I was furious. I probably should have been scared, but all I could find in the emotional recesses of my mind was anger. Blame it on the motherly instincts I had for some reason. A series of unfortunate events, of pointless lies, had lead to this. A child was hurting, and I was going to put a stop to it right now.
"Go to your room!" I shouted. Everyone stood very still. Confidence buzzed through my veins like a drug. Oh, this was a bit fun, actually. "I said, go to your room!" The gas-mask zombies just stared, unmoving. "You heard me. You're in time out, and I am very angry with you. Now, go to your room!" The zombies hung their heads and slowly started shuffling back to their beds. Behind me, I heard the three people who actually belonged as part of this story let out a deep sigh.
"What made you do that?" The Doctor asked. I wanted to lie, I really did.
"You were gonna come up with that in a minute," I told him. I expected anger, or maybe discomfort, but the Doctor actually smiled.
"Well, then I'm really glad that worked. Those would have been terrible last words for either of us." I breathed a laugh, the confidence still burning through me.
Rose walked over and crouched beside one of the beds. Jack sat back in a chair and threw his legs on the desk. I leaned against the wall, trying to get my heartrate back to normal.
"Why are they all wearing gas masks?" Rose asked.
"They're not," Jack said. "Those masks are flesh and bone."
"Changing must hurt so much," I whispered. I ran my hand along the blanket the nearest patient was laying on. It was all I could do to keep from touching them. "I'm sorry."
"How was your con supposed to work?" the Doctor asked Jack.
"Simple enough, really," he started. "Find some harmless piece of space junk, let the nearest Time Agent track it back to Earth, convince him it's valuable, name a price. When he's put fifty percent up front, oops! A German bomb falls on it, destroys it forever. He never gets to see what he's paid for, never knows he's been had. I buy him a drink with his own money, and we discuss dumb luck. The perfect self-cleaning con."
"Yeah. Perfect," the Doctor almost scolded.
Jack opened his arms. "The London Blitz is great for self-cleaners. Pompeii's nice if you want to make a vacation of it though, but you've got to set your alarm for volcano day." Jack started laughing. A woman with red hair and the word Noble flashed in my mind, but again, I couldn't place it.
Jack had stopped laughing. "Take a look around the room," the Doctor prompted. "This is what your harmless piece of space-junk did."
"It was a burnt-out medical transporter. It was empty," Jack argued back.
"He's not lying," I offered. The Doctor looked me over again, then started walking away. He called to Rose, who fell into step with him immediately.
"Are we getting out of here?" she asked
"We're going upstairs," the Doctor answered. Jack watched them go, standing quickly and following. I walked in step with him.
"I even programmed the flight computer so it wouldn't land on anything living. I harmed no-one! I don't know what's happening here, but believe me, I had nothing to do with it." Standing as close as I was, I could see the beginnings of tears in Jack's eyes. He hadn't meant for it to be this.
The Doctor stopped at the door. "I'll tell you what's happening. You forgot to set your alarm clock. It's volcano day." A siren sounded before the Doctor had even finished his sentence.
"What's that?" Rose asked.
"The all clear," Jack explained quietly.
"I wish." The Doctor opened the door with more force than was necessary and stormed out. Rose followed directly behind him. Before he could follow, I put my hand on Jack's arm.
"If it helps, I don't… I believe you," I said gently. "I know you didn't do this on purpose." Jack smiled, then we ran off after the others.
Unfortunately, the Doctor was fast when he was angry, and soon we'd all lost him.
"Mister Spock?" Jack called.
"Seriously? Do they not have Star Trek in the 51st century?" I asked. Jack stared at me blankly. "Oh my God, they don't."
"Doctor?" Rose called.
We ran passed a staircase. "Have you got a blaster?" echoed down the stairwell. We skidded to a halt and I was glad again that I'd chosen boots over period shoes.
"Sure!" Jack respond, and then we were all dashing up the stairs. We stopped again a thick metal door labeled 802. The Doctor commanded Jack to get the door open. He shot the lock, and I had to admit a square of iron several inches thick disappearing was a lot more impressive without early 2000's CGI.
"Sonic blaster, fifty first century," I pretended to observe.
"Weapon Factories of Villengard?" the Doctor finished
"You've been to the factories?" Jack seemed legitimately surprised and handed his blaster over.
"Nope." I passed the blaster to the Doctor without a glance at it.
"Once." The Doctor looked it over
"Well, they're gone now, destroyed. The main reactor went critical. Vaporized the lot."
"Like I said. Once." The Doctor shoved Jack's blaster back into his hands. "There's a banana grove there, now." He explained seemingly to only Rose. "I like bananas. Bananas are good." The Doctor walked into the room and I followed right behind.
"Bananas are good," I agreed solemnly.
The room we walked into was trashed. Furniture were scattered as easily as paper across the floor. An observation window had been shattered in the direction of the observers, although the recorder on the desk remained intact. "What do you think?" the Doctor asked no one in particular. I walked and looked through the window.
"Something got out of here," Jack took it upon himself to answer
"Yeah. And?"
"Something powerful. Angry," Jack continued. I picked up a piece of the broken glass
"Powerful and angry," the Doctor agreed.
