Companions: Fifty Years of Doctor Who Assistants (38 page)

For some reason, Rose’s view on Mickey’s presence totally shifts in the time it takes them to reach the space station,
SS Madame de Pompadour
. From the beginning of
The Girl in the Fireplace
Rose enjoys having Mickey around, and teaching him the rules of travelling with the Doctor. In some ways the camaraderie between the three of them is reminiscent of that which existed between the Doctor, Rose and Jack at the beginning of
Boom Town
. This would normally suggest a lengthy passage of time between stories, except Mickey explicitly states that this is his first journey. As is to be expected, Rose is not impressed by the Doctor’s preoccupation with Reinette (or Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson to use her given name, the infamous Madame de Pompadour) and Mickey takes great pleasure in this, quoting Sarah and Cleopatra as further examples of the Doctor having a ‘girl in every fireplace’. Rose insists it is not like that, but her protests come across as quite hollow. Unusually, for Rose, she is impressed when she meets Reinette and shows the woman some respect – way more than she has ever shown anyone else who has shown interest in the Doctor. After the Doctor appears to be stranded in the past, Rose sheds a tear, realising he has no way back and she cannot pilot the TARDIS to him (any knowledge she had was removed when the Doctor took the vortex out of her in
The Parting of the Ways
). Naturally the Doctor finds a way back. After receiving a letter written for him by Reinette before her death, Rose does not know how to reach him through his pain, and it takes Mickey to lead her away, allowing the Doctor to grieve on his own.

The Doctor and Rose are back to their old selves again in the following story,
Rise of the Cybermen
, ganging up on Mickey as they share stories and leaving him with his finger pressed on a button for no reason at all. He is quite clearly the spare tyre and realises this. They arrive on an alternative version of Earth (Pete’s World, as it becomes known), where Rose discovers her father is not only alive, but is rich and still married to Jackie. The Doctor tries to warn her that the Pete of this world is not her father, but she will not have any of it – she
has
to go and see him. She walks off, leaving the Doctor torn between her and Mickey, who heads off to explore London on his own; as Mickey points out, ‘there is no real choice is there? It will always be Rose.’ They soon learn that Rose does not exist in this reality, although Jackie does have a dog she calls Rose – a fact that amuses the Doctor endlessly. Rose is less impressed. She explains to the Doctor about Mickey’s past, and how he was raised by his Gran who died some years ago (she is alive on Pete’s World), and begins to realise that she has always taken Mickey for granted. It is a realisation that comes somewhat too late, since Mickey has discovered his Gran (or rather Ricky’s Gran – Ricky being the Pete’s World version of Mickey, who dies at the hands of the Cybermen) and finds a place for himself on the alternative Earth.

Once again jealousy rears its head after the Doctor and Rose disguise themselves as waiting staff to gatecrash Jackie’s birthday party. The Doctor tells her what he learned from Lucy, another waitress, and Rose responds with some typically scathing comments. It seems that she is threatened by any interaction between the Doctor and other females – not a character trait one expects from someone who the Doctor once referred to as ‘the best’. She talks to Pete, who finds himself opening up to her, although he cannot understand why since he has only just met her. Later, when told who Rose is, he just cannot deal with the idea that she is his daughter, and walks away from her. He is not her father. This crushes her, as the Doctor warned her it would. Her conversation with Jackie is even worse. At first Jackie opens up, possibly feeling the connection between them, but when Rose starts to offer advice on Jackie’s marriage, Jackie looks at Rose as though she is nothing. To her mind Rose is just staff. It is a particularly nasty exchange, but no worse than some of the attitude Rose dishes out to those who attract the Doctor’s attention. Once again we see that, even in a parallel world, Rose is very much Jackie’s daughter.

She finds it hard to believe that Mickey is going to remain behind, and tells him that she needs him – perhaps realising that her relationship with the Doctor is doomed ultimately and when that happens only Mickey will be there for her. Mickey does not agree, saying that she has the Doctor, but on Pete’s World he has his Gran, and she
does
need him. Still upset, the Doctor returns her promptly to Earth Prime (the main Earth seen in
Doctor Who
) to her mother and she cries in Jackie’s arms, perhaps realising finally just how bad she has been to Mickey.

