Eleven
'A Missile at 10 Downing Street'
aka - World War Three (Part Two)
"- Our inspectors have searched the sky above our heads...and they have found massive weapons of destruction capable of being deployed within forty five seconds -" The Slitheen impersonating the acting Prime Minister spoke. His voice was a little crackly through the receiver as Mickey held up the phone to the TV for them to listen in, but Ella could tell that it was just as cold and calculated as ever.
"What?" Said the Doctor, clearly not believing those words for a second. That definitely wasn't comforting to Ella.
"- Our technicians can baffle the alien probes but not for long. We are facing extinction. Unless we strike first. The United Kingdom stands directly beneath the belly of the mothership. I beg of the United Nations, pass an emergency resolution. Give us the codes. A nuclear strike at the heart of the ship is our only chance of survival. Because from this moment on it is my...solemn duty to inform you planet Earth is at war."
The Doctor shook his head in disbelief, turning to look at Ella, Rose and Harriet who were equally as confused. "He's making it up. There's no weapons up there, there's no threat. He's just invented it."
"Do you think they'll believe him?" Harriet asked hurriedly.
"Well they did last time."
"They will. Especially when they're scared. He's gone and hyped it up for a reaction," Ella said resolutely.
"That's why the Slitheen went for a spectacle," The Doctor said as he continued his pacing. "They want the whole world panicking, because you lot, you get scared, you lash out."
"And they release the defence codes…" Ella said.
"...And the Slitheen go nuclear," Added the Doctor, finishing her sentence.
They followed him over to the bolted door, and he was quick to unmask the button from under its plastic covering against the wall, and press it. The doors opened just as quickly as they'd closed in the first place, all of the safety and security lifting to reveal three of the Slitheen who must've been standing guard. They seemed almost shocked by their sudden appearance, at least that's what Ella thought, it was difficult to read the expressions on their slimy misshapen faces.
But the Doctor didn't give them a second to launch themselves at them, instead he began to talk. "You get the codes, release the missiles. But not into space because there's nothing there. You attack every other country on Earth, they retaliate, fight back. World War Three, the whole planet gets nuked."
The blue suited alien who had tried to attack Ella, Harriet and Rose earlier slipped past the group of Slitheen standing in front of the door. Her face was measured, and the grin that stretched over her lips was one of satisfaction. She was winning this game and she knew it.
"And we can sit through it on our spaceship waiting in the Thames. Not crashed. Just parked. Only two minutes away," She said smugly, clearly celebrating her achievements.
Harriet spoke up from over the Doctor's shoulder. "But you'll destroy the planet, this beautiful place. What for?" She demanded.
"Profit," Ella suggested, looking over at the Doctor for confirmation.
He only nodded as he continued to look at the aliens. "That's what the signal is beaming into space. An advert."
An evil look passed over the aliens' face then. "Sale of the century," The clothed Slitheen declared. "We reduce the Earth to molt and slag then sell it. Piece by piece. Radioactive chunks capable of powering every cut price star linear and budget cargo ship. There's a recession out there, Doctor. People are buying cheap. This rock becomes raw fuel."
"At the cost of five billion lives," The Doctor said stonily.
The alien shrugged, acting like it was no big deal. "Bargain."
"Then I give you a choice," He said. "Leave this planet or I'll stop you."
The Slitheen laughed, high pitched and annoying. They thought that the Doctor's threat was nothing. But Ella had seen the Doctor stop a flap of skin from making trillions in fraud by killing the innocent with just a flick of a switch. She witnessed him name the home planet of the Slitheen in minutes and save lives with that information. Ella may not know if he had a plan to get them out of this one, but for some reason deep inside her she truly believed that he could find a way out of the situation and stop them. The Slitheen really shouldn't be laughing.
"What?" The cloaked Slitheen taunted, taking a few heavy steps to get closer to them. Ella instinctively wanted to step back, get away from the alien that had gotten so close to killing her and Rose, but the way the Doctor stayed firm in his stance made her act the same. Almost as though she was feeding off his strength. "You?" She carried on. "Trapped in your box?"