Still holding the glass, I walked into the observable part of the room. My heart made a valiant effort to leave my body via my throat. The air in the room hung so heavy with confusion and loss that it hurt. There were children's drawings everywhere on the walls and the floor. Before he started to lose his mind, Jamie must have been reasonably sane. And so, so alone.
"Powerful and afraid," I corrected too quietly.
"A child?" Jack asked. It occured to me Jack and Rose hadn't been with the Doctor and I at the house. They hadn't seen the little boy. "I suppose this explains Mummy."
"How could a child do this?" Rose pointed her thumb at the broken window. Before anyone could think an answer, the Doctor managed to get the recorder to play.
I blocked out the sound and walked in slow circles around the room. Every drawing was clearly of a girl with pigtails, usually she was smiling. My heart broke all over again for the child. I just wanted to hold him. Lonely. I put my hand on the wall, and rested my forehead against it. There was so much fear and anger and sorrow in this room.
"Doctor?" Rose asked. I looked up and turned slightly, hand still pressed to the wall. I hadn't noticed him enter, but now he was pacing around the room.
"Can you sense it?" he asked.
"Sense what?" Jack asked. I just watched the Doctor in silence.
"Coming out of the walls. Can you feel it?" The Doctor stopped pacing in front on me.
"Yes," I whispered, blinking away tears. He looked over me to the others.
"Funny little human brains. How do you get around in those things?" Perfectly well, thank you, I might have answered in a different life.
"When he's stressed, he likes to insult species," Rose explained, but I barely heard her. Afraid. Lonely.
"Rose, I'm thinking," the Doctor hushed. Why did she leave me?
"He cuts himself shaving, does half an hour on life forms he's cleverer than." She left me all alone. Are you my mummy?
"There are these children living rough round the bomb sites. We meet them." The Doctor gestured between us a few times. "They come out during air-raids looking for food."
"Mummy, please?" I pretty sure it was still the recorder.
"Suppose they were there when this thing, whatever it was, landed?" he continued.
"Jamie," I whispered into the wall.
"It was a med-ship," Jack argued again. "It was harmless."
"Yes, you keep saying harmless," the Doctor almost spat at Jack. He turned back to Rose. "Suppose one of them was affected, altered?"
"Altered how?" Rose asked
"I'm here!" The tape was out.
"He's afraid," I choked out. Jack and Rose turned to look at me. My hand were shaking again and I couldn't look up from my shoes. "That little boy, he's so afraid and so lonely."
"Terribly afraid," the Doctor agreed. "and powerful." He paused to wheeze out a laugh. "It doesn't know it yet, but it will do. It's got the power of a god,"
Fear that was my own for once settled in my gut. I turned from the wall toward the others. "And I just sent it to it's room," I realized. Rose was looking back and forth between the Doctor and me, shaking almost as bad as I was.
"Doctor." She said it like a question.
"I'm here. Can't you see me?" the child asked.
"What's that noise?" Rose almost shouted.
"End of the tape," the Doctor all but whispered, face shifting back to serious. "It ran out about thirty seconds ago." Who are you? Are you my mummy?
"I sent it to it's room," I managed. "This room." The Doctor spun and stepped out of the way. The child was just standing there. He was so small, his chest barely reached the table the recorder was on. He wasn't afraid in this moment. He was confused, and a little angry.
"Are you my mummy?" He seemed to ask Rose. He turned to me. "Mummy?"
"No," I told him. "I'm not-"
"Doctor?" Rose barely said. He was standing protectively in front of her, holding his arms up to shield her. I didn't dare move.
"Okay, on my signal make for the door." Jack crept closer to the child and reached into his jacket. "Now!" Jack pulled out a banana, and I almost choked on the laugh that forced its way out of my lungs. The Doctor grinned, pulled the blaster from his belt and aimed it at the wall.
"Go now!" he commanded. "Don't drop the banana!"
"Why not?!" Jack cried, as we made a mad dash for the square hole in the wall.
"Good source of potassium!"
As soon as we were all on the other side, Jack snatched his blaster back and put the missing square in the wall back into the wall. "Digital rewind," he explained, out of breath, tossing the banana back to the Doctor. "Nice switch."
"Groves of Villengard?" I questioned, not able to remember the answer among all the things happening in my brain and the lack of oxygen in my lungs.
"I thought it was appropriate," the Doctor confessed.
"There's really a banana grove in the heart of Villengard and you did that?" Jack asked. Rose gave me a look that said, 'boys'. I shrugged.
"Bananas are good." We had a whole half-second of peace before the wall cracked and we all stumble back
"Doctor!" Rose cried.
"Come on!" The Doctor picked a direction and ran. I took two steps before I decided to stay put. No sense in running twice more than I had to. I pressed myself against the wall to avoid being run over when they sped past me in the other direction. They ran into a problem there too and stopped back in front of me.
"He's gonna keep us here," I told them.
"It's controlling them?" Jack asked.
"It is them." The Doctor spoke before I could. "It's every living thing in this hospital."
"Okay." Jack was spinning between the wall and the slowly advancing patients. "This can function as a sonic blaster, a sonic cannon, and as a triple-enfolded sonic disruptor. Doc, what you got?"
"I've got a sonic, er." The Doctor pulled out his screwdriver with a smile before realizing this might be the one situation it wasn't any use for. "Oh, never mind."
"What?" Jack called. I was smiling despite myself. I couldn't remember if we died here, but the banter was well worth it. Or maybe I was disassociating again.
