Whitechapel
CHAPTER THREE:
The little inn was a merry place to be. Everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves, and after Rose had seen it, and dragged the Doctor inside, so had they. It was one of those times where they just enjoyed each other's company. No monsters to be found, no creatures to defeat and there certainly wasn't going to be any running to do. Not at this moment in time anyway. No at this moment in time, it was just Rose Tyler, sitting in the middle of a very rowdy pub whilst the Doctor worked out what kind of coins they needed. Which to Roses annoyance was taking quite a bit longer than she'd have expected.
"You know," Rose said looking at him whilst he emptied the contents of his pockets, "Lord Of Time, I thought you were supposed to know most of these things already! I mean, it's not hard to go over to the Bar and say, "how much is an Lemonade?" is it?"
"Lemonade?"
The Doctor and Rose looked up, the Doctor smiled softly and extended his hand to shake. The woman, who's hair appeared to be a long reddish sort of colour that had obviously been tied up behind her but it still fell down into delicate curls from what they could see at the back.
"Won't find any of that 'ere Sir," she said shaking his hand, "Good ol' Whiskey or Rum only."
"Oh." The Doctor said and nodded slightly, "Well I've heard that's a popular drink..."
"'Course, everyone who wants anything different are completely out their minds. I mean with what's been goin' on 'ere can't blame 'em for wantin' a drink now and then do ya?" the woman said sitting herself down between the Doctor and Rose.
"Oi! Ginger!"
The Doctor looked round, only to be sat next to by another woman fairly quickly. This particular woman looked slightly older than the red haired woman, and slightly plumper but the Doctor wasn't going to mention that.
"Don't go scarin' new comers!" the plumper woman exclaimed.
"Oh no," Rose said smiling at the older woman, "It's fine, she's not scaring us, is she Doctor?"
"No," The Doctor said grinning at them, "Don't get scared easily me. Love a bit of a mystery. Forever inspecting things aren't we Rose?"
"Don't get much choice when you're driving..." Rose muttered under her breath and giggled as she saw the Doctor give her a look, he was obviously about to say something but was cut off by a longer looking woman sitting down next to them.
"Honestly Ginger, I thought I told you not to go getting other people involved?" she said looking at her. She smiled softly looking at Rose and sipped her drink slowly whilst her longer than perhaps normal fingers glazed over the thin metal goblet that Rose seemed to see a lot in these kind of pubs.
"I wasn't getting other people involved." the woman who the Doctor and Rose assumed was called "Ginger."
"I'm the Doctor." The Doctor said looking at the women getting his physic paper out and flashing it them in their faces. "And this is my assistant Rose."
"Hello." Rose waved and nudged the Doctor gently under the table; she knew he'd have introduced them again. It seemed to be the way he did things whenever they were out, she'd been quite pleased when they'd been on the Sanctuary Base and she'd been able to introduce them both... for once.
"Oh my god! Are you in the inspector?!" Ginger exclaimed looking at the Physic paper, "Well, they said you'd be coming at some point but I never thought that you'd be so..."
"Inspector? Yes, that's me." the Doctor said holding his hand out, "We're just here for a couple of days. But, well we've been called in from..."
The Doctor cut off as the plump older woman appeared to burst into quite sudden tears.
"Oh no," Ginger said moving over to her and putting her arms round her. "Don't worry Elizabeth, it'll all be fine."
"How do you know that?" Elizabeth sobbed, "That's what Annie said and look what 'appened to 'er!!"
The Doctor and Rose sat quietly as they watched Ginger and the long faced woman begin to console Elizabeth.
"It's not gonna 'appen again, you 'eard the police. They said they'd protect us... and I'm sure this... Doctor, will help with that." the longer faced woman said looking at them.
"Ohh... helps my middle name." The Doctor grinned before adding so only Rose could hear, he didn't think it'd be a good idea for Elizabeth to hear this just at the moment. "And perhaps Trouble..."
"Hmmm Doctor Help Trouble...considering I don't actually know your real name" Rose whispered back and giggled grinned at him, "I like it."
The Pub seemed to settle down after a couple of hours, and the Doctor and Rose found themselves walking back quietly through the quiet, which Rose was convinced was unusual for this time of night! In her London, it was never this quiet.
Catherine and Elizabeth had gone home, claiming that if they weren't to get locked out then they would have to retreat to bed. Which had left Ginger, The Doctor and Rose alone to finish their drinks.
Which they had done quite happily, before The Doctor said that they should probably leave. So they had done, promising that they would meet Ginger at the Police Station first thing in the morning, stating that they hadn't needed somewhere to stay, but then they had the TARDIS, so why would they?
"So," Rose started as they made their way down some kind of cobbled alleyway, "The woman with the longer face and fingers is called Catherine, the fat... oh don't look at me like that Doctor," Rose said as the Doctor arched his eyebrows at her, "You were thinking it! I know what you're like, you're cheeky at the most inappropriate of times! Anyway, the fat slightly older woman is called Elizabeth and the Ginger Haired woman is called "Ginger."
"Rose Tyler!" The Doctor exclaimed looking at her and chuckling softly, "I'd have thought that one was obvious! I mean usually when someone has Ginger hair and introduce themselves as "Ginger" then it's pretty obvious that her names "Ginger" isn't it?"
Rose rolled her eyes hearing the Doctor going into a full ramble about how someone who's got ginger hair shouldn't be called Ginger in case they took offence to it. But then he'd called her, or Cassandra had anyway, Blondie in New New York, so she decided that she'd put it down to it just being one of those things that you sometimes got called.
Rose took the Doctors arm and followed him down another Cobbled road. "I suppose this quick visit has turned into a bit of a longer stay then?"
"Well, it was always going to be a bit longer than anticipated because of the TARDIS deciding to break down." The Doctor said looking at her, "But, I suppose, we could involve ourselves in a little mystery of..."
"Why the TARDIS has disappeared?"
"No," The Doctor said looking at her, "No not that mystery, the mystery of why someone is after these Women. So tomorrow morning, we're getting ourselves....hold on," The Doctor stopped in mid sentence looking at her, "Did you just say the TARDIS has disappeared?"
"Yes!" Rose exclaimed looking at him, "I did!"
Everything around them seemed to stop in those few minutes where they searched for the TARDIS. The Doctor didn't stop until every single alleyway in that part of London had been searched in over and over again. The buzz that London normally gave Rose disappeared completely as she watched the Doctor growing quieter by the second, whilst he scanned with the sonic for the TARDIS.
Because, the big problem at the end of the day, was that they were stuck in Victorian London, and unknown to them, it just so happened that they were stuck in the middle of a murder mystery.
And have absolutely no way out what so ever.