Winner Takes All.
by Jaqueline Rayner.
For Nick
"I thought I"d better call home," said Rose, wandering into the TARDIS"s huge, vaulted control room and waving her phone at the Doctor.
The Doctor had his arms crossed and was leaning with his back against a wall, staring across at the large, circular structure that sat in the centre of the room, on which a myriad of lights flickered and sparkled. His face shone green in the glow from a tall, thin column in the centre of the structure which indicated that they were in flight. Rose didn"t know where they were going, but perhaps the Doctor could tell from observing these things exactly where in the universe the time*and*s.p.a.ce machine was taking them. He nodded at her. She felt slightly cheated, having geared herself up for well, not an argument, just that flicker of displeasure that occasionally crossed his face when she mentioned family.
She pushed a bit further. "It"s just that my mum"ll worry. You know that my mum"ll worry. And I did promise. Sort of."
He nodded again. "And you think she"ll worry less if you tell her you"ve been out facing aliens but at the moment you"re just spinning through the s.p.a.ce*time vortex."
Rose frowned. "She"ll worry less if she thinks I"m not dead!"
The Doctor her best friend, the Doctor, who outwardly seemed to be a striking, forty*ish human with a soft northern accent, but was, she knew, actually a 900*year*old alien from some galaxy far, far away could be a bit dismissive of her mum"s worries sometimes. She wasn"t sure if it was something to do with not being human, or just something to do with being the Doctor. She didn"t even know if he"d ever had a mum of his own. If you didn"t understand mums in general, there was no way you"d get Jackie Tyler.
"I"ll just give her a quick call. Well, I say quick, she"ll keep me on for hours, wanting to know everything she can talk for England, my mum can. Hope you weren"t planning to stop off at any planets this morning."
He grinned. "My planet*hopping can wait till this afternoon."
She smiled back, and pressed the speed*dial b.u.t.ton that called her mum. She just had to accept that, through the Doctor"s genius, her ordinary mobile could now transcend s.p.a.ce and time; if she thought about it too much her mind began to feel like it was overheating.
The phone rang six times before it was picked up, which surprised Rose. Her mum loved nothing better than a good old natter, and the phone was usually s.n.a.t.c.hed up when it had barely got out its first brring brring. "Hiya, Mum." she said.
The voice at the other end was exuberant. "Rose! What are you doing? Where are you?" Then a slight pause. "Are you still with him?"
Rose smiled. "I"m just hanging around in the time machine. And yeah, I"m still with him."
The Doctor looked up at this and did a sarky wave that she knew was directed at Jackie. Rose waved back happily. "Mum says hi," she said, with her hand over the phone.
"And are you planning on coming home any time soon?" Jackie was saying. "Everyone misses you. Mickey misses you. I miss you. You know, one of these days you"ll decide to come home and it"ll be too late, I won"t be here any more."
Rose sighed. "Don"t be silly, Mum. I"ll pop back for a visit soon. Make sure the family silver gets a good polish ready."
"Family silver!" Rose could hear Jackie"s voice go up a notch. "It might please you to joke, my girl, but I"ll have you know that I"ve just won the lottery."
"You what?" Rose said. "That"s incredible! I don"t believe it! How much?"
There was a sound, somewhere outside Jackie"s end of the phone call. A shout, or a cry, or something. "Listen love, I"ve got to go now. Lovely to hear from you. Gotta go."
There was a click, and the phone was silent. Rose looked down at it in surprise. Then, shaking her head, she slipped the phone back in her pocket.
"Talk for England, you said," the Doctor commented, strolling over to the central controls. "Can"t get her off the phone."
"My mum"s won the lottery!" Rose started pacing around the control room, her eyes shining. "How brilliant is that? We"ll be able to get a great big house "
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, gesturing at the enormous room in which they stood.
" go on holiday the Caribbean or somewhere or Florida!"
The Doctor stared at her. "I can take you anywhere in time and s.p.a.ce!"
She wasn"t listening. "I"ve always wanted to go to Disneyland."
"Yeah, brilliant, grown men dressed up as mice and kids being sick on roller coasters. I can take you to planets where there are real talking mice. And ducks!"
She shrugged. "But you haven"t, though, have you? And you wouldn"t take my mum, anyway."
