"Don't let them touch you," the Doctor said firmly, his eyes darting around the room as the gasmask zombies rose from their beds and started walking towards them.
"What happens if they touch us?" Jack asked, backing up until his back touched a wall.
Rose and the Doctor moved with them, until they were all trapped against the wall, the gasmask people closing in, and still chanting "mummy." "We become like them."
The Doctor tried to back up further, to put more space between himself and the gasmask people, but he and the others were already pressed against the wall with nowhere else to go. He threw his arm up in front of Rose automatically, as if to shield her from the oncoming attack. Rose, however, pushed his arm out of the way and stepped forward, her face drawn into a look of annoyance.
"Go to your room!" She shouted at the gasmask people. The Doctor stared at her, wondering how exactly he'd missed the fact that this woman was crazy. He'd only been traveling with her for a few days, but still: insanity had a way of making itself known.
But to the Doctor's surprise (and Jack's, too, if the muttered "The hell?" was anything to go off of), the gasmask people stopped their advance. They didn't retreat, but they didn't come any closer either.
"Go to your room!" Rose repeated. The Doctor glanced at Jack to see if he knew what was going on, but Jack just shrugged. "I mean it! I am very, very angry with you," Rose scolded, hands on her hips now, like an angry mother. "I am very, very cross! Go to your room!"
Slowly, the gasmask people all turned around and shuffled back towards their beds. Jack let out a startled laugh, and the Doctor shook his head. Rose slumped a little bit, apparently relieved. "Glad that worked," the Doctor mused, watching as the gasmask people lay back down on their beds. He glanced at Rose. "Those would have been terrible last words," he informed her. Rose attempted to glare at him, but just ended up laughing.
Slowly, the three of them moved away from the wall, and checked to make sure the gasmask people weren't going to get back up. Satisfied that they were going to remain stationary, at least for now, the Doctor turned to Jack.
"So how was your con supposed to work?" He asked, his voice hard. He didn't trust this man. He may be the one to someday save them on Downing Street, but so far he seemed like a self-absorbed conman who couldn't be trusted.
"Simple enough, really," Jack shrugged carelessly. "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!" Jack smiled slightly. "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," Rose muttered from the other side of the room, where she was carefully examining one of the patients. The Doctor watched her for a moment, before looking back to Jack.
"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 laughed. The Doctor just stared at him until his laughter died away. Yeah, he definitely didn't like this Jack. He glanced at Rose, wondering why she would chose to consort with someone like this.
"Getting a hint of disapproval here," Jack said after an awkward silence.
"Take a look around the room," the Doctor said darkly, glaring at Jack. "This is what your 'harmless piece of space-junk' did."
Jack glared back now, apparently about as fond of the Doctor as the Doctor was of him. "It was a burnt out medical transporter—it was empty," he said slowly, trying to keep his temper under control.
They glared at each other for a moment before the Doctor turned away, walking towards Rose. "Rose," he said, getting her attention.
"We getting out of here? I don't know if the room trick will work again, and I don't fancy growing a permanent gasmask," she commented lightly.
"We're going upstairs," the Doctor said, sparing a small smile for the blonde.
Jack followed as they left the room and made their way up the staircase, still trying to plead his case.
"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!" He exclaimed in agitation.
"I'll tell you what's happening. You forgot to set your alarm clock. It's volcano day," the Doctor muttered.
An alarm sounded in the distance, making them all pause for a moment. "The all clear," Jack commented.
"I wish," the Doctor muttered, and kept going.
"So where are we going?" Rose asked, a bit loudly. The Doctor got the distinct impression she was trying to keep him and Jack from arguing further.
"Room 802," he said after a moment. "That's where Constantine said they took the first victim." They stopped outside a door, and the Doctor turned to Jack. "The night your space-junk landed someone was hurt," he informed him, glaring again. "This was where they were taken." He turned to the door again, and tried to open it; locked. He moved to reach for his sonic screwdriver, then paused, and turned to Jack. "Have you got a blaster?" He asked innocently.
"Sure!" Jack said, and pulled said blaster from his coat. The Doctor moved back to stand beside Rose as Jack aimed for the door.
"Any particular reason you're not using the screwdriver?" Rose whispered to him, watching as Jack put a square hole around the lock on the door, making it swing inwards
"Maybe," the Doctor whispered in response. He felt it was best to know exactly what it was they were dealing with when it came to Jack, just in case he turned on them. Which seemed likely, at this point.
