's our puppy friend:


We don't know his name since his owner went off in a huff (at least I got a photo first), but the Doctor's calling him Harvey.

Then we went into a shop on the 'main drag' as the Doctor calls it. I suppose 'main drag' isn't a bad description of it. It certainly looked like it'd be. Lots of shops, like Oxford Street or the Champs-Élysées... I need to make the Doctor take me to Paris sometime, I've never been properly and I for a fact he took someone called Romana, but all that's beside the point. In the ship there were all the delicacies of the planet. Cream puffs and something that looked like a sort of weird jelly, but the Doctor said they were well know for their candied nuts, so we got some of those, warm, and ate them while we went down the street. They were delicious and we both made a mental note to buy some more before we left for a rainy day (though he says he never travels on rainy days, unless it's an accident or atmospheric disturbance. I asked when it wasn't atmospheric disturbance and he said that was a fair point).

At the end of the 'main drag', henceforth called by it's proper name Helanci Street, was Barcelona Castle. The Doctor explained that the monarchy of Barcelona had been overthrown ages ago but that, like the rest of Europe, the palaces were still there and used for tourism. Barcelona has a very strong tourism industry and is very popular with colonist humans who miss the old planet. I didn't ask what'd happened to the 'old planet' since it was only the year 7,000,001 and the Earth hadn't seen it's final days yet.

But Barcelona Castle was gorgeous. All Disney looking. The Doctor said it was Luxembourgy looking, but I told him I wasn't sure that was a word. He asked me when that had ever stopped him before. We both laughed. We didn't tour it, since the Doctor said the lines were usually outrageous and you couldn't see much of anything ever anyway, so we took a photo of me outside.


After that we explored a little more, on foot and by rickshaw (they had rickshaws!) and every time either one of would see a dog with no nose we'd shout "How does he smell!?" And people looked at us very strange. We ended the tour back where we started from, but stopped in a small bookshop near the TARDIS where the Doctor bought about twelve enormous looking tomes and I picked up a few beachy reads and some of my trashy magazines (which I fully intend to put away properly, I'm so sorry TARDIS). The Doctor peered at my selection and raised and eyebrow. "I hope you don't think this streak of normalcy is going to continue," he said and I thought about a minute.

"We haven't gotten into any trouble lately," I said.

"The trouble's just the bits in between, just like I said to you mum last Christmas," the Doctor said, thumbing through a book on the history of a species called the Mumintax.

I smirked, just a bit, and tried to raise an eyebrow but both went up anyway, "Yeah but we both know you were lying."

He smiled at me like he wasn't sure whether to chastise me for that comment or agree. He went with agree. "Just you wait, Rose Tyler," he said, "there's plenty more trouble out there, just waiting for us."

We both stood there grinning stupidly for a second but then the man behind the counter handed over our purchases and he took my hand and we went back to the TARDIS. We forgot to buy the candied nuts.

Until next time.

Entry Seven - Earth (Still)

Couple of things today, no photos as it's a long one.

First, the Doctor is clearly insane. I understand that eighty years is not a long time to someone who's already lived for over nine hundred and is nowhere near slowing down, but to gripe on about something so absurd is ludicrous. All day he followed me around with glasses of water telling me that I should keep my skin hydrated so that I wouldn't feel the need to slather on anti-wrinkle cream any time soon. I'm 20 years old, I am unconcerned about the 'human aging process' as he calls it. And I really don't need him hacking into my blog and posting photos of me and my mum side by side!

But anyway! We're still on Earth, London, Powell Estate, Flat 48 of Bucknall House... okay maybe I shouldn't be broadcasting my address on the internet? Oh well, I doubt anyone reads this anyway, except maybe a few. I know HelenW does, yay HelenW.

So, as the Doctor already informed everyone I went out last night when a couple of my mates, Shareen and Keisha, I ran into Keisha's cousin last night at the chippy and she told the two of them that I was home. So just as soon as me and the Doctor and mum were finished with our chips they came knocking on the door begging me to go out with them (the Doctor had conveniently hidden himself in my bedroom at this point). I was going to beg off, but I got to thinking that it'd be nice to have a pint with my mates again. They invited the Doctor along too, of course (Keisha's met him, they got on okay I think even though there were weird happenings at the time and all), but I couldn't even get him to come out of the bedroom to meet Shareen, which I thought was just a bit rude.

We went down to the pub down the street and had a couple of pints, caught up. They're both dating blokes who I haven't met, but everything's working out great. Vicky broke up with Kyle after he threw a brick through Chris's car window when he caught them talking. Marie got a job as a waitress at some posh new place up near Bond Street. It was all the gossip I used to not be able to wait to hear, but for some reason it sounded completely mundane. I sat there and chewed on my nails though, cause I knew eventually there were going to ask about me and I hadn't the slightest idea of what to tell them.

And then the worst thing that I could possibly imagine happened.

Shareen got a sort of queer look on her face and I could see her nudge Keisha under the table so I laughed and turned to see what it was that they were looking at, and there, standing by the door to the pub with some slapper with fuck me heels and the most hideous colour of bottle blonde, was Jimmy Stone.

The ex of exes.

I will not get into the whole story about Jimmy and me but I will say that I moved out of my mum's flat to live with him instead of finishing school and getting my A Levels. I was completely blinded by my stupid infatuation for the git and had the stupidity to believe that he actually loved me. It ended badly. And with tears. And me in debt I finished paying off just before my job blew up. Needless to say I never wanted to see him again, as he is a complete wanker.

And despite all this, I was frozen to the spot and couldn't speak, even when he was standing right in front of me waiting for a response.

He was all smirky, thinking he had it better with his whore of a girlfriend, ripped band tee shirt, and second hand leather jacket that he never took off, even in our flat. He stared waiting for me to speak, I stared unable to speak (cursing myself for being so affected), and Whore had the audacity of giggle!

