June 30, 2006

Lesser Angels- world’s first Mickey/Reinette fic

Overly Devoted Archivist Uncategorized doctor who, fanfiction, fanfiction: doctor who, mickey smith, my fanfiction, my stuff, reinette poisson 30 Comments

Title: Lesser Angels
Author: sarah531
Rating: PG13, probably
Characters: Mickey, Reinette, Ten, Rose, Jackie
Pairing: Mickey/Reinette
Summary: Reinette clutched his hand, held it tightly.
“The Doctor is worth the monsters,” she said, and it sounded like a epitaph.
Author’s note: I suppose if you squint, you can see a hint of Mickey/Reinette/Ten/Rose. Whoa. But for all intents and purposes, let’s call it Mickey/Reinette. ;)

Lesser Angels

She was the first person in the entire universe to ever look at him like he was something unbelievable.

“And who are you, monsieur?” Madame de Pompadour asked. “What is your role in all this?”

Mickey tried to look away. It felt weird, being in the room with a glowering Rose and an oblivious Doctor and answering the questions of a dead French lady. “Um.” he said. How on earth could he explain to her the chain of events that had led him here? “I’m a friend of Rose’s. And of the Doctor’s.”

“Any friend of the Doctor’s,” Reinette said approvingly, “is mine also. And your name?”

“Mickey Smith,” said Mickey Smith, still not looking at Rose. “It’s nice to meet you, um-” He tried frantically to remember the days when he did French in school; he couldn’t remember a thing. “Madame,” he said helplessly.

“To you,” Reinette said, “to you all- I am Reinette.”

And then she turned to Rose.

Rose looked up and gave a smile that looked geniune, but Mickey knew was fake as anything. “Hi,” she said, her voice somewhat cool. “Reinette.”

Mickey watched Reinette’s actions carefully- she stepped back from Rose, and bowed her head as if to show humility. “Rose,” she said. “My offer of friendship is extended also to you.”

“Yeah,” Rose said, her voice high and frustrated, “Yeah- I know-”

“Rose, I am not here to take anything from you.”

Rose stared at her and stared at the Doctor, and didn’t even glance at Mickey, and said, “Alright.”

That was all she said. She gave another smile- a tight one- and hurried off down the corridor, not looking back.

“Ah,” the Doctor said thoughtfully. “Ah.”

*****

The air was thick with screaming, and Mickey could smell smoke. It was dark. Really incredibly dark. But the streetlights had gone out, hadn’t they? All the lights in London had.

Stumbling into a wall, he realised it was probably safe to turn his torch back on. He did, and saw devastation- a whole building had gone down. In the distance, he saw people running away. But one person wasn’t running- she was standing alone and silent, waiting in an alleyway-

It was Reinette.

Without a thought, he ran to her.

“Reinette? What’re you doing here? I thought you were with the Doctor!” And then, as one more thing went up in flames in war-torn modern London: “He promised to keep you safe!”

*****

Only minutes after Rose’s minor outburst, all four of them stepped out onto some other strange world. The Doctor first, then Reinette, then Mickey, then Rose. Mickey and Reinette stared around in wonder at the stars and the colours in the sky, but Rose and the Doctor did not.

There was silence in the air for a minute, apart from the sound of Reinette’s laughter. It was a nice sound, Mickey thought. It made the place real.

It was nice to have another newcomer around.

Rose stood to one side. “You took me here,” she said to the Doctor, unhappily. “You took me here once- just me-”

“It’s a perfect sort of place, isn’t it?” the Doctor answered. He looked like he was searching for the right words to say to her, and failing. “I mean, if someone wants to see the stars, this ought to be their first stop, really-”

“You took me here after my dad died! Straight after I saw my dad die again, you took me here ‘cos you wanted to cheer me up.” She almost glared at him- she looked angry, and Mickey wasn’t used to seeing her angry with him. And then she went back into the TARDIS, back inside. The Doctor stayed where he was, confusion and concern all over his face, and Mickey turned away. Why he did that, he didn’t know.

so now she knows how it feels, was the forbidden thought at the back of his brain.

