Don't Blink - 20/?
Title: Don't Blink - 20/?
Characters: Rose, Ten
Summary: AU. What if Rose had stayed through Doomsday and was the one to end up in 1969 with the Doctor? How would they get back to their proper time? Would they want to?
Rating: PG
Beta: nattieb
~ One~ Two~ Three~ Four~ Five~ Six~ Seven~ Eight~ Nine~ Ten
~ Eleven~ Twelve~ Thirteen~ Fourteen~ Fifteen~ Sixteen~
Seventeen~ Eighteen~ Nineteen
London, 2006
“Got another one for you, Billy!”
“Another what?”
“What do you think? Another bloody car with no driver in sight.” DCI Robert Kirwin glared. “That’s your specialty, isn’t it?”
DI Billy Shipton heaved a huge sigh and stood up from his desk. “Same place?” His voice rose hopefully. Maybe it would be a different part of town.
“Of course it’s the same place, you arse! Why would I tell you otherwise? Off you go.”
Billy went, pausing only long enough to glare at his DCI.
Fourteen times now DI Shipton headed to that old house called Wester Drumlins. Most of his visits had ended with his taking control of a vehicle left behind on the grounds. Vehicles all registered to London residents, all left empty. The last one had still been running when he’d arrived.
And when he tried to locate the drivers they had simply disappeared. No one had heard from them. It was like they had vanished.
The other cops had a pool going on what the cause was. Serial killers, aliens, and cults were the most popular theories. Billy only knew that it was an incredible pain in the ass.
He drove over to the property, cursing his luck. When he got there he saw that the usual suspects had arrived before him. Forensics and photographer. Not a single clue had been discovered so far that could tell him what was behind the disappearances.
“What is it today?” he asked, walking over to the group. “Volvo? Ford?”
“Something better, mate.” The photographer shook his head. “You have to see it to believe it.” He jerked a thumb behind him.
“I hate these guessing games,” Billy told him before heading over. He came to a stop. “What the hell is that?”
The photographer snorted and snapped another picture. “It’s a police box. They were around in the 1960’s. Before your time, eh?”
Billy stared at the blue box. “What’s it doing here?”
“Just appeared here.”
He tried to open the doors. “What’s in here?”
“Don’t know.” DI Mike Wallace appeared out of nowhere, grinning at Billy. “Another one for your collection, I see.”
“This is hardly a car,” Billy pointed out. “It’s a box.”
“Well, it’s something.” Wallace tried the doors, cursed when they wouldn’t budge. He lifted the phone and listened with a hopeful expression. “No dial tone. Doesn’t work.”
“Did you think it would?” Billy wanted to know. “Hand me something to open the lock.”
“I haven’t got a key.”
“No, but you’ve a set of lock picks, don’t you?”
“Funny thing, that. What’s it doing on the grounds of the house? They were usually put on the streets. Not much use on private property.”
Billy was barely listening. He didn’t care how the thing had gotten there, only that it was yet another mystery for him to solve.
Not only did the doors not open and the telephone not work, but nothing would unlock the doors, not even Wallace’s set of lock picks.
“We’ve tried pass keys, picking the lock, nothing. The doors won’t open.” Wallace shrugged. “Looks like we’re stuck. Sorry.”
“Well, what am I to do with it?” Billy demanded.
“Take it back with you. Put it with the others.” Wallace grinned. “Another piece for your collection.”
In the end Billy did just that, sending the blue police box back to the garage with the other vehicles he’d impounded from the property.
“I’ve got cars, a bicycle, and a moped,” he complained to his fellow DIs once he was back at the station. “This is the first time I’ve gotten a call box.”
Billy was sufficiently curious to do some research. Not very much. He had work, after all, and his mum was always after him to come round for dinner, and he had a number of lady friends who all liked to see him. Still, on his downtime he’d fire up the internet search engine at his desk, curse it for being so bloody slow, and do some research on police boxes.