"Yes, me," The Doctor told her calmly, pressing the button once more and sealing them in. But he never broke eye contact, never let her know that she had any power.
"Alright Doctor," Jackie called from the other line. She hadn't hung up the phone during all of the news briefings, probably running up one hell of a phone bill. But this was the first time she had spoken in an hour, and she sounded reluctant as she talked to the Doctor. "I'm not saying I trust you, but there must be something you can do."
Harriet rounded the table and held the bottle of port in her hands. "If we could ferment the port we could make acetic acid," She supplied lamely.
"Mickey, any luck?" Rose asked from her seat by the phone. He'd been tasked with calling any possible emergency hotlines so that they could be connected to the outside world.
"There's loads of emergency numbers but they're all on voicemail," He replied.
Harriet sighed. "Voicemail dooms us all."
Rose did another scan of the room like she was trying to look for something to help, something they'd missed before. "If we could just get out of here," She almost said impatiently.
"There's a way out," The Doctor said.
Since the news reports came out with the Slitheen impersonating the Prime Minister calling for help the Doctor had taken to leaning against one of the barred windows. He'd been silent for a while and neither Rose nor Ella thought it was a good idea to rouse him from his mood.
"What?" Ella asked almost incredulously as she spun around to look at the Doctor. If there's a way out, a plan, why weren't they using it? Why were they just sitting around moping while the world is on red alert?
"There's always been a way out," He said simply. And there it was.
"Why don't we use it?" Rose aked.
The Doctor moved back over to the table heavily. He refused to look at both Ella and Rose as he did so. "Because I can't guarantee your daughter will be safe," He said, answering Jackie.
"Don't you dare!" Jackie exclaimed seriously over the phone as the Doctor frowned. "Whatever it is, don't you dare."
"That's the thing. If I don't dare, everyone dies," The Doctor said darkly, seriously. It didn't seem like there were a lot of choices.
"Do it then," Rose told him simply as though it wasn't a big deal.
The Doctor then finally looked over at Rose, and then made eye contact with Ella. He almost looked surprised by Rose's admission. "You don't even know what it is," He said. "You'd just let me?"
Ella found herself nodding. "Well...yeah," She said. It wasn't like they had much of a choice by this point. And they needed to stop the Slitheen before they blew up the entire planet. It was like one of those ethical questions. Do you kill a few people to save the world instead of the entire world blowing up? It was an obvious choice. Ella couldn't be selfish.
He still looked stunned by their decisions as though he wasn't expecting them to agree so easily. He was ready for a fight, and it seemed Jackie was going to give it to him. She sounded angry and scared as she yelled down the phone.
"Please Doctor, please," She pleaded. "She's my daughter, she's just a kid."
The Doctor shook his head. "Do you think I don't know that?" He said, stressing his words and trying to get the seriousness of the situation across. "Because this is my life, Jackie, it's not fun, it's not smart, it's just standing up and making a decision because nobody else will."
"Then what are you waiting for?" Asked Rose, leaning over the table to regard the Doctor. She looked just as serious as he did, but Ella wondered if she actually understood the danger of the situation they were about to be put in. Neither did Ella.
"We have to do something," Ella mumbled. They couldn't leave it any longer, the UN could be calling with access codes within minutes. They could've already called and they were just waiting around until the world ended.
It was obvious that the Doctor was conflicted by having to make such a big decision, but that pressure shouldn't have to rest fully on his shoulders. He looked over at them, held their gazes as he spoke softly, almost regretfully. "I could save the world but lose the two of you."
Harriet stepped forward, taking the reins. "Except it's not your decision to make, Doctor. It's mine."
"And who the hell are you?" Jackie called through the phone, sounding irritated.
"Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North. The only elected representative in this room, chosen by the people, for the people, and on behalf of the people, I command you. Do it."
It was then when the Doctor's stoic expression was replaced with a grin. He raced over to the red emergency briefcase that Harriet was using and flipped it open.
