Zaly groaned as she opened her eyes, blinking in confusion when she realised she was once again in the med bay.
"Take it slowly, Zaly," a voice that was becoming very familiar to the red head spoke up and she turned her head towards the Doctor.
"I think we need a better meeting place, Doc," she muttered before looking to the ceiling, frowning as she tried to remember what had brought her here this time.
The Time Lord rolled his eyes as her response, but couldn't stop his lip from twitching upwards, relieved that she seemed to be on the mend...if her sarcasm was anything to go by.
"We really should," he admitted before he noticed her face crease in pain. "Zaly, what's wrong?" he asked, standing up and pulling out his sonic, worried he might have missed something.
"Wha-what happened?" she questioned as the monitor started to pick up her quickening heartrate the moment she realised she couldn't remember anything after running into the Eleventh Doctor.
"Zaly, you need to take it easy," the Doctor warned as he checked her with the sonic and noticing that it was picking up an increase in her brain activity.
"I...I," Zaly's eyebrows creased in confusion, "Why can't I remember?" she asked.
"Just try and relax, Zaly" the Time Lord tried again as he stepped up beside her, "I-"
"Doctor! If you don't tell me what happened, by the gods I will-" Zaly snapped before she gasped, clutching her head as pain lanced through her mind.
"Zaly, you need to calm down and listen to me," the Doctor told her sternly as he gently moved her head so she was looking at him, "There was a fracture in time and it affected the wall in you mind. You just need to relax, okay. The more you try and remember what happened, the more you're going to hurt yourself."
Zaly frowned as she stared at the Doctor, not really believing him. But as the pain slowly receded and her breaths even out, the red head could admit that, for whatever reason, he was telling her the truth.
Why she couldn't remember however, Zaly wanted to find out and after once again finding herself somewhere after, what she guessed to be another 'episode', that curiosity burned.
The Doctor sighed, seeing Zaly beginning to relax and when he glanced at the monitor, seeing Zaly's vitals had returned to normal, he felt even more relieved.
"Sooo, Doc," Zaly drawled slowly, causing the Doctor to look back at her.
"What on Earth was that for?!" the Time Lord demanded with a glare as his hand went to the cheek she had just slapped and rubbed it tenderly.
"That was for dropping me off in the wrong time," Zaly told him as she shook her hand as it stung. "I told you I wanted to go home, to when you picked me up. Not bloody nineteen years in the past. What kind of bloody time traveller are you?"
The Doctor opened his mouth to respond, to tell Zaly they'd had this conversation twice before, but snapped his mouth closed when he realised she must not remember it. He frowned as he continued to rub his cheek, wondering what it was with women and slapping him.
Zaly slid off the bed and stood up before stretching. "Now, if you don't mind, I think I've had enough laying around to last me a lifetime. I need a shower," she said as she looked to the Doctor, "You don't happen to have showers on board, do you?"
The Doctor was about to respond, but his ship let out a hum and the med bay door opened and arrows appeared on the floor, leading out of the room and down a corridor.
Zaly looked to the roof with a raised eyebrow, "Still a little creepy," she muttered before following the directions. "Do you listen to everyone's conversations?" the red head asked the ship as she left the med bay.
The Doctor watched her leave, his eyebrows furrowed as his ship let out another hum in response to Zaly's question.
He still had no idea why Zaly couldn't remember who she was, but the facts were there and for what ever reason, she truly believed she was human, which meant that her mind believed she was as well.
That also told the Time Lord that Zaly remembering her past was going to take time.
I just hope she will remember before it kills her, the Doctor thought before he too left the med bay, trying to work out a way to help the red head realise who she was without the possibility of burning her mind up in the process.
And as he wandered back to the console room, he vowed that he would do whatever it took to help Zaly, and Tanith.
He was not going to lose them and knew full well that he would do anything to make sure that however she remembered, he would be there to help along the way.
The Doctor looked up from the console, his eyebrows furrowed as he noticed Zaly was still staring at him.
She had been doing it for the last fifteen minutes and he was getting rather uncomfortable. More so since during that whole time the red head hadn't said a single word.
The silence at first had been a relief.
