The Ghosts of Tomorrow
Chapter 1
Pompeii
AN: no you didn't miss something, i'm playing with you guys a bit just follow along
consider the chapter titles easter eggs. they've got nothing to do with the plotline,but its fun to figure out what the meaning behind them is
Chapter 1
The alarm buzzed uncomfortably, and she considered smashing on the spot.
No, it would accomplish nothing other than supplementing her happiness. Four AM hurt.
It was the only possible time she could get away with stealing the TARDIS though.
She had gone to sleep at midnight fully dressed, and now she slipped out the window of her second-floor flat without making a sound. She ran all eight miles across town in forty minutes flat. Superior Time Lord biology, she loved it.
She felt kind of guilty about breaking into her own house. Well, it hadn't been her house since she went to university, and she still had the key, so it wasn't really breaking in. But she wasn't supposed to be here, and certainly not supposed to be doing this, so it was half and half.
She allowed herself a smirk in the half-light. Mum had crashed on the couch again. Did that woman never stop working? The TARDIS was parked in the middle of the kitchen, which meant it had been used recently, for who knows what.
She grabbed the keys and a pen off the counter, scribbling her father a note so he wouldn't think some real thieves had taken his precious. It kind of contradicted the whole secrecy thing, to leave a note, but if she had attempted to ask her parents would have wanted details, the one thing she couldn't give.
Dad-
Running off to say hi to Mels. Back in an hour at the most. (yes, I'm better at parking than you.) Sorry bout running off with your baby again. I'll take good care of her, try not to make any major paradoxes.
There wasn't even a noise as the blue box vanished from the kitchen.
Evelyn was too clever for that.
...
"Where do you want to go first?" asked the Doctor.
"I don't know, you pick."
"Should there be trouble?"
"Oh, most definitely."
He grinned wide, and off they flew.
"When- where- are we?"
"Well..."
"Don't give me that."
"It's not another planet, it's not even that interesting."
"What'd you tell the TARDIS to look for?"
"What you asked for. Trouble."
Rose sighed a little bit. "Might as well go see what the trouble is."
They had parked outside a hospital that Rose recognized- she used to ride by it every day on her way to work. The sky was dark and thick with rain.
We're still in London?
"What year is it?" she asked.
"2008."
So they were a year removed from Canary Wharf. That was good; gave them less of chance of being recognized.
Like anyone would know who they were anyways.
People were starting to rush inside out of fear of getting soaked, so they let themselves get carried by the crowd. Rose lost sight of the Doctor for a split second and bumped into a med student, who proceeded to drop her armful of files all over the ground.
"Oh! I'm sorry." She bent over to help her pick it up.
"Rose! Come here!" the Doctor called. She still couldn't see that idiot.
"By the window! Come on!" he yelled again.
She sighed and shoved the rest of the files back in the direction of the med student, mumbling an apology about the mess, and waded through the crowd to find him without even noticing the student was still following her.
"Look at the rain!" said the Doctor with a smile.
"It's-it's going up." said the student.
"Oh, yes." he spouted enthusiastically.
The entire building shook, and they crashed to the ground. The student was up first, staring out the window. "It's dark! But it was daylight!" she exclaimed in shock.
"Where are we?" Rose asked.
"It sounds crazy-but I think we're on the moon." She goes to open the window.
"No, don't do that!" shouts Rose. "The moon is a vacuum, they're won't be any air!"
"But these windows aren't very well sealed. There's got to be something outside, keeping the air in."
"Oh, I like you. What'd you say your name was?" the Doctor inquired.
"Martha Jones."
"Come on, Martha." grinned Rose. "This is where it starts to get good."
They dragged her up to the second-floor balcony in order to get a better look at the situation.
"It's extraterrestrial, it has to be." Martha babbled in a combination of excitement and terror. "I mean, I know most people don't believe in that stuff, which is stupid, considering what happened last year. I had a cousin, ya know, Adeola, at Canary Wharf-"
She had done it. She had said the magic words.
The Doctor grabbed Rose's hand before she could say anything and ran his thumb reassuringly over the back of her hand. It's over now, that's a forever ago.
