Phone Calls, Weird Antics and Old Faces
Author Note: All familiar ideas stem from Russell T. Davies, not me. I sincerely apologise for the long wait, and heads-up - this is a slightly cracky chapter, but still very much in the Whovian spirit.
"Oh Clara." Jenny mumbled, opening her eyes and laying on the ground. In front of her was a miniaturised Clara, completely asleep and no bigger than a butter knife, but somehow, Jenny was sure the brunette's voice hadn't changed when she coughed drowsily. Jenny gulped. The Doctor would double-kill her for this, for sure.
"J-Jenny?" Clara mumbled, eyes barely open. "What?!" she shrieked, seeing a huge blonde head in her vision. Instinct was to call for the Doctor but then she realised.
"Clara, it's me." Jenny whispered, accounting for Clara's size. "You've been shrunk. You're only about ten percent of your original size now. Weird alien ray. Now my thought is how to pacify my father. He'll freak if his favourite person's like this." she said, picking Clara up to put the little woman in her hands. Brown met dark green.
"Blimey..." Clara breathed, looking around her to see Jenny's fingers. "I knew I was short as a kid, but this... could only happen in dreams or something!"
"Let me see if there's an airy space in my backpack - that way you don't get any further injury." Jenny said logically, shaking her head at the ray's consequences, placing her miniature friend on the ground to rummage inside said backpack.
"What could happen? I'm so small that nothing could get me." Clara reasoned, jumping slightly on the ground, still trying to get used to being six inches tall.
"You'd be surprised, actually." Jenny said, her voice unusually grim, and then after she'd sorted her backpack, picked up Clara, suddenly smiling. "Found the place for you." she grinned, placing the smaller woman carefully inside. "You won't be jiggled around, I promise." she said. "What was that?" she continued, hearing a whisper.
"I said 'I can now be an ornament on the TARDIS console'." Clara beamed half-jokingly. Jenny couldn't help but proper belly-laugh in response, breaking a peaceful silence that luckily told them there were no oncoming threats around.
"Get in there, you, and stay safe." the blonde said, Clara now in the zippy compartment. But before zipping herself in, the brunette perched herself up and did something unusual - kissed Jenny on the nose, leaning back with a smile afterwards.
"What was that for? I got the feeling you only liked guys." Jenny pondered.
"I do happen to be straight-" Clara said "-but that was just a friendly promise kiss. However... but that's another story." she finished, now anxious to get back.
"So your sexual orientation is of the Time Lord variety?" Jenny teased. Clara pouted.
"Girl talk can wait for when we're out of danger." she said, zipping in.
The Doctor however, was not having so much optimism going through his veins.
"Honestly, if I hadn't sensed this..." he mumbled under his breath, nearing the leader of the Huguenose. "Your Imperial Regency, I promise I have something to help - there was merely an understanding between me and your servants." he finished, saying 'servants' in a slimy tone and a very dark look crossed his face. The Imperial Regent, who resembled a living Tutankhamun tomb, looked thoughtful.
"I suppose it was." he said, running a finger across his jawline and scratching his chin. The Doctor held back a laugh, knowing that if Clara was here she would say something like 'you've found your fellow chin-boy', or something ridiculous like that. "Tell you what, Doctor, if you can riddle the succession line, I'll issue a proclamation."
"Not issuing the Shadow Proclamation, are you?" the Time Lord replied, hoping for an ice-breaker. His Imperial Regency looked the Doctor in the eye, and laughed.
"We both know you can't issue that proclamation." he chuckled. The Doctor sighed in relief. The ruler then proceeded to unfurl some parchment. "Here we go."
"Hmm... I can see your problem. Ah! Why don't you..." he continued in the ruler's ear.
"Chess? But I hear that game ended up with an Earth ruler beheading a servant."
"Well... there is that. But it can also be used for tactical peace." the Doctor smiled.
"I congratulate you on ending this conflict before it got out of hand - although, from what the generals tell me, the opposing sides tell me they chose to escalate it most unwisely." the Imperial Regent said, raising his eyebrows at the bowtie-fixing.
"I'm surprised your generals and yourself didn't think of a tactical idea beforehand." the Doctor pondered out loud. The Regent shrugged what appeared to be his shoulders, and reached for a horn of sorts to summon his staff. "Well, I'll best be off."
"Salutations, Doctor." the ruler said, and the Doctor quickly sped off to find Jenny and Clara. Luckily, the sonic had a setting that could sense dual hearts, so he followed that. After a good half-hour of running about the Duprean landscape, he was finally on the right track. He called out Jenny's name in Gallifreyan. She turned around.
"Dad!" she exclaimed, running towards him. He hugged her back, but then noticed.
"Where's Clara?" he said, an edge to his voice. Jenny gulped slightly. "Jenny...?"
"Just a word of warning - you won't like this. It was my fault - I couldn't drag her down in time. I dodged the ray, but she didn't. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." the blonde was crying now, tears going down her face. The Doctor remembered his previous regeneration's catch-phrase with a grim smile, knowing Jenny had used it coincidentally.
"There, there." he said sympathetically, rubbing her back. "I'm sure we can figure it out. Now, what did the ray do, and where is she?" he pondered. Jenny blinked.
"I can answer both your questions at once." she said, unzipping Clara's safe place.