Where Tanith seemed focused on the task at hand and generally left him alone, Zaly seemed to have decided that tormenting him was her thing to do, whether by insulting him or just being a complete smart arse in general.
But after fifteen minutes of silent staring, it had become unnerving to the Doctor and a part of him wanted her to say something just to break the unsettling atmosphere.
He hadn't realised at first just how similar Zaly was to her uncle, without the whole trying to kill him factor. She reminded him of the Master and how he was like back when they had attended the Academy together. Though it did make him curious to know who her father was, but the Doctor doubted he would find out any time soon.
The red head smirked internally, noticing the Doctor had grown increasingly uncomfortable as he went back to trying to do whatever it was he was doing to the console.
Although she was keen to get home, there was a very large part of her that couldn't deny that she was enjoying how she could make the alien uncomfortable and wondered curiously how long it would take the Time Lord to crack.
She didn't move a muscle as the Doctor made his way around the console, doing his best not to look in her direction as he put the time rotor between them. But the moment he was out of Zaly's direct line of sight, the smirk that she had been fighting down appeared on her lips.
The Doctor frowned as he looked to the console, trying to focus on something...anything that would distract him, but he found himself glancing around the time rotor and to the red head across from him, only to find her still watching him, though now she had a bloody smirk on her face.
"What?" he snapped with a scowl, unable to take the silence for a second longer, but realised his mistake the moment the word passed his lips.
"Well," the red head drawled slowly, drawing the word out as an eyebrow raised, "I was wondering what the possibility was of you actually getting me home on the correct date if I asked."
The Time Lord glared at her, wishing he had just kept his mouth shut. Infuriating human, he thought before moving to the scanner, only to hesitate when he realised what she was asking.
The Doctor knew that Zaly had no idea who she was, let alone that she was a Time Lady, and with the armband she wore, it made it easy for him to forget that sometimes. Just as it made it easy for him to almost forget the pull he had felt after he had taken it off her.
He briefly wondered if Tanith had felt it as well before shaking the thought away. Whether or not it was there didn't matter right now. Zaly had no idea about any of it, and as much as he wanted her to stay, he couldn't force her.
He frowned, looking to the scanner as he asked, "Do you want to go home?"
The Doctor felt rather torn about what he hoped she would say. On one side, he didn't want her to leave knowing who she was and what she was, but the other side wanted to drop Zaly Pond off home and never return.
"That depends on if you actually know how to fly this ship," Zaly replied, her eyebrow raising as the TARDIS let out what she guessed to be a humorous hum.
The red head still found it a little odd that she was standing inside a telepathic spaceship, but couldn't really deny that the ship did seem okay. It hadn't done anything wrong to her, and it did seem to enjoy tormenting the Doctor as much as she did.
"Of course I do!" the Doctor shot back, only to be almost thrown off his feet when the TARDIS suddenly jerked sideways.
"What the fuck was that!" Zaly shouted at the Time Lord as she held onto the console.
The Doctor quickly checked the scanner before rushing around the console as he piloted the ship.
"Doctor, what the hell are you doing?" Zaly demanded as he passed her.
"What's the emergency?" Rose asked as she stumbled into the console room.
"It's mauve," the Doctor explained.
"Mauve? Sure, that explains everything!" Zaly drawled and the Doctor glared at her.
"The universal recognised colour for danger," the Doctor snapped at her.
Zaly narrowed her eyes on the Doctor. "Yes, and I'm sure that a species that had travelled as far as the bloody moon knows the universal colour for danger, Doc," she said sarcastically.
"What happened to red?" Rose questioned, shooting Zaly a glare.
"That's just humans," the Doctor told the blonde as he continued to pilot the TARDIS, "By everyone else's standards, red's camp. Oh, the misunderstandings. All those red alerts, all that dancing."
"Oh, that's bloody wonderful. Nice to know while we were in danger, you aliens were enjoying your camps," Zaly snapped, "Just tell us why or what is mauve."
The Doctor once again glared at the red head as he spoke, "It's got a very basic flight computer. I've hacked in, slaved the TARDIS. Where it goes, we go."
"That doesn't sound very safe, Doc," Zaly muttered as she looked at the time rotor, "You sure that's a good idea?"
