Disclaimers: Same as Ch1

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Martha swallowed down the last of her tea, picked up her jacket and hugged the woman standing in front of her

"Thanks for helping me out Martha" said Dr Julia Swales

"It's ok, I've really enjoyed myself, I've been so busy with other things that I'd forgotten why I spent so many years training to be a doctor" she replied "listen, if things don't work out with Dr Petrova call me, ok"

"I will," said Julia. She opened the door and heard the sounds of arguing, which wasn't unusual but this sounded heated, Julia and Martha ran to the reception area and saw the receptionist, Mrs Chapel, blocking the way of an irate man in an RAF uniform

"I'm sorry Sir Dr Jones cannot be disturbed," Mrs Chapel said

"Look lady, all I'm asking you to do is get a message to her, it's urgent," said the man. Martha sighed,

"It's ok Mrs Chapel he's a friend of mine with an overdeveloped sense of the dramatic" he looked sheepish "so, is the world ending Jack?" she asked

"Not yet, why haven't you been answering your phone, I've been trying all day" he replied. It was Martha's turn to look sheepish

"Left it in my other jacket," she admitted with a blush "what is it you want?"

"I've found Ben Jackson, he's an Admiral working out of Whitehall, we're meeting with him a couple of hours," he said, Julia looked from one to the other in bewilderment.

"It's ok Julia, we've been doing some research together that's all, Jack Harkness meet Julia Swales" said Martha, Jack and Julia shook hands and Mrs Chapel gave him a look that would have had a mortal man shaking in his boots.

"Come on then" said Jack as he grabbed Martha's hand

"I'm sorry Julia, remember what I said, call me," she said as Jack dragged her away.


"What do you mean 'Overdeveloped sense of the dramatic?'" asked Jack as they drove towards the Admiralty in Whitehall

"Well, you bursting into a Doctor's surgery and throwing your weight around like you owned the place and scaring poor Mrs Chapel like that" said Martha with a smirk. Jack burst out laughing

"That woman makes the Daleks look like kindergarten teachers" he replied

"Somewhere out there is a lab where they genetically engineer doctor's receptionists," she said with a straight face

"That's a scary prospect, I'll get Owen to look into it," he said as they pulled into the Admiralty


"We're here to see Admiral Ben Jackson," said Jack to the receptionist

"And you are?" she replied, giving Jack and Martha a disdainful look

"Captain Jack Harkness and Dr Martha Jones" he said. The receptionist looked through a book and then got out of her chair

"Follow Me," she said as she marched down a corridor

"Y'know I was kidding when I made that remark about receptionists, now I'm not so sure" murmured Martha. The receptionist knocked on the door and entered

"Captain Harkness and Dr Jones to see you sir" she said

"Send them in," said the Admiral, the receptionist indicated for them to enter and closed the door giving Jack and Martha another disapproving look. A man in his sixties sat behind a desk next to him stood an elegant woman, the man got up and crossed to them

"I'm Ben Jackson and this is my wife Polly" the all shook hands and Ben indicated that they should sit "I understand you want to talk about the Doctor, why?" he said.

"We used to travel with the Doctor too" replied Jack as Martha handed her file over

"While I was travelling, I found some clothes that used to belong to his former companions, including a Naval uniform that belonged to you" said Martha. Polly sighed

"Goodness me that wardrobe room, I'd spend hours in there looking for clothes to blend in with wherever it was we were going," she said with a smile

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that Duchess," said Ben with a sly grin, Polly swatted his shoulder in annoyance at the term of endearment.

"How did you meet the Doctor?" asked Martha

"I was working for a Dr Brett as a secretary when the Doctor and Dodo, sorry Dorethea Chaplet although I can see why she preferred Dodo, came to see him. He was working on a computer that could actually think for itself for the Post Office called WOTAN and, like in a bad science fiction film, it tried to take over the world," said Polly.

"I got involved when I met Polly and Dodo in a nightclub, I was drowning my sorrows because my ship was off to the West Indies and I'd been stuck with a six month shore posting, anyway some guy was bothering them so I waded in" Ben explained, Polly rolled her eyes

"My hero" she said with an affectionate smile.

"WOTAN was supposed to link up with other computers around the world, Cape Kennedy, the White House and the Royal Navy, but it developed it's own agenda," said Polly

"Let me guess, enslave the human population to build robot's to take over" remarked Jack rolling his eyes. Polly nodded "AI's have problems thinking outside the box" Ben chuckled

"WOTAN gave out this beep that hypnotised people into working on it's War Machines, they ended up working on production lines until they dropped, Polly ended up on one of those production lines. I sought out the Doctor when I couldn't find her, we pieced together what was going on and alerted the army, they couldn't do much against WOTAN's War Machines but the Doctor had an idea of capturing one, with a lot of political, military and scientific support the Doctor managed to do it. He reprogrammed the War Machine, which I thought was pretty smart for an old boy, he went into the Post Office Tower under the cover of the reprogrammed War Machine and destroyed the WOTAN, saved the world" said Ben.

"Dodo decided she wanted to stay and asked us if we'd tell the Doctor for her and give him back his key, we tracked him down to an old Police Box and told him Dodo was staying in London, he thanked us and went inside. Just as he closed the door we remembered we still had Dodo's key and followed him inside, well you can inagine the shock when we found out it wasn't a police box and when we went through the doors it took off," said Ben.

"Tell me about it," replied Martha with a smile

"That wasn't the biggest shock we had, the Doctor changed, regenerated he called it, he went from being an old man with white hair to a younger man with black hair" said Polly.

"Why did you leave?" asked Martha

"We'd been investigating some weird goings with a bogus tour company at Gatwick airport, they were keeping humanoid...things in cabinets and using humans to make doppelgangers, exact copies, they copied me and Jamie. After we defeated them and made the world safe again, Ben and I decided we wanted to stay, it was the same day we'd left a year earlier so the Doctor said it wasn't a problem as our timeline's would carry on, so we stayed" said Polly squeezing Ben's hand

"And we carried on, I went back to work and Polly got herself a new job" said Ben.

"I thought you were in the Merchant Navy, how come you're an Admiral now" asked Martha, Ben chuckled

"After spending time saving the world and doing a lot of heroic things, going back to sailing the world on oil tankers was going to be a bit of a let down so I joined the Royal Navy" he smirked. "I decided to throw a spanner in the works and applied to Dartmouth college to be an officer, my credentials must have been good because I was accepted, I've often wondered if the Doctor had a hand in it. There were a lot of people back then who thought that someone as common as me should never be allowed to become an officer," said Ben with a grin

"I kept in contact with him while he was training at Dartmouth and eventually moved to Portsmouth, found work down there and married him in 1969" said Polly with a fond smile.


The four former companions chatted amicably for another couple of hours and promised to keep in touch. After he had dropped Martha off at her flat Jack got a message from UNIT about one of their former employees.