Looking behind him, he saw Reinette there. She was looking past him, at the Doctor.

“My presence is causing her distress,” Reinette said softly. “She is young…she doesn’t understand…”

“She will,” the Doctor said. “She has to.” He sounded very human for a moment. Then he snapped out of it again. “That over there?” he said, pointing, “That’s the Scarlet System. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Yes,” Reinette answered. “So very beautiful. Like the heavens came down.” A far cry from Mickey’s own reaction- ‘it looks so realistic!’ That seemed laughable now.

Mickey stayed out for a few seconds staring skyward, and then went to find Rose. He found her just in the console room, sitting down, head in hands.

“Hey,” he said.

“It’s not mine anymore,” she answered slowly, blinking.

“Come on, Rose-”

“It’s not mine anymore. He took me everywhere- and there was only me and him- and now there’s her. And you.” She wasn’t even looking at him.

“What, you think it should be just you?” Mickey asked her. “You’re the only one who should get to see this stuff, and everyone else just isn’t good enough?”

“No!” she almost shouted. And then she lowered her voice again. “I just…I need to get used to it, yeah? I’m going to go to my bedroom- tell me when we’re leaving-”

She got up and stormed down the corridor, arms folded. Mickey watched.

*****

Reinette did not answer him properly. “We were separated,” she said, her voice full of fear. “We must go to him!”

“Yeah, we will. But we need to get somewhere safe, first.” He sounded so much calmer than he felt. “Um. Reinette. Do you know what happened to Rose?”

“No,” Reinette answered. “I can assume only that she is with the Doctor!”

Gunshots echoed around. Mickey took Reinette’s hand- the first time he had ever done so. “We have to run,” he said. And they ran. They ran and ran until they could run no more, running through the crowds, and then- they heard THEM, coming closer. They frantically took refuge with some others, in the wreckage of a skyscraper. People were still screaming.

Reinette was calm and collected, doing incredibly well, until they started backing into the wreckage and came across a bloated dead body, lying there in the dark with it’s eyes wide open. It seemed to be staring at them. Accusing them, almost. And both of them screamed, and it took them a while to compose themselves.

“I cannot believe it,” Reinette said slowly, “This is your world, but it is hell. Yet it produced good things.”

Mickey was silent as he considered that. “It’s not the Doctor’s world, remember?” he eventually reminded her. “He came from…somewhere else.”

“No. You misunderstand. This world is hell- yet it produced you.”

*****

Mickey went back outside again as the sky turned scarlet. Reinette and the Doctor were standing side by side, shadows in the red, and the Doctor was pointing out stars.

“I will never forget this,” Reinette was whispering, “as long as I live. It is like walking amongst angels.” She noticed Mickey behind them, and both she and the Doctor turned.

“How’s Rose?” the Doctor asked him.

“She’s alright,” Mickey said, not sure what to say in front of Reinette.

The Doctor glanced back at the TARDIS.

“Go to her,” Reinette said, unexpectedly. “She is still young, Doctor.”

The Doctor looked at her gratefully, said, “I’ll be back,” and left them standing there. Reinette turned her attention from the stars to him.

“Mickey Smith,” she said, “Are these stars yours as well?”

“What d’ya mean?”

She paused. “You are human, as is Rose. But yet you are at his side- that puts you almost at the same level as him. You have seen so much more than I.”

“No I haven’t,” Mickey said quickly. “It’s Rose who’s seen it all- I’m new to this just like you, yeah?” He then cursed himself for saying ‘yeah’ to a woman like her. “I mean- I haven’t seen all that many stars. But the ones I’ve seen, I like,” he added.

