The patients were almost within touching distance of Zaly and the Doctor was about to yank the red head back when she shouted at the patients.
"Go to your room," she ordered, earning wide-eyed looks from the Doctor, Rose and Jack. Especially when the patients in the ward stood still, stopping their advancement.
"Go to your room. I mean it. I'm very, very angry with you. I am very, very cross," Zaly continued, before pointing in a random direction, "Go to your room!"
The patients hang their heads in shame and shuffle away, heading back to their beds.
Zaly turned to the time travellers with a grin, "I'm really glad that worked. Those would have been terrible last words," she told them.
"What in the blazes were you thinking?!" the Doctor shouted at her, his hearts racing at the thought of what could have happened.
Zaly raised an eyebrow at the Doctor, "Ah, I think I just saved your life," she told him before frowning as she turned away, "Think some people would appreciate that, but no," she muttered angrily to herself before holding out her hand.
Jack and Rose jumped when the gun the Doctor was still holding shot out of his hand and flew towards Zaly.
"Oh, no, no, no. You're not having that back!" the Doctor snapped as he took a step towards the red head, only to stop when she whirled around to face him.
"You're not my fucking babysitter!" Zaly snapped, "Ever since I've fucking met you, I've wanted to go home. But for some blasted reason, you think it's okay to drag me along on you stupid trips. Not only that, you bloody drop me off nineteen years too fucking early and then I-" she winced as she tried to remember what happened before closing her eyes, missing the concern that flickered across the Doctor's face.
"Look. Once what ever is going on here is dealt with," Zaly continued, a little calmer as she opened her eyes, looking back at the three stunned time travellers, "I'll be out of your hair, Doc."
Silence reigned in the ward as the Doctor looked to Zaly with his jaw slack. He couldn't believe that was how she truly felt, but he had known that Zaly had wanted to go home.
The Doctor sighed, And all I've done is drag her along and then treat her like a child, he thought, remembering how he had treated her when they had been on Satellite Five and realised she was founded in her accusations.
Zaly shook her head at the Doctor before turning away, wanting nothing more than to speak with Mels. Her partner had always been there when she needed someone to talk to. Mels had even stolen a bus once because it was the closest thing near her when Zaly was having a panic attack after one of her 'episodes'.
"Why are they all wearing gas masks?" Rose questioned, breaking the silence.
"They're not. Those masks are flesh and bone," Jack explained, looking between the red head and the Time Lord, wondering what their history was.
The Doctor stared at Zaly for a moment longer before turning to Jack, realising that getting this sorted and then taking Zaly home was the least he could do for the red head.
Time Lady or not, the Doctor knew he should have treated her better, but the moment he had heard her name, her chosen name, it was as if he had thrown any regard for her out the window.
"How was your con supposed to work?" the Time Lord asked the conman.
"Simple enough, really," Jack begun, "Find some harmless piece of space junk, let the nearest Time Agent track it back to Earth, convince him it's valuable, name a price. When he's put fifty percent up front, oops! A German bomb falls on it, destroys it forever. He never gets to see what he's paid for, never knows he's been had. I buy him a drink with his own money, and we discuss dumb luck. The perfect self-cleaning con," he explained.
"Yeah. Perfect," Zaly muttered as she was once again focusing on examining one of the patients. There was something niggling at the back of her mind. Somehow, and she knew that somehow, this all connected the little boy she had seen earlier.
"The London Blitz is great for self-cleaners," Jack said with a grin, "Pompeii's nice if you want to make a vacation of it though, but you've got to set your alarm for volcano day," he continued before noticing the others looks, "Getting a hint of disapproval."
"Take a look around the room. This is what your harmless piece of space-junk did," the Doctor snapped, disbelieving the words that were coming out of the other man's mouth.
"It was a burnt-out medical transporter. It was empty," Jack tried to explain.