He moved towards Jack to get a better look at the blaster. "51st century Sonic Blaster. Weapon Factories of Villengard?" He asked, eyes running over the weapon.
"You've been to the factories?" Jack asked, surprised.
The Doctor pulled the blaster out of Jack's hand to get a closer look. "Once," he commented with a shrug.
"Well, they're gone now. Destroyed. The main reactor went critical. Vapourized the lot."
The Doctor grinned and handed the blaster back. "Like I said: once." And if his voice was a bit smug, who could blame him?
"That explains so much," Rose muttered. The Doctor and Jack turned to look at her. She shrugged. "What? There's a banana grove there now," she explained, looking pointedly at the Doctor.
He grinned. "I like bananas; bananas are good!" He said cheerfully. It still threw him for a loop every time she mentioned knowledge about him that he didn't remember giving her. It unnerved him a bit, really, to know that she knew so much about him, and yet he knew next to nothing about her. From what she said, though, it was the other way around when she'd first met him. He was looking forward to that.
He moved into the room, but he heard Rose and Jack stay back for a moment; he tried not to let that bother him. He tried even harder when he heard Rose laugh, and come in with a grinning Jack a moment later. Instead, he flipped a switch to turn the light on.
He appraised the room for a moment, silently impressed with the strength of whomever had been trapped in here; a window was broken, and there were things all over the floor. It was a mess, and looked like someone had been enraged when they did it.
"What do you think?" He asked the room at large.
"Something got out of here," Jack observed.
The Doctor bit back the urge to sigh and roll his eyes. He felt like he did a bit too much of that as it was in this regeneration. "Yeah, and?" He prodded.
"Something powerful and angry," Rose murmured, moving past him and further into the room.
They followed her into the next room, which had toys and drawings thrown all over the place. Jack stooped to pick up a drawing which was clearly done by a child. "A child did this? I guess that explains the 'mummy.'"
Rose looked uncomfortable. "What happened to make the child be able to do this?" She whispered to herself.
The Doctor glanced around until he saw a tape, and flicked it on. Doctor Constantine's voice filled the room, drawing Rose and Jack's attention to the recording.
"Do you know where you are?" Dr. Constantine's voice asked.
"Are you my mummy?" The Doctor saw Rose shudder as the child's voice came off the recording.
"Are you aware of what's around you?" Dr. Constantine persisted. "Can you…see?"
"Are you my mummy?" The child's voice was more insistent now.
"What do you want?" Dr. Constantine's voice asked, a note of fear entering his voice. "Do you know—"
"I want my mummy," The Child's voice demanded. "Are you my mummy? I want my mummy! Are you my mummy?"
"Doctor," Rose said uneasily, moving closer to him. "I've heard this voice before."
"Me, too," he responded, just as uneasy, but unwilling to show it.
"Mummy? Mummy?" The recording continued.
"Always 'Are you my mummy?'" Rose murmured, her hand slipping down into his. The Doctor gripped it firmly. "Like he doesn't know…"
"Mummy?"
"Why doesn't he know?" Rose whispered, frowning.
"Are you there mummy? Mummy?"
The Doctor let go of Rose's hand so he could pace; pacing helped him think. Or, at least, it helped him not to lash out in frustration. Mostly. He'd told Rose earlier that he couldn't sense them the way she did, but he could now. Which meant they were getting stronger. Which was bad, very, very bad. "Can you sense it?" He asked suddenly, turning his head to look at Jack.
"Sense what?"
"Coming out of the walls, can you feel it?" He insisted.
"Mummy?" The voice of the child was still going.
Jack shook his head no, and the Doctor paused in his pacing to consider him for a moment. "Funny little human brains, how do you get around in those things?" He muttered, and resumed pacing.
"When he's stressed he likes to insult species," Rose said to Jack, the Doctor presumed. He didn't look up from his pacing.
"Rose, I'm thinking," he called, annoyed.
"Cuts himself shaving does a half an hour on species he's cleverer than," she continued, and the Doctor could almost feel the teasing smile she was giving him.
How was she teasing him? She'd been able to feel the wrongness from the beginning; it was only just hitting him now, so it must be much stronger for her. He chanced a glance at her, and noticed for the first time she was paler than usual, with a few beads of sweat on her brow; her pupils were dilated, too. 'Oh,' the Doctor realized; that's why she was teasing him: to distract herself.
He shook himself to get back on track, and started thinking aloud to distract himself. "There are these children living rough around the bomb site. They come out during air-raids looking for food," he said, brow furrowed as he talked himself through it.