"Totally," the Doctor remarked, only for a part of the console that was near him to explode in a shower of sparks, "Okay, reasonably. Should have said reasonably there," he told them, only to glance at the monitor and panic when he realised something was wrong. "No, no, no, no! It's jumping time tracks, getting away from us."
"What exactly is this thing?" Rose asked him.
"No idea," the Doctor responded.
Zaly looked at him in outrage, "And then why in God's name are we bloody chasing it?"
The Doctor looked at her, "It's mauve and dangerous, and about thirty seconds from the centre of London."
Zaly blinked. "Okay, then. Chase away," she muttered.
The Doctor rolled his eyes, but did just that.
The TARDIS materialised in a back alley between two terraces.
"Do you know how long you can knock about space without happening to bump into Earth?" the Doctor questioned as he, Zaly and Rose stepped out of the ship.
"Five days?" Rose replied, "Or is that just when we run out of milk?"
"Of all the species in the universe and it has to come from a cow," the Time Lord complained.
"Or goats and almonds," Zaly piped up as she looked around, her brows furrowing and the hairs on the back of her neck raising when she got the sensation that they were being watched. Her hand slipped into her coat pocket and to her gun as she followed the other two.
The Doctor decided to just ignore her comment. "Must have come down somewhere quite close. Within a mile, anyway," he changed the subject back to why they were there, "And can't have been more than a few weeks ago. Maybe a month."
"Called it," the red head exclaimed, earning a confused look from both Rose and the Doctor. "What?" she asked, but they just continued onwards.
"A month?" Rose asked, looking to the Doctor, "We were right behind it."
"It was jumping time tracks all over the place," the Doctor defended himself, shooting Zaly a glare, "We're bound to be a little bit out. Do you want to drive?" he questioned before quickly adding, cutting Zaly off when she opened her mouth, "No! Don't even answer that."
"How much is a little?" Rose asked, frowning at the pair.
"A bit," the Doctor replied vaguely.
"Oh, and is that exactly a bit?" Zaly asked sarcastically, "Or more of an ish?"
The Doctor chose not to answer, though he frowned when he noticed Zaly's hand in her pocket. Really should have taken them back off her when I had the chance, he thought, not liking the red head having access to a weapon. Then again, she does have her magic as well, he continued to muse, wondering if he would just see what she did with them.
Either way, Zaly was armed. But the Doctor didn't know how dangerous she was. He could admit, however, that the only time she had actually pulled a weapon on anyone was while she had been terrified as her old memories surfaced, and adding that she had woken up in a strange place, he couldn't really hold that against her.
If it hadn't been for that signal that had thrown the TARDIS off course, she wouldn't have woken up alone, he told himself, internally wincing at what had occurred at Van Statten's museum.
"What's the plan, then?" Rose asked the Doctor, breaking him from his thoughts, "Are you going to do a scan for alien tech or something?"
"Rose, it hit the middle of London with a very big bang. I'm going to ask," the Time Lord explained as he withdrew his psychic paper from his coat and showing it to his companions. Well, one companion and a tag along, he told himself, still unsure what to do or think about Zaly.
It would technically be her third adventure with him, and although a part of him wanted her to continue travelling with them, all she seemed to want to do was go home.
"Ah, Doc. It's blank," Zaly stated, looking at the blank piece of paper with furrowed brows, wondering why he carried it around.
"What?" the Doctor said in confusion, looking at the paper.
"No, it's not," Rose told the red head, "It's says, Doctor John Smith, Ministry of Asteroids."
Zaly raised an eyebrow at the pair, "And, I say its blank," she told them before frowning at the duo, "Is this some joke or something, because it's really terrible."
"It's psychic paper," the Doctor explained to her, looking between the paper and Zaly curiously, "It tells you whatever I want it to tell you."
"Well, either your not psychic, or that's just a blank piece of paper," Zaly remarked.
"Here," the Doctor said, holding the paper out to Zaly, "Take it and think of something we wouldn't know and then show it to me."
Zaly eyed the Doctor, glancing at the paper before taking it off him. Thinking hard about something she knew that they wouldn't, she showed the paper to the pair.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow while Rose's face creased in confusion.
"I don't understand it," Rose said as she frowned at the psychic paper, only seeing a different lot of dots appear before a line started to create the outline of what looked to be a very badly join-the-dots cat.