"So how do we get out?" Rose asked.
The Doctor grabbed up the papers inside and spread them out over the table. "We don't," He said distractedly. "We stay here."
"And what are we supposed to do?" Ella asked next.
He cocked his head toward the phone. "Mickey the idiot's got a computer," He told them before returning his attention to the man over the phone. "Use the buffalo password. It overrides everything."
"Hacking into the Royal Navy," Mickey said next. There was a second of silence and then he was talking again. "We're in. Here it is...H.M.S Taurean, Trafalgar Class Submarine ten miles off the coast of Plymouth," He read.
"Right," Nodded the Doctor. "We need to select a missile."
"We can't go nuclear, we don't have the codes," He protested from the other line. The Doctor rolled his eyes as though he couldn't understand why Mickey had stated that.
"We don't need it. All we need is an ordinary missile. What's the first category?"
"Sub Harpoon UGM-848."
"That's the one," The Doctor declared with a smile. "Select," He ordered next. After a few seconds of silence, the Doctor glanced over at Ella, Rose and Harriet before he spoke into the receiver at Mickey once more. "You ready for this?"
"...Yep," Mickey answered pensively, but his voice seemed somewhat resolved at the same time.
The Doctor took a step back from the speakerphone and his face morphed into a concentrated frown once more as he readied himself for the impending death and disaster that was to come. "Mickey the idiot. The world is in your hands," He swallowed, looked out at the three women before he ordered Mickey to do it. "Fire."
Tense silence fell over the room then. But what were they supposed to do? Celebrate the fact that they were going to die in the explosion? The missile would be shot into the air by now and they couldn't back out even if they tried. It was Harriet that spoke next, she was trying to cling to any semblance of life left, walking over to the barred metal windows and patting them to test the weight.
"How solid are these?" She asked.
"Not solid enough. Built for short range attacks. Nothing this big."
"So we're dead then. Right?" Ella stated as she slumped heavily against the desk, fingers gripping her glass and drawing it closer to her. She guessed it didn't matter if she was drunk - the Doctor's uneasy silence answered all the questions she had. They didn't have long to go.
Rose spun around the room, looking for anything to help them. "Alright," She said with a nod. "Now I'm making the decisions. I'm not gonna die, we're gonna ride this one out," She opened the cupboard and stepped halfway inside experimentally. "It's like what they say about earthquakes, you can survive 'em by standing under the doorframe. Now this cupboard's small so it's strong."
Ella drained the last drop of the port from her glass and stood. "That's a myth," She said, drawing Rose who had been pulling random files and boxes from the shelves and tossing them outside of the cupboard to a stop. "A doorframe's not strong enough. It'll buckle under the weight of the roof. We'd be dead within seconds."
"Well what do we do then?" Rose asked, getting a bit panicky. It probably wasn't helping that the Doctor was just standing despondently by the table and not being of any help. The silence forced an irritated huff from Rose. "Ella!" She exclaimed impatiently, snapping her fingers out in front of her. "Come on, what are we supposed to do?"
Ella shrugged, pointing to the table. "Get under the table -"
Her explanation was cut short when Mickey came over the line to inform the Doctor that something was coming to attack the missile. "It's on the radar. Counter defence 556."
"Stop them intercepting it," The Doctor spoke up seriously.
"Doing it now."
"Good boy," He said as though he was praising a dog.
"556 neutralised," Mickey told them a couple of seconds later.
"Doctor," Ella called impatiently, looking over at the Doctor as he stood by the table. Harriet and Rose were already seeking cover under the table, and Ella had paused on her knees to try and convince him to get down. Who knew how much longer they had. So she found herself letting out a breath of air when the Doctor grabbed the phone from the speaker device and dropped down next to them, crawling under the table.
"Now," She continued very seriously. "I read somewhere that you're supposed to move with the table and always protect your head. Keep your arms up."