As ever with Rose she soon bounces back and throws herself into the 1950s lifestyle of rock ‘n’ roll and preparations for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in
The Idiot’s Lantern
. She surprises the Doctor with her knowledge of the contemporary dialect, a result of watching endless repeats of Cliff Richard movies when she was a child – the Doctor laments that he should have known Jackie would be a Cliff fan. When they invade Eddie Connolly’s house, Rose takes him to task over the incorrectly positioned Union Flags (and points out to him that it is only the Union Jack when it is flown at sea). She heads off to investigate Magpie’s Electricals on her own, again doing her Doctor impersonation, but she soon finds herself out of her depth when she is confronted by the Wire, who steals Rose’s face. The Doctor’s anger at this act propels him to defeat the Wire and restore not only Rose but all those who have lost their faces to the Wire. When Eddie is kicked out of the house by his wife (he was the one who snitched on his mother-in-law and their neighbours), his son Tommy is glad to see the back of him, because he is ‘an idiot’. Rose points out that yes, he is an idiot, but he is still Tommy’s dad. It is something that Rose can relate to and she sends Tommy after Eddie. It is a nice touch, and shows the softer, sympathetic side of Rose that has rarely been on display since the Doctor’s regeneration.

This more sympathetic side of Rose is seen once more shortly after she and the Doctor arrive on Sanctuary Base Five, on the planet Krop Tor (a planet impossibly orbiting a black hole) in
The Impossible Planet
. She does not understand why the Ood are so willing to serve humanity, and wonders when humans needed slaves anyway. She shows a great politeness to the Ood, despite the way the personnel of the Sanctuary Base take them for granted. When they think they have lost the TARDIS, Rose starts to wonder what they will do in 432K1 (the forty-second century). She thinks they will settle down together, a prospect the Doctor does not seem as happy about as one would expect (could it be that having met Sarah recently was the wake-up call he needed? Note that later, in
Fear Her
, when Rose mentions she will always be with the Doctor, he quickly changes the subject). She builds up a good rapport with pretty much everybody on Sanctuary Base, and is as fearful as the rest of them at the notion that deep within the bowels of Krop Tor lives Satan. She wonders if the Devil is real, and the Doctor assures her that there is no such thing – although such a belief is shaken later when he meets the Beast, possibly the source of the myth.

The Beast tells her that she will soon die in battle, a revelation that shakes her up, but the Doctor explains that the Beast is merely playing on her fears – on
all
their fears, in fact. As it turns out, in
Doomsday
, Rose does die (after a fashion) as she is listed among the dead after the Battle of Canary Wharf ends.

When the Ood become possessed by the telepathic field emanating from the Beast, Rose’s rapport with the crew comes in useful as she finds herself having to motivate them into taking a stand and finding a way to remove the threat. Before falling down the pit, and being on the verge of a ‘leap of faith’, the Doctor realises he could well die and expresses his absolute belief in Rose – but she does not hear any of this exchange – and he struggles to find the right goodbye message for her deciding that she will
know
how he feels about her. After learning from Ida that the Doctor has fallen down the pit, Rose refuses to accept that the Doctor is dead despite the Ida’s that no-one could have survived such a fall. Such is her belief in the Doctor’s survival, that Rose will not leave the base, even though the whole planet is about to fall into the black hole. She is rendered unconscious and dragged to the escape rocket, and when she comes to she freaks out. She has little choice but to accept her fate. Despite her grief, she is the first to notice that Toby Zed has been possessed by the Beast, and uses a bolt gun to break the screen in the rocket cockpit, sending the Beast into the black hole. She is, understandably, elated when the TARDIS latches on to the rocket and prevents it from following the Beast into the black hole. She subsequently shares a very happy reunion with the Doctor in the TARDIS.

In
Love and Monsters
we get a rare look at what it is like to be left behind, when we see life through Jackie’s eyes for a short time. Her sadness and fear for Rose is palpable, never knowing where her daughter is, or if she is ever going to return home again. She sometimes gets a phone call, but it is never enough. Nonetheless, she is fiercely loyal to both Rose and the Doctor when she discovers that Elton has only befriended her to find out more about Rose. When Rose next rings her mum, Jackie tells her all about Elton. Rose then tracks him down to give him a piece of her mind. Despite her anger, Rose realises how upset Elton is over losing the woman he loves, and she sits and comforts him, once again showing her compassionate side, so often overshadowed by her obsessive attraction to the Doctor.

