A/N:
Here's the promised chapter!
I've mostly figured out how the plot will progress and how the main character will get a TARDIS. I can't wait to get to that part!
Anyway, this chapter got a bit long, so I split it into two. Cheers!
*****
The Time Rotor glowed a calm green, rising and falling in a steady rhythm. For once, nothing rattled, nothing sparked. The TARDIS sounded content.
The Doctor bounced on his heels anyway, hands moving over the controls just to have something to do.
"All right," he said, grinning at Rose. "Enough ghosts and gas. Time to go home. Same street, same door, same kitchen. Twelve hours after you left. You won't even have missed breakfast."
Rose leaned on the railing, chin on her arms, watching him.
"Twelve hours," she repeated. "You sure about that this time?"
"I know what I'm doing," he said.
I rested my palms lightly on the console. Underneath the Doctor's inputs, I could feel the subtle drag of the time vector. The TARDIS wasn't fighting him, exactly. Just… tilting the landing curve. She'd exit the Vortex just a little too late.
I could have corrected her. Nudged us back onto a neat little twelve-hour loop, no missing posters, no police reports, no one screaming in a South London kitchen.
But I didn't. The Slitheen got to be dealt with and the one-year gap will only cause a temporary headache. So on we go.
"More or less," the Doctor added. "Give or take. Couple of hours. Day. Day and a half."
Rose squinted at him.
"Don't do that," she said. "You're doing the eye thing."
"What eye thing?" he asked.
"The thing where you're lying," she said. "Or guessing. Or both."
"I am not guessing," he said, offended. "I'm piloting."
The TARDIS hummed.
I laughed under my breath.
He threw a lever. The column surged, light flashing up and down. We dropped into the Vortex, the familiar tug of time travel pressing in on my bones.
"All right," he said, louder. "Powell Estate. 2005. Short hop."
On the date indicator in front of me, the last digit ticked over quietly.
I ran a thumb along the edge of the panel.
"Brace for domestic turbulence," I muttered, half laughing.
"What?" Rose asked.
"Oh nothing," I said. "Just engineering paranoia."
The engine eased. Smoother than I remembered it ever being in the show. My effort over the days has paid off. The TARDIS settled with a little satisfied sigh.
"We're here," the Doctor declared. "Told you. Easy."
He bounded to the doors and threw them open.
Warm evening air rushed in. The smell of concrete dust, chip fat and washing powder. Voices echoing from stairwells. Somewhere, a dog barking at absolutely nothing like they always do.
Rose was already moving. She skidded to a halt in the doorway, looking out at the Powell Estate like it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.
"Oh," she breathed. "Home."
She shot us a quick grin and ran out onto the yard.
I followed, leaning on the frame.
From here, I could see the whole courtyard. Same familiar brick, same lights, same grim little patch of grass in the middle.
But there was a new handwritten paper pasted everywhere, though.
MISSING.
ROSE TYLER.
The poster on the stairwell door flapped once in the breeze.
Rose stared at it, laughter dying on her lips.
"…what?" she said.
The Doctor stepped up beside her, still smiling.
"See? Twelve hours," he said.
"Doctor," she said quietly, pointing. "What's that?"
He followed her finger.
"Oh," he said.
We stood there, three idiots under a sodium lamp, reading the date printed under her photo.
MISSING SINCE: MARCH 2005.
"It's been twelve months," I caught up to them and said from behind them. "Not twelve hours."
Rose turned on him.
"A year?" Her voice cracked. "I've been gone a year?"
He opened his mouth, shut it again, then tried for a grin that wasn't there.
"Well," he said weakly, "you haven't aged a day?"
Oh ho, if looks could kill, he would've regenerated on the spot.
"ROSE!"
The shout came from above. Jackie Tyler, hair wild, cardigan half-done, sprinting down the staircase, taking two steps at a time.
"Mum?" Rose whispered.
Jackie didn't slow down. She ran across the courtyard like the world was on fire and threw herself at her daughter.
Rose yelped as she got crushed into a hug.
"Where have you been?" Jackie sobbed into her shoulder. "Where the hell have you been? You just vanished! A year, Rose! A whole year!"
