Chapter 8

The Doctor's Daughter

Luke Rattigan crouched under the control panel of the teleport pod, twisting some wires together. He didn't have the luxury of a sonic screwdriver.

'What ya doin'?' Rose asked him as he stood up.

'Something clever,' he said and pressed a button on the panel. He disappeared in a haze of white light, and the Doctor landed heavily on the floor, trying to catch his breath, which seemed to be caught in his chest at the moment. Rose rushed forward and slapped his arm hard.

"Could have been worse" he thought to himself, "it could have been the face again".

She knelt in front of him, grabbed his lapels, and pulled him into a passionate kiss. When she had finished with him, she sat beside him, snuggling into his shoulder so that he could put an arm around her shoulders. Martha came and sat by him, hugging his other arm.

'So . . . where's Luke then?' he said, looking around the room.

'He did something to the teleport, and it seemed to swap you,' Martha said.

'Oh. Clever kid . . . a bit misguided, but still, a clever kid.' He stood up and started to reset the teleport.

'I suppose he wanted to make it right, y'know, all the trouble he caused,' Rose said.

'Yeah,' the Doctor said, drawing in breath. 'One hell of an act of penance.'

He operated the teleport, and took them back to the basement of the Atmos factory, where the lifeless clone of Martha was lying against a column.

'Who was she?' Rose asked them, as they walked towards the door.

'A Sontaran clone . . . Well, a Martha clone, made by Sontarans. It was preventing UNIT from taking any offensive action against them.'

Back at ground level, they saw the consequences of the Sontaran stratagem. The dead soldiers were being put in body bags, placed on stretchers, and carried away to the UNIT Lorries, where they would be taken to the county mortuary. The dead Sontarans were also placed on stretchers, but the Doctor suspected they would be going to a laboratory in UNIT headquarters.

In the TARDIS, Martha went through to the wardrobe, and Rose went to the kitchen to make them all a cup of tea. 'Don't forget we said we'd go and see Donna, see if she's all right.'

'We said?' he queried, and saw the look she gave him. 'Okay. Just a quick visit to see if she's all right then.'

Martha returned, wearing a purple top with blue jeans and boots, and a cream coloured jacket. Rose handed her a mug of tea. 'We're just popping in to see a friend of ours, and then we'll drop you off.'

The Doctor landed the TARDIS in the street, opposite Donna's house, and Rose went and rang the doorbell. The Doctor strolled across the road with his hands in his pockets, with Martha by his side. He saw the Noble's car, and poked his head through the broken windscreen. 'I hope they've got windscreen cover.'

An elderly, grey haired man answered the door who Rose recognised as the newspaper seller they had seen when they teleported from the Titanic at Christmas.

'Er, is Donna in? we're friends of hers,' Rose said.

The elderly man looked over his shoulder and called out. 'Donna? Someone to see you.' He looked back at Rose and frowned. 'Have we met before? You seem familiar.'

'Well, sort of . . . briefly.' She looked back to the road, where the Doctor and Martha were looking at their car.

Wilf saw where she was looking and walked down the path to the road to say hello to Donna's friends.

'ROSE!' Donna said as she came to the door and grabbed her in a hug. 'I don't know. Leave you two on yer own for two weeks, and you're causin' chaos again.'

They walked down the path. 'Two weeks? it's only be a few hours for us.'

'Is it him? Is it him? Is it the Doctor? Ah, it's you!' the elderly man said.

'Who? Oh, it's you,' the Doctor said, recognising the old soldier.

'What, have you met before?' Donna asked her granddad.

'Yeah, both of 'em on Christmas Eve. They disappeared right in front of me.'

'And you never said?' Donna said to her granddad.

'Well, you never said,' he retorted. 'Wilf, sir. Wilfred Mott. You must be one of them aliens.'

'Yeah, but don't shout it out. Nice to meet you properly, Wilf.' The Doctor held out his hand.

'Oh, an alien hand,' he said with a smile and shook it. 'And what about you my gal, are you an alien as well?'