Reinette nodded. Mickey was impressed she understood him at all. He wasn’t very eloquent. “You say you are a friend of them both,” Reinette continued. “And a friend you clearly are. You stand by them. But as what? A soldier? A defender? Their heart and soul? Or the one on the outside, looking in on them?”

Mickey stared.

“Um. Last one, I suppose.” He was starting to get a bit scared of her. “The one on the outside.”

“There is a lot to be said for the ones on the outside,” Reinette answered simply. “Some of them have a power the powerful will never understand.”

“Oh.”

“That I,” Reinette said, “no matter how many stars I see, will not understand.”

*****

They waited in the almost-dark. Reinette’s face was pale.

“The Doctor,” she murmured at one point. “He has to be alive: angels do not die.” Mickey felt something new then- a streak of envy. And then the envy went away when he looked at her, because he realised something then that he should have noticed before- she had changed. A lot.

When he had met her she had been beautiful and mysterious, dressed in expensive clothes, decorated with jewellery- one of the most powerful women in her world. And now she was here. London. What would have been his London if someone else hadn’t invaded it. And she looked-

-ordinary. She was wearing clothes borrowed from Rose: plain jeans and plain black t-shirt. She was pretty now- not beautiful. She wore no jewellery. She was scared.

If the Doctor could take an ordinary girl out of her world and make her into something completely out of the ordinary- maybe it worked the other way around.

Because now, she was no longer Madame de Pompadour. She was just Reinette.

*****

Mickey never found out what the Doctor said to Rose- he probably never would. But before long, when he was sitting in his bedroom playing video games, Rose came in.

“We’re. Um. In my flat. Me mum’s just outside.”

“We’re inside your flat?”

“Yeah. I just asked…just sort of wanted to drop in, see how Mum was doing…”

Mickey followed her out- all the way through the time machine and out of the doors. The sight that greeted him was a strange one: the Doctor and Reinette- Reinette still in full eighteenth-century dress- sitting on Jackie’s sofa, with Jackie hovering about behind them, gawping at Reinette and about to start firing questions.

“Rose, love!” Jackie hurried to her daughter and gave her a long hug. Mickey saw Reinette stand up, go to the television, and examine it with astonishment. Then she moved to the radio (which was quietly playing a U2 song) and ran her hands over it, mesmerised.

Jackie let go of Rose, and jerked her head towards Reinette. “Who’s she then, Doctor? Where the bloody hell’d you get her?” And then she gathered she was being rude, and quickly corrected herself. “I mean- oh, I’m sorry, love. Didn’t mean to sound like that, but I ain’t used to new girls just showing up with ‘im, you see. What’s your name?”

Reinette turned around and looked at Jackie. The more she looked at her the more amazed she seemed, but she was polite. “My name is Reinette.”

Mickey wondered if Jackie would understand her, but she appeared to. “Reinette,” Jackie repeated. “That’s a nice name. D’ya want some tea, love?”

Rose looked on, annoyed, and Mickey was struck by how absurd the whole situation was.

“A meal?” Reinette asked.

“Well yeah, if you want one, don’t see why not. Don’t have much though- just pizza, some chicken- might be able to whip up a salad or something. Got nothing French, though.”

Reinette stared at her yet more. “I will be happy whatever you give me,” she answered. “Thank you for your generosity.” And then: “You are Rose’s mother?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“You have raised a fine daughter,” Reinette said, and bowed her head. Jackie’s expression was incredible- she looked, suddenly, almost like she was going to cry.

“Thanks,” Jackie said, looking at the ground. Mickey looked for Rose and saw her in the kitchen, away from them. Maybe she hadn’t even heard.

Jackie turned to Mickey then. “And how you doing, trouble? None the worse for wear?”

“No,” he answered, grinning at her. “But I want some food, too.”

*****

As they ran away again, through the panicked streams of people, Mickey was forced to say it again. “The Doctor said he would keep you safe, Reinette.”

