Heart of Gold

Unwelcomed Metamorphosis

"Don't give us none of your aggravation.
We had it with your discipline.
Saturday night's alright for fighting
Get a little action in.
Get about as oiled as a diesel train.
Gonna set this town alight."
- Nickelback: 'Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)' (The Long Road [2003])

~*~*~

A random street

Katy and Mickey make their way through the streets, not really in a hurry to get anywhere, just taking in the sights of this alternate London and making the most of it before they had to head back to the TARDIS.

Mickey glances at Katy, frowning at her curiously.

"So, what made you decide to tag along with me?" He wondered, and Katy just gave him a flat look.

"Does it really need saying?" She retorted, and Mickey let out a sigh before responding.

"Look, Katy. You know by now what Rose is like," Mickey points out, and Katy grimaces at the reminder.

"I do, that's the problem," She stated, folding her arms defensively across her chest, in a way that Mickey recognised as her defense mechanism. "And I keep falling for it, every single time."

"You really shouldn't let her get to you; you know. What she says is bullshit," Mickey reassures Katy, who almost smiles at his words.

"I'm not." She insists, and Mickey rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, sure you're not." He mutters sarcastically. Katy decides to change the subject as she takes in the slightly familiar surroundings she and Mickey were walking through.

"Where exactly are we going?"

"Just checking something out." Mickey responded, somewhat vaguely.

"Why do I get the feeling that something bad is gonna happen?" Katy asked rhetorically.

"Because you've been hanging around the Doctor too long. His paranoia is rubbing off on you." Mickey points out, as they walk past a vacant lot and head towards an army roadblock.

"Thanks very much. I'm not paranoid." Katy stated defensively, but Mickey ignores her in favour of addressing a soldier standing beside the roadblock.

"Are we all right to get past?" He asked the soldier who nodded curtly at them both.

"Yeah. No bother," the soldier responded. "Curfew doesn't start till ten."

"There's a curfew?" Katy questioned, raising an eyebrow in surprise. The soldier laughs in amusement.

"'Course there is." He said, giving Katy an appreciative once over, which she scowls at him for. "Where you been living, luv? Up there with the toffs?" He indicates to a zeppelin hovering right above their heads.

"Yeah, I wish." Mickey scoffs, as both he and Katy duck under the roadblock when the soldier raises it up for them. "See you."

Katy glances back over her shoulder at the soldier, giving him a perplexed look before turning back.

"What do you suppose that was about?" Katy wonders and Mickey shrugged, just as curious.

"Search me."

~*~*~

Another street

At the same moment, the Doctor and Rose were making their way down another street in London. This one also had armed soldiers patrolling the place too, much to their confusion. The Doctor was mostly quiet, Rose noticed, due to his cold demeanour the very second he had caught up to her, and he barely acknowledged Rose's questions with more than monosyllabic answers or curt responses.