Rose laughed. 'Rose, and no, I'm a London gal. I just married an alien. Pleased to meet you Mr. Mott.' She leaned forwards and kissed his cheek.

'Ooh, I like her,' he said to Donna with a chuckle, 'but please call me Wilf.' He then turned to Martha. 'Alien?' he asked with a lopsided smile.

'Granddad! Only the Doctor is an alien,' Donna told him.

Martha held out her hand. 'Martha. I'm a London girl as well . . . just a friend of theirs.' She shook his hand and kissed his cheek.

'Two kisses from two beautiful ladies. This new aftershave's workin' as advertised,' he said with a cheeky grin.

'Are you flirting again Dad,' Sylvia said as she came down the path. She saw them standing around the car. 'I don't know, men and their cars. Sometimes I think if I was a car. Oh, it's you! Doctor what was it?'

'Yeah, that's me,' the Doctor said.

Wilf looked at his daughter. 'What, have you met him as well?'

'Dad, it's the man from the wedding. When you were laid up with Spanish flu. I'm warning you, last time that man turned up it was a disaster.'

'Ah, well. The disaster's already happened and been averted this time. So that's all right then,' the Doctor said.

'Mum, leave it!' Donna told her. 'Look, let's go to your office and you can tell me all about it,' she said to the Doctor, grabbing his arm and leading him across the street towards the TARDIS. 'So who's Martha then?'

'Who's Donna?' Martha asked Rose as they followed them across the road.

The Doctor put his key in the lock. 'Donna Noble, this is Martha Jones. We met her on the Moon. Martha Jones, this is Donna Noble, we sort of gatecrashed her wedding.'

'Ohhhh, Martha on the Moon,' Donna said, remembering Rose telling her about the Royal Hope Hospital.

'Ahhhh, Donna the runaway bride,' Martha said.

'Well, that's the introductions over,' the Doctor said. 'Anyone for a cup of tea?'

They went to the kitchen, and spent a pleasant afternoon catching up and exchanging stories. When they had eventually finished, the Doctor went to the console and flew the TARDIS to Martha's new home.

'So, you going to come with us? We're not exactly short of space,' Rose asked as they went back to the console room.

'Nah, I'm good thanks,' Donna said. 'I've got this new job I'm startin' on Monday. The United Nations Association of all places. I'm workin' in Whitehall! Mum and Granddad are SO proud.'

'Quite right too,' the Doctor said with a mischievous smile. Rose looked at him questioningly. Did he have anything to do with Donna getting a job with the United Nations?

'And what about you Martha?' he asked her.

'Oh, I have missed all this, particularly after meeting Shakespeare. But, you know,' she said looking up at the time rotor. 'I'm good here, back at home. And I'm better for having been away.'

She held her left hand up, showing her engagement ring. 'Besides, someone needs me. Never mind the universe, I've got a great big world of my own now,' she said excitedly, heading for the ramp.

Before she could put a foot on the ramp, the door slammed shut on its own and the time rotor started to pump up and down, throwing everyone around.

The Doctor grabbed the monitor to see what was happening. 'What . . ? What?'

'Doctor, don't you dare!' Martha called out.

'Oi, Skinny Boy. Watcha doin'?' Donna demanded.

'No, no, no. I didn't touch anything . . . We're in flight, it's not me.'

'Where are we going?' Rose shouted.

'I don't know . . . It's out of control!'

'Doctor, just listen to me. You take me home. Take me home right now!' Donna demanded.

'That goes for me too,' Martha said.

'What the hell's it doing?' Rose asked.

'The control's not working,' he said, as he fell against the jump seat. He noticed that his 'spare' hand was bubbling away in the jar under the console. "That's odd", he thought to himself.

'I don't know where we're going, but my old hand's very excited about it.'

'your hand? What do you mean, "your hand"?' Martha asked in disbelief.

'Well,' he said as he hung on to the console.

'It got cut off. He grew a new one,' Rose explained.

'You are completely . . . impossible,' Donna said.