"Rose, Zaly," the Doctor said, glancing at the red head and noticing her troubled expression as she checked over another patient. He decided not to question her, feeling that she would probably have another go at him, though the Time Lord felt she had every right to.
"Are we getting out of here?" Rose asked, breaking the Doctor from his thoughts when she noticed he was watching Zaly, almost sadly.
"We're going upstairs," the Doctor told her after shaking his head. There'll be time to put things right later, he told himself.
"I even programmed the flight computer so it wouldn't land on anything living. I harmed no-one. I don't know what's happening here, but believe me, I had nothing to do with it," Jack continued to tell them, though no one seemed to be listening to him, or seem to care for what he had to say.
"I'll tell you what's happening," the Doctor said as he turned to the man, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Zaly was no longer frowning at the patients, but at Jack, "You forgot to set your alarm clock. It's volcano day," he continued.
A siren sounded and Zaly looked out the closest window, knowing what it meant.
"What's that?" Rose questioned.
"The all clear," Zaly said, though she took a step closer to the window when she thought she saw something move.
"I wish," the Doctor muttered bitterly under his breath before leaving the ward.
"Mr Spock?" Jack yelled as he and Rose ran down a corridor, trying to locate the Time Lord.
"Doctor?" Rose called.
They ran past a staircase, just as the Doctor looked over the rail from the upper floor. "Have you got a blaster?" the Time Lord questioned Jack, who had stopped running when he had heard the Doctor's voice.
"Sure!" the man replied as he and Rose ran up the stairs to join the Doctor at a secure metal door.
"Where's Zaly?" the Doctor asked when he didn't notice the red head follow them.
"She was looking out the window when we left the ward," Rose told him, wanting to roll her eyes. She was just glad that the red head would be leaving them soon.
The Doctor frowned but decided against looking for her. She had been right. Zaly didn't need a 'babysitter' as she put it, and the Doctor knew that the red head could look after herself.
"The night your space-junk landed, someone was hurt," the Doctor said to Jack, "This is where they were taken."
"What happened?" Rose asked, rather glad that he wasn't going to be looking for the red head. She had no idea why he had continued to bring Zaly along, more so since it seemed that the red head didn't want to come with them, not that Rose wanted her to.
"Let's find out. Get it open," he told Jack as he stepped away from the door to allow the man to open it.
"What's wrong with your sonic screwdriver?" Rose questioned the Doctor quietly.
"Nothing," the Doctor replied with a grin as Jack used his blaster to disintegrate the lock, "Sonic blaster, fifty-first century. Weapon Factories of Villengard?" he asked knowingly.
"You've been to the factories?" Jack said in surprise.
"Once."
"Well, they're gone now, destroyed," Jack informed the Time Lord, "The main reactor went critical. Vaporized the lot."
The Doctor's grin turned into a smirk, "Like I said. Once. There's a banana grove there, now," he stated as he entered the room, "I like bananas. Bananas are good."
Rose admired the square hole Jack's blaster had left on the door. "Nice blast pattern," she remarked.
"Digital," Jack replied.
"Squareness gun."
"Yeah."
"I like it," she continued before following after the Doctor.
Jack glanced back towards the stairs, wondering where the feisty red head was before following the pair.
He was still rather confused about the argument he had witnessed earlier. More so when Zaly had informed him that she wasn't with Rose and the Doctor.
The conman couldn't help but think about how she fit with the other two. She clearly had no positive feelings towards either of them.
"What do you think?" the Doctor asked as he walked around the room.
Broken filing cabinets and electrical equipment were scattered around the room, leaving a big mess and the observation window across the room was shattered.
"Something got out of here," Jack replied as he examined the room.
"Yeah. And?" the Doctor continued.
"Powerful, angry," Jack commented as he took in the destruction before noticing papers scattered around the floor that were covered in children's drawings and a stuffed bear.
"Powerful and angry," the Doctor corrected.
"A child? I suppose this explains Mummy," Jack continued.
