Beta: veritascara
A/N: I'm so sorry various life things have kept me from writing over the past couple months. Chapters should be much more frequent now. I promise.
The Doctor linked his arm through Iris's as they entered the reception area of the British Tea Company, Martha keeping pace on his other side. He approached the front desk, flashing the receptionist the psychic paper.
"Someone will be right out to speak with you, Dr. Smith," she told him, giving him a tongue-touched grin and tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. Iris's grip tightened on his arm.
"Brilliant," he replied, giving her a nod.
He watched Iris as she took a seat next to him, licking her lips as her bright eyes darted to and fro around the bland office space, as if cataloguing every detail for future reference. A smile bloomed from his chest to his lips.
She turned her head, catching him staring. "What?" she asked with a bemused twitch of her lips.
"Nothing."
She swatted his arm. "You can't just stare at me and then refuse to tell me why."
"I wasn't staring at you." He sniffed, straightening his back and glancing away briefly.
She raised her eyebrows. "And the Daleks just won the prize for the universe's best childminders."
"I wasn't! I was just…staring into space in your general direction."
"With a big daft grin on your face?"
"I was just—"
"Dr. Smith?" the receptionist interrupted. "If you'll please follow me."
"Right. Yes." He popped up, placing his hands in his pockets and following her down the hall, Iris and Martha at his heels.
The receptionist ushered them into large, posh office, with windows overlooking the blue-grey waters of the Thames. A stony-faced Indian woman with large glasses entered the room, taking a seat behind the mahogany desk, a petite blonde woman with a clipboard following her and standing just to her right.
"Dr. Smith, my name is Chandra Malik, and I'm the Vice President in charge of distribution here at British Tea." She leaned across the desk to grasp the Doctor's hand. Her grip was clammy. "I hope our firms can establish a lasting partnership here today."
The Doctor cleared his throat. "Yes, the TARDIS Corporation relies upon having a good tea supplier. Nothing like a good cuppa to keep the people happy I always say, don't I, Iris?" He nudged Iris's arm, leaning into her side.
She met his eyes, grinning and holding back a laugh. He leaned back, hand brushing against hers, a light spark of static electricity igniting at the contact. A frisson of energy bolted down his spine, making his hearts beat faster. Their eyes locked.
The woman with the clipboard stepped forward, placing a hand lightly on Iris's shoulder. "Mrs. Doctor, dear, why don't I go give you a sampling of our selection while Ms. Malik and your husband talk business, hmm?" she asked.
The Doctor nearly fell out of his chair.
"She's—she's not Mrs. Doctor!" he burst out, panic fluttering down his limbs.
"No, just his business partner, I'm afraid." Iris gave Malik's assistant a wan smile. "But myself and my associate, Dr. Jones, would love to go pick out a selection for our firm, while Ms. Malik and the Doctor hammer out the financials. Wouldn't we, Martha?" She gave Martha a subtle twitch of her head towards the doorway.
Martha's eyes widened. "Right. Yes. Choosing the right tea selection is very important to TARDIS Industries. Very good for ehm…morale!"
She popped up from her chair, following Iris out the door.
The Doctor leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes and letting out a breath before forcing himself to give his full attention to Ms. Malik.
Rose tapped her foot in irritation, as their escort poured each type of tea they offered into a long row of antique teacups, describing each blend in excruciating detail as she and Martha took fake sips, smiling and nodding intermittently. At long last, their escort left her and Martha alone to make their final choices.
"What are we looking for, exactly?" Martha asked, setting down her cup and jumping to her feet.
Rose shrugged, following Martha towards the tearoom door. "I mostly make this up as I go along. I just jumped at the chance to go investigate."
Martha laughed. "Makes you a good match for him, then."
Rose made a disgruntled noise in the back of her throat, her earlier irritation at the Doctor's actions returning in full force.
Martha tried the door handle, but it wouldn't budge. "Damn."
"Not a problem," Rose replied, pulling the sonic screwdriver from her bag and pointing it at the lock.
"Wow, three weeks and he already trusts you with his sonic. Must have made quite the impression."
Rose snorted, pride rankling. "This is mine. Made it myself."
Martha stared at her. "You made your own sonic screwdriver? Did he teach you, or…?"
"Nah, he thinks he's so special with his sonic and his special Time Lordy senses and all that, but it's not so hard to do what he does. A sonic's just a transverse compression chamber with a super-precision polarization modulator. All you need to build one's the right parts." She rolled her eyes, deciding at random to go through the door to the nearby stairwell and opening it with such force that it slammed against the wall.
