Chapter 24

-oo00oo-

The Ministry representative stumbled over the chair behind him, shouting a vulgar epithet as Jo lunged after him. Abandoning her training, she went after him on instinct; as an enraged cat flies at its adversary, all teeth and nails. The two tussled and went down with Jo apparently doing her level best to claw out the Minister's eyes and eviscerate him as he flailed and punched unaccountably roaring and spitting sexual slurs.

A security man shoved past the shocked observers and fallen chairs, awkwardly grabbing at the girl before being shoved aside himself by two others who were right behind him.

The Doctor and the Brigadier each snatched an arm and between them rapidly wrestled their unreasoning operative right out of the room with Benton clearing a path like a snow-plough. As she showed no sign of letting up, they went on with her kicking and struggling right past the flabbergasted Captain Yates. He stared after them as Jo was bodily dragged across the lobby to the exit by her superiors.

"Jo! What are you doing?" the Doctor rebuked sternly, half-pushing her out through the glass doors. It was more against her surprising and impolite violence than in defense of the government man, whom he'd had no patience with in the first place even before his words had turned abusive.

"I'm not going anywhere!" Jo screeched defiantly, pulling away from them then digging in her heels as the Doctor took her arm again and tried to lead her down the steps. "You think just because you're a… oh! Stop it!" To the Doctor's surprise she turned on him, practically spitting with anger. Struggling, she yanked against his grasp then turned and pummeled his chest with all her strength.

The polished steps in front of this marble building were hardly the place for such a display. Sergeant Benton had followed them from the conference room but now stood looking to his commander for guidance as he guarded the outer door from others following, Yates hovering behind. Lethbridge-Stewart held up a hand to keep them back. The Doctor grabbed at the young woman's wrists to still them and when she compensated by trying to stomp his feet, he picked her up.

"Put me down!" she screamed, red-faced, enraged and flailing.

"No argument!" the Doctor said firmly. He didn't know what was going on with his assistant, but he didn't want her making a spectacle like this. Enough time to iron it out later. Behind him he was vaguely aware of the Captain's voice apologizing to a blusteringly outraged sounding man.

He'd initially intended to pick her up to only carry her down the steps, but she was a hard one to hang onto when she didn't want to be held and quickly managed to wriggle and kick herself half-free. "Don't just stand there, lend a hand!" This wasn't directed at Jo, who was still protesting and twisting in his arms, but rather at the other UNIT men who still indecisively stared after the two of them.

The Brigadier followed and took one half-hearted swipe at the snarling girl before a near-miss made him step back again. Not only were angry females not his venue, he didn't really want to engage in hand-to-foot combat with anyone wearing spike-heeled boots.

"Brigadier!" the Doctor protested in astonishment as Jo tried to bite his arm.

He ducked back from her kicking heels. "She's your assistant," he excused with discomfiture. "You hold her!"

"What? Nonsense! Grab her feet, I say!"

"She's wearing those demmed boots! Miss Grant! Calm down!"

She ignored them, twisted herself around again, only to have the Doctor take a firmer hold and flip her up over his shoulder as he strode into the car park. She reached back, pulling at his hair and trying to throttle him with his own tie, still kicking, so he flipped her again.

Benton had been certain nothing dealing with the Doctor could surprise him but now he knew he'd been mistaken. He stood rooted by the doorway in astonishment as the normally proper and gentlemanly Doctor he thought he knew went on carrying his screeching young assistant upside down, her legs kicking madly around his ducking head, her hands clawing at his knees. Behind him came the Brigadier, haplessly offering what he apparently hoped might be helpful advice.

"Flip her around again, or give her another lift there, she's going to addle your brains! You've got to get her feet higher! Watch out for her purse!"

Jo was apoplectic. "Put me doooown! You, you….oh! I'll never speak with you again! You puffed up…Let me go! Help! Oh!" She wrapped her arms around his legs, trying to trip him.

The tall Sergeant stood by the door, completely unsure what to do. He, for one, was glad Jo was wearing winter tights under her short dress that day or the strange event might have been even more shocking.

Mike Yates was suddenly at his elbow again. "What…?"

"The Doctor's having some difficulty," Benton supplied. "But don't worry, I think the Brigadier's got it in hand."

"Miss Grant, calm down! Is she all right?" the Brigadier was saying.

"Never mind her, what about me?" the Doctor grumbled as he spun the struggling girl sideways to get her away from his feet, then, when she promptly went after his face, stuffed her partly under his arm to try to pin her hands. He nodded briefly back at the men on the steps and headed briskly for Bessie, Jo's screeching, tousled head bobbing to his long strides behind him. She was still doing her level best to impale him with a boot-heel, no longer caring where.

"What set that off? Was she hurt?" Yates demanded.

"No, she was perfectly fine until that Ministry man ordered her to leave the room," Benton said by way of explanation. "Lit into him like a firecracker, then when the Doc pulled her out she went after him instead." They both stood and watched somewhat in awe of the feminine fury the normally sweet Jo was wreaking upon their scientist.

"But…why…?"

"He was pretty blunt about it," Benton said, gesturing to a confused man inside the lobby that this particular exit door was not an option just then. "Said she was inferior, among other things."

"But she wasn't…"

"It was because she's a woman," he added.

Yates scowled, muttering something about the Minister's lineage. "Throwing her out because she's a woman? She's a qualified…"

"An inferior stupid woman," Benton amended. "And quite a lot worse, actually. But…well, I don't know, sir. I've never seen her this angry."

Yates started to move forward then hesitated again. "Do you think we should interfere?"