"I'm okay," Rose said, arms coming up automatically. "I'm fine, I'm fine, I—"
Jackie pushed her back just far enough to see her face, then slapped her arm.
"You are not fine!" she shouted. "You disappeared, you stupid girl! We thought you were dead!"
Her gaze flicked past Rose then, up to the man in the leather jacket and the other in the grease-stained jacket.
Her expression changed.
"You," she said.
The Doctor lifted a hand in an uncertain wave.
"Hi," he said. "Nice to see you again."
"And you, Steven?" Jackie said to me, eyes narrowing. "IS this the kind of man you were all along? Where've you taken her? What have you done to her?"
I raised both hands, palms out. I didn't know what to say to that accusation, so I decided to tell her what I can tell her.
"Actually, I'm called the Engineer," I said. "And in my defence, I did suggest we double-check the date."
The Doctor shot me a betrayed look.
"Did you?" he demanded. "Did you really?"
"…internally," I said.
Not helping.
The courtyard door slammed. Mickey stepped out.
He froze when he saw Rose.
"Rose," he said. The word came out like he'd had to drag it past a year of grief. "Rose?"
She laughed through the tears.
"Hi," she said. "You didn't think I'd run off on you, did you?"
He walked toward her, one step, two—
Then he saw the Doctor properly.
The colour drained out of his face and came back as anger.
"You," he spat.
The punch he threw was better than it was in the show. It caught the Doctor on the jaw and dropped him flat on his backside.
"Where did you take her?" Mickey shouted, standing over him. "They said you'd chopped her up, they came and questioned me, they thought I'd done it—"
"And you!" he then turned to me. "You—"
Mickey didn't even know what to say to the man he thought was his best friend.
Yeah, maybe I should have reminded Rose to call back home. Oopsie.
"I didn't chop anyone up," the Doctor said indignantly from the pavement. "We went to space. And Cardiff. And 1869, that was fun—"
"No," Jackie snapped. "No, I am not listening to this. Rose, get upstairs. Now."
"Mum—"
"Now! Before these two drag you off again."
Rose looked between us.
"I'm coming back," she told the Doctor.
He shrugged.
"Door's always open," he said.
"Not if I've got anything to do with it," Jackie muttered.
She wrapped an arm around Rose and pulled her toward the stairwell. Mickey followed, still throwing murderous looks back at us.
They disappeared inside.
Silence settled over the courtyard. The posters flapped. Somewhere above, a TV blared a laugh track that didn't fit anything.
The Doctor picked himself up slowly, rubbing his jaw.
"I'm rubbish at this bit," he said.
"Re-entry burns," I said. "They're always messy."
He snorted.
"You're not helping," he said.
"I know," I said. "Although I must say I'm a bit offended."
He looked at me, not understanding why I would do that when he was the one with a hurting face.
"I was—still am—a legal citizen in this country." I gestured around. "But look around! Where's my missing posters?"
That got him in a better mood.
"Maybe try being a pretty lady in your next life." He started laughing. "That would get you your attention."
I just shook my head in mock indignation.
"Well, while you wait for Rose to come back I have a little catch-up to do with my previous life here."
The Doctor thought for a little, thinking what exactly I would need to catch up with anyway, but decided not to think about it and just nodded and walked back towards the TARDIS.
He was right. I didn't really need to do much aside from finally changing into better clothes as I still wore my "playground" attire I wore when I was fixing stuff at the apartments. I hadn't even showered since leaving Earth.
But no, the main reason I wanted to leave is because I really couldn't be bothered to deal with the police that were about to arrive to question the Doctor for kidnapping a person.
***
I didn't even try my own apartment. After a year, since it was abandoned by the previous tenant, the lock must have already been broken off to get out any personal items and lease the apartment again.
I wouldn't even bother to ask the officials where I could find them since honestly they aren't really personal. Just some fake life set up for Steven the human. I don't even remember what my full name was. Cheap, second-hand clothes and—for my needs—basic tools that are useless.
I instead headed to an ATM since my account at the bank should still be functional.
I walked up to the closest one, fished out my wallet and inserted my card in the slot. After punching in the code, yep, still works. I withdrew all the money I'd need for some new clothes and headed to a mall and hardware store. Time to get my outfit sorted out.
First stop was clothes.