Rose felt a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, are you alright?"
She sighed, rubbing her eyes. "It's just…before he—" She cut herself off before she gave away too much, drawing in a steady breath and shaking her head. "He didn't have to act so disgusted at the thought of being married to me. It's not like we weren't pretending to be other people anyway. He usually just goes along with people's assumptions so as not to cause a fuss while we're undercover, you know? I just found it a bit insulting, is all."
Rose pivoted to head down the steps again, but Martha halted her with a word. "Wait."
Rose turned back to look at her, heart filling with hurt as her mind flitted to a time when the corners of the Doctor's would twitch subtly upward with such assumptions.
"He admires you, you know," Martha told her, stopping on the stair above her. "Quite a lot, by the sound of it."
Rose looked away. Yes, it was so very difficult to gain the admiration of this Doctor, who openly loved people, or at least those not bent on murder or world domination. She strode down the last few steps, sonicking the lock on the door before even trying the handle. She heard Martha's footsteps clanking behind her.
Inside the room was a large metal cube, slightly taller than Rose, sitting still under a spotlight. The air was thick and humid, and Rose was overwhelmed by the scent of metal and vinegar. Her skin began to tingle and burn.
"What is that?" asked Martha, coughing and covering her nose, reaching to steady herself on Rose's shoulder. Rose felt a charge of static ignite at the contact, and Martha snatched her hand back. Rose moved to put her hand on her hip, but the movement of her clothes crackled with static, halting her.
A bolt of lightning struck out from the cube, and Martha jumped back, the ends of her hair going up in bright white flames.
Rose yanked off her jacket and used it to bat at Martha's head. "Get out," she shouted. "Getoutgetoutgetoutgetout!"
They rushed out the door, slamming it shut behind them, but not before Rose saw a face taking form in the metal cube, large blue eyes blinking open.
The Doctor felt an uneasy prickling up his spine as he followed Ms. Malik into the factory control room, looking out on an array of conveyors and workers processing tea.
"…you'll see our dedication to bringing all British tea manufacturing under our umbrella allows us to integrate production and take advantage of economies of scale. And lower costs for us mean better prices for you."
Malik at last stopped in her lecture for a brief breath, and the Doctor walked over to a panel of controls, surveying the various switches and levers.
"And I'm just supposed to presume that using your monopoly power to limit output won't drive up the price of tea?" the Doctor asked, fiddling with a switch, and watching the little red light turn off and on and back off again.
"Well…" Malik froze, eyes going momentarily blank. "Oh dear." She smiled, something manic flitting across her eyes. "Your assistants are causing trouble, Doctor."
He forced his hearts to maintain a steady rhythm and continued to examine the control panel. "Oh? Probably just took a wrong turn. They both have an awful sense of direction. Never trust them with a map on a car trip, let me tell you. One time we left for London and ended up in Cardiff. Cardiff! Can you imagine?"
Ms. Malik's smile widened and her lips parted, showing every one of her very white teeth. "Jig's up, Doctor. You weren't fooling anyone. The Network has more than enough telepathic ability to identify psychic paper."
"Oh well. It was worth a shot." He put his hands behind his back, leaning his head back. "The Network….the Network…" The Doctor paced the room running his fingers through his hair. He ran his fingertips over the edge of a chair, feeling a charge of static. Oh. OH. He strode over to Ms. Malik, grabbing her hand and taking a long lick of her wrist.
He smacked his lips. "Yep! Silicon and chromium. You're a silimagnetoform! Can take any form based on how you program your birth cells. Oh, you used to have empires! Haven't run into one of you in years!" He circled her with a broad grin.
Ms. Malik crossed her arms. "The Time War took its toll, Time Lord. A group of us managed to escape with a primordium from one of our outer colonies before the Nightmare Child wiped our section of the universe from existence. We landed on Earth a month ago. It will be the perfect first colony in our remade empire—plenty of resources and good slave stock. In return, we'll civilise the brutes. It'll be a task, though. Their minds are so primitive. They don't have even rudimentary telepathy! But that's the burden of we more privileged races. Don't you agree, Doctor?"
The Doctor clasped his hands behind his back, leaning forward. "Yeah, see, there's where we're going to have a problem."
Martha was breathing hard by the time they reached the landing of the floor above and finished putting out the fire in her hair.
