Halfway Out Of The Dark || The Doctor

Rise of the Cybermen

"Yeah." she replied, "You?" He nodded. "Rose? Mickey?" the Artist called to the humans.

"I'm fine. I'm okay." Mickey answered from the other side of the console.

"Me too." Rose grunted as she picked herself up.

The Time Lords looked up at the console. The light in the time rotor had gone out and a few puffs of smoke wafted out. "She's dead." the Doctor breathed in shock, "The TARDIS is dead."

"You can fix it?" Rose suggested.

"There's nothing to fix." the Artist replied grimly, waving the smoke away.

"She's perished." the Doctor added, pulling a lever back and forth fruitlessly, "The last TARDIS in the universe... extinct."

"We can get help, yeah?" Rose offered.

"Where from?" the Artist asked rhetorically.

"Well, we've landed, we've gotta be somewhere!" Rose pointed out.

"We fell out of the Time Vortex, through the Void, into nothingness." the Doctor told her, "We're in some sorta no-place... the silent realm... the lost dimension..."

"Otherwise know as London." Mickey interrupted, and everyone turned to see him looking out of the door grinning. He laughed and stepped outside. The others followed him to see that they were indeed in 21st century London, on the bank of the Thames on a sunny day. "London, England." Mickey fired off, "Hold on..." He picked up a discarded newspaper off a bench and checked the date. "1st of February this year. Not exactly far-flung, is it?" he grinned, happy to be ahead of the Doctor for once.

Rose joined him while the Time Lords looked around, not as convinced of their luck as Mickey. "So, this is London?" the Doctor asked rhetorically.

"Yep." Mickey replied, not looking up from his paper.

"Your hometown?" the Artist asked.

"That's the one." Mickey grinned.

"Just as we left it?" the Doctor asked.

"Bang on." Mickey replied smugly.

"And that include the airships?" the Artist asked, pointing at the sky.

The humans looked up to see that the sky was indeed full of airships. "What the hell?" Mickey stared.

"That's beautiful." Rose breathed. She'd seen airships in history books and on telly, but never in person.

"Okay, so it's London with a big international zeppelin festival." Mickey shrugged.

"This is not your world." the Doctor told them grimly.

"But if the date's the same..." Mickey wandered, "It's parallel, right? Am I right? Like a parallel Earth where they've got Zeppelins, am I right? I'm right, aren't I?"

"Spot on." the Artist acknowledged him.

"So, a parallel world where..." Rose began, looking at something nearby.

"Oh, come on." Mickey said, "Ya see it in films. It's like an alternative to our world where everything's the same but a little bit different somehow. Like, I dunno, traffic lights are blue, Tony Blair never got elected..."

"And he's still alive." Rose murmured, gazing at a poster right in front of them. It depicted a smiling man in a suit holding a pop bottle. This man was Pete Tyler, Rose's late father, obviously still very much alive and well in this universe. "A parallel Earth an' my dad's still alive..." Rose breathed as she began to walk towards the poster.

"Don't look at it, Rose." the Doctor said sternly, "Don't even think about it. This is not your world."

"But he's my dad." Rose said, ignoring him, "And.." She touched the poster and the picture of Pete sprang to life for a moment, saying, 'Trust me on this', then he winked and gave a thumbs up.