“He tried.” she answered, fiercely. She then added, “And Rose will be safe, Mickey, I swear it. He protects her like…” But she trailed off, maybe through fear- because Mickey heard the footsteps of THEM, coming closer.

“Down here,” he said, and as all the people around them scattered, he led her down a side alley. They stuck to the shadows, and the noises passed. More screaming, then nothing. Mickey waited for something to leap out of the shadows, but nothing did.

He was learning.

Reinette clutched his hand, held it tightly.

“The Doctor is worth the monsters,” she said, and it sounded like a epitaph. Mickey nodded uselessly- even though he suspected that if that topic was debated, he would have some different points to make.

“We need to find him now, yeah? No more messing about. Back to the Tower- he’s probably there. We’ll be fine if we stay in the dark.”

“Yes,” Reinette said.

And they crept on, hiding in the shadows.

“Why do you think Rose will be safe?” Mickey whispered, because the silence was terrifying. “What were you going to say?”

“Oh. That he defends her like a king defends his kingdom,” Reinette whispered back.

Mickey could think of no answer, but he squeezed her hand, and they went on, strangers in a different world.

*****

“Me and Rose can show you London!” the Doctor said excitedly. Jackie had cooked them a meal, and they were all sitting around eating. The Doctor had sat next to Reinette, explaining all the food she was unfamiliar with (“This is a Turkey Twizzler…it’s made of turkey…and Twizzler.”), and Mickey sat next to Jackie because they were friends, and Rose sat alone, and Mickey finally couldn’t stand it and sat next to her instead.

Jackie still kept stealing glances at Reinette- possibly she was wondering how much that dress was worth, or merely dealing with the fact that a long dead French King’s long dead mistress was sitting in her house eating Turkey Twizzlers.

Rose was trying to join in Reinette and the Doctor’s conversation. Well, not even trying- she was suceeding just fine. Mickey wondered exactly what her problem was- he suspected it was fear of something greater than just being left out. It was fear of losing someone she loved.

He didn’t feel all that hurt- he’d worked out everything about Rose and the Doctor a long time ago, after all.

“Yeah, and Reinette?” Rose said. She was beginning to smile now, so it seemed. Mickey realised it was hard to tell. “You can’t go outside dressed like that. Not in that dress. People will stare- they’ll think you’re going to a fancy dress party or something. You can borrow some of my clothes and then we can take you shopping, for some of your own.”

The Doctor looked at Rose and then Reinette and he beamed. “Excellent idea! Just wait til we take you to Gap,” he said.

Reinette smiled. She smiled at them all- Mickey and Jackie included. Mickey smiled back, but then he looked closely at Rose and saw the fear was still in her eyes.

*****

When they got to the Tower, it appeared to be missing a few pieces.

“We have to go in, I guess,” Mickey said. He was scared, and had been trying to hide it until he realised that around Reinette, he didn’t need to. Because she knew him. The powerful and the powerless, making an alliance. “Are you gonna be okay, coming in?”

“He risked everything to save me,” Reinette answered. “It is only right that I do the same.”

They got in through a hole in the blown-out wall. They went through empty corridors, clutching hands, not breathing. And then they heard THEM, behind them somewhere.

Mickey prayed that he hadn’t really heard it. But he had, and the noise was coming closer. Metal footsteps on blackened ground.

Reinette touched his shoulders.

“The monsters,” she said simply.

He nodded, and shifted himself in behind her, trying to protect her. He didn’t know how much good it would do. He didn’t know how useful or useless he might be.

“They don’t die if you shoot them,” he said quietly, trying to hide the panic. “And they…oh god, I dunno-”

They started walking quickly, afraid of what they might crash into, and then began to run.

All the time people ran. Rose had run away from him…

“The Doctor said,” Reinette gasped, “that they were human once.”

“Yeah, once. They got changed. Got…upgraded, they call it. But the humans didn’t want it- they sort of got forced-”

They turned a corner.