"What—the hell—was that?" she panted, grabbing Iris's arm to steady herself, and flinching back when the contact shocked her. "Ahh!" She looked down at her shocked hand.
"And for that matter, what's with all the static electricity?" Iris asked. "They must be charging the air. But why?"
Martha looked up. "Good question."
Iris paced back and forth on the stair landing, twirling her sonic between her fingertips. "Think, Martha! Why could they possibly need a charged environment?"
Martha watched Iris run her fingers through her hair and was struck by how she bore more than a passing resemblance to the Doctor in that moment. She narrowed her eyes. There was definitely much more to this woman than met the eye.
"Martha?"
Martha shook her head, glancing away and scouring her mind, the mental image of old Dr. Kozlowski giving a lecture in her first year of medical school jogging an idea. "Maybe it has to do with the conditions on their own planet? Like, we need oxygen and if gravity was too much it would crush us, yeah? So maybe they need an electric charge to keep them in homeostasis. They must be controlling their environment to keep themselves healthy!"
Iris stared at her. "Martha, that's—that's brilliant!
She grinned, oddly proud under this woman's admiring gaze. "Well, I may not be the Doctor, but I am a doctor, and quite a good one at that."
Iris beamed at her, something soft and a bit sad in her eyes. "Yes, you are, Martha Jones." She looked away, clearing her throat.
"Did you see the face forming out of that metal block? Do you think that's what's controlling the whole operation?" Martha asked.
"Oh….Oh. OH. But that's just it!"
"What?"
"Don't you see, Martha? It's how the aliens are reproducing themselves."
"Oh! Like some sort of primordial substrate catalysed by the electricity?"
"Exactly! The electricity strikes that block and kickstarts cellular reproduction. Then, bam! New aliens. Ever run across the Sontarans? They use a similar cloning process, except the base material is more of a pale liquid."
"Of course! But how does that help us?"
Instead of answering, Iris took Martha's hand, leading them out a door and straight into two burly men in security uniforms.
"Well well well, aren't we in trouble…"
"Yeah, you're not going to civilise the humans…" The Doctor faced his adversary with squared shoulders and narrowed eyes, his hands in his pockets.
"But we will!" Malik burst in, eyes alight. "The plan is working already. We can't give them telepathy, as it would overwhelm their under-evolved circuits, but we can give them common thought."
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "What?! That's—"
"Brilliant? Needlessly benevolent? Quite certainly. But it pains us to see them so deprived of something so fundamental. We can hardly imagine what it must be like to have an idea, and not have hundreds of voices in your head assuring you of your brilliance." She strode close to him, stroking his arm. He stiffened. "To experience something, and not be able to immediately share it. To gain a wider variety of experience through the memories of your friends. To have constant assurance that there are others exactly like you in mind and spirit only a thought away. It's a closeness. A shared sense of being." She pushed her body up against his side.
"We can't offer this to the humans exactly, but by dosing them with the Namo and implanting ideas in their minds, we hope they gain some semblance of what it's like to benefit from a mind web. And if the Network stands to gain from it, all the better! What matters is that we're giving them connection." Her breath came out like a hiss as she brushed her fingers against his temple. He rushed to strengthen his psychic barriers, but not before he felt her mind graze ever so slightly against his.
He bristled. "Now that was rude."
She began to circle him, steps slow and measured, a grin tugging at the corners of her lips.
"But you fear it, don't you, Doctor?" she continued. "The knowing. The understanding. You fancy yourself so unknowable that you demand the universe address you by a pseudonym. It's why your assistant makes you so nervous."
"Yes, let's throw my surface thoughts back at me and pretend that makes you so very clever." The Doctor rolled his eyes, striding over to look out over the factory room floor.
Malik chuckled. "Hit a nerve, I see. She is very well-formed by humanoid standards."
The Doctor crossed his arms, working to keep his face in a careful mask. "Who?"
"Your Irisss," she replied, low and breathy. "But that was never the issue, was it? Oh no, you're well above being tempted by a bit of flesh. It's that she fits you. Understands you." Malik brought her lips to his ear. "In here." She tapped his temple with her forefinger. "Just a little too much like another blossom you plucked."
The Doctor swallowed. "That's enough."
Martha opened her mouth to provide an excuse to the two burly, armed figures cornering them, but Iris beat her to it.
"Oh, sorry!" Iris told the guard towering over her. "Got a bit lost on the way to the loo. You wouldn't be able to point us in the right direction, would you?"
"You're not fooling me, right, sweetheart," he replied, cornering Iris with his steely gaze and grabbing her arm.