Comparing the images onscreen to the photos of the one he had down in his “collection”, he was puzzled to see that it wasn’t exactly the same.
What was going on in that house?
“The phone still doesn’t work,” DI Wallace pointed out. They were standing in the garage, gazing at the call box as if it might tell them all its secrets.
“Yes, brilliant observation, Mike. Thanks for your help.” Billy hunched over, trying to get to the lock. “Appreciate it.”
“And if your pictures are right, these windows are too small.” Wallace squinted at the computer printout that Billy had handed him.
“You need glasses.” Billy continued to mess with the lock, with no success.
“Shut up. I can see just fine.”
“Whatever.”
“Ordinary Yale lock, but nothing can get in there.”
Billy bit back an angry reply. There was nothing to do but forget about the box until something new came up.
His mother called him at work that afternoon. He answered the phone at his desk out of sheer bad luck. Normally she called his mobile, and he was able to answer or not at his whim.
“DI Shipton.”
“William! Why haven’t I heard from you about tomorrow?”
Billy winced. “Mum. Hello.”
“Don’t you hello me. You are coming tomorrow, aren’t you?”
Of course. His mother’s birthday was tomorrow. He’d promised to come round for tea and cake. Billy would not have a problem with this except for the fact that he knew she’d invited yet another daughter of an old friend to come by, as well. He loved his mum, but did she have to be such a mum? Her never ending quest to find him a wife had begun in his early twenties, and continued with unending zeal. He’d get married one day, but he had yet to find the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
In the meantime, he played the field and enjoyed himself enormously, but if he missed his mother’s birthday party there would be hell to pay.
“Of course I’ll be there,” he assured her. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” The woman was unrelenting.
“All right then,” she said, sounding somewhat mollified.
Over the next year more people went missing, leaving their cars and bikes behind. Whatever the mystery at Wester Drumlins was, the police were unable to figure it out. Billy had almost gotten used to the ribbing his fellow officers gave him every time he got a call about an unattended car. If only the department would authorize a stakeout, he was sure he’d have the problem sorted out in no time.
“You ready for tonight?” Wallace glanced at Billy from over a file folder.
“Tonight?” Billy asked absently as he wrote a report up.
“The thing. Tonight.” Wallace waved the file folder around.
“Oh. The thing.” Billy finished the report, did a quick check for misspellings, and saved it. “I’m ready.”
Wallace’s mobile phone went off. He glanced at the caller ID and groaned. “Bloody hell.” He stood and walked off, reluctantly answering the mobile as he went.
Billy shook his head and emailed the report to his DCI. One thing off his to-do list. He’d had no idea that so much of police work would be paperwork. He stashed all his unfinished paperwork in a drawer, where it could sit until tomorrow. Glancing at his watch, he decided he had just enough time to get home and -
The ringing telephone interrupted his thoughts of a shower and a change of clothes. The desk sergeant was asking him to come down.
“Is this necessary, sergeant?” Billy asked. “I’m running late.”
“You’ll want to hear this, sir. It’s in regards to Wester Drumlins.”
Billy swore to himself and logged off the computer. There’d been no activity at Wester Drumlins for a few months now, and he was happy to keep it that way. He’d make this quick, listen to whatever he had to listen to, and go home. With any luck he would be able to eat something, too.
Jogging down to the front desk, he took the offensive with the young female standing there.
“Hi! DI Billy Shipton. Wester Drumlins, that’s mine. Can’t talk to you now, got a thing I can’t be late for, so if you could just...” He finally got a good look at the young female, and was struck by how young and attractive she was. His voice changed from its official cop tone to a smoother one. “Hello!”
“Hello,” the young female said. She had long, wavy hair and a cute little nose, and Billy was fascinated. He abruptly had a change of plans.
He glanced over at the desk. “Eh, Marcie, can you tell them I’m gonna be late for that thing?” He leaned in close to the young female. “Be right back.”