He grinned. "Well, maybe not. Don"t wanna scare the mice." He carried on before Rose could respond. "She all happy then, is she? Too busy spending to talk to you?"
Rose grimaced. "Yeah, that was weird." She paused for a second, and then gave him what she hoped was a winning smile. "Don"t s"pose we could pop home for a bit, could we? Just to check on her."
"D"you think something"s up?" he asked.
"No, not really. But she did say something about not being there when I get back," Rose said. "Don"t want to turn up one day and find she"s gone off to some country mansion and chucked out all my stuff."
"A couple of old posters and a teddy bear? Yeah, that"d be a tragedy."
Rose gave him a mock glare. "I"m nineteen years old, I think I have grown out of teddy bears, and I do have a few more possessions than that. Some of which have sentimental value, I"ll have you know. So could we go home please? Just for a flying visit, I promise."
"Yeah, all right." He nodded, and started setting a course. "I don"t know, humans, always come with so much baggage..."
"Yeah, it"s a crime, isn"t it?" she agreed. And then, after a moment. "You don"t really think she"d chuck out Mr Tedopoulos, do you?"
The Doctor just grinned.
ONE.
The TARDIS landed in a courtyard on the Powell Estate. Rose popped her head out of the doorway, saw the Chinese takeaway in front of her, the library and youth club over to one side, and realised that the time machine had come back to its favourite spot; it"d landed here before.
She stepped out of the s.p.a.ceship. On the outside it looked like a tall blue box, an old*fashioned police box big enough in its way, big enough to fit in five or six people, if they were prepared to be quite friendly, but not big enough to fit in an enormous control room and all the other bits that formed the inside of the TARDIS. She"d come to accept it funny how quickly you got used to even the most incredible things but it was something else that her mind didn"t really like to dwell on, not the ins and outs and hows and whys of it all.
There to her right was Bucknall House, and there, if she squinted upwards, was number 48. Home. Or was it? She turned back to the blue box. Well, no one said you couldn"t have more than one home.
Rose had still got a key, but as the two of them climbed up the concrete steps towards the flat she wondered if she should really use it. Key out of her pocket, look at it, put it back in, take it out again, look at it... It wasn"t as if her mum was expecting her, and she didn"t want to catch her out. If Jackie had won the lottery the champagne would have been flowing a bit, and goodness knows what state the flat and Jackie would be in by now.
She hesitated for a moment on the walkway outside the front door, key in her hand. Then she knocked on the door.
After a moment it opened on the chain, which Rose thought a bit odd, but forgot it almost at once when she saw her mum, pet.i.te and blonde just like Rose herself, peering through the gap. The chain came off immediately, and the door had barely swung open when Jackie had her arms round Rose. "You"re here! You"re here!"
Rose grinned as she hugged her mum back. "Yeah, looks like it."
Jackie looked at her accusingly as she carne out of the embrace. "But don"t tell me, you"re not stopping."
"Oh, we"ll hang around for the party," Rose said.
"The party? I"m expected to throw a party every time you turn up on the doorstep?"
"No, Mum," said Rose, following her into the flat, "the party cos you"ve won the lottery."
Jackie gave a snort of laughter, turning to look back at the doorway. "That? I just won some games thing. You know, on the scratchcards. Gave it to Mickey." She peered over Rose"s shoulder. "Come on, where"s his nibs then? Doesn"t he want a cup of tea?"
The Doctor appeared in the doorway, grinning. "Just waiting to be asked in."
"He needs to be asked in," Rose said to her mum. "Like a vampire does."
Jackie looked as if she believed it, as if she thought the Doctor might turn into a bat any minute.
"Not really," Rose added. "Shall we have that cup of tea, then?"
"So, what"s this scratchcard thing?" Rose asked after a bit, when they were settled comfortably on the white leather chairs in the lounge, and on to their second cup each.
Jackie leaned over to grab hold of her bag. She put in a hand and pulled out a sheaf of bits of orange cardboard. Rose took a couple. They all had a picture of a cartoon animal on them, with a giant speech bubble coming out of its mouth. The speech bubble had bits of silvery stuff on it, with "Sorry, you"ve not won this time! Please try again!" showing through on the card underneath, where the silver had been scratched off.
"What"s that, a hedgehog?" said Rose, indicating the cartoon animal.
