Part 15

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"Daddy," Jenny called out to announce her appearance in their bedroom. "You have to get up. Now."

"Any particular reason?" John wondered, rubbing his fingers across his scalp.

"Donna says it's time to get up and you have to make her a coffee or something."

"Did she?" he questioned; and sat up to regard his daughter, frowning at her exuberance. "And don't jump on me," he warned, far too late for the fine delicacies of his stomach.

"Sorry," Jenny said without any real conviction. To be honest, she was too busy sniffing his pheromones to bother with greater niceties. His level was far higher than Donna's had been, which rather puzzled her, but she was pleased, nevertheless. It meant he was still keen to attract the attention of Donna. "She said she couldn't get ready without one. Perhaps you ought to take her a cup."

"Then I'd better provide some teas and coffee before I get shouted at or jumped on again," he mused, and started to pull back his bedcovers. "Erm… while I get dressed, Jenny, go and see if Martha needs anything, then you can watch some television."

"Okay," Jenny breezily agreed, and skipped out of the bedroom, heading towards the lounge to turn the tv on.

Minutes later, he arrived outside Donna's bedroom with a fresh mug of coffee for her. At that moment, she appeared at the doorway and narrowed her eyes. "Yes?"

"I brought you a coffee, as requested, my lady," he declared, grinning broadly.

"Oooh. Thank you."

As she went to grab the mug from his hands, he swept both it and her sideways, towards his bedroom door.

"What are you doing?" she squeaked.

"Enticing you into my room," he explained, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. "Come here."

"But Martha and Jenny are only just down there," Donna argued. "Waiting for us."

John did not release her, but calmly manoeuvred her into his tender clutches. "Then we'll have to not only be quiet, but also be quick," he murmured, taking the opportunity to place a kiss on her neck at the same time.

"Blimey! Who'd have thought you could be this romantic," were the last words Jenny heard Donna say before the door was firmly closed.

Jenny covered her mouth with her hands and giggled with glee. She had been peeping around at them from the lounge door; and was only now satisfied that her plan to get them together was working perfectly.

"Jenny, what are you doing?" Martha suspiciously demanded.

"Nothing," Jenny maintained as she returned to sit next to Martha on the sofa. "Daddy is taking his time to get ready."

"Having a shower?" Martha presumed. "Typical. He'd better hurry up or I'll bang on the bathroom door."

Wriggling her bottom to get more comfortable on the seat, Jenny lifted her head to innocently ask, "Are you angry with Daddy?"

"No, not really," Martha admitted. "Why do you ask?"

Jenny returned her attention to the television in order to comment, "I was worried you didn't like Daddy having Donna as his girlfriend."

There was a faint splutter. "I'm not against it, as such. How long have you known about them?"

A triumphant grin was beamed at Martha. "Today. I wanted it to happen," Jenny stated.

In answer, a frown appeared on Martha's face. "Jenny, did you make this happen? Because you shouldn't have done. It's dangerous."

"It won't be."

Yet Martha was not pleased. "Really? And how do you know that? You're just a little girl on a foreign world."

"I am also a Time Lord," Jenny pointed out. "With a daddy, and I want a mummy."

And also rather arrogant, like the other Time Lords she had known, Martha thought. "Jenny, if you have forced your dad to fall in love, he will know when he turns back into himself, and will be very annoyed with you," Martha maintained. "You'll upset him and break Donna's heart."

"But I…"

"It was really stupid of you," Martha continued.

"I didn't…"

All the hidden feelings Donna had tried to keep from her flitted through Jenny's mind as Martha continued to berate her.

"I can't believe you used your special powers to manipulate him into behaving this way."

"He likes her," Jenny defended herself.

"Your dad likes lots of people," Martha complained. "It's what he does. He goes out of his way to make them feel special."

There was something here that Jenny ought to know. Something to argue with, but she couldn't remember what it was, in the heat of the moment. So she pouted instead. "I like Donna too."

"Oh Jenny," Martha crooned with fondness and a certain amount of patronising. "Of course you do. We all do. When you think about it, she's almost all you've known since you were born. But what if your dad doesn't really feel about her like that? What if he would much prefer to have Rose instead? That'd ruin your plan and you'd end up sad too. You mustn't force him into a relationship he doesn't want."

Blinking back tears, Jenny started to question herself. Had she coerced him into falling in love, or had he done it all on his own? "Daddy wants Rose?" she queried. "Why?"

"I never met her, so I don't know exactly why," Martha confessed. "My friend Jack said that she was young, blonde, beautiful and made your dad happy. Apparently, she had a very caring and sunny personality. Your dad used to talk abut her a great deal when I travelled with him. He adored her."

Grasping at straws, Jenny pondered, "And not Donna?"

Martha shook her head. "Never mentioned he'd met her before me. Not once."

"Oh," Jenny sighed, and dipped her head, wringing her hands as she considered this. "It's only John Smith then who loves Donna."

"It looks that way." Martha reached across, took hold of Jenny's hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. "I had the same thing happen with my dad recently. I wanted him to stay with Mum, but he went off with Annalise instead."

"What's Annalise like?"

"Young, blonde, beautiful, with a caring and sunny personality," Martha answered with irony, noting Jenny's crestfallen expression. "There's a lot of it about, it seems, but that doesn't mean that you can't enjoy this moment in time, feeling part of a little family. And in a way, Donna will always be your mother. You'll have that to hold on to."

Giving Martha a weak smile, Jenny murmured, "Thank you. Would you help me get my fairy costume on, please? I don't know how to do the bows."

"Of course," Martha readily agreed, and stood to complete their task.

Make the most of every moment, Jenny reminded herself as she walked along; one hand held by her dad, the other by Donna. At that precise second, she was in the middle of her parents, who loved each other very much.