When he returned she was still standing there, leaning against the wall and staring out the window at the rain with a slight frown on her face.
“Come with me,” Billy said.
“Where are you taking me?” She didn’t sound worried, just curious. He found himself warming to her.
“There’s something I want you to see.”
She didn’t say anything else until they began to walk down the street.
“What, all the way down here?”
“Trust me.”
“Have you given me reason to trust you, DI Shipton?” she wanted to know, but there was a slight sparkle in her eye.
He laughed.
He led her to the garage where they housed the cars and other items taken not only from the Wester Drumlins property, but from other cases.
“Speaking of Wester Drumlins House. These are all cars that we’ve collected from that place,” he explained. “Left behind with no one around.”
She blinked. “All of them?”
“Over the last two years, yeah. They all still have personal items in them, and a couple still had the motor running.”
She was very pretty, and he liked her already, but then she turned around and began walking backwards, talking to him all the time. She clearly had a sharp mind, and he was charmed.
“So over the last two years the owners of all these vehicles have driven up to Wester Drumlins House, parked outside and just disappeared.” She seemed to be mulling that over when something else caught her eye. “What’s that?”
Billy followed her gaze and grinned. “Ah! The pride of the Wester Drumlins collection. We found that there, too. Somebody’s idea of a joke, I suppose.”
“But what is it? What’s a police box?”
Finally, all his research had paid off. “Well, it’s a special kind of phone box for policemen,” he explained. “They used to have them all over. But this isn’t a real one. The phone’s just a dummy, and the windows are the wrong size. We can’t even get in.” Billy tried the door just for old time’s sake, but as usual, it didn’t budge. “Ordinary Yale lock, but nothing fits. But that’s not the big question. See, you’re missing the big question.” He leaned against the police box and faced her.
She stood with her hands in the pockets of her coat, hair still dripping from the rain outside. “Okay, what’s the big question?”
“Will you have a drink with me?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Drink, you, me, now?”
“Aren’t you on duty, Detective Inspector Shipton?”
“Nope. Knocked off before I left. Told ‘em I had a family crisis.”
“Why?”
“Because life is short and you are hot. Drink?”
“No.” She turned and walked away, but he knew when a girl was not interested and when a girl was flirting. This one was flirting.
“Ever?”
“Maybe.”
Flirting. Definitely. He moved to catch up with her. “Phone number?”
“Moving kind of fast, DI Shipton.”
“Billy. I’m off duty.”
“Aren’t you just!” She pulled a small notebook out and wrote something down.
“Is that your phone number?”
“Just my phone number. Not a promise. Not a guarantee. Not an IOU. Just a phone number.”
She had the most adorable dimple. Billy looked down at the slip of paper. “And that’s Sally...?”
“Sally Shipton,” she said, and he blinked in surprise. Her next words made him grin. “Sparrow! Sally Sparrow. I’m going now. Don’t look at me.”
“I’ll phone you!”
“Don’t look at me.”
“Phone you tomorrow.”
“Don’t look at me.”
“Might even phone you tonight.”
“Don’t look at me!”
“Definitely gonna phone you, gorgeous girl!”
“You definitely better!”
Billy watched her walk away, a smile on his lips. Sally Sparrow. She had said her name was Shipton. Clearly she was smitten. Once more his charm-
His thoughts drew blank as he turned and caught sight of his blue police box. A moment ago it had stood there in the garage, locked up tight and definitely by itself. But now...
Now four large, stone statues stood there. Three of them surrounded it, their hands covering their faces. And one of them was actually posed at the box, trying to get inside it.
Billy frowned and walked towards them. How the hell did they get there? How did he not see whoever had dropped them off? Yes, he’d been flirting with Sally, but he was still a cop!
He stepped up onto the pallet where the police box was standing. The first statue he looked at had its hands over its eyes. No sign of where it might have come from. He turned from it to examine the second statue. Its hands were over its eyes as well. Billy looked closely at it.