"Mummy, please?" The Child's voice insisted. Someone really ought to turn that recording off…
"Suppose they were there when this thing—whatever it was—landed?" He continued.
"It was a med-ship. It was harmless," Jack insisted, the annoyance from their previous discussion coming back into his voice.
"Doctor," Rose called, but he ignored her for a moment.
"Yes, you keep saying," the Doctor scoffed. "'Harmless'. Suppose one of them was affected—altered?" He asked.
"Altered how?" Jack demanded.
"Doctor," Rose said again, a bit more urgently this time. But the Doctor was close, so close…
"I'm here!" The Child's voice proclaimed.
"It's afraid. Terribly afraid, and powerful. It doesn't know it yet, but it will do." He paused, then laughed, and turned to Rose finally. "It's got the power of a God, and you just sent it to its room," he said, amused despite the situation.
Rose turned large, scared eyes to him. "The tape ran out about thirty seconds ago," she said quietly.
"I'm here now, can't you see me?" The Child's voice came again. The Doctor and Jack both turned to look towards the source, and found themselves face-to-face with the child, not the recording.
"This is its room," Rose groaned.
"Are you my mummy?" The child asked, looking at Rose. The Doctor automatically moved closer to her and grabbed her hand.
"Alright, on my signal," Jack said grimly. The Doctor glanced at him, raising an eyebrow. "Make for the door... now!" He yelled, and pulled a banana from his coat.
As the Doctor and Jack stared incredulously (and happily, in the Doctor's case) at the banana, Rose turned violently in the Doctor's grip, pulling her hand free. "Go! Now!" She yelled, producing Jack's blaster from Rassilon knows where and firing a large, square hole in the wall.
"Don't drop the banana!" The Doctor yelled, laughing madly as he, Jack, and Rose all leapt through the hole.
"Why not?!" Jack yelled, confusion, amusement, and anger all playing for dominance in his voice.
"Good source of potassium!" Rose answered with a cheeky grin.
They ended up back in a corridor with the child attempting to follow them through the wall. "Give me that!" Jack demanded, pulling the blaster from Rose's grip and aiming at the hole again. The wall appeared back in place, sealing the child on the other side and away from them. "Digital rewind," he explained, tossing the banana to the Doctor. "Nice switch," he added to Rose, flirtation heavy in his voice.
The Doctor rolled his eyes and ground his teeth as he examined the banana. "It's from the Groves of Villengard!" The Doctor exclaimed, and began searching his pockets. Coming up empty, he glared at Rose; the little thief had taken this banana from his pocket!
"I thought it was appropriate," she shrugged, smiling mischievously.
Jack looked between the two before settling on the Doctor. "There's really a banana grove in the heart of Villengard and you did that?" He demanded.
"Bananas are good," the Doctor said simply, shoving the banana back in its rightful pocket.
There was a thumping noise coming from the wall the child was behind, and a crack appeared in the plaster, making them all jump. "Right, time to go!" The Doctor shouted, turning and running.
They all took off running, following the Doctor. They hurried down a flight of stairs, hoping to make it to the ground floor, but ran into a crowd of the gasmask people before they could get very far. "Back, back!" Rose yelled, grabbing the Doctor by the arm and pulling him back the way they came.
Rose ran at the head this time, leading them back the way they'd come, more gasmask people spilling out from other wards and corridors. They got back to where they'd started, but there were more of the patients blocking the other exit. The child was still banging on the wall, and the wall looked like it wouldn't last much longer.
Both the Doctor and Jack moved in front of Rose this time, and started backing towards the wall. "It's keeping us here so it can get at us!" The Doctor yelled over the cries of "Mummy!"
Jack had his blaster out, and was trying to decide where to point it. "It's controlling them?" He demanded, not pleased with this revelation.
"It is them," Rose said from behind them. "Every living thing in this hospital."
"Okay," Jack said, and the Doctor was surprised at the determination in his voice. "This can function as a sonic blaster, a sonic cannon, and a triple-enfolded sonic disrupter. Doc, what you got?"
The Doctor pulled his screwdriver out of his jacket. "Er," he muttered, realizing it was not exactly the tool he needed in the current situation. "I've got a sonic…oh, never mind," he muttered, pointing the screwdriver at the crowd and trying to remember if he had a setting for unhappy children.
"What?" Jack demanded impatiently.
"It's sonic, okay, let's leave it at that!"
"Disrupter? Canon? What?" Jack insisted.
"It's sonic!" The Doctor assured him. "Totally sonic! I am sonic-ed up!" Okay, that might have been slightly overkill.