"Doctor?" Clara asked, quivering in relief as she saw him. The Doctor's jaw dropped.
"Clara?!" he gasped. He was not used to seeing his companions half a foot tall.
"Is this what the ray did to you?" the Doctor, crouching down to her eye-level.
"Like Jenny most probably told you, we both tried to dodge it, but all I remember is a haze of purple and then waking up like this." Clara said, and the Doctor fought a grin.
"Why are you almost smiling?" Jenny asked. The Doctor replied with a comical 'my Clara... if not troublesome then irksome.' But then he looked at his daughter, using telepathy. Jenny hung her head. "He finds it degrading to you that I picked you up, and he's gentleman enough not to do so unless he needs to." Jenny pouted to Clara.
"Awww... Doctor! Oh, how can I give you a hug when I'm this tiny?" Clara demanded.
"Hug my hand." he said, truly smiling this time. She did so. Jenny's face softened.
"If this wasn't so unusual and a dangerous consequence, it would be adorable." the blonde anomaly chuckled. When Clara stopped, the Doctor looked at her seriously.
"Clara, I'm a bit low on solutions at the moment, but I think I know who might be able to help." he said, the light from his green eyes problematically absent. "I know I always seem ready to fix things, but this might take time." he finished solemnly. Clara gently started crying, silent tears streaming down her tiny face. "But I'll try, I promise."
"It's not that I'm sad, Doctor." Clara said, shaking her head and wiping the tears away. "It's your persistence to look out for people you care about." she said, watery smile in place. A multitude of emotions crossed the Doctor's face - joy, pain, nostalgia, anger - and he bent down, his lips brushing Clara's hair ever so lightly.
"It is harder to kiss you on the forehead this way." he said, trying at last to be funny. "Whereas you can be affectionate anytime when I'm normal." Clara teased back. The Doctor had the grace to blush. Jenny giggled. "So, what's the piece to the puzzle?"
"Well first, we need to get back to the Tardis." the Doctor said. Clara zipped her temporary home back up and Jenny followed her dad back to the blue box, the older Time Lord fumbling around for the phone on the wooden side. "Aha!" he grinned, remembering with a laugh to dial seven and six at the end of the complicated number he was trying for. After some huffing and puffing, he got through to a real person.
"UNIT helpline." a cheery voice said on the end of the line. "What's your concern?"
"Listen, it's the Doctor. In a while I'll be at the Tower. Can you put me through to Kate Stewart?" he asked calmly. A gentle buzzing went through the phone and then he heard a familiar posh London accent, reminding him of those irritating cubes.
"Doctor, hello." Kate said, her voice sounding clear - she wasn't at HQ, then.
"Kate, I'll be on Earth soon, closing in on London." he said, a strain cracking in his voice. Kate guessed he was in trouble and where he'd end up next - the Tower.
"Right then, Doctor. I can guess you're making this call in a far-off galaxy. Whatever is the matter?" she pondered, personal concern underlining her tone - after all, she'd grown up with tales of him from her dad, and had firm professional relations with him.
"You'll see when you get there - that's why I thought of UNIT technology." he replied, and with an understanding pause from Kate, he hung up the phone. And with a snap of his fingers, the trio were in the Tardis. Soon enough, they were at the Tower. When they stepped out, Kate was there, ready to greet them with a pensive grin.
"It's good to see you again, Doctor. And this, I assume, is your companion?" she asked. The Doctor shook his head, knowing that Jenny would surely speak up.
"No, I'm not his companion. I'm his daughter - long story, but moreso to the point, his companion is with us. Why don't we go inside to discuss this?" she said, human sensitivity creeping into her alien brain. The Doctor smiled down at her. Kate led the way, unaware of the backpack. Jenny put it down on a table when they were in.
"Now for the... problem." Jenny said, struggling for calm as she got Clara out.
"Oh!" Kate exclaimed, taking in the six-inch woman. Clara smiled a bit.
"Hello, I'm Clara Oswald. And no, I'm nowhere near this size normally." she laughed. "Alien shrink ray. Science-fiction dominated my life very briefly, it seems."
"Right." Kate said, regaining her professional tone. "I think Torchwood captured a shrink ray of this sort and compromised with us. And an enlarging ray too." At this, the Doctor had a mixture of relief and exasperation on his face. Kate questioned him.
"Trust Jack to have an enlarging ray in his possession. I presume he won't ever change. Was it a battle?" he replied to her, a laugh trying not to escape.
"To hand it over? No, he was professional - I'm having it brought over." Kate said.
"You UNIT guys work fast." Jenny said, her ponytail bouncing. There was an excuse for it to bounce as well, since a familiar face walked into the room. Jenny grinned.
"Martha!" she squealed, hugging the coloured woman. Martha went slack.
"J-J-Jenny? But you're dead... hang on the Doctor told me about... regenerating." she muttered, meeting the bowtie-donned bloke's eyes as she finished. He smiled.
"Good to see you, Martha." he said, true warmth in his voice now. She grinned.
"So what hellish accident of yours do we have to clear up that you can't, Doctor?" she teased, easily falling back into the old rapport she had with the Gallifreyan.
AN: This chapter was longer, but I felt Martha's reappearance was a good place to stop. My gut feeling told me to bring her back once the UNIT stuff had started.