The Doctor looked at Ella with disbelief, a face that Ella was sure she mirrored herself. She wasn't sure where that information word vomit had come from, or if she had even read something about how to survive earthquakes. But it had felt like the right thing to say at the moment, and it made more sense to be waiting out the explosion from under the table instead of being in a closet. The Doctor hadn't bothered to correct her, something that he always seemed to do when she'd said the wrong thing, so she took that as a sign that she was right.
"Well," Harriet said, linking arms with Rose and pulling her close as Ella did the same with the Doctor. "Nice knowing you all," She shot them a tiny breathless smile. "Hannibal!" She declared.
The building shook, tremors tearing through the ground as the walls and doors and everything that made the building structurally sound came tumbling down around them. Rose screeched in terror at the way they were forced to rock back and forth under the table. And then one side of the table collapsed under the weight of the crumbling building. She could feel the heat seeping through the creaking wood, flames licking at the exposed pieces of furniture, anything that was in its way.
Ella jumped, scrambled as quickly as she could to get out of the way. Her heart sunk in her chest when she realised that maybe her whole table idea was wrong. The Doctor had gripped her shoulder and yanked her backwards quicker than she could move on her own, and she practically fell into his chest in the process.
And then it was over. The tremors slowly subsided, smoke rising in waves from the crumbled debris and choking their lungs. But they had survived. They were alright. Ella felt like pinching herself to confirm it, but the feeling of his hand on her shoulder, holding her steady was enough proof.
Slowly but steadily, Ella pulled away and began to crawl out from their safety. Dust fell into her hair and clothes as she stood, the others rising next to her a couple of moments later. They could see the street now, the entire building basically flattened save for a few stray pieces of furniture, their table remarkably still standing. Those grated metal door and windows that had sealed them into the once existent cabinet room had completely collapsed like the Doctor had predicted.
A soldier rushed over to them from the street, while the rest of them stayed in position, sealing the street off from the increasing public gaze.
"Made in Britain," Harriet breathed, the first one to speak since the explosion. She sounded impressed, any stress that had marred her voice disappeared completely.
"Oh my god," The soldier exclaimed, coming to a stop in front of them. He was shocked, horrified and ultimately at a loss of what to do. "Are you alright?"
Harriet reached into her bag and conveniently pulled out her identification, showing it to the man. "Harriet Jones, MP, Flydale North. I want you to contact the UN immediately. Tell the ambassadors the crisis is over, they can step down. Go on," She pushed when the man just simply stared at them. "Tell the news!"
"Yes ma'am," He relented, turning and running in the opposite direction.
"Someone's got a hell of a job sorting this lot out," Harriet said then, arms wide and gesturing to the mess that they had created. "Oh lord! We haven't even got a Prime Minister!" She realised in horror.
The Doctor cocked his head. "Maybe you should have a go."
"Me?" Harriet asked, affronted, and then shook her head with a laugh. "I'm only a backbencher."
"I'd vote for ya," Said Rose with a small smile. Ella nodded along with her, but she doubted they'd have much of an option to go to polling booths and vote while travelling with the Doctor.
"Now don't be silly," She shot back, and then looked over to the lost soldiers and crowd who were unsure of what to do. "I'd better go and see if I can help. Hang on!" She said, moving over the hill as the sound of sirens rang out from the distance as they raced to the scene.
As she moved away without so much as a second glance, the Doctor turned to Ella and Rose with a bright grin. Any sign of the dark man that she had witnessed earlier was completely wiped once more. The adrenaline was wearing off by then, and the relief of survival began sinking in, and Ella found herself mirroring his grin much like Rose was.
The Doctor gestured out to the street and moved over the rubbish towards the street, tracing Harriet's rushed steps. They hung back as Harriet directed people around, rushing through the area with orders running out her mouth a mile a minute.
"I thought I knew the name," The Doctor said when they finally made it from the rubble and out onto the street. "Harriet Jones. Future Prime Minister. Elected for three successive terms - the architect of Britain's Golden Age."