"He's taking care of it. Frankly, I wouldn't go over there for all the tea in China," Benton said, shaking his head.

They both looked back to where the Doctor was now busy bodily stuffing Jo into the canopied roadster and apparently talking to her quite sternly. Small objects began flying out at him, making him have to duck even as he lectured.

"She's got spirit though, doesn't she?" admired Yates.

Benton looked on in wonder. "Knowing the Doctor, I hope she doesn't try to get back out."

Over by the car, the Doctor turned and stalked around it towards the driver's side. Jo immediately leapt from the car and stubbornly ran after him, railing about something and trying to smack him with her purse. He didn't even pause, he simply swung right back around, scooped her up again. They could hear her screaming something unpleasant, pummeling his back as he strode over to the Brig's sedan. The other man, apparently at his request, popped open the boot. The Doctor dumped the astonished, infuriated girl in and closed it.

Benton and Yates looked at one another, their brows raising another mutual notch. The rhythmic thuds against the metal told them her energetic kicking had been put back to work inside the unfortunate vehicle. The Doctor stood nearby, rubbing at the back of his neck as the Brig looked on.

"Reminds me of a row I once saw between the Brig and his wife, some time back" Benton noted, "I'm sure glad I'm not married like that." This garnered a strange look from his companion, so he hastened to add, "Not that I'm saying … oh, hang it."

-oo00oo-

"Doctor was that really necessary?" the Brigadier was saying.

The Doctor leaned down and spoke very clearly to the boot of the car. "Are you quite through?"

"Let….wham….me….wham…out!" came the muffled words interspersed with blows.

"Ah, well. Maybe," the Brigadier amended to himself. "Not that I condone…"

"I'm not letting you out until you stop acting like a child."

"I am not!" came the immediate reply, with another kick at the lid of the boot.

"I am quite prepared to wait."

There was a brief flurry of motion then a long pause. He worked at fixing the tie she'd yanked askew. The Brigadier took a breath, then let it out and crossed his arms, waiting to see what happened.

"Doctor?" Jo's voice sounded a little worried. "Are you still there?"

"Yes."

"Let me out!"

He finished the tie and examined the state of his trouser knees.

She shuffled around again. There were small scraping sounds near the latch.

"It won't work," he said. The scraping stopped.

After a moment her voice came again. "It's stuffy in here!"

He leaned against the side of the car, considered his scratched hands and then stuck them in his pockets. "And quite dark, I expect. Yes."

"Please let me out?"

He thought about this. "Only if you promise to stop this nonsense." There was no reply but not really wanting to keep her trapped, he popped open the lid anyway. Jo accepted his handing her out from the cramped space, her face flushed with a mix of embarrassment, confusion and lingering offense as they eyed one another.

"Well," he said conversationally. "What was that?"

She bit her lip. "He insulted me."

The Brigadier and the Doctor glanced at one another.

"Yes, he did. And aside from the reactions, you should have realized what he said wasn't true."

"We need that man to cooperate with us, Miss Grant," the Brigadier put in.

Jo, to his surprise, looked hurt. She looked up at the Doctor."But you let him say those, those nasty, horrible things about me… you didn't defend me at all!"

He blinked at her. "Defend you? What would you have me do, challenge him to some sort of medieval duel? You're being ridiculous."

She crossed her arms stubbornly, sniffing back tears. "I would've defended you," she said. "If someone said you were stupid and manipulative and wanted you taken out just because you were a man."

"Miss Grant…" the Brigadier started.

The Doctor shook his head. "Every time I think I understand humans, they surprise me - especially you. Still, none of this makes sense. It wasn't a matter of loyalties, Jo, it was a matter of needing to humour the man and get his help. Even if he's an unreasonable bigot." He frowned. "And it just isn't like you to react this way, not even to abject idiocy. That reaction was quite over the top, you must admit."

"I know. I know, but still…" She was trembling with the after-effects of adrenaline and felt a bit sick.

He pulled her gently over to him, offering a brief embrace by way of partial apology. She leaned her head on him, silently accepting it and apologizing back.

"You're shaking," he said softly.

"Sorry," she said, hugging her arms around herself and making herself look even smaller against him.

"Look," he said after a moment. "Let's get out of this scrape first, if we haven't lost all hope of it. Then you can go find someone who I would be allowed to fight without it being some sort of international incident, and if he insults your feminine dignity, I can challenge him to a duel. Non-fatal, of course. Perhaps a game of chess."

The Brigadier coughed.

She laughed into the Doctor's velvet. "Oh yes. And I'll give you my lace handkerchief to wear upon your sleeve. Though I don't have one, so I'd have to borrow yours." She smiled up at him and suddenly became embarrassed again.

"Oops. Did I do that to your hair?"

"No, it always looks like this," he said dryly. "Will you stay here, now? In the car? Or at least outside?"

She nodded, looking more abashed by the minute. "All right. You and, and… the two of you better go see if… " She suddenly clapped her hands over her face. "Oh, I've probably just ruined everything! What was I thinking? What was I doing?"

The Brigadier raised a brow at her. "That's something we'd like to find out."

"It was a most uncharacteristic display," the Doctor agreed seriously. "For both of you. Do you think you can manage without me, Brigadier? I think we have a different sort of problem to deal with here."

"There, you see?" Benton was saying from back where he and the Captain watched. "No need to worry. They've kissed and made up and all that."

Yates eyed his friend sourly. "You could have phrased that differently."

"Right. Not literally. Well. Sorry," Benton shrugged. He tipped his head back toward the lobby, which was now full of men in suits. "I guess one of us better get back in there to start picking up the pieces."

-oo00oo-