His partner seized Martha's arm and twisted it behind her back, pushing her into a wall and trapping her. Her Taser dug into her side from its hidden pocket in her jacket and she rued the day that she finally gave in and conceded to carrying a weapon, though she still refused to use a gun. Her mind flitted to the electric bolt hitting the metal block. What if..? She shook her head, putting that idea firmly from her mind.
"You're coming with us."
Iris looked up from where her captor's hand gripped her right wrist, a curious look in her eyes as she studied the man's face. "What's your name?"
He looked down at her, and something softened in his features. He shook his head, closing his eyes, and when he opened them again, they seemed somehow more clear. "No one's ever asked me that before." He cleared his throat. "It's Sam."
"What planet are you from, Sam?"
He refused to look at her. "This one, just like you."
She shook her head. "No, I don't think so. You might sound like an East London factory worker, but your skin doesn't lie." She glanced down at his hand, gripping her wrist. "Not a callus. You might be new to working with your hands, but I don't think so. You've not a blemish, not a freckle, not a hint that your skin has seen the light of day." She tilted her chin upwards, looking him in the eyes. "Because you're newly born, aren't you?"
His lips twitched, and he glanced and his partner, who shrugged. "Well, you've already seen the primordium. We program it to a specific template to determine what we look like, and out we pop. Simple really. Just need a bolt of electricity to jumpstart the process."
"Program?"
"We evolved from sentient computers, see. If we don't program the primordium before each birth cycle everything shifts to default, and we're just identical square boxes. Not the best form for this planet, in any case."
"And what are your people doing on Earth, Sam?"
He swallowed, pursing his lips. He looked away, and when he returned his gaze to them his focus seemed far away. "We aim to make this the first planet in our new intergalactic empire. Use your people, extract your resources to make ourselves great again." He glanced down at her. "You done with your questions, missy? The boss don't like that I told you so much."
"The boss?"
"We're all connected. Up here." He tapped his temple. "It's like, waddaya humans call it? Wifi! That's it. Wifi."
"Right," Iris sighed, glancing at Martha, still held captive by the second thug. She proffered Sam the wrist not already in his grasp. "Lead on."
The Doctor faced away from Malik, concentrating on keeping his emotional response in check when the door to the control room burst open.
"Oi, watch the hands, Mister." Martha scowled at her captor as he pushed her into the room.
Iris was led in behind her, grinning when she saw him. With a glance from Malik, the guards released them and left the room.
"Hello!" Iris said, waggling her fingers.
"Long time no see," he replied. "Just been having a chat with Ms. Malik about her race's plans to take over the Earth and civilise the human race."
Iris gave a derisive snort. "Yeah, that's not gonna happen. I've already got the lowdown from Sam. Pretty ridiculous plan, if you ask me."
The Doctor inclined his head. "No arguments here."
"I should have expected the two of you to be of one mind." Malik eyed him with a smirk. He swallowed. "But I'm sorry to say that what you think really has no bearing on what happens next."
The Doctor raised his eyebrows, putting his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. "Is that so?"
She grinned broadly, showing all of her very white teeth. "Oh, yes. Because Phase Two is being implemented as we speak."
He raised his eyebrows. "Phase Two?"
"We triple the dose in the tea, and start taking over other beverage companies. Go global. Other nations may not be as fond of tea, but they do seem fond of Coca-Cola products. Coffee. Juice. It's really too bad that we can't just dump Namo in the water supply. Taste's too distinct. We need more flavourful drinks to mask it. But we've made inroads with all of the major global beverage companies thanks to a little power of suggestion." She held up a teabag, twirling it between her fingers. "Soon the entire planet will be acting solely under our influence."
The Doctor's legs strode towards her almost of their own volition, snatching the tea from her fingers and ripping open the bag, emptying its contents into the palm of her hand. He touched the leaves with his finger and brought it to his tongue.
"Forty-seven parts per million. Just as I thought. You triple that dose and the human race won't last five years. Their chemistry isn't meant to handle a dose that high. Not to mention anyone with a less than healthy heart will go into immediate cardiac arrest."
Malik narrowed her eyes, looking away and pursing her lips. After a moment, she met his eyes again and shrugged. "Small price to pay for the gift we're giving them. And there are so many of these humans that losing a few won't detract from the Network achieving its goals. Plus, it's all ready to go. I press this button here and trucks depart bearing the new high-dose tea and the new formulations from our beverage partners to shops across Britain." She indicated a large red button on the control panel.