They watched for a second while Harriet situated herself in front of a group of journalists and cameramen, breaking out into an impromptu speech. Ella wasn't surprised that Harriet would become Prime Minister at some stage in the next few years, she seemed to handle things - even this - in her stride and seemed to have a level head when she spoke. Then they turned and headed back to the Estate.
Rose had rushed off to go see her mother again, and it was the Doctor who had promised to wait for her before they left again. No rushing off on adventures in the meantime while they waited. It seemed he had other plans in mind. Ones that Ella didn't know about. He'd led the way back to the Tardis in silence and continued to not say anything as he unlocked the door and let her through.
Like all of the other times before, it became increasingly hard for her to understand what was happening. Was he mad at her? Had she done something wrong? Or had he finally had time to think about her history, and decided that she wasn't good enough to stay? The blank face that the Doctor harboured as he tinkered around with the controls at the central console didn't help her to understand him either, and the anxiety that rose in her chest was beginning to eat her away.
She stood by the seat, awkwardly hovering while he worked. He was looking at something on the screen, some sound wave rippled across the screen and it disappeared with a press of a singular button.
"Right," The Doctor exclaimed so suddenly that it made Ella jump. He turned to face her and clapped his hands together in the process, but his face was still blank and hard to read. "Just sent out this dispersal. There you go. That's cancelling out the Slitheen's advert in case any bargain hunters turn up."
"Okay…" Ella said after a second, her confusion mounting.
"Should probably give Rose a ring, tell her we haven't abandoned her with her mother just yet," He said then, eyes still narrowed at her. It kind of felt like he was assessing her, sizing her up.
Ella nodded. "Yeah. Sounds good."
He mirrored her nod, angling his body slightly to face the phone strung up in between the buttons on his console. His right hand reached out for it, and then he stopped and turned back to her.
"But you just told me you only remember the last three years of your life. I think that's more important right now, don't you?" The Doctor said pointedly. And there it was, the moment she'd been waiting for.
Ella shrugged her shoulders, trying to shrink away from the Doctor and his eyes that were narrowing at her. She didn't know what she could say to save herself from drowning in this awkwardness, but she had to do something. "Bet you don't hear that everyday," She said lamely, cringing at her attempt at light hearted banter.
"Oh you'd be surprised," Said the Doctor, his tone turning lighter. But then he stopped himself for a second, and the wrinkles on his forehead crinkled as he raised his eyebrows and shook his head. "Well no," He relented then. "Not something I hear everyday. But missing such a big part of your memories is important. And serious."
"Well," She said awkwardly, looking down at the magic space sneakers that the Doctor had leant her just a couple of days ago - the ones that she was calling her own, even though the only things that actually belonged to her at that moment was her work clothes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"Have you seriously never uncovered any of your memories in all this time?" Quizzed the Doctor. "A feeling even, familiarity?"
"Not once," She told him resolutely.
How she had wished that she could at least find something, some semblance of who she was before. As the years went on she began to realise that thinking that way was stupid. If anything were to have happened, surely it would have by now?
"Bizarre," The Doctor said, almost purposefully missing the withering glare that Ella sent him at his insensitive words. She wasn't some test subject, or something to marvel over, she just wanted some answers.
The Doctor cleared his throat, and reached into his pocket for his sonic screwdriver. He held it nimbly in his hands as he took a couple of hesitant steps toward her like he was walking toward some stray animal that was too scared of its own shadow. Ella appreciated the sentiment of him trying to be careful, but it just further cemented the fact that he thought there was something wrong with her too. And that didn't sit well with Ella.
He stopped a couple of steps in front of her and held up his screwdriver. "I can use this to run a couple tests. To see if there's anything seriously wrong."
"Could there be anything seriously wrong?" Ella asked, trying not to show how alarmed she was by that admission, but she had a feeling her fear could be read on her face at this point.
The Doctor simply shrugged. "Well we won't know unless we do the tests will we."
Ella glanced at the sonic in his hands and then back up to his face. He was trying to be reassuring, but she had seen that the device was capable of knocking down doors and killing elevators with just a click of the button. She wasn't exactly sure that it should be something used on her body.