'Not impossible . . . just a bit unlikely,' he said as the console exploded, throwing the ladies to the floor, and the Doctor onto the jump seat. They breathed heavily, as they watched the time rotor slowly cease, bringing peace and tranquillity to the TARDIS once more.

The Doctor jumped up and ran around the console, down the ramp, and out the door. The ladies climbed to their feet and ran after him.

'Why would the TARDIS bring us here, then?' he asked, as he stepped out into a large tunnel full of junk.

'Oh, I love this bit,' Martha said.

'Yeah, me too,' Donna agreed.

'I thought you wanted to go home,' Rose reminded them.

'I know, but all the same,' Martha said.

'It's that feeling you get,' Donna said excitedly.

'Like Christmas mornin',' Rose said.

'Yeah,' Martha agreed.

'Like you swallowed a hamster?' Donna said.

"Like you swallowed a hamster?" the Doctor, Rose and Martha thought to themselves. What kind of comparison was that? Before they could pursue that line of thought, they were rudely interrupted.

'Don't move! Stay where you are! Drop your weapons,' one of three men said who were running in their direction, pointing rifles at them.

They raised their hands. 'We're unarmed. Look, no weapons, never any weapons. We're safe,' the Doctor said hurriedly.

'Look at their hands. They're clean,' another man said.

'All right, process them. Him first.'

Two soldiers shouldered their rifles and grabbed the Doctor's arms. 'Oi, oi. What's wrong with clean hands?' he asked.

'What's going on?' Martha asked them.

The Doctor had his right arm pushed into a hole in a drum-like machine.

'Leave him alone,' Rose shouted at them.

'Something tells me this isn't about to check my blood pressure. Argh!'

'What are you doing to him?' Rose asked.

'Everyone gets processed,' the leader of the small group told them.

'It's taken a tissue sample,' the Doctor informed them. 'Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. And extrapolated it. Some kind of accelerator?' The machine released his arm, and he pulled it free, examining the back of his hand, where he saw a graze, and a hint of blood.

'Are you alright?' Martha asked, as she examined his hand to see if it needed any medical attention.

He ignored Martha's question, he was distracted by an upright glass and metal cylinder that had a blue light inside it.

'What on earth? That's just . . .'

A pair of glass and metal doors opened and a figure stepped out from the steam of the brightly lit interior. She was a skinny blonde woman in combat boots, trousers, and a khaki T-shirt.

'Arm yourself,' the group leader said, and handed her a rifle.

'Where did she come from?' Donna asked.

'From me,' the Doctor said as he watched her prep the weapon. He couldn't take his eyes off her, that face was SO familiar, and he hadn't seen it for centuries.

'From you?' Rose asked. 'How? Who is she?'

He hesitated, looking sheepishly at Rose. 'Well . . . she's, well . . . she's my daughter.'

'Hello, Dad.'

'Your daughter?!'

Donna and Martha gave each other a knowing look. This was going to test the Doctor and Rose's relationship.

'You primed to take orders? Ready to fight?' the leader of the soldiers asked her.

'Instant mental download of all strategic and military protocols, sir. Generation five thousand soldier primed and in peak physical health. Oh, I'm ready,' she said standing next to the other soldiers.

'Did you say daughter?' Rose asked the Doctor, a hint of irritation in her voice. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. She wanted to give birth to his daughter, not have one appear as fully developed adult.

'Mmm. Technically,' he said casually.

'What's that supposed to mean? Technically how?'

'Progenation. Reproduction from a single organism. Means one parent is biological mother and father. You take a sample of diploid cells, split them into haploids, then recombine them in a different arrangement and grow. Very quickly, apparently.'

Rose was a bit put out at suddenly having a step daughter her own age, and was about to tell him as much, when her step daughter interrupted.

'Something's coming.'

They could see shadows on the tunnel wall, and as the figures came into view, they started firing.

'It's the Hath!' the leader called out, returning fire.

'Get down!' the Doctor's daughter told them, and they all took cover. The Hath were wearing breathing masks, but they could see they had big fish eyes and very wrinkled necks.

'We have to blow the tunnel,' the group leader told them. 'Get the detonator.'