"It's the Cetus constellation," the Doctor explained, eyeing Zaly curiously, "It was a sea monster in Greek mythology and is usually known as the whale. Though this one depicts what the Tukano and Kobeua people of the Amazon would have seen as they used the stars to create a jaguar. It represented the gods of hurricanes and other violent storms."
Zaly raised an eyebrow at the Doctor before glancing at the paper, only to still see nothing. "So, why can't I see it?" she asked as she handed the paper back.
The Doctor shrugged. Of all the things she could have thought about, he was curious to know why she had shown them that.
"Lack of imagination," he replied with a smirk as he pocketed the paper.
"Ha, ha. Very funny," Zaly said sarcastically as they approached a door marked 'Deliveries Only'.
"Not very Spock, is it?" Rose asked, looking to the Doctor, still rather confused as to what she had seen on the psychic paper.
"Door, music, people. What do you think?" the Doctor asked as he pointed to the door.
"I think you should do a scan for alien tech," Rose told him, "Give me some Spock, for once. Would it kill you?"
"High possibility," Zaly muttered as the Doctor opened the door with his sonic.
He turned and shot the red head a look before looking at Rose's top. "Are you sure about that t-shirt?" he asked her.
"To early to say," Rose commented, "I'm taking it out for a spin."
"Mummy? Mummy?"
Zaly frowned as she glanced around, her hand around her gun tightening a fraction as she thought she heard a child's voice.
"Come on if you're coming. It won't take a minute," the Doctor told the pair before going inside.
Zaly made to follow him, but stopped when that feeling of being watched returned.
"Mummy?"
"Doctor? Doctor?" Rose called when she noticed a little boy in a gas mask on a nearby roof, "There's a kid up there!"
"Rose," Zaly warned, though she was confused about the gas mask. She couldn't help but think it looked quite old fashion.
"You can stay here if you want," Rose spat at the red head before going towards the child, "Are you alright up there?" she called.
"Mummy?" the child asked.
"Rose, don't!" Zaly shouted as the blonde suddenly ran up a metal fire escape.
She couldn't say what it was, but something about this whole situation was just wrong, and she didn't know why. She looked back to the nightclub entrance, unsure if she should go and get the Doctor.
She suddenly winced and covered her ears when an air raid siren sounded and Zaly cursed when she realised what that meant as she looked around.
"Doctor! Doctor! Doctor!" Rose shouted.
Zaly's head snapped towards her voice, only to curse once again when she noticed the blonde being carried away by a barrage balloon.
"Why couldn't I have just stay at home?" Zaly bemoaned before she started following the blonde on foot, knowing that if this was the London Blitz, Rose was really in danger.
After a few streets, Zaly realised she was losing sight of Rose and looked around, for once glad that the air raid sirens had gone off, knowing that people would have moved to bunkers by now.
Concentrating on the closest roof top, she disapparated with a crack and reappeared on the roof. Looking around once more, she concentrated once again before taking off across the roof, her form changing as she went.
By the time she made it to the next roof, Zaly was no longer human and was running on all fours.
On a balcony somewhere near by, an officer was looking over the London skyline with a pair of very non-WWII binoculars.
It took the man less then a minute to spot Rose's predicament.
"Get those lights out, please. Everyone down to the shelter," he ordered.
"Jack? Are you going down to the shelter?" another officer asked, "Only I've got to go off on some silly guard duty," he continued before noticing what Jack was watching, "Ah, barrage balloon, eh? Must've come loose. Happens now and then. Don't you RAF boys use them as target practice?"
Jack didn't respond as he zoomed in on Rose's behind. "Excellent bottom," he muttered.
"I say, old man, there's a time and a place," the officer told him with a grin, "Look, you should really be off."
"Sorry, old man," he told the officer before frowning as he zoomed out, noticing something that most definitely should not be in London during WWII, or at anytime for that matter.
That can't be right, he thought as he watched a jaguar moving quickly over rooftops. He frowned as he followed where it was heading and noticed it seemed to be following the blonde.
"I've got to go meet a girl," he continued as he pocketed his binoculars, "But you've got an excellent bottom too," he said as he smacked said bottom as he passed.
