A/N: Now passed the 'Dancing' bit and am on the 'kidnapped' part.

Part 16

.

John stood in the middle of all the tents, scanning the area; and utterly livid his daughter was missing. He knew she would never go off on her own without supervision. It just wasn't in her nature. Someone nearby knew exactly where she was.

Around him, people were moving, Martha and Donna were calling out, Anne had joined them in their search, but he sensed that he had to calm his thoughts down to a crawl. To concentrate and listen to the environment. If he channelled his olfactory skills, he could sniff out Jenny's trail. He wasn't aware how he could do this; just that he suddenly could.

His head whipped round as he caught her scent. It led straight to the rear of a shooting booth. "Jenny," he murmured, and set off at a run.

"John! Have you seen her?" Donna called out as she saw him run past Anne.

"We have a lost child," the tannoy announced. "If anyone has seen a little girl on her own, please bring her to the competition tent immediately."

"Has he seen her?" Martha then asked Donna.

"Not sure," she murmured, "but he's gone all spaceman."

Martha frowned. "What?"

"Look at him. He's sniffing her out, as if he was normal." Donna then tilted her head and corrected herself, "Well, normal for him."

They ran towards John, hoping he was going in the right direction. "He's aiming for Mr Thompson," Martha pointed out when they'd reached the WI stall. "What's he holding?"

To the shock of all of them, Thompson held up a gun. A very unusual gun; more like a Star Wars blaster. It made John halt in his tracks.

Yet Donna wasn't convinced. "What's he doing, waving about a toy gun like that?" she scoffed. "It's not even a good one. Must have found it in a Jamboree bag."

In response, Thompson aimed the gun at an apple dipping barrel and blew it to smithereens. "Still think this is a toy?" he goaded her as well as the small crowd of people near him.

"What do you want?" John demanded to know as the gun was turned in his direction.

"What do I want," Thompson repeated, to mock John. "I want you, Doctor."

"Are you mad?" John spluttered. "Why me?"

Thompson's eyes widen. "Oh, you really are that stupid. I thought it was an act. I don't want just any old doctor; I want you, THE Doctor. The Time Lord known as the Doctor."

"Oh no!" both Martha and Donna gasped.

"Then you've got the wrong person," John insisted. "I'm plain old John Smith. You'll have to look elsewhere."

"I'm sure I have exactly the right person," Thompson countered. "Especially if this pet belongs to you."

From out behind him, Lydia pushed forwarded Jenny. Her hands had been bound behind her back, and a scowl covered her face, otherwise Jenny didn't seem to have been harmed in any way.

"Lydia!" John cried. "What on Earth are you doing with Jenny? Why did you take her?"

To his horror, both Thompson and Lydia leaned over to take in a long sniff over Jenny's head. They smiled in satisfaction.

"We can taste your essence on her. My little friend came to Lydia," Lydia replied. "Thought I was real."

"No, I didn't," Jenny cried. "You smell funny, and you grabbed me."

"Quiet!" Lydia shouted in Jenny's face. "The adults are talking. We have to get the Doctor to come with us and join the Family of Blood."

"Then you'll have to go through us," Martha proclaimed as she and Donna stepped in front of John.

"Dance, Jenny," Donna yelled as she kicked out her leg, hitting Thompson hard in the crown jewels just as Martha nocked his arm upwards, causing the gun to fly from his grasp, landing near Anne.

Jenny immediate twirled high on the spot, pirouetting with grace before balancing on one foot with the other foot pointing daintily outwards; hitting Lydia in the legs, making the old woman's knees crumple, and Lydia sunk to the ground like a stone.

"Run!"

Donna grabbed Jenny's hand, as Martha pulled John away, running towards the flat at a breakneck speed. They didn't need to know Anne had picked the gun up and was now aiming it at the Family of Blood. In that moment they couldn't worry about her demise.

Once they were clear of the hospital summer fête grounds, John lifted Jenny onto his back, and they made it home at a faster rate. Apart from the odd glance over their shoulders to see how close their attackers were, they kept their gaze straight ahead.

A few minutes later, they burst through the front door of the flat, breathless from the effort of running for their lives. They quickly closed the curtains so stop anyone peeping in. It took a little while for them to be able to breath enough to discuss what had happened.

"What was that all about?" John demanded. "Who were they?"

"I think they were Aubertide," Martha stated, and looked to Donna for confirmation.

"Definitely them," Donna agreed. "They've been after you for a long time."

"Me?" John gasped. "But why?"

"Jenny, go and get the pocket watch, please?" Donna asked the child as calmly as she could. She then turned to Martha to ask, "How do we explain this one?"

"Erm…"

Jenny wasn't listening to their conversation. She'd already worked out that the beings that had kidnapped her were alien creatures. What she needed was some action, so she had raced to the bedside table in Martha and Donna's room. Lying there was the item that held her father's essence.

With all the care in the world, she grabbed up the pocket watch and listened to it. "Daddy, what are those things?"