"I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?" puzzled Martha.
Rose laughed painfully. "We just had a bit of a close call there, that's all."
Martha nodded sympathetically, but she looked even more confused than before. "Who-who are you?"
"Sorry, did we never introduce ourselves?" The Doctor stuck out a hand. "I'm the Doctor."
"Doctor who?"
"Just the Doctor. And this is my-"
"-companion-" cut in Rose.
"-girlfriend?" Martha guessed.
"Well...sort of both- Rose Tyler."
"And you two-you two do this? Handle alien messes?"
"It kind of happens on its own, to be honest." said the Doctor. "We're just along for the ride."
"Look!" Rose pointed at a ship descending out of the stars. "Look familiar to you?"
"I-yes, I believe that's Judoon. But what do they want here?"
"Judoon? What's a Judoon?" Martha asked.
"Space police. Come on, I want to see what's going on."
"Mind if I stay here?" asked Rose. "I've got an idea bout what they might be lookin' for."
"Yeah, sure, Martha!"
They ran down another flight of stairs- Martha was starting to wonder if running was all they did- and hid in a pile of plastic ferns while they watched. The Judoon were systematically scanning everyone, then marking large black x's on the backs of their hands.
"They're looking for something non-human." muttered the Doctor. "That's not exactly good news for me."
"What- oh, you are joking."
Something terrible struck him. Rose. Her humanity was sort of in doubt these days. While he was distinctly alien, she was borderline enough to make it look like she was something attempting to hide itself. He had to get to her before the Judoon did.
"So what will they do if they find what they're looking for?"
"Accuse us of harboring a fugitive and kill us all."
"Oh, that's wonderful. You wouldn't happen to be our mysterious fugitive, would you?"
"You're hilarious, Martha Jones. Think. Was there any mysterious patient admitted in the last week or so?"
"I can go check the records."
"Good. I need to go find Rose."
By the time he got back to the balcony, she's already gone. He Doctor had a mild moment of panic, before letting himself calm down. She probably just went to check something out, that's all. Rose can take care of herself.
He nearly crashed into Martha on his way to meet back up with her.
"The records officer- in his office- dead-" she said breathlessly.
"What? Show me!"
Stairs. Enough with the stairs already.
"Something's been sucking his blood!" exclaimed the Doctor.
"Oh, now it's space vampires, just what I needed-"
"No, no, it's a plasmavore. They drink blood of other species to internally assimilate with them."
"Like that's so much better!"
"They'll look human to the Judoon, that's all that matters."
Something moved out of the corner of Martha's eye.
"Doctor?"
"Run!"
A thickset, tall man clothed head to toe in leather started chasing them out the room, down the hall, and into the MRI room. Martha smartly jumped out of the way, but the Doctor kept going straight into the room with the actual machine. She figured he was planning something, so she slammed the door behind him. The Doctor stuck his sonic screwdriver straight into the controls, highjacking the machine in a flurry of fireworks, and the man fell down to the floor.
"Radiation blast! Killed him dead."
"But aren't you-"
"Naaaahh, I'm fine. Used to play with this stuff when I was a kid." He reached over to grab his sonic, but it sparked and died as he went to throw it out.
"What? No! I love my sonic!"
The door started to shake with someone pounding on it.
"Martha, open it." said the Doctor, still forlorn.
A slightly bedraggled Rose nearly fell through the door.
"Thanks for finding me." she said sarcastically.
The Doctor tossed the fried sonic over his shoulder into a trash can. "What happened?"
Rose tossed her head in an attempt to comb her frizzled hair back into something organized. "Apparently the resident aliens think I'm their girl. Wanna explain that to me?"
"I'll explain that one later. What've you got there?"
"Grabbed one of their scanner things, and since you apparently wrecked your sonic-"
She threw it across the room to him, and he uncapped the pen end and drew a large black 'x' on the back of his hand.
Martha caught on quickly. "They'll think they've already checked us, right?"
"Ya got it, mate." smiled Rose. "So what have you figured out while I got chased down by Judoon?"
"Space vampires." said Martha.