Zaly continued to follow Rose as bombs dropped around her.
Of all the times to wear a Union Flag as a shirt, she couldn't help but think before suddenly putting on the brakes when she realised she was out of rooftops, her claws trying to find purchase before she tumbled off the roof.
She was quick to shift back and almost as if by instinct, reappeared on the ground in a hasty apparation.
"Okay," Zaly said slowly as she took a deep breath, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart, "Rooftops don't go on forever," she muttered before she realised she was near Big Ben.
After another apparation to the roof she had just fallen off, as well as trying to not throw up, though she was finding that side effect occurring less and less these days, Zaly watched Rose as she continued to float towards the clock tower.
"What to do, what to do?" she muttered as she tried to find a way to save the blonde.
She didn't really care for Rose, but the red head had a feeling that if something happened to the blonde, her chances of getting back home where slim to none.
"Or...he might take me home if something did happen to her..." Zaly told herself as she watched the blonde, trying to work out the pros and cons of saving her.
It seemed the choice was taken from her when Rose finally lost her grip on the rope and the blonde screamed as she fell, only to be stopped by a beam of light.
"Oh, that's different," Zaly muttered as a males voice spoke through the air and she had to concentrate to hear him.
"Okay, okay, I've got you."
"Ooo, American," Zaly remarked as she sat on the edge of the roof, watching from below as she tried to locate where the beam was coming from. She could hear Rose's response, but could just hear the man's voice as he replied.
"I'm just programming your decent pattern. Keep as still as you can and keep your hands and feet inside the light field."
"Light field? That sounds rather advanced. Wonder if it's some sort of tractor beam or something," Zaly continued to mutter before frowning, "I wonder if he was the one we were following. Time travel is still impossible during the twenty-first century, but this guy's tech seems to be more advanced than anything from then."
"Oh, and could you switch off your cell phone? No, seriously, it interferes with my instrument."
"As if anyone believes that," Zaly scoffed as she laid back on the roof when her neck started to hurt from looking up.
"Thank you. That's much better."
"Seriously. She actually turned her phone off?" Zaly said as she continued to search for whatever was producing the light beam.
She sat up when she got an idea. "I wonder if it would work," she muttered.
Inside Jack's spaceship, the man himself was looking at a screen showing Rose as she floated in mid-air.
'The mobile communications device indicates non-contemporaneous life form,' his computer informed him.
"She's not from around here, no," he confirmed before frowning, "And the jaguar?"
'Target no longer found,' the computer replied.
"That can't be right," he said with a frown, "And you've swept the whole area?"
'Affirmative. No lifeforms of the Panthera Onca species located.'
Jack frowned before he looked back to the image of Rose. He had no idea what or why a jaguar would have been following the blonde, but that was something he could think about later.
Suddenly an alarm sounded.
'Camouflage malfunction,' the computer told him before the alarm disappeared, 'Camouflage reconfigured and restored.'
"What the hell is going on?" Jack muttered before refocusing on saving the blonde, though he reminded himself to have a look at the system when she was on-board.
"That's wicked," Zaly said as she stood up to look at the ship that had appeared out of thin air, "And I can't believed that worked," she continued, having focused her magic on revealing anything hidden in the air above her.
"Now, how to get up there," she muttered with a frown as the ship disappeared from view.
Zaly sighed as she laid down on the rooftop, folding her arms behind her head as she continued to work out a way to get on-board the spaceship.
It had been at least twenty minutes now and she had no idea if Rose was okay, though she didn't really care about that. Zaly was more interested to just see what the ship was like and who the man who owned it.
Frowning, she looked towards Big Ben, only to see that it was a quarter past nine. Wonder what the Doc is up to right now? she thought before her eyebrows furrowed as she continued to look at the clock tower.
"You've got to be kidding me," Zaly huffed before she stood up and tried to remember what she knew about Big Ben.
She closed her eyes and tried to recall what she knew, focussing on any points where one could stand on the clock tower, knowing that the clock was higher than where the ship was sitting...if it was still there.
If I can get above it and send another spell to the ship to figure out where it is and what it looks like, I can appear on top of it, she thought before her eyes opened.
In another crack of apparation, Zaly was gone.