Looking after her

"This is London, and this is now.

And there are children playing. Shouting and running, small feet on hot pavement, big voices shrieking in that piercing, childish way, a small herd tumbles around the corner and rushes by without a glance. He sees skinny arms and blonde hair in pigtails, ribbons undone and scabbed-over knees, and even without a face and a voice and a name, even caught in a momentary whirlwind of childhood and sunshine, he knows her.

Then she's shouting - No, Mickey, you have to be the lion this time, I want to be the dragon - and Jack is smiling. He didn't expect Mickey as well, hasn't even remembered Mickey until this time and this place, but there he is, untied shoes and ill-fitting clothes, standing in a cluster with the other children while Rose-

I was attacked by shop dummies, she said, laughing and indignant, when he asked how she and the Doctor met, more than a century ago and a decade in the future, shop dummies come to life where I worked.

-Rose is dragging a milk crate toward one of the sorry trees that droop heavy with summer leaves, ignoring the jibes of the other children and the obvious frailty of the branches, the scrape of the crate along the pavement loud and grating-

It wasn't personal, the Doctor said, laughing and indignant in his own way, they would have attacked anyone.

-until she reaches the base of the tree, places the crate carefully, and stands back with her hands on her hips, frowning."
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exerpt from: "The World and the Child" by ignipes
archiveofourown.org/works/1295…