I ducked into one of those chain stores that tries very hard to look edgy while blasting the same three chart songs on loop. Racks of denim, T-shirts with ironic slogans, and jackets that would disintegrate if you even blinked at a sharp edge.
Pass.
I made a beeline for the practical section at the back. Heavy-duty cargo trousers, dark grey, reinforced knees, decent stitching. Plenty of pockets, but not so many I'd forget where I'd put things. I held a pair up to myself in the mirror.
"Congratulations," I muttered. "You've achieved Peak Mechanic."
They fit well enough after a quick try-on, so I grabbed a second pair. If I was going to be crawling under consoles and through ventilation shafts, I'd need spares.
Next: shirts. I didn't want anything that screamed "cosplay" or "midlife crisis". Just something clean, simple, that wouldn't catch on moving parts. I found a stack of fitted T-shirts in solid colours and picked out a few in dark blue, red and charcoal. Minimal seams, breathable fabric, no logos. Functional, boring. Perfect.
Boots were non-negotiable. I found a proper shoe shop rather than trusting my ankles to whatever the fashion store thought was "industrial" this week. Sturdy leather, high ankle, thick soles with enough grip to deal with alien mud and London stairs alike. They felt heavy when I first laced them up, then comfortable, like my feet had just remembered what real support felt like.
With the basic outfit sorted, I headed to the hardware store.
This was more my natural habitat. Rows of tools, the sharp smell of metal and oil, people arguing softly about drill bits. Half the stuff here might as well be toys compared to Gallifreyan kit, but toys can still be useful if you know what you're doing.
I started with gloves. Thick leather, reinforced palms, long cuffs. Close enough to welding gloves to take some punishment, flexible enough that I could still feel what I was doing. Human materials, sure, but hands are hands. No reason to skimp on the bits that do the work.
Then the belts.
The pistol-style shoulder rigs were a decent starting point. I found one in plain black leather, no nonsense, and mentally stripped out the holster shapes, imagining where pliers, micro-drivers and scanners would sit instead. A few minutes of comparison later, I had a base harness and a couple of extra straps that would make good attachment points once I modified them.
For the waist, I picked out a wide leather belt and a set of modular tool pouches—small ones. I didn't need to walk around like a walking toolbox just yet. A pouch for a compact screwdriver set, another for a small flashlight, a third empty for future upgrades. Space to grow into.
I added a simple canvas shoulder bag at the last second. Nothing flashy. Just somewhere to throw parts, notes, or the occasional piece of suspicious alien tech I didn't want bouncing against my ribs.
And now, the main attraction. My Goggles. Most of what the store had were cheap plastic safety goggles or ridiculous steampunk cosplay pieces. I hunted until I found something practical: tinted, shatter-resistant lenses in a low-profile frame, with an elastic strap that would sit comfortably either on my head or around my neck. Protection without looking like I'd just escaped a convention.
This is temporary—well, all my equipment is—since I'll make a sonic version once I manage to get hold of the materials.
As for actual tools, I kept it minimal. A decent multitool. A precision screwdriver set. A compact digital multimeter. A roll of electrical tape, because the universe runs on hope and tape more often than anyone will admit. The rest—the real tools—would have to come later, when I had access to materials that wouldn't melt the first time they met a live temporal field.
At the checkout, the assistant barely glanced at me, just beeped everything through and told me the total. I handed over my newly liberated cash and left with two bags and the quiet satisfaction of someone who's finally stopped wearing borrowed skin.
Back in a public restroom, I washed up and changed.
Old clothes off, folded… then shoved into the trash can. New gear on. Cargo trousers, boots laced tight, T-shirt, belts adjusted until everything sat where it should. Goggles on my forehead, gloves clipped to the belt for now.
I looked at myself in the mirror.
Nice. Love it. Now I finally looked less like a "bloke from the garage", and more… "bloke from the garage who can strip down a time engine in his sleep".
Not a hero's costume. Not a uniform. Just an outfit built for work.
"Right," I said to my reflection. "Now you look like you know what you're doing. Time to actually prove it."
I slung the shoulder rig into place, grabbed my bags, and headed back out into the city, one Time Lord engineer in civilian clothes, ready to catch up with a madman in a blue box.