1| The Daughter

Doctor Who - The Daughter

  by Becky Miller

  Doctor Who is owned by the BBC. This document is made for entertainment purposes only. No infringement intended.

  No content may be reproduced, copied or multiplied in any way and under no circumstances may this document or any content be sold, shown or shared with out explicit written permission.

  Please respect the creative rights of the author.

  Becky Miller 2005.

  Guess what

  Rose, Mickey and the Doctor were on their way through time and space in the TARDIS, his time travelling space ship, disguised as a blue police telephone box. Rose was his latest companion, a blonde nineteen year old girl from 21st century Earth, London, and this time he let Mickey, her somewhat annoying boyfriend, come along too.

  He was explaining Mickey how the psychic paper works, in theory. The Doctor demonstrated by playing psychic paper Pictionary.

  'Rose, think of an object, person or place and tell me but don't let Mickey hear. I will try to make it appear on the psychic paper. And then Mickey can guess what you thought of.' he said enthusiastically. Rose whispered, all giggling, something in the Doctor's ear. He showed the paper to Mickey and a drawing started to appear as if by magic.

  'Is it a molecule?' Mickey asked unsure. Rose shook her head. He was close but it was not what she meant. 'If you want me to say what kind of molecule it is..., I don't know. I give up.' Mickey said sadly.

  'It's Brussels, Belgium, I was thinking of.' Rose said.

  'It doesn't look like a city at all!' Mickey said confused.

  'Brussels is famous for its statue, the Atomium. You were close though, it is a statue of a molecule.' the Doctor explained. They laughed at Mickey's easily made mistake.

  'Can I try to think of something now? You two guess what it is.' Mickey suggested enthusiastically.

  'Here you go. Give it a try!' the Doctor cheered and put his spectacles on in order to see the picture more clearly.

  'Is it a car? No a train?' Rose guessed.

  'Is it an Ood?' the Doctor suggested.

  'We've never seen an ... Ood?' Rose said to him.

  'Oh, you haven't. Sorry.' the Doctor apologised.

  'Keep concentrating, Mickey. I see numbers coming up through your picture.'

  'I am not thinking of any numbers. I would have better things to think of than numbers.' Mickey said concentrating on the piece of paper.

  'I don't see numbers.' Rose said, 'And I wasn't thinking of them either.'

  Both Rose and Mickey look at the Doctor, suggesting he was the culprit himself.

  'Stop drawing, Mickey.' the Doctor said and took back his wallet.

  'I couldn't draw properly with you two babbling about numbers anyway.' Mickey said agitatedly.

  The Doctor observed the piece of psychic paper closely, but neither Rose nor Mickey saw any number appear on it.

  'What numbers are they?' Mickey asked, but he got no reply, not even a glance.

  'Do you know what they mean?' Rose asked the Doctor. He did manage to answer her.

  'What they mean?' he repeated, as if it were a stupid question to ask, 'They're just numbers, large ones, small ones, all different.'

  'Yeah, like a code. Maybe it has a message.' Rose explained.

  'They seem to be random.' the Doctor said amazed.

  'If someone wants to send a message, why bother using numbers. If they'd just use words we could read it straight away.' However obvious this might seem, Mickey did have a point.

  'Exactly!' the Doctor exclaimed and looked intrinsically at Mickey. He never liked the way the Doctor looked at him through those thick rimmed spectacles. It felt as if he could look right through him and see what he was thinking. Mickey smiled slyly and the Doctor continued.

  'Straight to the point! But... maybe that someone doesn't want any odd person to read it, hence the code. Let's crack the code!'

  The Doctor punched the numbers into the TARDIS computer and started using calculations and algorithms to find the key for the coded message

  'If it is a message at all?' Mickey remarked.

  'The numbers have formed a series which is repeating itself.' the Doctor noticed peering at the computer screen.

  'Which means they are not just random numbers,' Rose said and while she did Mickey sighed. He knew how the two were like. From now on, Rose and the Doctor would be focussed on unravelling the hidden message behind the code, if it was a message at all. Mickey was sure it'd be a dead end and they were wasting time they could spend on an alien planet or somewhere in a different time, the future perhaps.

  'Exactly.' the Doctor agreed.