"It's sonic, okay? Let's leave it at that."
"Disrupter? Cannon? What?"
"It's sonic!" The Doctor's voice only cracked a little. Rose looked like she was trying not to have as much fun as I was. "Totally sonic! I am soniced up!"
"A sonic what?!"
"Screwdriver!" Jack turned and stared dumbfounded at the Doctor. The wall cracked, but before I could even consider how dead I was, Rose grabbed Jack's wrists and aimed his blaster down.
"Going down!" Then there wasn't a floor, and we fell. As soon as we hit the ground, Jack aimed up and put the floor back
"Doctor, are you okay?" Rose asked. I stood up. My right ankle was shot through with pain, but otherwise I was fine.
"Could've used a warning." The others rose slowly. My ankle hurt when I put my weight on it, but it was no worse than a playground injury. I could walk it off.
"Oh, the gratitude," Rose teased, walking away immediately.
"Who has a sonic screwdriver?" Jack demanded. I pointed at the Doctor.
"I do," he defended.
"Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks, ooo, this could be a little more sonic?" Jack demanded.
"Who ever owned the factories at Villengrad?" I offered.
"Oh, now your on his side?" Jack said to me. I just shrugged.
"Oh, what, you've never been bored?" the Doctor offered. "Never had a long night? Never had a lot of cabinets to put up?" Rose found the lightswitch, which was maybe a mistake. When the lights flared on, a whole unwoken ward of gas mask zombies sat up.
"Door," Jack said, far more calm than he had any right to be.
"Don't bother with the blaster," I cried as we ran. "The battery's dead." The Doctor opened the lock in a matter of seconds, and we tumbled into the next room.
"The battery?" Rose cried, affronted. "That's so lame!" Jack didn't stop, just ran across the room and started checking the window.
"I was going to send for another one, but somebody's got to blow up the factory," Jack said to the Doctor's back, while the Doctor worked to lock and reinforce the door.
"You can both time travel!" I said to the men.
"First day I met him, he blew my job up," Rose explained to both me and Jack. "That's practically how he communicates."
"Okay, that door should hold it for a bit." The Doctor nearly skipped away.
"The door? The wall didn't stop it!" Jack shouted.
"Well, the wall did 'hold it for a bit'," I argued. Jack threw his hands up in the air.
"And, it's got to find us first! Come on, we're not done yet! Assets, assets!" The Doctor started pulling open drawers and cabinets. Rose followed his example, even though she had no idea what she was looking for.
"Well, I've got a banana, and in a pinch, you could put up some shelves," Jack said.
"Oh come on, you can do more than that with a regular screwdriver," I bantered. "Build a chair, build a desk, build a… bedframe." Jack gave me a long shuffering look, despite having only known me for half an hour.
"Are you done?" he asked
"Hopefully not."
"Window," the Doctor called, jumping on a desk to look.
"Barred. Sheer drop outside. Seven stories," Jack spat.
"And no other exits." Rose was smiling, so I let myself smile to.
"Well, the assets conversation went in a flash, didn't it?" Jack sounded bitter. The Doctor turned to me, and I shrugged, not really sure was he was asking. He turned to Rose.
"So, where'd you pick this one up, then?"
"Doctor," Rose muttered.
"She was hanging from a barrage balloon, I had an invisible spaceship," Jack flirted. "I never stood a chance." The two shared a smile and I could feel the possessiveness rolling off the Doctor from the other side of the room.
"Okay. One, we've got to get out of here. Two, we can't get out of here." The Doctor returned to the window. I watched him work, wondering if a seven story drop was really that bad. "Have I missed anything?"
"Yeah. Jack just disappeared." The Doctor and I both spun to see the wheelchair Jack had been sitting in now completely empty. We made a few half-hearted looks around the room, but Jack was definitely gone.
"Rude," I mumbled to no one.
"Okay, so he's vanished into thin air." Rose leaned against the table next to the Doctor. "Why is it always the great looking ones who do that?"
I made an effort to tuck myself into a back corner. I hoped they'd forget I was there.
"I'm making an effort not to be insulted," the Doctor complained.
"I mean," she paused. "Men."
"Okay, thanks, that really helped." I bit my lip around a smile. Oh, if only he knew.
A radio we hadn't noticed in the room crackled to life before I could make a decision I might regret.
"Rose? Katelyn?" My name hit me like a bullet. "Doctor? Can you hear me? I'm back on my ship," said Jack's voice. "Used the emergency teleport. Sorry I couldn't take you. It's security-keyed to my molecular structure." The Doctor held up the cut off ends of the radio's wires with curiosity. "I'm working on it. Hang in there."
"How're you speaking to us," the Doctor asked, looking back and forth between Rose and I.
"Om-Com," Jack's voice explained. "I can call anything with a speaker grill."
"That's some serious backward compatibility," I mumbled.
"Now there's a coincidence," the Doctor said.
"What is?" said Jack.
"The child can Om-Com, too."
"He can?" Rose was starting to catch on, I could tell
"Anything with a speaker grill," the Doctor explained. "Even the TARDIS phone."
"The one on the outside, not the working one on the inside," I explained pointlessly.
"What, you mean the child can phone us?" Rose was scared and fascinated.
"And I can hear you," the child sing-songed through the radio. "Coming to find you. Coming to find you." Alone and angry.