"I'm telling you, if you don't stop this, this instant…"
"You'll what?" she asked. "Give me a stern talking to?" She moved her finger, reaching out to press the button.
Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor caught sight of Martha's form lunging forward, Taser in hand, making contact with Malik's chest. Electricity crackled in thin violet lines across Malik's skin, making her convulse violently. Her features blurred, bleeding together like melting Crayola colours, before morphing into molten metal, which erupted in thousands of tiny bubbles, boiling over until she was nothing but a metallic puddle on the floor.
Outside the control room, pandemonium erupted.
Martha stood, breathless and shaking before what remained of Malik. The silence inside the control room echoed in her ears, providing stark contrast to the angry forms of hundreds of the aliens rallying to attack, their screams of rage not penetrating the soundproofed room. She had acted on impulse, and though she had suspected this outcome, it was another thing to see it acted before her. She tried to focus on her UNIT training, trying in vain to find reassurance in the protocols of the organization to which she devoted her life. It was not until her reeling mind landed on a long ago conversation with Harriet Jones and the maniacal grin of the Master as he tortured her family that she was able to steady herself. They could not always rely on the Doctor to defend the Earth.
She watched as the Doctor stood still and expressionless, staring down at the control panel, long fingers tracing the edges of the buttons and switches. Time trickled slowly on.
His lips twitched downwards, Adam's apple bobbing. "Now I am become Time, the destroyer of worlds," he muttered under his breath.
Iris walked over to him, linking her fingers with his, and his posture relaxed, ever so slightly. They stood silent a moment, surveying the very people they were about to destroy.
"Listening to Malik talk, they really seem to believe they're doing the right thing," he told Iris in a low voice, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's horrible, of course. Their reasoning is all based on rhetoric and mob psychology. But from their perspective…" He glanced at the molten puddle on the floor, cutting himself off. "Thing is, I can't see another way in this. The mind web means that every single one of them is going to be completely convinced their ideology is correct. And the way Malik talked, she had affiliates everywhere. So I can't see a way to trap them, or—or sedate them, or—" He sighed, running his hands over his face.
Iris rubbed light circles against his back, stroking his arm with her other hand. "C'mere. I think I have an idea," she said, voice soft.
She led him to the control panel, pointing to a section of switches. "Your plan is to just hypercharge the atmosphere and explode them to bits like Malik, yeah? But these buttons here appear to control the reproduction process Martha and I saw downstairs. The ionic field they create initiates the cellular generation process. But if we reverse the polarity and widen its range…"
"Oh. Oh! It should suck them all back into the primordium! We can take them to a planet with the right conditions, and they can start again! Iris, that's brilliant!"
He swept her up in a hug, eyes closing and grin reaching ear to ear as he clutched her closer. From her vantage point in the opposite corner of the room, Martha shifted from one foot to another and looked away, feeling suddenly the voyeur.
After a long few seconds, she heard their bodies shifting, and she returned her attention to them. They stood a mere foot apart, still in a relaxed embrace, with eyes only for each other.
Iris smiled, the gesture lighting up her face. "Maybe their society will evolve differently this time. Kinder, wiser, better. Maybe not. All we can do is give them a second chance."
"Yes," he breathed, tracing the apple of her cheek with his thumb. "A second chance."
As the Doctor explained what had happened to Captain Magambo, Martha observed Iris supervising the loading of the Network's primordium onto the TARDIS.
"Oi!" Iris yelled at one red-bereted UNIT soldier who jostled the cube. "That's a living thing, that is." She narrowed her eyes, stroking its side with her hand.
"Aren't you worried about, you know, electric shock?" Martha asked, waving the singed ends of her hair.
"No," said Iris, putting her hands on her hips. "Outside a charged environment it's dormant. Harmless." She stuck her head inside the TARDIS. "Yes, it's bigger on the inside. Very exciting. Now shift! It's down the hall, second door on the left. That thing can only survive outside properly charged conditions for so long."
Martha smiled. "You're quite…forceful with them."
Iris laughed. "Reckon I take after my mum. She had a way of getting what she wanted." A shadow flickered across her eyes, and she looked away, pursing her lips.
Martha hesitated a moment before speaking. "Look," she said. "I know you're hiding something. I'm not even entirely convinced that you're human."
Iris's eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to speak, but Martha held up her hand.