'I'm not detonating anything, the Doctor said as he crouched down to tend to a wounded soldier.

The Hath breached the barricade and one grabbed Martha, dragging her back behind the barricade. His daughter kicked one in the chest, and then spun around, catching him on the side of the head with her boot. She grabbed the yellow detonator box with a red button on it.

'Blow the thing!' the leader said. 'Blow the thing!'

The Doctor stood up. 'Martha! No. Don't . . .'

His daughter hit the button with her palm and a klaxon sounded. Everyone ran back down the corridor before a large explosion brought the roof down.

'You've sealed off the tunnel,' the Doctor said. He turned to the blonde. 'WHY DID YOU DO THAT?' he shouted angrily.

'They were trying to kill us,' she explained, as though it should have been obvious.

'BUT THEY'VE GOT OUR FRIEND!' Rose shouted at her.

'Collateral damage. At least you've still got them,' she said to the Doctor, nodding at Rose and Donna. 'He lost both his men. I'd say you came out ahead.'

Donna was furious. 'Her name's Martha! And she's not collateral damage, not for anyone. Have you got that, GI Jane?'

'I'm going to find her,' the Doctor said in a cold, determined voice.

'No. We're gonna find her,' Rose said, taking his hand and walking towards the barricade.

The leader held up his gun and pointed it at them. 'You're going nowhere. You don't make sense, you three. No guns, no marks, no fight in you. I'm taking you to General Cobb. Now, move.'

As they were led deeper into the tunnel system, Donna fell in step beside the petite blonde. 'I'm Donna. What's your name?'

'Don't know. It's not been assigned.'

'Well, if you don't know that, what do you know?'

'How to fight,' she said proudly.

'Nothing else?' Donna asked.

The Doctor spoke from behind them. 'The machine must embed military history and tactics, but no name. She's a generated anomaly.'

'Generated anomaly,' Donna said thoughtfully. 'Generated. Well, what about that? Jenny.'

'Jenny. Yeah, I like that. Jenny.'

'What do you think, Dad?' Donna asked teasingly.

'Don't call him that!' Rose said sharply.

The Doctor squeezed her hand in support. 'Good as anything, I suppose.'

'Not what you'd call a natural parent, are you?' Donna observed.

'They stole a tissue sample at gunpoint and processed it. It's not what I call natural parenting.'

'Rubbish.' Donna said. 'My friend Nerys fathered twins with a turkey baster. Don't bother her.'

'You can't extrapolate a relationship from a biological accident,' he told her.

'Er, Child Support Agency can,' Donna informed him.

'Look, just because I share certain physiological traits with simian primates doesn't make me a monkey's uncle, does it?'

'I'm not a monkey . . . Or a child,' Jenny told them sulkily.

'No. You're a . . . a clone,' Rose said angrily. 'A thing. A soldier, created to kill. You shoot people, you blow things up. You could never be our daughter.'

Donna raised a hand to make a point. 'Er, he blows things up as well.'

Rose glared at her and she put her hands up in submission and stepped backwards. 'Oops! Bit of a family domestic . . . Sorry.'

'Our daughter?' Jenny asked. 'You're his wife?' Rose nodded, unable to speak to the generated anomaly. 'Then that makes you my mum.'

The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. 'Well . . . technically your step mum, or adoptive mum . . . maybe foster mum . . .' He looked at the expression on Rose's face and shut up.


The Doctor, Rose, and Donna had discovered that they were on the planet Messaline, and the leader of the subterranean colony was called General Cobb. Cobb had thrown them and Jenny into a cell for being subversive pacifists,

'More numbers,' Donna said, looking at a plaque over the cage they were locked in numbered 60120716. 'They've got to mean something.'

'Makes as much sense as the Breath of Life story,' the Doctor replied, referring to General Cobbs creation myth.

'You mean that's not true?' Jenny asked.

Rose gave her a "dribbled down her khaki vest" look. 'No, it's a myth. Isn't it, Doctor?'

'Yes, but there could still be something real in that temple. Something that's become a myth. A piece of technology, a weapon.'