I focused hard on blocking those emotions out. I had no idea how, but I knew they were the child's. I wondered, if I could almost track him through his emotions, could he find me? I closed my eyes and imagined the child, in all his fear, back in the observation room, and I closed the door.
"Coming to find you, mummy." A song that I couldn't place for the life of me replaced the child's voice, and the emotions faded.
"Our song," I heard Rose say. The Doctor gave a knowing sort of nod and moved back to the window. Rose plopped herself in the wheelchair Jack had been sitting in. I boosted myself onto a table, trying very hard to not be seen, slowly trying to build barriers around my mind. I had no real idea what I was doing, or if I was doing it even a little bit correctly, but it felt nice to have something to focus on.
I was so focused, in fact, I didn't notice anything until Rose turned the radio up. I looked at her and wiggled my eyebrows. She shot me a glare, blushing, so I gave her a thumbs up and waved her on. She walked a few more steps and held her hand out to the Doctor. "You've got the moves? Show me your moves," she challenged.
The Doctor looked like he really didn't want to argue, but felt like he had to. I covered my grin with my sleeve. If only he knew.
"Rose, I'm trying to resonate concrete." His voice wavered as much as his resolve.
"Jack'll be back. He'll get us out," Rose insisted, not swayed in the slightest. "So come on. The world doesn't end because the Doctor dances." The Doctor Dances.
That was the name of this episode. The rest of the plot flooded into my brain. I had to grip the table until my knuckles turned white to keep from falling. When I managed to open my eyes, Rose and the Doctor we're holding each other in that almost dance. Knowing what came next, I jumped off the table and closed my eyes again. I wasn't too keen on teleportation.
"You'll find your feet at the end of your legs," I heard Rose tease. "You may care to move them."
"If ever he was a Captain, he's been defrocked."
"Yeah?" Rose sounded almost drunk. I could imagine the look on her face, trying so hard not the admit she's in love. "Shame I missed that."
"Actually, I quit." I snapped my eyes open, surprised by the lack of sensation that came with the teleport. "Nobody takes my frock." The Doctor and Rose separated slowly, like they knew the should have jumped but didn't want to let go. "Most people notice when they've been teleported. You guys are so sweet." Jack climbed out of the pilot's chair and started fiddling with the controls. "Sorry about the delay. I had to take the nav-com offline to override the teleport security."
"You can spend ten minutes overriding your own protocols? Maybe you should remember whose ship it is." Even the Doctor seemed to think he was grasping at straws, just wanting to complain some more about Jack. Or just annoyed at the interruption.
"Oh, I do. She was gorgeous. Like I told her, be back in five minutes." Jack disappeared under the hub.
"This is a Chula ship," the Doctor observed.
"Yeah, just like that medical transporter." Jack stayed under the hub, but pointed to what was clearly the controls for a weapons system. "Only this one is dangerous."
The Doctor snapped his fingers, and I watched what must have been millions of glowing nanogenes swarm his hand.
"They're what fixed my hands up." Rose looked delighted to see the little things again. I couldn't help but agree. "Jack called them, er-"
"Nanobots?" the Doctor guessed. "Nanogenes." When Rose agreed, the Doctor launched into an explanation about nanogenes and how they worked that I chose to ignore. I snapped my own fingers, and a small group of the little robots settled around my hand. It kinda tickled. I stifled a giggle. "Take us to the crash site. I need to see your space junk."
"As soon as I get the nav-com back online," Jack didn't bother arguing. "Make yourself comfortable. Carry on with whatever it was you were doing." I sat down on what I think was the bed, although it was cramped and uncomfortable, twisting my hand to observe the nanogense from all directions.
"We were talking about dancing," the Doctor said, oblivious.
"It didn't look like talking," Jack encouraged.
"It didn't feel like dancing," Rose all but agreed. An awkward silence settled on the ship, which only Rose really seemed to hate.
"So, you used to be a Time Agent, now you're trying to con them?" she asked Jack.
"If it makes me sound any better, it's not for the money," Jack sighed, still working away to get his ship back in flying order.
"For what?" Rose asked, seemingly glad.
"Woke up one day when I was still working for them, found they'd stolen two years of my memories." Jack spoke quietly. "I'd like them back."
"They stole your memories?" Rose said in a tone that made it clear she didn't quite believe him. The Doctor looked at Jack, reading him, trying to decide if he was lying.
"Two years of my life. No idea what I did." The Doctor looked away. Jack nodded. "Your friend over there doesn't trust me, and for all I know he's right not to."
"Maybe they weren't stolen," I offered.
Jack stopped working and everyone fixed their eyes on me. "What do you mean?" he asked in a carefully controlled tone.
"Total shot in the dark here." I shrugged, but the pressure of three sets of eyes boring into me wasn't exactly keeping me calm. "Maybe they weren't taken. I mean, when the human brain wants to forget trauma or whatever, it doesn't really erase the information. Maybe they were… suppressed." There was absolute silence on the ship. I locked eyes with the Doctor, trying to communicate that this really was just a guess before I focused my eyes on my boots. "I don't know, just an idea." The ship beeped a triple tone, and Jack spun around to start piloting.
I didn't look up from my shoes until Jack had parked the ship in the air close to the rail station. I didn't want to see the look I'm sure the Doctor was giving me, because it really was just a guess. Once at the crash site, we all climbed out rather gracelessly and huddled behind some crates.