Once more Rose finds herself alone, having to solve an alien problem without the Doctor in
Fear Her
after he is turned into a drawing by a girl called Chloe Webber who has been imbued by the Isolus. She is not very good with children – indeed she calls them ‘little terrors’ at one point – and is shocked to learn that the Doctor was a dad once.

Once again Rose says she is going to stay with the Doctor forever at the beginning of
Army of Ghosts
, but she soon learns that it is not going to be that easy. Like so many teenagers who live away from home, she still brings her washing to her mother whenever she and the Doctor return to see Jackie. While Rose is operating the TARDIS console, helping the Doctor track the source of the ‘ghost shifts’ happening throughout London, Jackie expresses concern that Rose is becoming like the Doctor. She is convinced that one day she will not be ‘Rose’ anymore, but a stranger that Jackie does not recognise. Rose is not sure that is a bad thing at all.

On finding their way to Torchwood Tower (in truth One Canada Square, also known as Canary Wharf), the Doctor passes Jackie off as Rose after Yvonne Hartman, director of Torchwood One, points out he is known for travelling with a companion. Rose remains inside the TARDIS as it is moved into the storage area of Torchwood Tower, and decides to investigate herself. She uses the psychic paper to enable this, showing some of the brazen-like qualities the Doctor often uses (or, as the Seventh Doctor once said, ‘act as if you own the place’). She is a lot more confident this time around, having learned much from her moments without the Doctor since
The Christmas Invasion
when she failed so miserably to impress the Sycorax. Unknowingly, she is guided to the Sphere Room by Mickey, who has already infiltrated Torchwood under the name Samuel. When he reveals himself, just as the Sphere becomes active, Rose is very pleased to see him, noticing a change in him since
The Age of Steel
(for him it has been three years, since time on Pete’s World moves faster than on Earth Prime).

While the Cybermen invade elsewhere, having passed through the void between realities following the Sphere (a Void Ship as the Doctor later calls it), Rose and Mickey find themselves facing four Daleks who are hiding in the Void Ship, safe from the Time War. These four, led by Dalek Sec, are the Cult of Skaro, a specially bred Dalek group tasked with thinking of new and unconventional ways to continue the Dalek Empire beyond the Emperor. Rose uses her knowledge of the Daleks to keep herself and Mickey alive, but when they continue to threaten her she takes great pleasure in pointing out she destroyed the Emperor. The Daleks have something called the Genesis Ark, later revealed to be a prison of Time Lord design, housing millions of Daleks. It can only be opened by the genetic imprint of someone who has travelled through the time vortex – which includes both Rose and Mickey. To save Mickey’s life – who she calls the bravest human she knows – Rose agrees to open the Ark. As it turns out, Mickey accidentally provides the genetic imprint when he stumbles during a rescue by the Doctor and a combined army of Torchwood militia and Cybermen. Pete also returns, and Rose is there to witness the reunion between him and Jackie. It is a deeply emotional moment, although tinged with humour when Jackie discovers Pete is rich (‘I don’t care about that. How rich?’ Jackie asks. ‘Very,’ is Pete’s response. ‘I don’t care about that. How very?’ Jackie then wants to know). The only way to defeat the Daleks and the Cybermen is to return them to the Void, but to do so will drag in anyone else who has crossed realities – this includes Rose. The Doctor realises that she has to return to Pete’s world, but she refuses to go, even when Pete tricks her into travelling there. She immediately returns to Torchwood One, leaving Jackie and Mickey heartbroken in the knowledge that they will never see her again. But Rose seems not to care – all that is important to her is being with the Doctor. While the Daleks and Cybermen are sucked into the Void, Rose loses her grip on the lever controlling the breach in the Void, and almost falls into it but is rescued at the last second by Pete who takes her to his world. The breach is closed one final time, and Rose, realising she can never get back, falls apart while her parents and Mickey watch on, unable to do anything to comfort her.