  'And that there is a hidden message in those numbers?' Rose continued her train of thought.

  'Yes.' the Doctor answered, without taking his eyes off the screen, pushing buttons and flicking switches.

  'So what does it say?' Rose asked.

  'I don't know.' the Doctor said frustrated and looked at Rose who obviously was disappointed.

  'I've tried substituting the numbers with letters but the alphabet doesn't have enough characters. Then I tried different languages which use many more characters but nothing sensible came from that either...' the Doctor explained hastily.

  'What if they really are numbers, like a telephone number?' Rose suggested.

  'There are far too many digits for it to be a telephone number.' Mickey remarked with a sigh.

  The Doctor turned to Rose, his eyes widened behind his glasses and a broad grin slowly appeared across his face.

  'Rose you're brilliant!' the Doctor exclaimed happily.

  'Don't tell me it IS a telephone number.' Mickey said with disbelief. He couldn't think of anyone with such a long telephone number. It would simply be unpractical.

  'No, but it could be Space-Time-co-ordinates!' the Doctor said and took off his spectacles.

  'Oh, I see the connection.' Mickey said cynically.

  'It works the same like co-ordinates on Earth. Longitude and latitude, together they give an exact fixed position.' Rose explained to Mickey. He'd got the idea alright, but he still didn't quite see how the telephone number would lead to this. He didn't bother to ask any more.

  'Still that doesn't solve our problem. I don't know where the code begins, which leaves an endless, well...rather large amount of possibilities, scattered far and wide across the universe and across Time.', the Doctor said and disappointedly slumped down on the ragged looking seats near the control column.

  'So, now what? We just stop? Forget about it?' Mickey said to the Doctor. He was annoyed that he had followed them through this whole train of possibilities and that he just gave up now without any further effort. Like a child who suddenly loses all interest in a toy.

  'We can't possibly go to each of the possible places and ask around if anyone sent a message. You were right, Mickey. If someone wanted us to come, they should have just spelled it out. HELP, how hard can it be.' the Doctor snapped back at Mickey. He was frustrated that he wasn't able to crack the code. He walked away, opened a hatch and jumped in the gap. He started tinkering on some of the TARDIS's systems.

  'And then you just give up...', Mickey said disapprovingly, but he got no reply. Mickey's comment did strike a chord in the Doctor, though, but he wouldn't admit it.

  Rose was now left with two cranky men. She didn't know what to say to either one of them to cheer them up. So she turned away and began to tidy up things. Back home when she'd had words with her mother she would do the same in her own room to keep herself busy and stay out of the way from mom for a while.

  She found Mickey's MP3-player and the Doctor's tie lying about between the TARDIS controls. The Doctor was chucking out an assortment of mechanical parts from the gap he was crouched in and Mickey t
ook off his coat and let it fall on the ground beside him. This made Rose tick.

  'Why do you always make such a mess? I am tired of cleaning up behind you!' she bellowed and threw the coat with the other coats and bags, where it belonged. Mickey looked startled and the Doctor stuck his innocent looking face out of the gap to see what the commotion was about.

  'Both of you!' Rose said angrily, which caused the Doctor to quickly duck back down in the gap again.

  When Rose had calmed back down again, the Doctor decided to give unravelling the code from the series of numbers another try. Casually he went over to the computer and started investigating the possible co-ordinates.

  He recognised a strand of numbers resembling the place co-ordinates of Earth. He figured he could use the remaining numbers for the exact time and location. Even if it wouldn't be the solution to the code, at least it would be a nice trip. He fed the new co-ordinates into the TARDIS and he fanatically started pushing buttons and pulling levers.

  'Hey, where are we going?' Mickey asked who was still playing with his cell-phone. Rose came hurrying over to see.

  'Earth, somewhere around the 20th or 21st century.' the Doctor said proudly. 'I've made an educated guess. Hold on!'

  Rose and Mickey take a trip

  The TARDIS had landed and Rose was the first one out the door, Mickey followed shortly. Both carefully looked around to determine where they had ended up.

  The TARDIS was parked in a woody field behind a golf course. They could sneak through an alley which led to a bigger street. Byrd crescent was the street name. Rose memorised it so she would know where to find