"What, and you just have like a setting on there that can run tests on a human?"
"Sort of, yeah."
"Sort of?" She asked, cocking her eyebrow. He wasn't sounding very confident in his answers, and that was anything but comforting to her. "What do you mean, sort of? You said so yourself, Doctor, the brain is a delicate place. And you just wanna go rifling about in it with the same thing that can break down doors and make super phones with a flick of a switch? Dream on."
The Doctor took another step forward, and if he had just moved another step they would be chest to chest, but the thought of him being that close stopped her from blurting out all the questions she had. Left her speechless.
"It's perfectly safe. I wouldn't even suggest it if I thought it would put you in danger. Now if you'd just shut up for a minute and let me get this over with, I can have the results in a couple of seconds."
Ella held her breath for a second, tried to calm her beating heart. Did she even want to know if there was anything wrong with her? Because what would happen if there actually was? Like she had some limited life span or some disease where she would lose her memory every so often and have to start all over again. Would she even be able to deal with that? But it seemed like the Doctor wasn't waiting for her approval to run the tests, as he took a step back and ran his sonic over her body with a click flick of his wrist.
The machine beeped a second later, and the Doctor stared down at his screwdriver in concentration as he read the results. Ella watched him carefully, trying her hardest to figure out what was going on, and then his face scrunched up in confusion.
"What?" Ella asked hurriedly, moving closer as though that would help her understand the situation better. Her heart was straining again, a sinking, bottomless pit in her stomach swallowing any hope that had welled up since the Doctor had said he could help her back on that rooftop on Powell Estate. "What is it? What's wrong?"
He looked up from his device over to her, and then back down to the readings, face scrunched up in concentration. "There's nothing wrong," He looked over at her again, gaze calculating. "You're a perfectly healthy human being."
"Right...well that's good then."
"Yeah, only, it doesn't say anything about your mind being tampered with. It says all of your memories are in check, everything is where it should be."
"Well I'm not making it up," Ella defended, crossing her arms over her chest and taking a step away from him as though he had suggested that she was lying.
"I know that," The Doctor placated, his attempt at soothing being to hold his hands up in surrender. "I'm not saying that you're lying. I just don't know why my sonic is wrong. It's never wrong."
"Well maybe it's a blip in this test. It's faulty."
"Yeah," The Doctor said distractedly. He didn't sound too convinced. A second later he shook himself out of his rut and shoved his screwdriver back in the pocket of his leather jacket and then sent her a small smile. "You're right. Probably just a blip. Nothing to worry about," He looked her over once again, like he was sizing her up. "Tell you what, how 'bout I give Rose a ring, tell her to get back down here, and you go and change. You've been wearing the same thing for ages."
Ella served him with a blank look. "I don't have any other clothes. You took us home a year late and everything I've ever owned is gone, remember?"
The Doctor smiled, a bit chagrined at the reminder, but then shrugged. "The Tardis has a closet, doesn't it. Just take stuff from there."
"What, and you're okay with me freeloading basically everything from you then? First it's travelling and now I'm stealing your clothes."
He gestured down at himself. "Well it's not like I can wear any of the stuff you're going to. Besides you're borrowing it. Think of it like a library. I'd hope you'd return the books to the Tardis library."
"Hold up," Ella said distractedly. "There's a library here?" She asked.
"Of course there is," He said like it was obvious, though he had mentioned nothing about having a library since they'd met, and now she really wanted to go and find it. "You can go and look for it later," He promised, reading her mind. "But go get changed first. And I'll get Rose."
He had walked back to the console by then and had grabbed the phone back into his grasp, holding it up to his ear and dialing the number. Ella watched him for a second before she made her way past the console and down the maze of the hallway that led to the wardrobe room.
The Doctor had hesitated after she left, mind still mulling over all of the possibilities as to why his screwdriver had offered him skewed results, none of the conclusions clear in his mind. One thing was for sure; his sonic screwdriver was never wrong. Despite all of the information buzzing through his mind he still pressed call on Rose's number, and walked around the console as she took her time to pick up.
