Behind him emerged a girl with bleached blonde hair, who ran over to the man and put her arms around his shoulders. "Fat lot of good you were," she scolded him.
Rose's phone rang. She fished it out of her pocket. "Rose!" came her mother's voice from the other end. "Rose, don't go out! It's not safe! There were these things, these things and they--" With a laugh, Rose turned off her phone and turned back towards the open door of the TARDIS. The Doctor stood in the doorway, his arms crossed and with a smug look on his face.
"Nestene Consciousness?" said the Doctor, and snapped his fingers. "Easy."
Rose raised an eyebrow. "You were useless in there," she pointed out. "You'd be dead if it weren't for me."
The Doctor smiled kindly. "Yes, I would," he admitted. "Thank you." He rubbed his hands together and looked around. "Right then," he said. "I'll be off. Unless, um..."
"Yes?" said Rose.
"Unless, ah, you could, come with me?" said the Doctor. She could swear he was blushing. He hurried on: "This box isn't just a London op, you know. It goes anywhere in the universe. Free of charge." He smiled nervously.
Mickey fastened his arms around Rose's leg. "Don't!" he babbled. "He's, he's an alien, he's a thing!"
The Doctor scowled at him. "He is not invited," he said, then fixed Rose with the same penetrating gaze she had seen earlier in the park. "So what do you think?" he asked. "You could stay here, fill your life with work, food, sleep. Or you could go anywhere."
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"Is it always this dangerous?" asked Rose. The Doctor nodded with enthusiasm. "Yep," he said happily. Mickey hugged Rose's leg tighter.
Rose felt torn. She'd just been about to die, and that hadn't been pleasant. But on the other hand...there was something about this Doctor, a sense of something great, magical and unimaginably enticing. She considered, then shook her head. "Nah, I can't," she said. "I've got to go find my mum, and someone's got to take care of this stupid lump, so..." She absently patted Mickey's head.
The Doctor just looked at her, his expression inscrutable. Then he shrugged. "Right. Fair enough," he said, his tones clipped. "See you around." He closed the door. A few seconds later, the unearthly noise of the dematerialization sounded--the sound of waves crashing on the shores of a thousand million oceans, and Rose and Mickey found themselves alone in the alley.
Rose put her arm around her boyfriend and hauled him to his feet. "Come on," she said. "Let's go." Slowly, they walked towards the end of the alley.
The breeze picked up, and suddenly the heard the sound again. In tandem, they turned in time to see the TARDIS pulsing back into existence, exactly where it had been before. The door opened, and the Doctor poked his head out again. He looked a bit different—his hair a little bit longer, his skin perhaps a little more weathered.
"By the way," he said. "Did I mention, it also travels in time?"
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