And blinked.
Twenty-One
Characters: Rose, Ten
Summary: AU. What if Rose had stayed through Doomsday and was the one to end up in 1969 with the Doctor? How would they get back to their proper time? Would they want to?
Rating: PG
Beta: nattieb
~ One~ Two~ Three~ Four~ Five~ Six~ Seven~ Eight~ Nine~ Ten
~ Eleven~ Twelve~ Thirteen~ Fourteen~ Fifteen~ Sixteen~
Seventeen~ Eighteen~ Nineteen
London, 2006
“Got another one for you, Billy!”
“Another what?”
“What do you think? Another bloody car with no driver in sight.” DCI Robert Kirwin glared. “That’s your specialty, isn’t it?”
DI Billy Shipton heaved a huge sigh and stood up from his desk. “Same place?” His voice rose hopefully. Maybe it would be a different part of town.
“Of course it’s the same place, you arse! Why would I tell you otherwise? Off you go.”
Billy went, pausing only long enough to glare at his DCI.
Fourteen times now DI Shipton headed to that old house called Wester Drumlins. Most of his visits had ended with his taking control of a vehicle left behind on the grounds. Vehicles all registered to London residents, all left empty. The last one had still been running when he’d arrived.
And when he tried to locate the drivers they had simply disappeared. No one had heard from them. It was like they had vanished.
The other cops had a pool going on what the cause was. Serial killers, aliens, and cults were the most popular theories. Billy only knew that it was an incredible pain in the ass.
He drove over to the property, cursing his luck. When he got there he saw that the usual suspects had arrived before him. Forensics and photographer. Not a single clue had been discovered so far that could tell him what was behind the disappearances.
“What is it today?” he asked, walking over to the group. “Volvo? Ford?”
“Something better, mate.” The photographer shook his head. “You have to see it to believe it.” He jerked a thumb behind him.
“I hate these guessing games,” Billy told him before heading over. He came to a stop. “What the hell is that?”
The photographer snorted and snapped another picture. “It’s a police box. They were around in the 1960’s. Before your time, eh?”
Billy stared at the blue box. “What’s it doing here?”
“Just appeared here.”
He tried to open the doors. “What’s in here?”
“Don’t know.” DI Mike Wallace appeared out of nowhere, grinning at Billy. “Another one for your collection, I see.”
“This is hardly a car,” Billy pointed out. “It’s a box.”
“Well, it’s something.” Wallace tried the doors, cursed when they wouldn’t budge. He lifted the phone and listened with a hopeful expression. “No dial tone. Doesn’t work.”
“Did you think it would?” Billy wanted to know. “Hand me something to open the lock.”
“I haven’t got a key.”
“No, but you’ve a set of lock picks, don’t you?”
“Funny thing, that. What’s it doing on the grounds of the house? They were usually put on the streets. Not much use on private property.”
Billy was barely listening. He didn’t care how the thing had gotten there, only that it was yet another mystery for him to solve.
Not only did the doors not open and the telephone not work, but nothing would unlock the doors, not even Wallace’s set of lock picks.
“We’ve tried pass keys, picking the lock, nothing. The doors won’t open.” Wallace shrugged. “Looks like we’re stuck. Sorry.”
“Well, what am I to do with it?” Billy demanded.
“Take it back with you. Put it with the others.” Wallace grinned. “Another piece for your collection.”
In the end Billy did just that, sending the blue police box back to the garage with the other vehicles he’d impounded from the property.
“I’ve got cars, a bicycle, and a moped,” he complained to his fellow DIs once he was back at the station. “This is the first time I’ve gotten a call box.”
Billy was sufficiently curious to do some research. Not very much. He had work, after all, and his mum was always after him to come round for dinner, and he had a number of lady friends who all liked to see him. Still, on his downtime he’d fire up the internet search engine at his desk, curse it for being so bloody slow, and do some research on police boxes.
