Part 2
.
It was Martha who led the still slightly befuddled John Smith from the TARDIS, out into the sunshine to walk up to the daunting main building of St Jude's Hospital. Most of the building was built from late Victorian red bricks, but several modern extensions could be seen dotted about.
Donna scowled at the unshaven man, formerly known as the Doctor. "Did he happen to tell you when we are?" she whispered to Martha as they walked. The state of the cars in the car park seemed to suggest they hadn't gone back in time too far to be unfamiliar.
"I think he said it was 1986 before he passed out," Martha replied in hushed tones. "We shouldn't look too out of place."
"No, thank goodness," Donna agreed, "but I didn't pack any shoulder pads, or loads of hairspray."
As Martha stifled a laugh, they reached the top of the steps leading into the building. A large brass plaque proclaimed it to be St Jude's University Hospital. Just inside the main door was the frontage to a kiosk that was obviously the hospital shop.
Phew, thank goodness they had a little shop nearby, Donna mentally noted. If they didn't find a discarded newspaper lying about somewhere, the shop was bound to have one to see the exact date. But she was soon distracted by the middle-aged man wearing a formal suit, stood in the foyer.
"Ah, Mr John Smith. Hello, I'm Henry Thompson. the hospital administrator," the man enthused in greeting, shaking the Doctor's hand first. "And Nurse Martha Jones. Good to meet you." He shook Martha's hand too. "Welcome to St Jude's. We hope you enjoy your time here and are very grateful you were able to show up at such short notice."
Not that Donna felt much of his gratitude as she stood there like a spare part, holding onto Jenny's hand. So she sort of introduced herself by speaking up. "Do you have any crèche facilities around here?"
He visibly jerked and then noticed the presence of a young child. "You have a little girl," he murmured half to himself, bending to take a closer look. Seeming to be satisfied that the person in question was indeed a child, he stood up straight again and aimed his reply at John. "Yes, we have a crèche, you'll be pleased to know. It'll give you a chance to escape the old ball…" His eyes landed on Donna just before he embarrassed himself by calling her a 'ball and chain', a very old term so-called comedians called wives.
As Donna glared at him, John suddenly found his manners and introduced her. Probably left them in his coat pocket on a previous jaunt, she reasoned. "Mr Thompson, this is Donna and my daughter Jenny," he announced.
Ew! Donna wanted to wipe her hand on her jacket after Thompson had finished shaking it in greeting like a wet lettuce. Complete berks tended to have that effect on her.
But any covering retort she formed was wiped away when he said to her, "You both have a charming daughter, Mrs Smith."
Then to add insult to injury, John blushed and stammered, "No… no, oh no. We're not married. Not at all."
She was in two minds to pretend they were, just to see what would happen, but the better part of her was relieved she was officially not in a relationship with him. "Never ever," she added to underline her marital status. "Well, not to him, thanks."
Not knowing what else to say, Thompson muttered, "Quite." Pausing to change the subject, he announced, "If you would follow me, I'll show you around the hospital, the lecture rooms and the unit where you will both be working."
The conversation turned to medical practicalities, and Donna zoned out to entertain herself with her own thoughts while trying to keep Jenny amused. Blimey, men certainly love the sound of their own voices once they get going.
Apart from the odd "Jenny, don't touch that," John ignored the pair of them, but Donna did her best to distract the boredom away, by pointing out interesting things to investigate later.
"Don't like that man," Jenny quietly told Donna as they neared the end of the grand tour.
Donna bent close to whisper, "Nor do I. Race you to the exit door over there."
The two of them left a very puzzled John Smith gazing after their disappearing forms.
"Jenny probably needs the loo," Martha helpfully suggested, and fervently wished she had been included in their escape plan.
The keys they were given were for a ground floor, two bedroomed flat. It was fairly standard, apparently. The furnishings included the beds, kitchen equipment, and seats in the living room, plus a spot for a television. Donna decided to treat it as though it was holiday home. It was best that way. And it enabled her to sneak in a few extra items from the TARDIS when the fancy took either her or Martha. Generally, it tended to be Martha, but Donna was fine with that. The two bedrooms both held a pair of single beds. Obviously, the hospital didn't expect to accommodate married couples, and there was a singular bathroom for them to share.
A bit like a student share, Martha had remarked when they first moved in; a gloriously warm day that was confirmed to be late April in 1986.
"This should do us very well," John had declared once their suitcases had been stowed away. After checking Jenny was quietly playing with an improvised sock puppet, he then cheekily pondered, "I wonder where the nearest pub is."
Both Martha and Donna stared at him in shock.
"What?" he queried, looking completely innocent. "What have I said?"
"Nothing," Martha said to cover her surprise.
But Donna continued to stare at him. "Do I know you?" she asked out loud.
"Of course, you do," he scoffed, giving her shoulder a playful shove. "Don't start that again."
"Don't start what?" Martha almost involuntarily blurted out.
He waved a hand airily at Donna. "She likes to pretend she doesn't know who I am. Thinks it's hilarious." Warming to his subject, he turned to Martha to half grumble, "She even did it the day of my wedding, would you believe. It was funny, I admit, right up until she had the vicar worried he'd got the wrong groom. Almost had me thrown out the church. Anyway, what are we having for dinner?"