"Hello?" Rose called through the receiver, sounding somewhat confused.
"Right," The Doctor declared, not bothering to waste any time in explaining how he managed to contact her when he had better things to do with his time. "Couple of hours, then we can go."
"You got a phone?" Rose asked, clearly still hung up over it.
He rolled his eyes. "You think I can travel through space and time and I haven't got a phone?" He snorted sarcastically. "Like I said, couple of hours...I just got to make sure the dispersal signal is working its magic."
"Ummm," Rose said, hesitating. "My mother's cooking."
"Good," The Doctor shot back quickly. "Put her on a slow heat and let her simmer."
"She's cooking tea. For us."
A frown fell over the Doctor's features. "I don't do that," He said seriously.
"She wants to get to know you and Ella."
"Tough. I've got better things to do." Like figuring out whatever was wrong with Ella, that seemed much more worthwhile than sitting around with a nineteen-year-olds mother who had slapped him so hard across the face that the Doctor was certain he could still feel it hours later.
"It's just tea," Rose said
"Not to me it isn't."
"She's my mother. God, where's Ella? I bet you she'd agree to go."
The Doctor shrugged, looking at the hallway that Ella had disappeared down and made the decision that she most definitely would not want to go to the dinner too.
"Oh what was that?" The Doctor asked, pretending that he was talking to her away from the receiver so Rose wouldn't know the difference. "Yeah she doesn't wanna go either."
Rose sighed from the other line. "God you're both as bad as each other."
"Well you could stay there if you want," The Doctor offered, though he knew that that'd never happen, and he was going to make sure of it. "But right now there's this plasma storm brewing in the horsehead nebula. Fires are burning ten million miles wide. I could fly the Tardis right into the heart of it, then ride the shockwave all the way out. Hurtling right across the sky and end up anywhere," He paused for a second, letting that sink in. "Your choice."
He didn't say another word to Rose, instead lowering the phone and letting her mull over the words. The offer was too good to pass up, and he knew it. Slightly satisfied, he turned to monitor the dull sound waves on his screen to make sure that his message had successfully cancelled out the Slitheens advertisement, not noticing Ella who was stood in the doorway leading back up to the console, having heard all of his enticing words.
"Well that sounds like an offer she wouldn't be able to pass up," She said definitely, drawing his attention.
The Doctor spun around to look at her, and grinned at her reaction. "Exactly what I was thinking."
True to his word, it was a few hours later when the Doctor stepped out of the Tardis with Ella in tow. The sun had gone down and the street lights around the apartment complexes beamed out in all directions. The Doctor leant around the side of the Tardis to regard the child that had vandalised his precious ship. He'd managed to catch him by hacking into nearby surveillance cameras and had walked up to the parents apartment with a cheery grin to demand that the boy scrubbed off his spray paint.
Set up with a scrubbing brush and bucket of water, the boy had been cleaning off the words 'BAD WOLF' for the last couple of hours, and any remnants of the words were clearly gone by this point. Ella didn't know what the title meant, maybe it was some new fad or street name or something that the kid was interested in, but the Doctor sure as hell wasn't happy when he saw the mess.
Any annoyance he had for the child was long gone in that moment when he saw that his ship was back to its normal state, and he had even offered the kid a smile when he told him he could leave. It was only when the child had scurried away, bucket of water and all, that the Doctor actually stepped out of his ship and walked over to a waiting Mickey.
Ella wasn't entirely sure how long the man had been sitting outside on the rubbish bin for, but he had clearly settled in with his paper, waiting for them to come out. He looked up at them as they crossed the street towards him, ruffled the paper out as he did so.
"I just went down the shops and I was thinking you know, like the whole world's changed. Aliens and spaceships all in public. And here it is," He held up the paper with a frown. Headlined on the front page are two bold words 'ALIEN HOAX?', people back to questioning everything that they saw. "How could they do that? They saw it!" He exclaimed passionately.