Comparing the images onscreen to the photos of the one he had down in his “collection”, he was puzzled to see that it wasn’t exactly the same.
What was going on in that house?
“The phone still doesn’t work,” DI Wallace pointed out. They were standing in the garage, gazing at the call box as if it might tell them all its secrets.
“Yes, brilliant observation, Mike. Thanks for your help.” Billy hunched over, trying to get to the lock. “Appreciate it.”
“And if your pictures are right, these windows are too small.” Wallace squinted at the computer printout that Billy had handed him.
“You need glasses.” Billy continued to mess with the lock, with no success.
“Shut up. I can see just fine.”
“Whatever.”
“Ordinary Yale lock, but nothing can get in there.”
Billy bit back an angry reply. There was nothing to do but forget about the box until something new came up.
His mother called him at work that afternoon. He answered the phone at his desk out of sheer bad luck. Normally she called his mobile, and he was able to answer or not at his whim.
“DI Shipton.”
“William! Why haven’t I heard from you about tomorrow?”
Billy winced. “Mum. Hello.”
“Don’t you hello me. You are coming tomorrow, aren’t you?”
Of course. His mother’s birthday was tomorrow. He’d promised to come round for tea and cake. Billy would not have a problem with this except for the fact that he knew she’d invited yet another daughter of an old friend to come by, as well. He loved his mum, but did she have to be such a mum? Her never ending quest to find him a wife had begun in his early twenties, and continued with unending zeal. He’d get married one day, but he had yet to find the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
In the meantime, he played the field and enjoyed himself enormously, but if he missed his mother’s birthday party there would be hell to pay.
“Of course I’ll be there,” he assured her. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” The woman was unrelenting.
“All right then,” she said, sounding somewhat mollified.
Over the next year more people went missing, leaving their cars and bikes behind. Whatever the mystery at Wester Drumlins was, the police were unable to figure it out. Billy had almost gotten used to the ribbing his fellow officers gave him every time he got a call about an unattended car. If only the department would authorize a stakeout, he was sure he’d have the problem sorted out in no time.
“You ready for tonight?” Wallace glanced at Billy from over a file folder.
“Tonight?” Billy asked absently as he wrote a report up.
“The thing. Tonight.” Wallace waved the file folder around.
“Oh. The thing.” Billy finished the report, did a quick check for misspellings, and saved it. “I’m ready.”
Wallace’s mobile phone went off. He glanced at the caller ID and groaned. “Bloody hell.” He stood and walked off, reluctantly answering the mobile as he went.
Billy shook his head and emailed the report to his DCI. One thing off his to-do list. He’d had no idea that so much of police work would be paperwork. He stashed all his unfinished paperwork in a drawer, where it could sit until tomorrow. Glancing at his watch, he decided he had just enough time to get home and -
The ringing telephone interrupted his thoughts of a shower and a change of clothes. The desk sergeant was asking him to come down.
“Is this necessary, sergeant?” Billy asked. “I’m running late.”
“You’ll want to hear this, sir. It’s in regards to Wester Drumlins.”
Billy swore to himself and logged off the computer. There’d been no activity at Wester Drumlins for a few months now, and he was happy to keep it that way. He’d make this quick, listen to whatever he had to listen to, and go home. With any luck he would be able to eat something, too.
Jogging down to the front desk, he took the offensive with the young female standing there.
“Hi! DI Billy Shipton. Wester Drumlins, that’s mine. Can’t talk to you now, got a thing I can’t be late for, so if you could just...” He finally got a good look at the young female, and was struck by how young and attractive she was. His voice changed from its official cop tone to a smoother one. “Hello!”
“Hello,” the young female said. She had long, wavy hair and a cute little nose, and Billy was fascinated. He abruptly had a change of plans.
He glanced over at the desk. “Eh, Marcie, can you tell them I’m gonna be late for that thing?” He leaned in close to the young female. “Be right back.”
When he returned she was still standing there, leaning against the wall and staring out the window at the rain with a slight frown on her face.