Finally, he spoke again; "Out with the girls, I see," he said. "Guess you're not with that Mickey Smith anymore, I heard he moved away. Shame."

I opened my mouth but nothing came out. What was I meant to say?! Yeah, Mickey decided to go live in a Parallel Universe which is now sealed off so that I'll never see him again? Obviously not. And I knew that Jimmy was just trying to needle me, the frustrating bit was that it was working!

Luckily, Shareen and Keisha could always be depended upon to say something, though what they picked wouldn't have been my first choice. "She's got a new bloke now," Shareen said, all defiantly. "He's some sort of doctor and they travel," Keisha added. All I could do was nod.

Jimmy did not seem all that impressed. Actually, he didn't seem like he believed them. I suppose it would be rather hard to believe that I could land a doctor, in the sense that he was thinking doctor, not that... Anyway, I didn't feel like I could rightly lie and call the Doctor 'my bloke' anyway. Jimmy left clearly feeling like he'd gotten the upper hand. Which depressed me to no end. So we got more pints. And more pints. Many pints in I was well pissed and we all trudged back to the Powell Estate to collapse on the sofas like we used to do.

Though when we passed the play park Keisha decided she wanted to swing, and Shareen immediately went to the slide. I think they might've been a bit confused, if they hadn't been so pissed, as to why I went for the police box. I had my key like always but my head was a bit everywhere, so I knocked, not really sure why because I was fairly sure that the Doctor would've been tucked up in the flat, watching telly or something, but he answered the door, very confused looking and I just laughed and pulled him out of the TARDIS by his tie.

He looked a bit bug eyed and Shareen came down the slide and goes: "Oi! Who are you and where'd you come from?!" To which I said something which came out sort of like this "Sissssducktuh." And Keisha fell of the swing and said: "Doctor! We don't have chips with newsprint!"

Shareen then got up, poked the Doctor in the chest, and said "You! You are stole my Rosie! Mickey said all about you, but he said you had big ears. Your ears are normal size." I laughed and said "His ears used to be big!" and then lost my footing and tripped. The Doctor had to hold me up so that I didn't fall.

"Okay," he said after a few more moments of being poked by Shareen, and drooled upon by me, "let's get you girls up and to bed, you've obviously consumed a higher level of liquor than the 0.08% blood alcohol count stipulated by the United Kingdom. In which you live. Judging by your reaction time, over-expression, and all around boisterousness, you're probably on the scale at around 0.11–0.20 %. Best sleep it off."

Shareen squinted at him and Keisha giggled, I came dangerously close to saying something incredibly stupid.

He was very good though, for the anti-domestic that he is, he tucked them both up on the couch and me in my bed and was very good about it when I wouldn't let go of his hand. He stayed until I fell asleep but when I woke up he was, unsurprisingly, gone.

But mum made breakfast for everyone. Real proper breakfast. Gorgeous. And we all gorged ourselves until the effects of the ciders were well buried under toast, beans, eggs, and sausages. The girls asked about our travels and we gave some mumbo jumbo about South America, while mum shot me glances out the side of her eye. The girls left after breakfast and I promised them I'd call and visit back again soon, even though I sort of knew that I wouldn't.

Mum handed over my clean laundry and we exchanged hugs again. And it was time to go. Back into time and space, spinning throughout the universe.

Until next time.

Hacking Part 3

Rose went out with her friends and left me all alone with her mum. I understand the human need to... I don't know, shall we say group? Yes, group sounds quite good. Someone called Shareen who I've heard about and Keisha who I've met. I don't think she was entirely planning on going out but now she has, they've gone to some pub or another and I had nothing better to do than eat digestive biscuits and watch telly with Jackie while she talked about how it was like 'the good old days'. I suppose the good old days are before I came into the picture, but I always did get the impression that Rose enjoyed time and space and visiting places and running and trouble and everything that comes along. In fact she's said several times, usually when we're about to die, but still she's said!

But anyway, I got bored of whatever soap it was that Jackie had on and decided to poke around a bit, she was none too happy when she found me going through the bathroom cupboard, but it was fascinating! I've never seen so many creams and lotions and things! It seems remarkable that humans are so obsessed with staying hydrated when they're seventy percent water to begin with. If they actually kept themselves hydrated then they wouldn't have dehydrated skin! But Jackie caught me sticking my finger in a pot of something called 'Under Eye Anti-wrinkle Cream' and was very displeased.

But all this got me thinking that I'd like to scientifically look at the human aging process. It's not as if I am unaware of how it works or anything, I've been around enough human beings to know that, but it never really seemed all that important before. So I told Jackie I was going to do repairs and went to the TARDIS to begin my observations.

Humans have an average life expectancy of approximately 66.12 Earth years, though to be fair that factors in all sorts of places on Earth, being technically European, Rose can expect probably about 77 years, average. But then again, seeing as though she has access to medicine, foods, and technology from the future she might have a good 100 years in her, maybe more. That leaves 80 more of them left for adventures.

Eighty years.

Eighty years!

That is a dismally small number. I don't quite like the sound of it. And that doesn't even take into account the aging process.

So, I took a photo of Jackie and a photo of Rose and put them together:


Well, I suppose Jackie doesn't look too bad for... I don't know, how old is Jackie now? 55? 58? I suppose she's not so bad for human years. But I think maybe I should tell Rose not to cake on the makeup so well, sometimes Jackie looks like she's stuck the White Cliffs of Dover under her eyes. This might require more research.

Oh. ....There is knocking on the TARDIS door. Why is there knocking on the TARDIS door? Well, one way to find out I suppose.

Cheerio! I should say that more often, cheerio!

This is the Doctor by the way.