"They're just not ready," The Doctor explained simply. "You're happy to believe in something that's invisible, but if it's staring you in the face - nope. Can't see it! There's a scientific explanation for that. You're thick."
Mickey laughed at the insult and it was almost like the two were waving a white flag at one another. A 'let's stop fighting because it's not going to help anyone' flag. If only Rose was actually here to see it.
"We're just idiots," Mickey said, his tone not filled with any malice for the first time talking to the Doctor.
"Well, not all of you," The Doctor said with a pointed look.
Mickey straightened up then, disbelief clear in his eyes and a small smile curling at the corner of his mouth. "Yeah?"
Instead of answering the Doctor strode forwards, pulling a disc out of his pocket and handing it over. "Present for you, Mickey. That's a virus," He explained before the man could ask. "Put it online, it'll destroy every mention of me. I'll cease to exist."
Mickey turned the disc over in his hands. "What do you want to do that for?" He asked, confused.
"'Cos you're right. I am dangerous. I don't want anybody following me."
From the distance, Rose and Jackie moved out from the apartment, and Ella was glad for their appearance. She was beginning to feel a little like a third wheel between the two.
"How can you say that and then take them with you?" Mickey then asked.
The Doctor shrugged. "You could look after her," He suggested, looking at Rose and then back at him. "Come with us if you think you could keep her safe."
Mickey seemed to consider the offer for a second, before shaking his head. "I can't. This life of yours...it's just too much, I...I couldn't do it….Don't tell her I said that," He pleaded, pointing directly at Ella as though she was the one who could potentially tell her.
Ella lifted her hands up in surrender. "I won't. Promise," She said.
As Rose and her mother approached, it became clear that Jackie was trying to convince her daughter to stay. She would get a job, drop some man that she was seeing, but turning down the opportunity to travel all of time and space with the Doctor was something that Rose couldn't pass up - and she made that quite clear when she shoved a large travel bag into the Doctor's arms with a satisfied grin.
"Got enough stuff?" The Doctor asked, shuffling her bag around in his arms.
"First time I stepped in there, it was spur of the moment," She declared. "Now I'm signing up. You're stuck with us," She said with a sarcastic laugh, pointing in between herself and Ella as she made her way over to Mickey. "Come with us. There's plenty of room," Rose offered.
Over her shoulder, Mickey sent the Doctor a pleading look to help him get out of explaining, and the Doctor was quick to intervene, though his voice held no malice like it previously had when aimed at the man. "No chance, he's uh, a liability. I'm not having him on board."
Rose stuck him with a frown, trying to get the Doctor to see reason. "We'd be dead without him," She defended.
For a brief moment, the Doctor looked over at Ella a little helplessly, but she stayed silent, simply indicating with a shrug of her shoulders that she wasn't getting involved in this one.
"My decision is final," He said decidedly.
Rose turned back to her boyfriend sheepishly, and while the two were distracted with their goodbyes Jackie decided it was the most ideal moment to give the Doctor a lecture. "You still can't promise me," She said, moving closer to the Doctor and Ella. "What if she gets lost? Or you?" Jackie points off at Ella. "What if something happens to you Doctor, and they're both left standing on some moon a million lightyears away - how long do I wait then?"
"Mum," Rose started, turning Jackie around with a hand on her shoulder. "You're forgetting it's a time machine. I could go travelling around suns and planets and all the way out to the edge of the universe and by the time I get back, yeah, ten seconds would have passed. Just ten seconds. So...stop worrying. See you in ten seconds time. Yeah?"
When Rose turned back around towards the Tardis, she grabbed at Ella's hand and dragged her inside. Destination, anywhere.
A/N
Hey guys, it's me! Just here to say a quick thank you for everyone who's checked in to read this story and to those who have favourited and followed it! Massive thank you to the lovely people who have reviewed so far as well, your kind words of encouragement have helped my confidence in this story a lot.
Anyway, thank you all for reading!