Now puzzled even more, Martha shared a questioning look with Donna. "I didn't know she was at your wedding. Who were you marrying?"
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I was marrying my wife. Who did you think it was? Donna and I have got history where weddings are concerned." He then beamed a conspiratorial smile at Donna. "Haven't we?"
"We do seem to have unusual ones," she agreed whilst wondering who the hell he thought he had married.
In light of this latest development, Martha decided to play dumb. "I wish I'd met Jenny's mother," she deliberately sighed.
"I thought you did," he replied. "Come to think of it, she probably saw you, but you didn't realise who she was."
"Probably." Accepting Donna's silent encouragement to ask more, Martha asked their pressing question. "What was she like?"
"Ooh." He sucked in air through his teeth as he pondered the question, giving his neck a rub at the same time. "Very much like Jenny, with the same colouring. In fact, I look at Jenny and I see her. I erm…" Trying to appear as though he wasn't doing so, he surreptitiously dabbed at the tears his eyes. "I feel as though I had hardly any time with her at all, before she was taken away from me. It wasn't even a year."
"It's okay to grieve," Donna consoled him, placing a hand on his arm. "Nobody expects you to forget her. And we're always willing to listen, aren't we, Martha?"
"Definitely," Martha readily agreed.
"You are wonderful friends," he gushed, pulling them both into a group hug. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Have to do all your own cooking," Donna joked, getting the laughter she'd wanted to lighten the mood.
After that, they found some bread in order to do themselves some beans on toast as their first official meal in their new home.
It was while he was putting Jenny to bed, and telling her a bedtime story, that the two women got a chance to actually discuss John Smith.
It was Martha who first hissed a question, in case they could be overheard. "Who do you think he reckons he married?"
"Was that Rose he was describing, do you think?" Donna asked in return.
"No. Rose was blonde, according to Jack, but I don't think it was her," Martha insisted. "Mainly because he'd never had any trouble using Rose's name in front of me, when it was just us."
"Funny." Donna nodded, remembering his reluctance to say the name when she had first met him. "By the sound of it, he was describing Jenny before the shooting. Would he do that? Mistake his daughter for his imaginary wife."
"It's possible, I suppose," Martha allowed, with a shrug of her shoulders. "It fits; and explains why the mystery woman has no name."
"Weird though," Donna commented, not knowing what else to say.
"Very weird."
It soon became apparent that Donna needed to keep Jenny well away from the bathroom in the mornings until Martha and John had carried out their ablutions. One extremely startled father caught hiding behind the shower curtain had emphasised the urgency in keeping such a little girl otherwise occupied. To be honest, Donna was glad it had been him rather than Martha who had had their dignity compromised, because Jenny hadn't seen anything more incriminating than a bare, wet arm; but it could have been a lot worse.
Both of them started work by 9am, although John was privileged enough to finish before Jenny had her evening meal. It meant that he was able to bathe Jenny before bed and read her bedtime story, once some books had been 'acquired' from the TARDIS. Martha had volunteered to collect anything necessary when she passed the TARDIS on her way to work. The time machine was safely hidden in the nearby woods, unseen by any passer-by who wasn't actively looking for her.
Keeping Jenny out of the way first thing in the morning wasn't the only logistic problem Donna faced. Normally, multi-occupancy buildings were terribly loud places, according to Martha, but being in a place where many were on nightshift meant that it was quite a quiet, peaceful place to be and fortunately, Jenny was many things except a noisy child. Yet she was still a lively, intelligent, and inquisitive one.
Not that Donna viewed Jenny as a normal child, nor knew what was going on in that alien heads of hers. But there didn't seem to be many differences the first time John Smith went into work, two days after they arrived, and Donna was left with her young charge waving goodbye on the doorstep.
Jenny turned her anxious gaze onto Donna. "Daddy not well. Daddy has to go the ho'pital," she sadly stated.
"Well," Donna began to reply, holding in a smile at the youthful logical mistake. "Daddy is going to the hospital to work until he can get better and be himself again. It will take him a while to do that. It might be three months, Martha tells me. That's a lot of sleeps."
The girl scowled in disgust. Yes, she understood the concept of time more than a human child, but she still didn't have the vocabulary to word her thoughts. "Can Daddy play with me now?"
"I wish he could, sweetheart, but he has to see to all the old people in the hospital and make sure they are safe and sound," Donna explained. "That's his new job."
"Not me?"
Donna shook her head. "I'm afraid not. You're with me, until he comes home after his shift." When the girl opened her mouth to ask, Donna quickly added, "That's what they call their work hours: a shift. Sometimes it is during the day and other times it's throughout the night."
"Oh. But my daddy come home to us?" Jenny queried, as her bottom lip threatened to wibble, and thoughts of loneliness bombarded her young brain.
"He'd better," Donna answered, hoping her tone would make Jenny laugh, "or I'll go and drag him home."
It did the trick, and Jenny giggled behind her hands, "Like a naughty boy. He'd be naughty."
So Donna added in a smacking gesture to make Jenny chuckle even more, before asking, "What game or thing do you want to play with first? Those empty boxes our stuff came in look interesting, don't they?"
In no time at all they were cutting up cardboard, making a dolls house full of cardboard cut-out people covered in colourful strips of paper or scribbled on with some pens Donna had found in a bag.