'So the Source could be a weapon and we've just given directions to Captain Nutjob?' Donna observed.

'Oh, yes,' he said.

'Not good, is it?' Rose asked.

'That's why we need to get out of here, find Martha and stop Cobb from slaughtering the Hath.' He looked at Jenny, and she was looking at him in awe. 'What, what are you, what are you, what are you staring at?'

'You keep insisting you're not a soldier, but look at you, drawing up strategies like a proper general.'

'No, no. I'm trying to stop the fighting.'

'Isn't every soldier?'

'Well, I suppose, but that's, that's. Technically . . . I haven't got time for this. Rose, I need your phone.'

'And now you've got a weapon,' said Jenny, looking at the mobile phone.

'It's not a weapon,' Rose told her.

'But he's using it to fight back. I'm going to learn so much from you. You are such a soldier.'

'Rose, will you tell her?'

'If he is a soldier, he's a soldier of peace.'

'Oh, you are speechless,' Donna laughed. 'I'm loving this. You keep on, Jenny.' The Doctor and Rose glared at her, but she was loving it.

After speaking with Martha on Rose's phone, the Doctor realised that the two warring factions were heading for the Temple, which contained something Cobb had called the Source.

'They're getting ready to move out. We have to get past that guard,' the Doctor said.

Rose flashed him a smile and fluttered her eyelids, ready to seduce Cline, their guard, when Jenny stepped forward. 'I can deal with him.'

'No, no, no, no. You're not going anywhere,' the Doctor told her, grabbing her arm.

'What?'

'You belong here with them.'

'She belongs with us,' Donna said. 'With you. She's your daughter.'

'She's his clone,' Rose told her.

'She's a soldier. She came out of that machine,' he stated.

'Oh yes, I know that bit. Listen, have you got that stethoscope? Give it to me. Come on.' The Doctor took the stethoscope out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her.

'What are you doing?' Jenny asked nervously as Donna put the small disk on her chest.

'It's all right. Just hold still.' Donna listened to Jenny's chest. 'Come here. Listen, and then tell me where she belongs.'

The Doctor listened to her chest 'Two hearts.'

'Exactly,' Donna said.

'Really?' Rose asked him.

'What's going on?' Jenny asked.

'Does that mean she's a, what do you call a female Time Lord?' Donna asked him.

'What's a Time Lord?'

'It's who I am. It's where I'm from,' he told her.

'And I'm from you,' Jenny reasoned.

'You're an echo, that's all,' he shouted, and then calmed down as Rose slipped her arm around his waist. 'A Time Lord is so much more. A sum of knowledge, a code, a shared history . . . a shared suffering. Only it's gone now, all of it.' He was almost in tears. 'Gone forever.'

'What happened?'

'There was a war.'

'Like this one?'

That made him laugh. 'Bigger. Much bigger.'

'And you fought . . . and killed?'

He looked at her for a long time before answering in a whisper. 'Yes.'

'Then how are we different?'

Rose wiped the tears from her eyes and spoke quietly. 'Because he regrets it. He doesn't revel in it, he doesn't glory in it. He has to live with it, every minute of every day. That's how you are different.'

Jenny fell silent. They were right, she had been programmed as a soldier, and she revelled in it and gloried in it because that was all she knew. But that programming had been overlaid on the Doctor's values, and those values were now starting to emerge from the darkness of violence and aggression.

'Teach me,' she said quietly. 'Let me learn how to fight back without fighting. Let me get you out of this cell.'

'Wasn't that Bruce Lee?' Donna whispered to Rose.

Jenny turned out to be a quick learner, if a little bit rough, and they were now making their way along a corridor, trying to get to the temple before there was a bloodbath.

Jenny was chatting with Donna, who she felt was her only friend. 'And what's it like, the travelling?'

'Oh, never a dull moment. It can be terrifying, brilliant and funny, sometimes all at the same time. I've seen some amazing things though. Whole new worlds.'

'Oh, I'd love to see new worlds.'

'You will. Won't she, Doctor?'

'Hmm?'

'Do you think Jenny will see any new worlds?'

