Alt! Series 1 Chapter 9, a doctor who fanfic

Chapter 9: The Empty Child

The TARDIS was shaking and rocking more violently than usual. And the Doctor seemed to be in a right hurry. Rose had a feeling that she knew what was going on but she couldn't be sure unless she asked. Besides, it wouldn't do for the Doctor to get all suspicious. That was no fun.

'What's the emergency?' Rose called over the noise.

'It's mauve!' the Doctor called.

'Mauve?' Rose ran over to the console and to his side.

She'd been right.

'Universally recognised colour for danger,' the Doctor clarified.

Rose didn't need to ask "what happened to red". She knew that was just humans. The Doctor glanced at her. He seemed to realise what she knew. She knew it didn't really bother him. 'The day I know it all, I may as well stop!' he'd once said in the dimension she'd been born in.

'Okay, I'm hacking the TARDIS computer into it.' The Doctor pulled her out of her musings.

'And that's safe?' Rose asked, knowing that it wasn't and it would prove itself not to be.

'Totally.' He reached around the console and sparks shot out as something exploded, burning his hand. 'Okay, reasonably! Should've said "reasonably" there.' Then he looked at the screen. 'Oh, no, no, no!' he yelled, jumping on it. 'It's jumping time tracks!'

'Then why are we chasing it?' Rose asked, even though she already knew the answer.

'It's mauve and dangerous and about 30 minutes from the centre of London.'

Rose looked at him. It's the Gas Mask Zombies. He didn't know that, but she did. She just had to decide what to do about it.

Rose looked up at the kid on the rooftop. She recognised him and she knew who and what he was. She didn't call up to him because she was unsure of her next move.

'Are you my mummy?' he called.

She had a decision to make now. "To be or not to be". To get my hands all cut up or to look the old fashioned way? Oh, what the hell! Where's the fun in just looking for him when I have a way to make him find me?

She could go for the barrage balloon again, but that would hurt. On the other hand, it was the sure-fire way to find Jack. She couldn't just tell the Doctor that an ex-Time Agent-turned-con-man had mistaken them for Time Agents and threw it at them, hoping to con them. That meant that the barrage-balloon-middle-of-a-German-air-raid route was the way to go.

'Sorry, love,' she muttered under her breath and heading for the rope.

The Doctor would not be happy when he found out about this.

'They're gonna get it one day,' the Doctor told a cat he found as he picked it up and stroked its head. ''Don't wander off'. One day I'm gonna find someone who gets it.'

When a phone rang, it took him a minute to realise where it was coming from. He put the cat down and walked over to the TARDIS.

'What am I supposed to do with a ringing phone?' It didn't make sense. The phone in it was a dummy. How could it possibly be ringing? Well! Only one way to find out. He opened the panel and answered it, 'Hello?'

'Are you my mummy?'

Captain Jack Harkness looked over the air raid. Bingo! The girl was hanging from a barrage balloon. Clearly, she was either not to bright or didn't really think about something before she did it. Either that, or she had a superior who made her get in that situation but they wouldn't be watching her now. She'd have to report back.

'Excellent bottom!' Jack announced, checking out her behind.

'Really, man!' Algy lightly reprimanded him. 'A time and a place!'

'Sorry.' Jack lowered the binoculars and faced him. 'I was talking about something else, but you have an excellent bottom too.' He patted Algy on the rear as he passed him. 'I have to check something out. I'll be back.'

'You mustn't let him touch you!' the girl called Nancy exclaimed as the hand came through.

'What happens if he touches me?' the Doctor asked.

'He'll make you like him,' she answered, as if she expected him not to believe her.

The Doctor looked at the hand in the letterbox. It looked like the hand of a four-year-old human child. Something really…odd had happened here, even by his standards and it tied into Nancy somehow. He just had to find out how.

Rose landed in the tractor beam.

'Can you turn your phone off?' Jack called through the speaker system.

'What?' she called back. 'Does it interfere with your equipment?'

'Seriously, it does,' he told her.

'Nobody actually believes that, you know!' she called, but pulled out her phone and switched it off.

Nancy snuck through the disused railroads. She crouched by one of the food pockets she'd made and started filling it up. When she looked up, she was shocked to see that bloke was there.

'Hello,' he said.

'How did you follow me?' she asked.

'I'm good at following, me,' he responded. 'Got the nose for it.'

'People can't usually follow me if I don't want them to,' she told him.

'My nose has special powers,' he announced.

