To Have Faith

Chapter 19 : An Unexpected Acquaintance

Following Rose, I run back into the Tardis.

Her console room set all aglow with the Time Rotor's blue green light. She even brightens slightly when I enter, nuzzling my mind gently with her soothing touch.

...yet somehow the sight doesn't look nearly as pretty to me as it did only a minute ago.

Regardless, I plaster on a smile for Rose.

I'm not going to ruin her first proper trip by breaking down.

Cassandra ruins it enough as is.

I follow Rose up the stairs at a slower pace, the Doctor flipping a switch dramatically just as I reach the top. "Right then, Rose Tyler, Faith McSweet, you tell me,"

he looks over to me and grins, like everything is fine. I give him a tight lipped smile back. Why's he even including me in this? "Where' d you want to go? Backwards or forwards in time, What's it gonna be?"

I look over for Rose's reaction, smile becoming softer for her. Her expression full of slightly overwhelmed awe.... Blatantly ignoring the Doctor when he tries to catch my eye again.

I am Not confronting him in front of Rose.

Glancing between the two of us, Rose finally lands her questioning gaze on me, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

I give her a reassuring nod, hands out in a 'go on' gesture, "it's fine, you choose. I'm happy going just about anywhere."

She nods hesitantly once, then more firmly a second later, turning to the Doctor, "forwards!"

"How far?" He responds, sounding intrigued.

Slowly, I drift closer to the door, deciding that I don't want to listen to them flirt. There's a moment of light jostling- not nearly as bad as my other trips. He must've finally put on the stabilizers.

River would be proud.

River. I haven't thought of her in awhile.

She's nice. Maybe after this I can go traveling with her instead. I bet she'd even slap the Doctor for me... knowing her, probably more like punch him.

That thought gives me some small sense of vindictive pleasure.

No, no. I need all the pieces. For all I know he really was only away for a couple of minutes.

"There you go. Step outside those doors, it's the twenty second century." The Doctor says, and I quickly take that moment to sneak a peak at what 2105 looks like.....

Not terribly different. A little more streamlined, slightly more smoggy-we're probably still in London after all- different sense in style and architecture. Mostly the same though.

And more importantly to me, no cool hover cars yet.

Well, that's a disappointment.

I wrinkle my nose. It doesn't smell terribly nice either. With that, I close the door. Just as the Doctor is asking if Rose wants to go further.

I glance up at the two and catch him staring at me. I stare back, and something passes between us. Though I'm not sure what.

What does he see when he looks at me?

"Fine by me." Rose confirms with a cheeky grin, successfully distracting him.

Grabbing hold of the hand rail, I wait for the shaking to stop again, peaking out a second time. The new Roman Empire just gives me so many questions. Good parts of the Roman Empire? The bad parts too? I kinda wish we were stopping here instead.