“We shouldn’t play with human life,” Reinette said quietly. “These creatures- these humans- what can we do?”

“Nothing,” Mickey said glumly. “We have to find the Doctor and find Rose and run.”

“Leave this world forever?”

“Oh God, I hope not.”

They carried on, calling for the Doctor and for Rose- Mickey couldn’t hear footsteps anymore.

“Once we find them, we have to go to the flat and find Jackie,” Mickey said. “Then we can get in the TARDIS, and…go. I dunno where…I dunno anything…”

Reinette gasped.

THEY were right ahead of them- their backs turned, watching another corridor. Mickey and Reinette were instantly silent. They turned to go back-

-but THEY turned around. Turned around. Saw them. Walked-

*****

Reinette sent the Doctor and Mickey out of the room while she and Rose deliberated over clothes. A little while later she came back out, wearing a light blue skirt that had never suited Rose, and a white top. She still looked very elegant.

“I’m gonna tell the neighbours Rose met you when she was travelling, took you here on holiday,” Jackie said, washing up. “By the way, love, where did you put the dress?”

“It is lying on the bed- will you look after it for me? It was an expensive gift.”

“Course I will, love.”

The Doctor grinned.

“Just look at us! The four of us all together! Sorry, Jackie, five. The things we’re gonna do! London first- show Reinette the sights. Then your choice, Rose, then Mickey’s.”

“22nd century football match,” Mickey said, while Rose said nothing, or perhaps didn’t get a chance to. “And then do you get to choose, Doctor?”

“The TARDIS chooses. Anyway, let’s get some sleep- no sense arguing with the night- and in the morning we’ll go everywhere. So! How many bedrooms in this place, Jackie?”

Dead silence.

“There’s my room and Mum’s and the spare room,” Rose said pointedly. “I’ll share with Reinette. You two,” she pointed at Mickey and the Doctor, “can share the spare room. And that’s it, yeah? You alright with that, Reinette?”

Reinette looked thoughtful. “I see this will require me to adjust considerably. I am to have no bed?”

“We’ve got, like, a camp-bed thingy.”

“Very well. I will live.”

*****

Mickey and Reinette ran, once more. They ran back the way they had come, but more of THEM were there. Reinette didn’t scream, not properly, but she shouted-

“Mickey!”

It occured to Mickey then, and only then, how utterly strange it was for this woman to be screaming his name. He pulled her out of the way, found a door in the darkness, and amongst all the noise and terror pushed her through it, and jumped through himself. He pushed a chair against the door, and then realised there was a key on the inside. Shouting manically, he locked the door.

But a key wasn’t going to hold THEM back.

He leaned against the wall for a second, his thoughts too crazy to accept anything at all. He figured he might die here, stuck in some sort of storecupboard, him and Reinette…but at the same time, he didn’t really believe it.

Reinette couldn’t die. She wasn’t even in the right century!

Metal clanked outside. The door could be broken down in seconds.

“Mickey,” Reinette said, in a haunting voice.

He could hardly bring himself to turn around. “Yeah?”

“It seems we are to die here,” she said. “I have lived on borrowed time, given to me by the lord of it.”

“We’re not going to die,” Mickey said uncertainly.

Reinette reached out and took both his hands. They were silent.

The door, which was metal, started to dent.

“I’m sorry, Reinette,” Mickey said hopelessly. “I’m so so sorry.”

“It is in no way your fault,” said Reinette. She drew closer to him. “When I first met you,” she said, “I thought you were another angel. A lesser one, but an angel nonetheless. I was wrong. You are merely human, as am I.”

Mickey put his arms around her, hopelessly.

“I am not afraid of dying,” Reinette said. “I just wish I had seen him, one more time.”

Mickey didn’t need to ask who. The door continued to dent and lose it’s shape.