"There it is," Jack declared, even though we could all see everything quite easily. "Hey, they've got Algy on duty. It must be important."
"We've got to get past him," the Doctor said.
"Are the words distract the guard heading in my general direction?" Rose teased, already shifting to start walking.
Jack blocked her. "I don't think that'd be such a good idea."
"Don't worry. I can handle it." Rose almost sounded offended. Jack gave her a look.
"I've got to know Algy quite well since I've been in town."
"How well, captain?" I teased.
"Hush, you," he said, unfazed. "Trust me, neither of you are his type. I'll distract him." Jack moved before Rose could argue. "Don't wait up."
Rose looked away from Jack with a bewildered expression. "Relax, he's a fifty first century guy," The Doctor said, nodding in the direction of Jack's back. "He's just a bit more flexible when it comes to dancing."
"How flexible?" Rose stuttered out.
"Well, Rose," I decided to interject. "I'm as flexible as Jack's shown so far, and you and I are still from the same century, so do with that information what you will."
"And, by his time, you lot have spread out across half the galaxy." The Doctor didn't hesitate, but I tried my best not to flinch at the look Rose gave me.
"Meaning?"
"So many species, so little time." The Doctor sounded almost impressed.
"What, that's what we do when we get out there?" Rose sounded like she didn't believe us. "That's our mission? We seek new life, and, and-"
"Dance," the Doctor and I said in unison. He smile from ear to ear, and I would have laughed if we weren't supposed to be stealthy.
We watched Jack approach the other soldier, spring in his step, and have a very confused conversation with the soldier. Algy looked like we was going to puke, then fell forward on his knees. We broke into a run. "Stay back!"
The Doctor looked down and Algy laying on the ground with a gas mask face. His face was the picture of stress. "The effect's become airborne, accelerating," he warned. An air raid siren started up again.
"What's keeping us safe?" Rose asked with all the confidence of someone who'd nearly died a good number of times.
"Dumb luck?" I offered. I could hear singing, and was trying to listen for where I knew they were keeping Nancy.
"Nothing," the Doctor corrected.
I wandered away, knowing the Doctor would be behind me in a minute. Nancy was sitting surprisingly calmly when I found her, but stopped singing when she heard the door open. I gestured for her to keep singing. She shook her cuff, and I bit my lip. I should have grabbed the keys before I ran off.
But then the Doctor was brushing past my shoulder, pulling out the sonic and making quick work of the hand cuffs. Nancy stopped singing immediately, as we all rushed back out into the night. I heard the spotlights flare on behind me, as I took my time trying to lock the storehouse door.
There was a sound of sparks, and an alarm started blaring from the Chula ambulance.
"Didn't happen last time," Jack said as I ran over.
"It hadn't crashed last time," the Doctor explained. "There'll be emergency protocols."
The only gate into the fenced in area starting shaking. I was the only one who knew what was on the other side, but from the fear on everyone's faces, they could all hazard a guess.
"Captain, secure those gates!" the Doctor sprung into action
"Why?"
"Just do it! Nancy, how'd you get in here?"
"I cut the wire," she said without hesitation. "Like she suggested."
"Show Rose." The Doctor tossed his sonic screwdriver to Rose. "Setting 2428-D."
"What?
"Reattaches barbed wire. Go!" I climbed up on the ambulance with the Doctor.
"You have a setting for repairing barbed wire, but nothing for wood?" The Doctor chose to ignore me. Jack came back over and fiddled with the controls. I started pacing around, frustrated with how useless I was.
The alarm didn't turn off, but Jack slid the door open.
"It's empty. Look at it."
"What do you expect in a Chula medical transporter?" the Doctor snapped. "Bandages? Cough drops? Rose?"
"Why would Rose be in there?" I teased, stopping pacing and joining the group again.
"Really? Sass?" The Doctor accused.
"It's how I cope." The Doctor shook his head. "Rose?"
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do," he encouraged. The Doctor held his hand up.
"Nanogenes!" Rose declared
"It wasn't empty, Captain. There was enough nanogenes in there to rebuild a species."
"That seems excessive," I said at the same time that Jack said "Oh, God."
"Getting it now, are we?" the Doctor snapped again. No patience for anyone but Rose, it seemed. "When the ship crashes, the nanogenes escape. Billions upon billions of them, ready to fix all the cuts and bruises in the whole world. But what they find first is a dead child, probably killed earlier that night, and wearing a gasmask."
"And they brought him back to life?" Rose gasped. "They can do that?"
"What's life? Life's easy. A quirk of matter." The Doctor was on a roll. "Nature's way of keeping meat fresh. Nothing to a nanogene. One problem, though. These nanogenes, they're not like the ones on your ship. This lot have never seen a human being before. Don't know what a human being's supposed to look like."
"Wait," I whispered. I had a sudden realization. The nanogene's on Jack's ship shouldn't have known what a Time Lord was supposed to be like. How did they heal the Doctor? Did he just have a patch of human skin on the back of his hand now? Did it matter?
"All they've got to go on is one little body, and there's not a lot left. But they carry right on. They do what they're programmed to do. They patch it up. Can't tell what's gasmask and what's skull, but they do their best. Then off they fly, off they go, work to be done. Because, you see, now they think they know what people should look like, and it's time to fix all the rest." Jack looked like he was going to be sick. If I didn't have such a firm image in my mind of how I knew this played out, I might have joined him.