'Yeah?' She smiled. 'That why it's so…' No. That would be rude. Her mother had taught her better than that with manners. Even if Nancy never took the really important bit to heart.

'What?'he asked.

'Nothing,' she told him.

'What?' he repeated.

'Nothing,' she insisted. 'Do your ears have special powers too?'

'What are you saying?' he asked.

'Good night, mister.' She went to leave.

'Nancy.' He stopped her. 'There's something chasing you and the other kids, isn't there? Started about a month ago? Looks like a boy and it isn't a boy? This thing I'm looking for. You know what it is, don't you?'

'There was…a bomb,' she told him. 'A bomb that wasn't a bomb.'

'Take me there,' the Doctor told her.

'No.' She shook her head. 'Guards. Barbed wire. You'd never get in.'

'Try me,' he challenged her.

'You really want to know what's in there?' she asked.

'I really want to know,' he said.

'Then there's someone you should talk to first.'

'Who's that?'

'The doctor.'

As Nancy turned her back, she missed the bloke's funny look.

Rose had been right. Jack had picked her up. Charming as she remembered him. But this time she hadn't fainted. She'd sat down as soon as she was in and asked for something to drink. He'd done as he was asked and then fixed up her hands. Then he handed her the paper.

'Captain Jack Harkness,' he said. '32nd Flight Squad.'

'That's slightly psychic paper,' she stated.

'How'd you know?' he asked.

'I have a friend that has some.' She handed it back. 'And you just handed me a card that says you're single and you work out.'

'Tricky thing, psychic paper,' Jack mused.

'You probably shouldn't let your mind wander,' she said. 'Besides, you've made the mother of mistakes. Do I look like a Time Agent to you?'

'You're not a Time Agent?' he asked.

'Would a Time Agent be wearing a union jack all over their chest?' she asked. 'Or be flying in a box?'

Jack seemed to consider that. And after a moment, he seemed to realise that it was actually true. Time Agents didn't try to blend into the local colour.

'Whoops,' he muttered. 'Sorry.'

'Uh huh.' Rose knew he was really more embarrassed than sorry. 'Oh, by the way, I'm not trying to blend in. This is just what I decided to wear when I got up this morning. And the Doctor wears those basic clothes all the time. He once wore them to the Victorian-era. Just wanted to clear that up before you make a comment to him and make yourself look dumber than you'll already look to him.'

'Well, that's just great,' Jack muttered under his breath. 'What? Has he got a superiority complex or something?'

'Not really,' Rose responded.

'The bomb's under that tarpaulin,' Nancy told the Doctor as he looked through scanner-binoculars that he'd fashioned to look like they were pocket binoculars from the 1940s. 'The hospital's a little further on.'

'Right now, I'm more interested in getting in there.' The Doctor pointed to the "bomb".

'Talk to the doctor first,' Nancy told him.

'Why?' he asked.

'Because maybe then you won't want to get inside,' Nancy answered. She turned to walk off.

'Wait,' he called. 'Where are you going?'

'There was a lot of food in that house,' Nancy answered. 'I've got mouths to feed.'

'Can I ask you a question?' the Doctor asked. 'Who did you lose?'

'What?' Nancy looked at him, slightly confused.

'The way you look after all those kids.' The Doctor pulled the binoculars down and looked at her. 'It's because you lost someone, isn't it? And you're doing this to try to make up for it.'

She hesitated. 'My little brother. Jamie. One night, I went out looking for food. Same night that thing fell. I told him not to follow me. I told him it was dangerous. But…he just didn't like being on his own.'

'What happened?' the Doctor asked.

'In the middle of an air raid?' Nancy responded. 'What do you think happened?'

He accepted the point and looked out to the air raid in the distance. 'Amazing.'

'What is?' Nancy asked.

'The Nazi war machine,' the Doctor mused, mostly to himself. 'Rolling all over Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Until they get to one little island on the other side of the North Sea and they say "no". "No".' He looked at her. 'So go on. Save the world.'

She smiled and went on her way.

'Right, I'll do a search for alien tech to find your friend,' Jack announced.

'No need,' Rose told him. 'I know where he is.'

'Oh?' Jack asked. 'Where?'

'Albion Hospital,' Rose answered.

'Do I even want to know how you know that?' Jack asked.

'I could tell you,' Rose mused. 'But I'm playing guessing games with him. It'd hardly be fair if I just told you the answer, would it?'

Jack chuckled. He liked this girl. She was playing games with this guy. Now, what kind of games was another thing. What kind of games besides guessing games, that was. He really didn't doubt that they were also horsing around.