'I suppose so.'

'You mean. You mean you'll take me with you?'

'Well, we can't leave you here, can we?' he said, looking to Rose for her support. And Rose smiled at him, because since she had made her little speech and told Jenny exactly why she was nothing like the Doctor, Jenny had changed. Rose could see that she wanted to change, and was trying hard.

'Nope. Can't leave you here with all these fit, young soldiers,' she said. 'Might turn your head.'

'Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Come on, let's get a move on.'

'Careful, there might be traps,' the Doctor told her as she hurried ahead.

'Kids,' Donna said out loud. 'They never listen.'

Donna saw the way the Doctor and Rose were looking at her. 'Oh, I know that look. I see it a lot round our way. Blokes with pushchairs and frowns, and young girls up the duff. You've got parent-shock.'

'Parent-shock?' they said together.

'Sudden unexpected parenthood. Takes a bit of getting used to.'

'No, it's not that,' the Doctor told her.

'Well, what is it then? Having Jenny in the TARDIS, is that it? What's she going to do, cramp your style? Like you've got a sports car and she's going to turn it into a people-carrier?'

'Donna, I've been a father before.'

'What?' Donna said in surprise.

Rose nodded. He'd let it slip to her a while ago that he'd been a father once, but she hadn't pressed him on the subject because she could tell it was upsetting for him.

'I lost all that a long time ago, along with everything else.' Rose reached down and held his hand, looking into his dark, sad eyes with concern.

'I'm sorry. I didn't know. Why didn't you tell me? You talk all the time, but you don't say anything.'

'Because it's painful for him,' Rose said.

'I know. I'm just . . . When I look at her now, I can see them. The hole they left, all the pain that filled it. I just don't know if I can face that every day,' he said, looking at his rock beside him. He knew that without Rose he would fall apart.

'It won't stay like that. She'll help you,' Donna told him.

'But when they died, that part of me died with them. It'll never come back. Not now. Rose was a new start for me, a way to draw a line under it and move on.'

'I tell you something, Doctor. Something I've never told you before. I think you're wrong.'


They had made it to the Temple, except that it wasn't a temple, it was a colony space ship, and both the Humans and the Hath were trying to get in. They were on an upper deck, where the Doctor was trying to work out what had happened to the colonists.

'It's the Hath,' Jenny said, looking at the flare from a plasma torch outside. 'That door's not going to last much longer. And if General Cobb gets through down there, war's going to break out.'

'Look, look, look, look, look. Ship's log,' the Doctor said, looking at a computer terminal. The screen displayed "Messaline Leader One mission log designation XG2482942-372."

The Doctor put on his brainy specs and started reading. 'First wave of Human/Hath co-colonisation of planet Messaline. Core subterranean deployment successful. Online and active. Phase one initiated. Construction drones deployed. Construction of sections 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3C & 3D complete. Phase one in progress. Construction drones active. Construction of sections 1C, 1D, 2C, 2D, 3A & 3C complete.'

'So it is the original ship,' Jenny realised.

'What happened?' Rose asked him.

'Phase one, construction. They used robot drones to build the city.'

'But does it mention the war?' Donna wanted to know.

The Doctor scrolled down through Phase One in progress. 'Construction of western quadrant complete. Phase two initiated. Commencing colonisation protocol 0.7. Designated pioneer progenation in progress. Mission commander quarantined due to eruption of Byzantine fever. Prognosis negative.'

He scrolled down to the end of the log. 'Final entry. Mission commander dead. Still no agreement on who should assume leadership. Hath and Humans have divided into factions. That must be it. A power vacuum. The crew divided into two factions and turned on each other. Start using the progenation machines, suddenly you've got two armies fighting a never-ending war.'

'Two armies who are now both outside,' Jenny told them.

Rose went over to Donna, who was looking at a digital readout that displayed the number 60120724. 'What is it with the numbers?' Rose asked her. 'You seem obsessed with 'em.'

Donna nodded in agreement. 'Look at that,'

The Doctor and Jenny joined them. 'It's like the numbers in the tunnels,' he said.