"Percy the Porcupine," said Jackie. "It"s this character they"re using. Test promotion in this area. Every time you buy something down the town, you get one of these cards. Then you go to a little booth where there"s some poor out*of*work student dressed as a porcupine, and they give you your prize. Daft thing is, they didn"t even think to limit the number of cards you can get! If you get all your shopping a bit at a time, you can get dozens of the things. I got eight by breaking up a bag of carrots the other day."
"Oh, Mum!" said Rose, part embarra.s.sed, part reluctantly proud.
Jackie sniffed. "Don"t you "oh, Mum" me. It"s not like I"ve got a lot to look forward to, my only daughter off gallivanting round the galaxy and me all alone here. Big prize is a holiday, and I couldn"t half do with that. Sun, sand, men in little shorts..."
"Talking mice?" Rose muttered under her breath. But Jackie wasn"t listening.
"Mrs Hall down the road won one, it"s wasted on someone like that, you know what she"s like, probably won"t take her hat and coat off even if it"s eighty degrees, and there"s me with a bikini still with its label on stuck in the drawer that I"ve never had a chance to wear..."
"Oh, Mum!" said Rose again.
"Nothing like getting something for nothing, is there?" put in the Doctor.
"And what"s wrong with that, I"d like to know," said Jackie, bristling.
"Nothing. That"s what I said." The Doctor took the cards from Rose and examined them. "Just odd, don"t you think, they don"t seem to be promoting anything in particular. Beware porcupines bearing gifts, an" all that."
Rose took back the cards and handed them to her mum. "It"s a test thing, ain"t it? They"ll do the proper promoting when it"s all over the country or whatever. Or maybe they just want people to spend more money at the shops. What, d"you think it"s really aliens, trying to take over the world with free holidays and games consoles?"
"Yeah, well, it could happen," said the Doctor. He got up and wandered out of the room.
"Don"t mind us!" Jackie called after him. "Make yourself at home!"
"I will, ta," the Doctor"s voice came back.
Rose turned back to Jackie. "Glad you"re not moving to a country mansion, though."
"What?"
"I thought you"d won the lottery, remember."
Jackie sighed. "Wish I had. Wish I was getting out of this place." She looked genuinely down for a moment.
Rose stared. "But you love this place! All your friends are here and everything!"
Jackie shrugged. "It"s gone downhill since you left, sweetheart. Do you remember that Darren Pye? Went to your school."
Rose thought for a second, and then shuddered. "Two years above me. Looked like a shaved gorilla only not as handsome. Hardly ever turned up, and when he did the police were usually not far behind him. Thumped kids for their lunch money, only he didn"t stop with lunch money, and he didn"t stop with thumping, either."
"He"s moved in two down three across," said Jackie.
Rose tried to picture which flat she meant. "What happened to Mrs McGregor?"
"Started wandering about the streets in her nightie, thought it was still the war. That Tony of hers put her in a home down Sydenham way."
"And the council put in Darren Pye?"
"They put in Mrs Pye, which means you get Darren." Jackie shuddered. "It was when you phoned, he"d been having a go at that Jade, took her purse and her mobile and she won"t call the police, he said he"d have her if she did wouldn"t let her down the stairs, and she thought he was going to push her down them, and she"s due any day I had to go to her, she was crying so much I thought she"d have the baby then and there, and you read in the papers how long it takes ambulances to get here these days." She paused, half worried, half indignant. "She was that scared, I gave her my phone so she can call for help if she needs it, and I don"t begrudge her although I"ll miss it till I get it back and I hope she"s not answering calls meant for me... I know it"s not like aliens and that, and he"s not even really hurt anyone yet, and it"s not like he"s trying to take over the world, but..."
The Doctor wandered back in then, hands behind his back, and leapt on this.
"Yeah, aliens trying to take over the world usually have a better motive than just wanting to make people"s lives a misery."
Rose looked at the Doctor. "So, are we gonna sort him out then?"
The Doctor looked at her in mock surprise. "I never save anything smaller than a planet." He grinned, and pulled his hands out from behind his back. He was holding something blue and furry. "Oh, and sometimes a teddy bear."
She grabbed the furry object. "Mr Tedopoulos!" Then she thought for a second, and used the bear to whack him across the chest. "You went in my bedroom?"
TWO.