“I consider myself the most fortunate person to have ever lived- with the possible exception of one Rose Tyler,” Reinette whispered. “To have an angel, to have the whole world, and to have you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I love many men, and one angel. You are not an angel, but I love you. Understand?”

“…Yes.” And he did, and he was scared, but he went and kissed her anyway- and wondered if he would have done so if they were not about to die.

*****

The future was all theirs.

After hanging out in London for two days, they went to Rose’s choice of planet, and then to Mars in the 23rd century for the Interplanetry World Cup. Then they went on their merry way, Reinette sitting next to Mickey in the TARDIS and telling him all about life in France. He did not feel left out in the slightest. He laughed and joked with her as Rose laughed and joked with the Doctor, and he didn’t care who went into whose bedrooms at night, or if they went to his.

(Rose did- she cried a little, and it was strange and by the morning they’d tried to forget. Reinette never did.)

And then they fell into an alternate universe

Reinette handled her second brush with death extremely well: she stayed close to the Doctor, while Rose struggled to save her mother and Mickey tried to help any way he could.

“Do not go,” Reinette said quietly, when he headed off to see his grandmother.

“Why not?”

“Because she will not be yours, Mickey. She will be someone else’s- it will be like she died again.” Mickey had told Reinette, during a quiet moment, about his grandmother’s death, and she had denied it was his fault. “Please, Mickey. Spare yourself the pain- spare her the pain of having a grandson she never knew walk into her life.”

Mickey did not go, and he was not picked up by the Preachers, but neither was he killed or Cybernised. And at the end, he did not stay.

*****

The door cracked- even though it was metal- but even as that noise rang out, Mickey heard the TARDIS. Panicking, he broke away from Reinette- but she just gave him a look.

“He will not be furious, he will not be jealous- he is an angel.”

Mickey felt she had misjudged. The TARDIS landed.

*****

He did not stay but he stayed with her. He and Reinette would talk at night, in bedrooms, in the console room, becoming friends. It occured to Mickey at some point that she had been trained as a courtesan, and he was an ordinary human male, and she’d sleep with him if he wanted. Maybe.

He didn’t ask.

*****

The Doctor opened the TARDIS door. Rose was with him, and Jackie, and Mickey breathed a sigh of relief.

“Found you! Knew I would! Tried all the rooms! Hurry!”

This was said very, very fast. Mickey and Reinette scrambled into the TARDIS, and the door closed, and they were gone.

“We leave now,” the Doctor said fiercely. “We don’t save them, Rose- we don’t save anybody.”

“Then who does?” Rose asked tearfully.

“They save themselves…the planet saves itself…Reinette, are you alright?”

Reinette straightened up. Mickey thought it seemed like there were two of her: a Doctor-Reinette and a Mickey-Reinette. The Doctor’s Reinette was the real one, of course- his Reinette was a girl in modern clothing, running alongside him. His friend. More than his friend.

She was not a powerful, rich, amazing, dead French lady. She was just…

Just what?

“I’m alright,” she said, and she sounded different now, as well- less like what she was before she met him. Speaking like they did. “Are you?”

“I’m always alright,” he answered.

“Where do we go?” Jackie whispered.

None of them said a word.

*****

They had adventures. They had fun. The Doctor and Rose took Mickey and Reinette to the end of the world, to the beginning of London, to the moon and to Mars. They visited the 1950’s, and although none of the three companions lost their faces, they were held prisoner in a police station while the Doctor took on the Wire. The policemen were bemused by Reinette.

They did not visit an impossible planet and Satan gave no threats to them. He might have said anything:

THE MAN- THE BOY- IN LOVE WITH A DEAD WOMAN-

THE WOMAN FROM ANOTHER WORLD, SO POWERFUL AND MADE POWERLESS BY LOVE-

THE VALIANT CHILD, WHO WILL NOT DIE IN BATTLE-

NOT NOW-

AND THEIR GOD-

-who can do what he likes with them.