"And they won't ever stop. They won't ever, ever stop. The entire human race is going to be torn down and rebuilt in the form of one terrified child looking for its mother, and nothing in the world can stop it!"
"I didn't know." Jack was doing a truly amazing job of not crying. I could feel his regret, his sorrow without even needing this weird empathy thing I was doing.
Silence fell following that comment and we all shuffled around awkwardly. The Doctor jumped back onto the ambulance and started fiddling with the controls. The patients shuffled slowly closer, calling "Mummy, mummy" the whole time. The door to the shelter Nancy had been kept in shook. Amidst the quiet chaos, I allowed myself a pat on the back.
"It's bringing the gas mask people here, isn't it?" Rose asked, panicked. I dimly noted that she asked a lot more questions than I remembered.
"The ship thinks it's under attack." The Doctor was frowning in that way he did when he solved a mystery, but was wishing the answer was different. "It's calling up the troops. Standard protocol."
I watched the advancing gas-mask zombies with fear sinking slowly into my bones. "Remind me to never mess with the Chula." I spun in a circle, watching them close in on all sides. "Scratch that, remind me to never meet the Chula."
"But the gas mask people aren't troops," Rose protested weakly.
"They are now. This is a battlefield ambulance. The nanogenes don't just fix you up, they get you ready for the front line. Equip you, programme you." I tried not to be impressed, I really did.
"That's why the child's so strong," Rose realized. "Why it could do that phoning thing."
"It's a fully equipped Chula warrior, yes." The Doctor turned away from the ambulance and gestured to the slowly advancing patients around us. "All that weapons tech in the hands of a hysterical four year old looking for his mummy. And now there's an army of them."
We watched the patients stop around the perimeter. "Why don't they attack?" Jack asked.
"Good little soldiers, waiting for their commander."
"The child?" Jack sounded indignant, like that was the last thing he cared to imagine.
"Jamie," Nancy corrected quietly. I walked over to her and placed a hand on her back.
"What?" Jack asked.
"Not the child." Nancy couldn't look away from the fence. "Jamie."
"So how long until the bomb falls?" Rose's voice was shaky with panic, so I reached over and put a hand on her shoulder too.
"Any second."
"What's the matter, Captain?" The Doctor advanced on Jack like he wanted to slap him, but turned toward the fence instead. "A bit close to the volcano for you?" I could feel the tension rising. Anger, fear, guilt, swirled in a thunderstorm around me. I had to close my eyes against the intensity of emotion swirling around me. I started to feel dizzy, and dropped my hands from the women's shoulders in favor of bracing myself against the ambulance. I couldn't hear the conversation around me, until the tiniest spark of understanding broke through the chaos.
"Nancy, what age are you?" the Doctor asked gently. I focused on his voice, tried to pull myself back into my own head. "Twenty? Twenty one? Older than you look, yes?" I heard an explosion very close. That was enough to pull me back.
"Doctor, that bomb. We've got seconds," Jack warned, voice only cracking a little.
Another explosion. "You can teleport us out," Rose tried. Jack shook his head.
"Not you guys. The nav-com's back online." Jack was speaking, but I found that neither the Doctor nor I was really listening. "Going to take too long to override the protocols." Nancy was all but sobbing, regret pouring off her.
"So it's volcano day." The Doctor didn't look away from Nancy's face. "Do what you've got to do." I heard Rose speak, and Jack teleport away.
"How old were you five years ago?" the Doctor asked Nancy. "Fifteen? Sixteen? Old enough to give birth, anyway." I put my hands back on Nancy's shoulders and tried to give the Doctor a pointed look. He ignored me. "He's not your brother, is he?" Nancy looked up for a split second, before bowing and shaking her head. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders. "A teenage single mother in 1941. So you hid. You lied. You even lied to him." Nancy was sniffling now with her nods.
We didn't have much time to focus on this revelation. At that moment, the gates swung open to reveal Jamie at the front of a crowd of the gas-mask soldiers. Nancy flashed with so many emotions I had to pull away. My mind stung like I'd been burned.
"Are you my mummy?" Nancy looked at the Doctor, begging for help, but his expression remained schooled.
"He's going to keep asking, Nancy. He's never going to stop." Jamie started advancing. "Tell him." The Doctor's tone finally took on a gentler note. "Nancy, the future of the human race is in your hands. Trust me and tell him." Nancy sniffled a few more times, looking to the sky like she was praying.
"Are you my mummy?" The Doctor put his hand on Nancy's back, gently pushing her to turn and walk toward Jamie. "Are you my mummy?" She smiled sadly, but kept walking. "Are you my mummy?"
"Yes," Nancy breathed. Even from my spot several feet behind her, I could feel the weight the confession took off her shoulders. "Yes, I am your mummy."
"Mummy?" Jamie's tone was hopeful, but I couldn't feel any emotion from him anymore.
"I'm here."
"Are you my mummy?" Jamie advanced with no change of pace or cadence.
"I'm here." Nancy kneeled in front of her child.
"Are you my mummy?" Jame stopped walking.
"Yes."
"Are you my mummy?"
"He doesn't understand," the Doctor said. I didn't dare look away from Nancy.