Every sensation from them was full of happiness as they neared the hospital garden fête. Jenny chatted on about each new thing she noticed. The large white tents, the bunting, the little kiosks that were selling various items, the smell of food, and the disembodied voice that announced things through the tannoy. All of it an adventure for a young alien.

It had already been arranged that Martha would go off to find which stall was being manned by Anne and a few others. The group of nurses were dressing up in old costumes to highlight how far nursing had come, and were hoping to collect funds for a cancer charity at the same time, so Martha wanted to show her support.

"Don't you look cute," Anne had greeted them all by singling out Jenny. "I hope you win the competition."

"I don't mind if I don't win," Jenny had informed her. "I just wanted to try out being a fairy."

"And a very pretty one too," Anne complimented. She then turned her attention to the adults. "My head is a bit worse for wear today, unsurprisingly." She cheekily rolled her eyes. "I almost wasn't sure if that great big meteorite we saw was real or an hallucination."

John's interest perked up when Martha asked, "What meteor was that?"

"Didn't you see it?" Anne queried, peering at all of them in confusion. "It was this green thing that seemed to fall the other side of the trees just after 2am. But there was no bang or fire. I waited to hear the fire engines, but there was nothing. It must have been a lot further away than it looked."

"Must have been," John agreed. "Perhaps we can try and find it later," he suggested to an eager Jenny. "Just think of it, an object from another world."

"How unusual," Donna sarcastically commented to Martha. They shared a conspiratorial smile. "Come on Jenny, time to get you signed in. we have to be there by half passed."

That spurred her into action. "Come on you two!" Jenny chided, pulling on their hands.

"See you later," Donna called out as they walked away.

"See you! Good luck, Jenny!" Anne and Martha replied in kind.

"You really thinking about finding that meteorite?" Donna asked John.

"Of course," he cheerily replied. "Aren't you keen to?"

"Not really," she admitted. "You never know what it's brought with it."

"Like sandwiches and a winning attitude?" he teased.

"More like alien diseases and lots of trouble."

"You've been watching too many horror films," he reproached. "Just think of the adventure."

"That's the trouble. I am," she muttered to herself. Donna then changed her worried attitude when she spotted something to point out to Jenny. "Look who's running this competition. Not much of a costume, is it."

The first tent they approached had a sign proclaiming it was the meeting place for the fancy-dress competition. In the open tent flap, Henry Thompson was holding a clipboard, noting down entrants' names.

At the insistence of Jenny, pulling on his hand, John stepped up to him and stated, "We're here for the fancy-dress competition."

Henry Thompson consulted his list without recognising Jenny. "Ah, yes. Mr Smith's young daughter…?"

"Jenny," John supplied. "She's a fairy."

Mr Thompson leaned down to peer imperially at Jenny over the edge of his clipboard. "There are three other fairies," he remarked.

"Good!" Donna retorted. "Perhaps they'll form a fairy trade union between them and bring down the patriarchy that has them collecting teeth."

His eyebrows shot up into his hairline, and he forced himself to stand tall. "There will be no need for that."

"Says you," Donna playfully spat. "Tell me again when you've spent a week being a tooth fairy."

"Now now, Donna," John chided, pulling her away. "There's no need to liken Mr Thompson's job to that of a professional fairy." He then bent low to kiss Jenny. "Good luck, Sweetheart. Have fun with all your fairy friends."

Across the tent, two little girls were waving desperately at Jenny to join them. Before she ran off, however, she turned to John and informed him, "You don't have to come and get me later. I want Martha to meet me."

"You do?" John baulked. "Why?"

"I want my friends to meet her," Jenny insisted. "Tell her to come to the tent."

"Yes, madam. Anything you say, madam," he sarcastically mumbled to Donna. "Where did she get that from?!"

"Charlies' Angels?" Donna offered. "Never mind," she added when he frowned at her. "Wrong era."

Fortunately, John was too busy considering the nearby tents to catch her comment. "Where shall we go first? It's just you and me for a short while," he gleefully told her. "We can do anything we want."

"In that case, I want something to eat," Donna decided. "Thanks to a certain someone, I barely managed to drink my coffee, let alone eat something for breakfast, so I'm starving."

He joyfully wrapped her arm around his, and leaned in to declare, "You are perfect, Donna Noble. Let's go find the refreshments tent. I'm sure they can rustle us up some strawberries and cream, or perhaps a tasty Victoria sponge cake."

"Cake," she murmured, licking her lips; and he laughed with delight.

They were feeling rather plumptious by the time several small children in differing costumes started to walk past them; obviously looking for their parents.

"It looks as though Jenny's competition has finished," John noted, eyeing their progress. "We ought to go and find Martha to see how she got on."

"I'm assuming she didn't win," Donna commented as they stood from their picnic table to seek her out. "Otherwise, she'd have been like a rocket to tell us the news."

He nodded his agreement and led her quickly towards the nurses' stand. He frowned when he didn't immediately see his daughter there. "Hello Martha, have you seen Jenny?"

Martha stopped folding up bandages to give John her full attention. "What do you mean? I thought she was with you."

"No, she wanted you to meet her," he clarified.

"I did. Go to meet her. But she wasn't there," Martha explained. "Mr Thompson said she'd left with you. That you'd changed your mind about collecting her."

"What!"

"We didn't get her," Donna cried. "And that tent was empty when we walked past it just now."

John could feel the panic rising in him. "I'd assumed she came to find you, Martha. She wanted to show you to her friends."

Martha stiffened. "Well, she didn't come to me. Oh no. Where can she be?"

An icy hand gripped Donna's heart. "I don't know."

Donna joined Martha in frantically looking around. "Jenny? Jenny!"

"There must be a Lost Person tent by the tannoy," Martha suggested. "They always have it there."

They ran, calling out, "Jenny!"