They're Aubertide, sweetheart, having taken the bodies of some convenient humans, the Doctor immediately answered. The humans inside them have died.

But why are the creatures being so horrible?

They're frightened. Remember, they are at the end of their lives, very close to death, and they don't want to die.

Jenny nodded, trying to accept this information. What do you want me to do?

Take this watch to John Smith. Help convince him to open it and let me out. The Aubertide will want me more than you, so keep hidden by wearing your bracelet. Can you do that for me?

Yes Daddy.

Jenny then walked back to the lounge, holding the pocket watch as carefully in her hands as she could.

When she got back there, John was stood facing Martha, anger, denial and determination on his face. Jenny immediately went to Donna's side as Martha argued with her dad.

"I don't believe you. I can't be this Doctor character, no matter how much you want me to be," John insisted. "I'm just some temporary hospital doctor called John Smith, who now has a new girlfriend."

"You can't live a life like that," Martha countered. "Not with Donna."

"Why?"

"Because…" Martha's eyes begged Donna to forgive her next words. "Because we're just humans and your companions. We can't be more."

"Then what do you do for him?" John blazed.

"We keep him company during his travels." She then answered his unasked question, "Because he's lonely. The last of his kind for a while, so he takes the odd human with him for the joy of letting them see the universe."

John was not impressed. "And you want me to return to that?" he spat.

"You have to," Martha tried to persuade him, edging closer, "in order to save Earth, the people in this hospital, and most of all, to save Jenny. They'd completely destroy her if they get the chance."

"Is she even his child?" he bitterly wondered.

"Oh yes, she's definitely his," Martha confidently assured him. "I was also at her birth."

"My Jenny," he murmured, now defeated. "I have to save her."

"Daddy," Jenny called out, and rushed to embrace him, letting him lift her up, to hug her tight. "I love you," she whispered into his ear, and then placed the pocket watch onto his palm.

From outside they heard Thompson shout out. "Doctor! Come out, come out, wherever you are."

"They're here," John stated, and shoved Jenny into Donna's waiting arms before peeping out through the curtains.

On the grass, Thompson stood, with a smug expression on his face. "Look what we found in the woods, Doctor. Your TARDIS is now ours."

"He's got the TARDIS. Doctor, he's got the TARDIS," Donna futilely pointed out.

"I know." John then gasped, realising he had answered to that name, and it had felt right.

"Will they be able to get in?"

"Nah. A whole army of Daleks wouldn't be able to get in there," he scoffed. "Oh! I shouldn't know that, should I?"

"Not unless you're the Doctor," Martha agreed.

"Come on out, or we'll come in and get you and your friends!" Thompson taunted him.

He quickly closed the curtains again and positioned himself well away from the window. "I can't," John whimpered. "I don't want to," he then told Donna.

Before answering him, she suggested, "Martha, why don't you get Jenny a drink, while I talk to John for a moment?"

"Okay," Martha replied. "Let's see what we've got," she said to Jenny and ushered her out of the room.

It left Donna to deal with a frightened man.

"You're going to tell me I should die, aren't you," he accused.

"No," she gently disagreed, moving forward to place a hand on his arm. "I'm not going to force you into doing anything."

"Oh Donna," he groaned, and grasped both her hands in his.

The warm pocket watch in his palm lit up with images of the life he could have led. Of loving days and passionate nights. A wedding day, more children, a happy life fulfilled with love, ended by dying holding the woman he loved. Then it faded away, leaving him gazing into Donna's tear-filled eyes.

"We would have been happy," he murmured through his bleary vision.

She nodded her head. "I know, but I don't belong here. My family is in the future. We'd be marooned here like Robinson Crusoe."

"But we'd have each other," he argued.

"A bit selfish of us," she commented as a loud blast hit quite close by. "Sounds like they're firing missiles now. Trying to bomb you out. Who knows how many might die?"

"Ninety-seven," he answered without noticing.

"Still got them time sense skills, I see," she noted. "Just think of having all them on your conscience."

"It's the watch. A low-level psychic field through a telepathic link." His eyes went wide. "Is that how he talks all the time?"

"Not really. It tends to be even more technobabble than that," she scoffed. "I have to get him to explain stuff in words of only one syllable and I understood what you said far too easily."

"If I become him, I won't be able to love you like this anymore," he confessed.

"I know," she admitted. "But that's okay. I'm just a temp from Chiswick and you're a Time Lord who has responsibilities to the universe. I knew it wouldn't last. You and me, we don't matter in the grand scheme of things. People are dying out there and you have to save them."

"What about me?" he near choked as tears streamed down his cheeks.

"That's my job, saving you."

He gave a wry chuckle. "I love you, Donna Noble."

"And I love you, John Smith," she whispered back, giving in to her desperate need to embrace him one last time.

The words 'Enough to let you go' hung in the air between them. Then she pulled back, tenderly caressed his cheek as a final gesture, and walked away; leaving him on his own to decide his own fate.

He waited three beats, drew in a deep breath, and opened the front door to his destiny. "Here I am!" he called out to Thompson waiting down on the grass.