"A sonic what?" Jack yelled in annoyance.
"Screwdriver!" The Doctor yelled, exasperated.
Jack spun around to stare at the Doctor disbelievingly, his eyes going immediately to the screwdriver. Behind them, the wall finally crumbled as the child burst through.
"Going down!" Rose yelled, reaching between the two men to grab Jack's wrist and point the blaster at the ground. A square hole opened beneath them and deposited them ungracefully a floor below.
"Everybody okay?" Rose groaned as she sat up. Jack was already pointing his blaster at the ceiling to close up the hole before they could be followed.
"Could've used a warning," the Doctor grumbled as he sat up, rubbing his back. He was getting too old for this nonsense.
"You can still complain, good. You'll be fine," Rose said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.
"Who has a sonic screwdriver?" Jack demanded, coming back over to them.
"I do!" The Doctor said indignantly, pulling himself to his feet.
"Right…light!" Rose said, pulling away from the men.
"Who looks at a screwdriver and thinks 'Oooo, this could be a little more sonic?'"
"What, you've never been bored?" The Doctor asked defensively. Rose was still muttering about finding a light switch, undoubtedly trying to get them to focus, and failing miserably. Nobody insulted the screwdriver. "Never had a long night? Never had a lot of cabinets to put up?" Not that he ever had put up cabinets. Come to think of it, did he even have a setting for that? He would have to look into that one…
"Ah hah!" Comes Rose's triumphant voice, and light fills the room.
"Mummy?" Apparently they'd managed to fall into another ward (because really, that is his luck today. Chased a conman to World War II, lost a bet to Rose, had his ears insulted by a little girl. Of course he would land in a ward full of gasmask people), because the beds were filled with the gasmask zombies, and they were all sitting up in bed staring at them.
"Door," Jack said hoarsely, backing towards the door as the patients started coming towards them. They ran to the door (which was, of course, locked. Par for the course!), and Jack paused to blast it open. The blaster made a sad little noise, but not much else. "Damn it!" Jack yelled, whacking the blaster against his hand as the Doctor stepped around him and pointed the screwdriver at the door. Not so useless now, huh?
"It's the special features, they really drain the battery," Jack grumbled as the Doctor opened the door and rushed through.
"Battery?" Rose exclaimed from behind him. "That's so lame!" The Doctor allowed himself a grin at that one.
Once the other two were through, the Doctor slammed the door shut again and locked it with his screwdriver. Jack and Rose were still gabbing, and he wondered (not for the first time) if Rose wasn't a little more human than she thought.
"I was gonna send for another one, but somebody's gonna blow up the factory." The Doctor could practically feel the glare on his back as he finished locking the door.
"Oh, I know, first time he met me he blew up my job. It's practically his way of saying hello."
"Okay, that should hold the door for a bit," the Doctor said loudly, cutting Jack off as he went to reply.
"The Door?! The wall didn't stop it!" Jack exclaimed.
"Well it's gotta find us first!" The Doctor retorted. "Come on, we're not done yet! Assets, assets!"
"Well I've got a banana, and in a pinch, you could put up some shelves," Jack said sarcastically.
The Doctor glared at him for a moment, then started walking for the only window in the room. "The window—" he started, but Jack interrupted.
"Barred, sheer drop outside, seven stories."
"And no other exits," Rose chimed in, oh so helpfully.
Jack settled into a wheelchair and crossed his legs. "Well, the assets conversation was over in a flash, now wasn't it," Jack said mockingly.
The Doctor glared at him for a moment before turning to Rose. "So where'd you find this one?" He snapped.
Rose glared right back. "Hanging from a barrage balloon—where do ya think?" She snapped. "I told you; I knew him. Will know him. Whatever!"
"Said I'm like her brother," Jack threw in, and the Doctor paused to glare at him again.
He turned away and took to pacing again. "Okay, so one, we can't get out of here. Two, we can't get out of here. Am I missing anything?" He asked sarcastically.
"Yep," Rose said, sounding tired. "Jack just disappeared."
The Doctor stopped his pacing to see that, yep, he and Rose were alone in the small room. How the hell had Jack managed that?
So I cut this one mid-episode because it was already starting to run a little long. I'll finish it up next chapter, promise.
This one was fun, including the Doctor's thoughts. His brain is a fun place to inhabit!
Thanks again to ocean-of-ink for the cover art!
Thanks to everyone who followed, favorited, and reviewed; I love finding out people's opinions about my writing!
Until next time!