"The term's plasmavore, Martha. You know, you're doing remarkably well with this." corrected the Doctor.
"I figure it's the oxygen deprivation that's causing half of this."
"Whatever makes you sleep at night. So we just gotta track it down and turn it in, right?" assumed Rose.
"Yes...well...yes and hope they don't come after us too. It'll be tricky."
They crept out into the hallway, still way even though they were 'safe'. One errant Judoon would be all it took, one accidental sweep with the scanner to make everything go wrong.
The Doctor swept the hallway; and then there was a woman, an older woman who didn't seem at all slowed down by the oxygen deprivation. Well, wasn't that suspicious?
The older woman vanished into the MRI room, and the Doctor followed, forgetting to tell Martha and Rose he was leaving. The machine was sparking and sputtering wildly.
"Is it supposed to do that?" he asked.
The woman whirled around. "No, it's not."
"Then why are we here? Shouldn't we leave? If there's something wrong we should tell someone. Maybe one of those weird rhino people. They're looking for somethin' strange, really desperately too. I heard they upped their scan level to a two."
"A two? Guess I'll have to assimilate again. Good thing I brought my straw."
"A straw? What's that for?" He played dumb, stalling for time.
Sure, it would be painful, and it could potentially kill him, but he had a whole hospital full of people he had to protect.
It was his duty.
"Where'd the Doctor go?" asked Rose.
"Your tall fellow? I dunno, he was just here. Hey, what are you doing?"
"Looking for trouble. Easiest way to find him."
A platoon of Judoon burst past them and into the MRI room.
"And there we have it!" crowed Rose.
"This has got to be some kind of oxygen-deprived hallucination." muttered Martha, but she followed anyways. She didn't really believe that anymore. It just made her feel less crazy.
The Judoon were cornering a woman an old woman near the sparking machine.
"-deny these claims?"
"The brat deserved it, that simpering princess-"
"So you admit to the crime?"
"Yes!"
The Judoon aimed his scanner at her, but instead of being scanned, she disintegrated. Martha made a face at the barbarian style of the space rhinos. The Judoon didn't seem to notice or care that they were there, only marched past, revealing on the floor-
"Doctor!"
Rose fell to the ground and started shaking him. "Wake up!" she cried.
A Judoon turned around at the noise and flashed Rose with his scanner. For a terrified moment Martha thought she was going to be disintegrated too, but the Judoon got a disgusted expression on his face.
"Not human." he snarled. "Requesting full scan."
Rose only stuck out her chin bravely. "Do what you want."
There was something there, something that flashed for a moment in her eyes, and Martha couldn't make out what it was. The Judoon saw it though, and turned and ran in fear.
Martha suddenly found herself a little bit scared of Rose Tyler.
"Come on... you've got to wake up!" Anything scary was gone in an instant. She was the scared one now, scared she was about to lose him, the last person she had left in the universe.
Martha laid a hand on top of hers. "Let me handle this. I know CPR."
"Two hearts." Rose mumbled. "He's got two hearts..."
"Don't worry, I'll save your alien boyfriend."
A few heart-wrenching moments, and the Doctor popped up, gasping for air. He wasn't the only one. Oxygen was running low for everyone. Rose couldn't speak anymore, only lie against his shoulder in relief and send a silent glance in Martha's direction.
Thank you.
The light outside started to change.
"What-what's-" struggled Martha.
The Doctor crawled to the window and smiled.
"The rain's going up."
"You need to stop doing that to me, yeah?" said Rose, unlocking the TARDIS.
"Yeah, I was worried about you too, thanks." replied the Doctor, taking her hand.
"Hey! You two! You're really going to leave without saying goodbye?" Martha had followed them out of the hospital.
"Well...not necessarily." The Doctor stared at Rose pleadingly, who rolled her eyes in a sort of allright, i give up gesture.
"Want to come with us?"
"Both of you? In that tiny box?"
Rose laughed knowingly. "It's bigger than you think."
"Alright. Just once. I wanna see how crazy you two really are."
Rose pushed in the door and let Martha walk in first, waiting for the telltale shriek.
"It's bigger on the inside!"