Somewhere in the darkness of a empty world a creature that might have been the Devil thought of those words, those people, their ability to ruin each other so completely.

And in its disembodied mind, it smiled, because the Devil never got as far as it did by having stupid human people fall in love with it.

*****

They returned, in the end, to France. To Reinette’s world. To a small garden hidden away somewhere.

Mickey waited outside, because he wanted some fresh air. He felt utterly shellshocked. They all did. He didn’t know what was going to happen next but he wanted to go home.

The one thing he could never do.

But at least they were all alive.

Reinette came out. Perhaps she had been looking for him. And she was dressed up now- her original dress was long gone, but she’d found a similar one in the wardrobe. “Mickey Smith,” she said.

He nodded at her, unable to do anything else.

“You love me,” she said.

She did not say I love you, not then and not ever. But she did say, “If you wanted to stay, stay here-”

Mickey thought about it.

“Are you staying here? Staying forever?”

Reinette sat down elegantly and folded her arms and said, “I have seen the dead- armies of dead, and the dead who do not die. I have seen the end of the world and beginnings of others. And now I have to rest.”

“But the Doctor-”

“I will see him again.”

“Why d’ya think that?”

“It is faith,” she answered quietly. “That is all. The Doctor is worth the monsters- but the monsters destroyed your world. I cannot understand. The monsters were mine- you cannot give another person to hell to secure your place in heaven.”

Mickey shivered in the warm air.

“He is my angel, and I wish he was mine,” Reinette continued, and now her voice was bitter and that scared him. “My angel in my world. But he belongs to people less like me.”

Mickey didn’t know what she meant and wondered if even she knew.

“I wish you could stay,” he muttered.

“You had only to give the word,” Reinette said, after a long pause, “and you would have been my lover. Yet you never asked.”

He shrugged hopelessly. “I…” But he didn’t know how to finish, or even start. Reinette kissed him then, kissed him hard and properly, and she felt like Rose and the Doctor combined. Mickey let go first, and he was afraid again.

“Are you gonna-”

But she was gone, gone back to the TARDIS, running her hand over his arm before she left. Mickey waited, waited outside until it got dark. Rose was probably with Jackie, comforting her, and he ought to be there too, but…

Time dragged on, as it always did, and he finally stood up. But then Reinette came out, and she was sad and silent and Mickey would never know what had happened.

She walked away from him, from them all.

“I will see him again,” she said quietly.

And then she turned to Mickey, and then turned away again, and with one sentence she seemed to test him.

“Mickey Smith, wish me luck.”

He stared at the ground, then at her, and said, “No.”

She was gone.

*****

They stayed in London, 2012, which appeared to be safe. They saved a little girl from destroying the world, and Mickey and Jackie found a house, and Rose and the Doctor did not. Mickey did not do much more travelling, and he tried to adjust to his new life and never quite succeeded. You couldn’t survive the loss of an entire world, anyone who thought so was mad.

But Reinette was out there. Back in time. Dead now. Sort of. But safe.

And that was the end of it- and somewhere out in space, Satan (if indeed that was what he was) laughed and plotted and drew battle plans against the world. The world where people in their foolishness made their own gods and goddesses, and were surprised when the world went up in flames.

If Satan had made it to Earth in Mickey Smith’s timeline, it is unlikely that he would have noticed.

*****

“My lady.”

Reinette stood between the fireplace and the window, doing nothing, standing still. She had caused an uproar, being missing for so long. A tiny crack in history.

She knew so much now, knew and feared so much. But here she had power- and here nothing would be lost or destroyed.

“Is it important?”

“Perhaps not, my lady,” the servant faltered.

“Then leave me be.”

She was left alone. She went to the window. She picked out a star. And she waited for any angels who were left. She felt, while watching stars go out, like she was the only thing standing between hell and heaven- a lone figure in the dark. And for one person somewhere in a different time, maybe she was.

Someone else’s angel, in a way.

THE END