Untitled - TARDIS Big Bang

her, but he too sat down, heedless of the damp, and when Rose sat next to him he put his arm around
her shoulders like it belonged there and then looked down at her like he was asking for permission. She
shut her eyes and pressed close into his shoulder, soaking in his warmth and presence like a shield
against the last three or four days.
The helicopter, when it finally came, had to hover over the beach while they shimmied up a swaying
rope ladder; this had Jackie making distressed little noises all the way up, like it was any more dangerous
than hopping back and forth between dimensions. The Doctor came last, flailing a bit to get inside, while
Rose got herself belted in and switched on the radio in her headset. "Thanks for the ride," she said to
the crew.
"Not a problem, Ms. Prentice," the pilot said, waving to her. "Mrs. Tyler. Sir."
The Doctor, who had put his ear protectors on the wrong way round, looked up from where he was
fussing with his seat belt. "What? What?"
"This is," Rose said, with only the slightest pause, "Dr. John Smith. He's my guest and I'm granting him
full security clearance."
"Understood, ma'am," the pilot said. "I'm Flight Lieutenant Penn, my copilot is Pilot Officer Ambrose.
We're about ten minutes from the defender Valiant, and you'll transfer from there to the airship Prince
Edward, which will take you to London-Heathrow."
"That's brilliant, thanks." She switched her headset off the crew's channel and smiled at her mum and at
the Doctor, who was toying compulsively with his radio controls. She batted his hand away and set
them. "You catch that? We'll be home in about an hour."
"We will?" He blinked. "I mean, yeah, of course we will. Home." He grinned at her and then looked out
the little window, where the North Sea was already rippling away beneath them. Rose settled back into
her seat, but couldn't stop herself from snatching looks at him every few minutes, any time some part of
her tried to insist this wasn't real.
The Valiant was buzzing with life, and an airship—presumably the Prince Edward—was already at
station-keeping alongside it, the closed gangways dangling through the air like strands of spider silk. The
bloated balloon of the blimp looked a bit silly next to the muscular outlines of the defender, but the
Doctor was looking everywhere at once and judging nothing. "This is just like the Valiant," he said. "I
mean, other Earth's Valiant, the one UNIT built. Where'd you get it?"
"United Nations Office of Homeworld Security," Rose said. "They oversee the combined multinational
forces—basically what's left of the army that fought the Cybermen. They also technically have oversight
over Torchwood, but it's more of a benign neglect thing most of the time."
"Homeworld Security," he echoed, and made a face. "I guess they can't all have clever acronyms, eh?"
5