The Doctor turned around as he heard something behind him. A lame and aged doctor made his way in. The man looked at him.

'Are you the doctor?' the Doctor asked.

'Dr. Constantine, yes,' the man answered. 'Who are you?'

'I'm—Nancy sent me,' the Doctor told him.

'Nancy?' Dr. Constantine asked. 'That means you must've been asking about the bomb? What do you know about it?'

'Nothing,' the Doctor answered. 'That's why I was asking. What do you know?'

'Only what its done,' Dr. Constantine answered.

The Doctor looked around. 'These people were all caught up in the crash?'

'None of them were,' Dr. Constantine said. 'Are you a doctor?'

'I have my moments,' the Doctor answered.

'Have you examined any of them?' Dr. Constantine asked.

'No.' The Doctor's answer was quick and sure.

'Don't touch the flesh,' Dr. Constantine warned him.

'Which one?'

'Any one.'

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver. He went over to the nearest one and scanned them. Dani had never seen how he could understand what the sonic was reading out, seeing as there were no displays but he could.

It was a Time Lord thing.

'Here we are,' Jack announced. 'Albion Hospital.'

'Good.' Rose beamed. 'Open the hatch and let's go. My friend will be in there.'

'So, when you say "friend"…' Jack purposely trailed off as he did as she asked and opened the hatch. 'How disappointed should I be?'

'Very disappointed.' Rose skipped out of the ship.

The Doctor watched as Dr. Constantine turned into one of those Gas Mask Zombies before anything could stop it. Right now, he was very worried about Rose. She probably didn't know about this "plague".

'Hello?' someone called.

The Doctor turned and went in the direction that the voice came from. He was relieved to hear Rose telling whoever it was off for being so loud. Another pretty boy. As soon as Rose saw him, she came over.

'This is Jack,' she told him. 'He threw that ship at us as bait. He's a con man and he thought we were Time Agents.'

He thought they were Time Agents? Despite the severity of the situation, the Doctor laughed. And, added bonus: now he knew who to blame for the mutation in the humans in the hospital.

'Anybody can make a mistake!' Jack insisted, sounding put out.

'Yeah.' The Doctor's tone turned distasteful. 'And you've made the mother of all mistakes.'

'That's what she said,' Jack complained, gesturing to Rose.

'She's not wrong,' the Doctor said, leading them into the room he'd just come out of.

'This is impossible,' Jack stated.

'Right,' the Doctor agreed.

'How can they all have the same injuries?'

'Right.'

'The exact same injuries!' Jack turned to them.

'What about this ship you threw at us?' the Doctor asked.

'It was just an ambulance!' Jack insisted. 'It was harmless!'

'Mm hm.' The Doctor gave him a look that said he clearly didn't believe him. 'And I'm a 45-year-old human.'

Jack looked at him. He knew the Doctor didn't believe him. Okay, but at least I know he's not human. That's the sign of a not-a-Time-Agent if I ever saw one. Sure, it looked like it was Jack, but that med-ship was harmless. It was nothing more than circumstantial evidence. But Jack had made sure it wouldn't hurt anyone.

Rose stayed near the Doctor. She kept her hand in his, knowing that he was plenty angry. Jack was stewing now, pacing, still a safe enough distance away so he wouldn't hear her whisper and he'd be able to jump out of the way of the Gas Mask Zombies when they stood up.

'He really thinks he's not to blame,' Rose whispered to the Doctor, laying her cheek on his shoulder.

He looked down at her. She knew he was, again, amazed at how human she was. It was no surprise to her, really. She'd been born a human, despite the changes that had come over her body since she became involved with aliens. She understood that he was still jaded by the Time War. He sighed heavily.

'I know,' he whispered back. 'But that doesn't change the fact that he did it. He has to get that. Then, maybe I'll forgive him. Depends on what he does to fix it.'

Suddenly all the gas mask people sat up. Even though Rose was expecting it, she still jumped and yelped. The Doctor and Jack also jumped.

'Mummy?'

The slowly stood up. The Doctor pulled Rose back and Jack, following their example, back away himself. His hand went to his blaster for a minute as the three of them were boxed in against that door.

'Mummy?'

'Don't let them touch you!' the Doctor warned.

'What happens if they touch us?' Rose asked, mostly for Jack's benefit seeing as he was the only one who didn't know.

'You're looking at it,' the Doctor answered.

'Mummy?'

Rose moved closer to the Doctor.