“Come with me,” Billy said.
“Where are you taking me?” She didn’t sound worried, just curious. He found himself warming to her.
“There’s something I want you to see.”
She didn’t say anything else until they began to walk down the street.
“What, all the way down here?”
“Trust me.”
“Have you given me reason to trust you, DI Shipton?” she wanted to know, but there was a slight sparkle in her eye.
He laughed.
He led her to the garage where they housed the cars and other items taken not only from the Wester Drumlins property, but from other cases.
“Speaking of Wester Drumlins House. These are all cars that we’ve collected from that place,” he explained. “Left behind with no one around.”
She blinked. “All of them?”
“Over the last two years, yeah. They all still have personal items in them, and a couple still had the motor running.”
She was very pretty, and he liked her already, but then she turned around and began walking backwards, talking to him all the time. She clearly had a sharp mind, and he was charmed.
“So over the last two years the owners of all these vehicles have driven up to Wester Drumlins House, parked outside and just disappeared.” She seemed to be mulling that over when something else caught her eye. “What’s that?”
Billy followed her gaze and grinned. “Ah! The pride of the Wester Drumlins collection. We found that there, too. Somebody’s idea of a joke, I suppose.”
“But what is it? What’s a police box?”
Finally, all his research had paid off. “Well, it’s a special kind of phone box for policemen,” he explained. “They used to have them all over. But this isn’t a real one. The phone’s just a dummy, and the windows are the wrong size. We can’t even get in.” Billy tried the door just for old time’s sake, but as usual, it didn’t budge. “Ordinary Yale lock, but nothing fits. But that’s not the big question. See, you’re missing the big question.” He leaned against the police box and faced her.
She stood with her hands in the pockets of her coat, hair still dripping from the rain outside. “Okay, what’s the big question?”
“Will you have a drink with me?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Drink, you, me, now?”
“Aren’t you on duty, Detective Inspector Shipton?”
“Nope. Knocked off before I left. Told ‘em I had a family crisis.”
“Why?”
“Because life is short and you are hot. Drink?”
“No.” She turned and walked away, but he knew when a girl was not interested and when a girl was flirting. This one was flirting.
“Ever?”
“Maybe.”
Flirting. Definitely. He moved to catch up with her. “Phone number?”
“Moving kind of fast, DI Shipton.”
“Billy. I’m off duty.”
“Aren’t you just!” She pulled a small notebook out and wrote something down.
“Is that your phone number?”
“Just my phone number. Not a promise. Not a guarantee. Not an IOU. Just a phone number.”
She had the most adorable dimple. Billy looked down at the slip of paper. “And that’s Sally...?”
“Sally Shipton,” she said, and he blinked in surprise. Her next words made him grin. “Sparrow! Sally Sparrow. I’m going now. Don’t look at me.”
“I’ll phone you!”
“Don’t look at me.”
“Phone you tomorrow.”
“Don’t look at me.”
“Might even phone you tonight.”
“Don’t look at me!”
“Definitely gonna phone you, gorgeous girl!”
“You definitely better!”
Billy watched her walk away, a smile on his lips. Sally Sparrow. She had said her name was Shipton. Clearly she was smitten. Once more his charm-
His thoughts drew blank as he turned and caught sight of his blue police box. A moment ago it had stood there in the garage, locked up tight and definitely by itself. But now...
Now four large, stone statues stood there. Three of them surrounded it, their hands covering their faces. And one of them was actually posed at the box, trying to get inside it.
Billy frowned and walked towards them. How the hell did they get there? How did he not see whoever had dropped them off? Yes, he’d been flirting with Sally, but he was still a cop!
He stepped up onto the pallet where the police box was standing. The first statue he looked at had its hands over its eyes. No sign of where it might have come from. He turned from it to examine the second statue. Its hands were over its eyes as well. Billy looked closely at it.
And blinked.
Twenty-One