"Yes, he does," I insisted, more to remind myself than anything else.
"There's not enough of him left."
"Yes, there is"
"I am your mummy. I will always be your mummy." Nancy's voice wavered only a little. I'm so sorry." She lifted to her knees, wrapping her son in a tight hug. I felt tears in my eyes, and reached up to touch my cheek. I was crying. "I am so, so sorry."
The air around Nancy and Jamie lit up. "What's happening?" Rose sounded more amazed than afraid. When I looked, the Doctor face was the picture of pleading hope. "Doctor, it's changing her, we should-"
"Shush!" He didn't even look at Rose. "Come on, please. Come on, you clever little nanogenes. Figure it out!" The cloud circle around Nancy and Jamie, almost like it was reading. "The mother," the Doctor all but begged. "She's the mother. It's got to be enough information. Figure it out."
"What's happening?"
"See?" The Doctor pointed, even though we were all already looking. "Recognising the same DNA." Jamie let go what must have been a death drip hug, and Nancy fell to the ground. We ran forward. "Oh, come on," the Doctor pleaded. "Give me a day like this. Give me this one."
The Doctor reached forward slowly, and pulled the gas-mask off Jamie's head. Nancy choked on a laugh. Rose and I glanced at each other before breaking out into stupidly wide grins and hugging. "Ha-ha! Welcome back!" the Doctor declared. He lifted Jamie up off the ground and held him. "Twenty years till pop music - you're going to love it." Jamie had to good graces to not look too confused. The Doctor hugged the child tightly.
"What happened?" Nancy asked, in an ear-splitting grin. The Doctor shifted Jamie in his arms, not ready to let the little boy down.
"The nanogenes recognised the superior information, the parent DNA." You wouldn't have had to look at the Doctor to know he was smiling. "They didn't change you because you changed them! Ha-ha!" The Doctor finally passed Jamie to Nancy. "Mother knows best!"
A very nearby explosion startled at least Rose and I out of the happy stupor. "Doctor, that bomb," Rose reminded him.
"Taken care of it." The Doctor grinned at Rose.
"How?" she asked, clearly trying very hard not to match his grin. The Doctor gestured with wide arms.
"Psychology," he declared, then clasped his arms behind his back. The bomb came hurtling down toward us, but at what was very close to the last second, Jack's ship swooped in and caught the bomb in a light beam. I laughed, not realizing how tense I'd been until I was relieved. Jack appeared on top of the bomb.
"Doctor!" Jack called.
"Good lad!"
"The bomb's already commenced detonation," Jack warned. "I've put it in stasis but it won't last long."
"Change of plan." The Doctor gestured around to show the danger had gone. "Don't need the bomb. Can you get rid of it, safely as you can?" The hesitation in Jack's answer sunk my stomach. The memories of how this episode really ended focused in my head.
"Rose?" Jack called.
"Yeah?" She smiled hopefully.
"Goodbye." Jack and the bomb vanished for a second, then reappeared. "By the way, love the T-shirt." Then Jack was gone, and his ship disappeared into the sky. Rose pulled absently at the T-Shirt as if she'd forgotten which one she was wearing and smiled almost shyly. I waved at the empty air.
The Doctor stepped forward, looking at his hands and biting his lip. The nanogenes in the air focused around him. "What are you doing?" Rose asked, still smiling.
"Software patch." The Doctor looked back and forth between his hands, clearly focused. Gonna email the upgrade." He looked forward to where most of the gas-mask zombies were still standing. "You want moves, Rose? I'll give you moves." He threw his hands out in front of him. The glow followed the movement, swarming forward and surrounding that patients. They stood for a second, before collapsing to the ground.
Some nanogenes circled back and glowed around my ankle. I giggled at the feeling, and bent down to hold the tiny robots. They swirled in my cupped hands, like a billion tiny fireflies. It was cute.
"Everybody lives, Rose," the Doctor shouted in absolute joy. "Just this once, everybody lives!" The patients stood back up slowly, shaking their heads, looking extremely confused. Rose laughed in relief behind me. Everyone who'd been affected was completely back to normal. They were better than back to normal.
The Doctor ran forward. When I took a step to follow him, the nanogenes stayed in a clump in my cupped hands. I could almost feel them trying to fight against the deactivation software the Doctor had patched into them. "Then don't," I whispered to the small clump in my hands. They stopped glowing, but I could still barely feel the weight of them. I dropped the cluster of nanogenes in my coat pocket, just as Rose came over and grabbed my hand.
Her joy hit me in the gut like the best kind of sucker punch. I couldn't help but mirror her smile as we ran back toward the TARDIS. The Doctor explained the whole way back, recounting the whole adventure as if we hadn't been there. He didn't stop as he paused to unlock the TARDIS doors, or when he burst in and up the the console.
"The nanogenes will clean up the mess and switch themselves off, because I just told them to. Except for that bit in you pocket." He pointed at me, but he was clearly to busy riding the high of 'nobody died' to be anything near mad at me. "Nancy and Jamie will go to Doctor Constantine for help, ditto. All in all, all things considered, fantastic!" He clapped and laughed, dancing around the console and pushing buttons with no real purpose.
"Look at you, beaming away like you're Father Christmas," Rose said, a similar smile on her own face.