"I'm not done," she continued. "The thing is, I don't think it matters, whatever your secret is. I saw you back there, with him. You make him better. And watching the two of you together…it wouldn't surprise me if he brought out the best in you as well. And that's what's important." Iris ducked her head, biting her lower lip and the corner of her mouth twitching upwards. "But—" Iris's head bobbed up again. "Secrets, they're poisonous. They can kill even the best of friendships. You've a right to keep things to yourself, of course. Goodness knows he does. Just, I feel like, you two, you could be, well, unstoppable if you'd just be more open with each other. Let yourselves lean on each other, so to speak."
Martha placed a gentle hand on Iris's shoulder, smiling as she met her eyes, which were shiny and bright. Iris parted her lips, as though to speak, only to suck in a breath and close her eyes, nodding slowly.
"Right then," said Martha. "Reckon I better go save the Doctor from Captain Magambo's interrogation." She gestured behind Iris, where she spied the Doctor, hands in his pockets and head leaning back as the Captain gave him a stern glare.
She strode over to the pair of them, cutting Captain Magambo off mid-sentence.
"Captain, you're not going to get him to adhere to UNIT protocol anytime soon, so you'd best give it up. I was there the whole time, so I can give you the full briefing later, alright?"
Captain Magambo sighed and nodded, acknowledging her defeat. "We'll speak later, Dr. Jones."
"Yes, ma'am," she replied, as the Captain headed over to an officer directing the clean-up crew.
"Thank you," he told Martha, meeting her eyes briefly before fixating on a point just over her shoulder.
Martha nodded, following his eyes over to where Iris stood with Officer Bishara.
"She's good for you, I think. You're better off with an assistant."
"Assistant," the Doctor scoffed. "I've come to despise that word. It makes it sound as though you work for me. Perhaps it was appropriate for some of the people whose job it was to help me when I worked for UNIT. But you? Her? You're better than that. She's so much better than that."
"Right," she replied with a little smile, patting his arm. That settled that suspicion. "Look out for her, then, Doctor." Her phone rang.
"Sorry, gotta take this," she said, gesturing to her mobile and walking away a few paces.
"Martha Jones," she answered.
"Martha, there's been an explosion at Broadfell Prison. We'd like you to come investigate…"
Rose reached out and grabbed a roll of store brand chocolate digestives and placed them in the cart. They were the kind her mum used to buy growing up, and even though they didn't taste nearly as good with her new taste buds, she still found something sentimental and comforting about them.
The Doctor stared at her hand as she put the biscuits in the cart. "Why are you buying those?"
"Well, I'm not gonna go months at a time without my favourite biscuits, and they don't have Sainsbury's in the fifty-first century or medieval France or whatever planet you're planning on taking me to next, so I'm stocking up."
He scratched the back of his neck. "You know I'm buying, right? You don't have to get the cheap ones. These ones look good." He picked up a roll of McVitie's. "Or, oh! Custard Creams. Gotta love those."
"First of all, I don't like paying with sonicked cash, which means I'm buying. Secondly, I like these," Rose replied, shaking her head. He'd never been so odd about her choice of biscuits when she'd travelled with him before. "But if you want those, we can buy them too."
She moved the cart to the frozen foods aisle, frost biting her hands as she picked up six cartons of Chunky Monkey.
"Someone's hungry."
Rose chuckled. "Three of those are for you, you know."
"Oh." His eyes brightened. "How'd you know my favourite flavour?"
She raised her eyebrows. "You've ordered banana-flavoured foods no less than thirteen times in the past three weeks, Doctor. Banana-flavoured ice cream's pretty much a given."
He made a happy noise in the back of his throat. "Well." He smiled, ducking his head. "Y'know, I think we're almost out of jam. I'm just gonna…" He walked backwards a few steps, gesturing at a display at the end of an aisle a few metres away.
"Take your time," she replied, wheeling the trolley towards the cereal aisle, when she caught sight of an Ood blinking at her from behind a display of Crunchy Nut. How…ood.
"Can I help you with something?" she asked the alien, biting her lip and looking around to see if he attracted the attention of any of the other shoppers. A chill crept up her spine. The last time she had encountered one of his race its eyes had glowed red, possessed by a creature that may or may not have been Satan himself.
"He has ignored our summons."
"Who? The Doctor? You've been summoning him?"
"He should not delay."
Rose narrowed her eyes, glancing over her shoulder at the Doctor, who was wholly absorbed in comparing the ingredients list on the backs of two jars of jam.
When she looked forward once more, the Ood had vanished.