"How could a child do this?" Rose questioned, confused about what she was seeing. There was no way any normal child could cause this much destruction.
The Doctor turned on a tape machine and two voices could be heard.
"Are you aware of what's around you? Can you see?" the voice the Doctor recognised as Dr Constantine questioned.
"Are you my mummy?" a child's voice spoke up. One that both the Doctor and Rose recognised.
"What do you want? Do you know-"
"I want my mummy. Are you my mummy? I want my mummy! Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy? Mummy? Mummy?" the child grew more frantic as he spoke.
"Doctor, I've heard this voice before," Rose said, her voice trembling slightly.
The Time Lord nodded, "Me too."
"Mummy?"
"Always, 'Are you my mummy?'. Like he doesn't know," Rose remarked, rather confused and scared.
"Mummy?"
"Why doesn't he know?" Rose continued as they listened.
"Doctor!" Zaly's voice called as she rushed into the room, only to skid to a halt when she was suddenly hit with a feeling she couldn't describe. It was as if the hairs on the back of her neck rose and made the air around her crackle with her magic. "Whoa, what's that?" she remarked as she raised her hand and looked at it, seeing the hairs on the back of it raised.
"Can you sense it?" the Doctor asked her in surprise, though he really shouldn't have been. She was a Time Lady, even if she didn't know. And he had a feeling since Zaly had her odd abilities, or magic as she called it, that she could be more receptive to such sensations.
"Sense what?" Jack questioned, looking between the pair in confusion, not having missed how Rose rolled her eyes when Zaly entered.
"That feeling," Zaly stated, "It's like it's coming from the walls in this room," she continued as she carefully approached one of said walls. The moment her hand touched it, Zaly jerked it away, almost as if she had been shocked, "Oh, someone was very angry," she muttered before turning to the others, "Can you guys feel it?"
The Doctor nodded, but Rose and Jack just looked at her like she had grown another head.
"Really, you can't feel it?" Zaly asked in disbelief. She didn't know how they couldn't. The feeling was almost suffocating. She opened her mouth to say something else, but the tape recorder caught her attention, reminding her of why she was here.
"Mummy?" the child's voice spoke.
"Funny little human brains. How do you get around in those things?" the Doctor asked sarcastically, though he was rather unsure if it was Zaly's magic or her Time Lady biology that was allowing her to sense what he was sensing.
"Doctor?" Zaly spoke up as she stepped closer to the tape recorder, her eyes never leaving the device.
"When he's stressed, he likes to insult species," Rose told Jack, cutting off what ever Zaly was going to say next.
"Rose, I'm thinking," the Doctor told his companion.
"He cuts himself shaving, he does half an hour on life forms he's cleverer than," Rose continued.
Zaly stood beside the tape recorder now as she continued to listen to the conversation going on around her.
"There are these children living rough around the bomb sites. They come out during air-raids looking for food," the Doctor spoke as he tried to work out what was happening.
"Mummy, please?"
Zaly closed her eyes, her mind playing back everything she had seen since splitting up from the Doctor. She saw the boy on the roof, and Rose trying to get to him. Running across the rooftops, noticing the occasional child moving across the streets below.
"Suppose they were there when this thing, whatever it was, landed?" the Doctor continued his musing.
"It was a med-ship. It was harmless," Jack told him, exasperated.
"Yes, you keep saying harmless," the Doctor snapped, "Suppose one of them was affected, altered?"
"Altered how?" Rose asked.
Zaly's eyes snapped open the same moment the tape clicked over, feeling a burning pain starting from her left hand that started to make its way up her arm, only to come face to face with the child in the gas mask, his hand wrapped around hers.
"I'm here!" the child said as he looked up at the red head, who was unable to move as the burning sensation continued to move throughout her body.
"He's afraid," the red head managed to get out, unknowing that her eyes turned golden as small gold particles swirled in them. Her voice was just loud enough for the others to hear and as she continued, the burning sensation started to fade as Tanith came forth, almost as if she knew that they were in danger.