"Who says I'm not, red bicycle when you were twelve?" The Doctor said all in one breath.
Rose's smile faded in surprise. "What?"
"And everybody lives, Rose!" He sprung over to us and put his hands on my shoulders.
"Everybody lives," I agreed.
"Everybody lives!" He danced away again. "I need more days like this."
"Doctor." Rose's sudden worry was a shocking contrast to the joy bouncing around the TARDIS walls. The Doctor didn't seem to notice.
"Go on, ask me anything. I'm on fire!"
"What about Jack?" The Doctor's smile slowly slid of his face. "Why'd he say goodbye?" The Doctor fiddled with controls for a minute, before smiling softly.
"I don't know." He flipped a few switches, and the TARDIS whooshed then settled. Rose walked over to the Doctor, but I knew where we were already.
I bounded to the TARDIS doors, threw them open, and watched Jack down the last of his drink. The same song from earlier started up again, and Jack turned to stare at the doors. I leaned in the door frame in an foolish attempt to look kinda cool.
"You know, most people notice when they've been boarded," I teased. Jack shot out of his chair, and all but sprinted closer. "Especially with this beauty. She makes a lot of noise." I stepped out of the doorway to let him in and we both just stood and stared at Rose and the Doctor almost maybe slow dancing a bit.
"Okay. And right and turn." The Doctor spun Rose, but didn't seem to want to take his hands off her. Her arm got caught in his hand and tugged against her back. I smiled fondly, remembering my own awkward first dance with… someone. The face and name stayed fuzzy. "Okay, okay, try and spin me again," Rose said to the Doctor. He was frowning, his hands in his pockets. "but this time don't get my arm up my back. No extra points for a half-nelson."
"I'm sure I used to know this stuff," the Doctor muttered to no one in particular. He broke away from Rose and turned back to the console, working to get us away from Jack's ship. "Close the door, will you?" Jack and I both scrambled to close the TARDIS doors. "Your ship's about to blow up. There's going to be a draught." The Doctor flipped on last switch, and the TARDIS was off into the Vortex. "Welcome to the TARDIS."
"Much bigger on the inside," Jack observed, looking down one of the corridors off the console room. I stepped away from the door and boosted myself onto the metal railings that surrounded the console.
"You'd better be," the Doctor said pointedly, flicking some more switches. I wondered how many of them did nothing. The TARDIS hummed offense into my mind, so I patted the coral strut next to me.
"I think what the Doctor's trying to say is." Rose swayed over past me to Jack and held her hand out. "You may cut in." She grinned with her tongue between her teeth.
I risked a glance at the Doctor, who was doing his absolute best not to glare at Jack. He just stared for a second, then his face lit up.
"Rose!" The other two turned to look at him. "I've just remembered!"
"What?" Rose laughed. The music picked up from a slow waltz to a much faster swing song. I looked at the ceiling, and the TARDIS hummed the equivalent of 'no, I don't know how the music changed either'. I rolled my eyes, smiling.
"I can dance!" the Doctor declared. He stepped a jazz square in place, snapping to the beat of the music. "I can dance!"
"Actually, Doctor," Rose said, sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than anyone else. "I thought Jack might like this dance."
"I'm sure he would, Rose." The Doctor didn't stop dancing a jazz square as he spoke. Rose was biting her lip hard, desperately trying not to smile. "I'm absolutely certain. But who with?" With a wide smile and trying not to laugh, Rose ran up to the Doctor, taking his hand and dancing around the console.
"What am I, invisible and/or chopped liver?" I muttered, not in the least actually upset. I slipped of the bar and offered my hand to Jack. "Captain?"
"I can't swing dance," he admitted.
"Well, neither can I." I wiggled my fingers. With a laugh, Jack took my hand and spun me once. We awkwardly tried to step around to the beat, both focusing far more on the other pair in the TARDIS than each other. I watched the Doctor dip Rose. I heard her nearly shriek in delight. The two just held each other as the song faded out, the Doctor shooting Jack a 'hands off the blonde' look over Roses shoulder.
The TARDIS hum pressed at the back of my mind, and I became aware of exactly how exhausted I was. I pulled away from Jack, collapsed into the jump seat with all the grace of a dying squid, and pressed my eyes shut.
"Tired?" someone asked.
"Usually," I mumbled. I heard laughter, then someone was grabbing my hands and trying to pull me to my feet.
"Come on." I peeled my eyes open to see it was Rose holding my hands and trying to convince me to stand. When she saw my open eyes, she pulled again. I didn't move.
"I'd rather sleep here than in the medbay, thanks," I told her. Somewhere to my left, I heard the Doctor huff.
"Down that hall, left, left, down the ramp, three rights, end of the hall," he said. I sat up and stared at him. It took a second of silence for him to look up from the scanner and meet my eyes. "Your bedroom," he explained. When I just continued to stare blankly, he gestured with his head. "Go on then." I was down the hallway in a second, exhaustion forgotten.
(A/N Thanks for reading! Sorry I forgot to post this on last week's chapter. I hope you like my self-indulgent Doctor Who fanfic. 12 year old me would be so proud. Please comment to leave a review or point out a grammar mistake or something.
Updates every Saturday, unless something crazy happens. I am a college student, after all.
Special thanks to my boyfriend who pestered and encouraged me into actually posting this. Love you, dear.
Thanks again and see ya next week!)