'No, no, no, no. But listen, I spent six months working as a temp in Hounslow Library, and I mastered the Dewey Decimal System in two days flat. I'm good with numbers. It's staring us in the face.'

Jenny came and stood beside her. 'What is?'

'It's the date. Assuming the first two numbers are some big old space date, then you've got year, month, day. It's the other way round, like it is in America.'

The Doctor suddenly realised what it was. 'Oh! It's the New Byzantine Calendar.'

Donna continued to work through her reasoning. 'The codes are completion dates for each section. They finish it, they stamp the date on. So the numbers aren't counting down, they're going out from here, day by day, as the city got built.'

'Yes. Oh, good work, Donna,' the Doctor said.

'Blimey. That's brilliant!' said Rose with raised eyebrows.

'Yeah. But you're still not getting it. The first number I saw back there, was sixty twelve oh seven seventeen. Well, look at the date today.'

The Doctor read it out loud. 'Oh seven twenty four . . . No.'

'What does it mean?' Jenny asked.

'Seven days,' the Doctor said.

Donna nodded. 'That's it. Seven days.'

'Just seven days,' Rose said in realisation.

Jenny was confused. 'What do you mean, seven days?'

'Seven days since war broke out,' the Doctor explained.

'This war started seven days ago. Just a week. A week!' Donna exclaimed.

Jenny shook her head. 'They said years.'

'No, they said generations,' Donna corrected her. 'And if they're all like you, and they're products of those machines.'

'They could have twenty generations in a day. Each generation gets killed in the war, passes on the legend. Ooh, Donna, you're a genius.'

'An' there were you sayin' you were just a temp,' Rose said with a lopsided smile.

'But all the buildings, the encampments. They're in ruins,' Jenny said.

'No, they're not ruined. They're just empty. Waiting to be populated,' he explained. 'Oh, they've mythologised their entire history. The Source must be part of that too. Come on.'

They ran down a utility corridor, full of pipes and cables, when they heard someone coming down some metal stairs. Had the warring factions found another way in?

'Doctor!' Martha called out with glee.

'Martha! Oh, I should have known you wouldn't stay away from the excitement,' he said, pulling her into a hug.

'Rose, Donna,' she said and reached out to give them a group hug, when Donna held back.

'Oh, you're filthy. What happened?'

'I, er, took the surface route.'

They heard Cobb shout "Positions" from the walkways below.

The Doctor looked over the handrail. 'That's the General. We haven't got much time.'

'We don't even know what we're looking for,' Rose reminded him.

Having just come from outside, Martha's nose was clear of the smells of the ship. 'Is it me, or can you smell flowers?'

The Doctor sniffed the air. 'Yes. Bougainvillea. I say we follow our nose.' He led them up the metal stairs until they arrived in an area of the ship that seemed to be a tropical rain forest.

'Oh, yes. Yes. Isn't this brilliant?' he said as they walked along a metal walkway between the undergrowth, up to a glowing globe on a pedestal with wires running to it. There was a control panel and screen nearby.

'Is that the Source?' Rose asked him.

'It's beautiful,' Jenny said.

'What is it?' Martha asked.

'Terraforming. It's a third generation terraforming device.'

'So why are we suddenly in Kew Gardens?' Donna asked him.

'I thought it was more like the Eden Project,' Rose said.

'Ooh, good analogy,' the Doctor told her with a smile. 'Because that's what it does. All this, only bigger. Much bigger. It's in a transit state. Producing all this must help keep it stable before they finally . . .' The Hath and the soldiers ran into the area from opposite sides with weapons drawn.

The Doctor ran between them, holding his hands out. 'Stop! Hold your fire!'

'What is this, some kind of trap?' Cobb asked suspiciously.

'You said you wanted this war over,' the Doctor reminded him.

'I want this war won,' Cobb corrected him.

'Oh there ya go, splittin' hairs over the use of language again,' Rose said irritably.