"Terribly afraid and powerful. He doesn't know it yet, but he will do." The air around her grew thick with magic as she placed a shield around herself and the boy, protecting the others from possible contamination, "He's got the power of a god, and I just sent it to its room."
The Doctor froze at her words, feeling the pressure in the room continue to drop and looked between Jack and Rose.
"I'm here. Can't you see me?" the child asked Zaly, tilting his head to the side.
"What's that noise?" Rose asked, hearing the tape clicking over.
"End of the tape," the Doctor told her, swallowing heavily at what that implied, "It ran out about thirty seconds ago."
"I'm here, now. Can't you see me?" the child continued to question the red head, though he still hadn't let her hand go.
The Doctor swallowed again, unsure what he was going to find when he turned around to where he knew Zaly was. "She sent it to its room. This is its room," he said before turning to the red head, only to freeze when he realised the child was standing right in front of the red head, a shimmering wall surrounded the pair, reminding him of the same thing she had done to his ship in the church, "Zaly?"
"Are you my mummy?" the child asked, "Mummy?"
"Zaly, you need to step away from him," the Doctor said as the rooms pressure continued to drop. The red head didn't seem to hear him though, and the Doctor took a step towards her, "Zaly, get back, now!" he demanded.
"You better figure this out, Doctor. Use that brain of yours," the red head said, though she made no motion of moving, "Because when I take this off, she's got an hour, two at best if I can try and reprogram them to help her."
"What is she talking about?" Jack asked, feeling a little lost as he picked up the change in Zaly's tone.
"Mummy?" the child continued.
The Doctor's face paled as he took a couple of steps to the side, not wanting to see what he feared had happened, but needing confirmation none the less. His hearts plummeted when he saw the child's hand gripping Zaly's.
She didn't look at the Doctor as her other hand raised and the blaster the Doctor had taken of Jack flew towards her. She aimed it at the wall furthest from where she and the child were standing before firing it, leaving a large, square hole where the wall had once been.
It was only after doing that did she look to the Doctor as she threw the gun back at him and he stumbled to catch it, seeing her eyes had changed again.
"I can give you a few minutes," she told him before her hand pulled up her jacket sleeve and revealed her bracelet, "But once this is removed, I can't hold him back."
"What's going on?" Rose asked, looking between the Doctor and Zaly.
"Mummy?"
"Tanith, don't do this," the Doctor pleaded, earning a confused look from Jack and Rose.
"You're wasting time, Doctor," Tanith told him before looking back to the child, "Time I don't have."
The Doctor took one last look at Tanith before he nodded and moved passed Jack and Rose, heading towards the hole she had put in the wall. "Come on, you two!" he snapped when he realised they hadn't moved.
Jack exchanged a confused look with Rose before following after the Time Lord and the moment they stepped through the wall, the Doctor aimed the blaster at it. He set his jaw before firing, repairing the hole.
Tanith grimaced and fell to her knees as her body rocked with pain as the nanogenes continued to try and change her biology. She couldn't help but grin, however as her hand tightened around the bracelet.
"Prove us wrong, Doctor," she murmured before slipping it off.
On the other side of the wall, the Doctor almost collapsed, using the wall to support him when he sensed Tanith and the pull that wanted him to return to her side. But he fought through it, knowing that he was now working on a timer to fix this and save her.
Whatever had happened to Zaly, whatever the child was doing to have caused Tanith to 'surface' again, the Time Lord knew that if he didn't fix what Jack had done, her mind would burn and he would lose them both.
"Doctor?!" Rose cried as she moved to try and help him, wondering what was wrong, but he pushed her away, shaking his head as he straightened.
"It's nothing," he told her.
"Sure doesn't look like nothing," Jack remarked, eyeing the man, "What happened to Zaly and who the hell is Tanith?"
"We need to go," the Doctor said, ignoring his question as he walked off, "I need to get to that bomb site."