The Doctor gave her an exasperated look. 'You can't win. No one can. You don't even know why you're here. Your whole history, it's just Chinese whispers, getting more distorted the more it's passed on. This is the Source. This is what you're fighting over. A device to rejuvenate a planet's ecosystem. It's nothing mystical. It's from a laboratory, not some creator. It's a bubble of gases. A cocktail of stuff for accelerated evolution. Methane, hydrogen, ammonia, amino acids, proteins, nucleic acids. It's used to make barren planets habitable . . . Look around you. It's not for killing, it's bringing life. If you allow it, it can lift you out of these dark tunnels and into the bright, bright sunlight. No more fighting, no more killing.'

Jenny looked at her father with such pride, and saw that her stepmother had the same expression. She understood now what a soldier of peace was, because it took more courage to put down a weapon than it did to pick it up. And she realised that it took infinitely more courage to never pick up the weapon in the first place.

Rose saw Jenny hesitantly hold out her hand for her to hold, and she looked at her hand, before looking her in the eyes and seeing the seeds of understanding. Rose brushed Jenny's hand aside and pulled her into a hug, kissing her head and rubbing her back.

This was what the Doctor did, she realised. He challenged people's views of their world and made them confront their beliefs. He changed people. He'd changed her, and he'd changed his daughter . . . their daughter.

The Doctor took the globe off it's support pedestal and held it at shoulder height. 'I'm the Doctor, and I declare this war is over.' He threw the globe onto the floor, where it smashed and released gas and energy. Everyone watched as the beautiful tendrils of gaseous energy pirouetted into the air. Soldiers lowered their weapons and put them on the floor, all except General Cobb.

Jenny released the hug with Rose and went over to the Doctor. 'What's happening?'

'The gases will escape and trigger the terraforming process,' the Doctor told her.

'What does that mean?'

'It means a new world.'

General Cobb didn't want a new world. He was a soldier, he was important, he was in charge. He raised his pistol and pointed it at the Doctor's chest.

Jenny saw the action and reacted as a soldier for the last time, putting herself in the line of fire. 'No!'

The bullet hit her in the chest, and she slumped back against the Doctor, who gently lowered her to the ground.

'Jenny? Jenny. Talk to me, Jenny.'

Rose rushed forward and knelt beside them, holding her hand and stroking her temple. 'Jenny? C'mon Sweetheart, you're gonna be okay. You've got two doctors here to look after you.'

'Is she going to be all right?' Donna asked Martha, who was doing an initial trauma assessment. Martha shook her head. The bullet had hit vital blood vessels in her chest. She was bleeding to death.

'A new world,' Jenny breathed as she looked through her tears at the ball of gaseous energy. 'It's beautiful.'

'Jenny, be strong now. You need to hold on, do you hear me? We've got things to do, you, me . . . and your mum, hey? Hey? We can go anywhere. Everywhere. You choose.'

'That sounds good.'

'You're my daughter . . . our daughter, and we've only just got started. You're going to be great. You're going to be more than great. You're going to be amazing. You hear me? Jenny?'

'Jenny?' Rose cried. She couldn't die now. She'd only just accepted her as her daughter. She wanted to say sorry and to make it up to her.

Jenny breathed out and closed her eyes. The Doctor and Rose waited for her to breath in again, but she never did. Rose gasped and sobbed, hugging her husband and sharing their grief.

The Doctor looked up at Martha hopefully. 'Two hearts. Two hearts. She's like me. If we wait. If we just wait.'

'There's no sign, Doctor. There is no regeneration. She's like you, but maybe not enough.'

'No. Too much. That's the truth of it. She was too much like me.'

The Doctor lay Jenny down and kissed her forehead, Rose knelt down and gently stroked her face. The Doctor stood and went over to Cobb, who was being held by his arms and made to kneel. The Doctor picked up the pistol and pointed it at Cobb's head.

'Doctor?' Rose called quietly. It was one of those moments where she needed to remind him of who he was and what he stood for. He pointed the gun at Cobb for a very long time before putting the safety back on.

'I never would. Have you got that? I never would. When you start this new world, this world of Human and Hath, remember that. Make the foundation of this society a man who never would.'