A/N: Sorry for my absence but the past week or so has been filled with a bout of migraines. To add insult to injury, my laptop is currently on its way out. Yay...

Part 17

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Hearing the front door slam shut, Jenny came running from the kitchen. "Daddy? Where's Daddy?" she asked.

"He's erm… he's just gone outside to deal with the Aubertide," Donna reluctantly admitted. "They don't stand a chance now he's got the watch and can become the Doctor again. Look, there he is."

They all turned as one to view the scene.

"Who's waiting for him?" Martha pondered as they crowded the window to look out onto the grass.

Below them, John bravely allowed himself to be led away without a single backwards glance at them.

"Is that…?" Donna peered around Martha and sighed in distress. "It is. They got houseman Steve. Aww, I liked him."

"We noticed," Martha commented.

"What?" Donna defended herself. "He was nice, handsome, and he chatted me up."

"He also made John jealous."

"Did he?" A pleased smile briefly appeared on Donna's face. "Never mind. All gone now," she glumly finished.

"What are they going to do to Daddy?" Jenny wailfully asked. "Are they going to kill him like they did Kimberley?"

Martha was puzzled. "Kimberley?"

"The little girl down there," Donna pointed out. There was a young child following Thompson, Lydia and Steve. "That's Kimberley. She was in Jenny's playgroup class."

"Sorry Jenny," Martha immediately commiserated. "But your dad should be all right."

Little Jenny shook her head. "They killed lots of people."

Donna and Martha shared a look, and then Donna squatted down to speak directly at their young charge. "You died and came back after regeneration, remember, and the Doctor can do that too, if he has to. But I don't think he will. He has been close to death loads of times and won through. I mean, look at what happened just before we met you. The Sontarans were threatening to kill everyone on Earth, so he beamed himself into their spaceship to talk them round before blowing them all up. He escaped, like he always does, and he'll do it again. Just you see."

Jenny glanced at Martha to see if this was true and gained a head nod to confirm it.

"Okay." Jenny sniffed and tried to hold back a sob, but it was all too much for her.

After that she must have cried for a good solid minute, Donna considered as she held the child tight.

"Well, I'm not sitting around here waiting for him to come back," Martha announced after hugging Jenny too for half a minute. "There are people who have been bombed that need our help."

"Have you got your medical bag ready?" Donna wondered.

"Always," Martha confidently replied. "What about you two?"

"We're coming to help too. Aren't we, Jenny?"

"Yes!" Jenny declared, jumping off Donna's lap. "I may be little, but I can move bricks and give people water."

"Good girl," Martha complimented her and took Jenny's hand to leave the flat.

Less than twenty minutes later, there was a loud BOOM that shook the rafters. It came from a place the other side of the woods; it was at least half a mile away. Then a plume of green smoke billowed up into the sky.

Martha was caring for an injured nurse in the rubble, offering hope. "What was that?!"

Nanoseconds later, Jenny heard, They're gone.

"Do you think…?" Donna began to ask Martha about the Doctor being involved in the explosion but stopped when she noticed Jenny grinning slyly. "Was it him, Jenny?"

No more Aubertide.

She gained a confident nod.

I'm on my way back to you, Jenny.

"Daddy has made us all safe," Jenny declared, "and will be home soon."

It was exhausting digging through the rubble to get people out to safety. Donna wiped a hand across her brow, glad to be of some use and relieved they'd had the idea to leave Jenny under Martha's care.

She looked in their direction and saw jenny watching Martha bandage someone up, fascinated by the process and helping by passing clean lint, surgical tape or antiseptic wipes as it was all explained to her. Having a young child there seemed to calm their patients too, putting on a brave show by pretending their various wounds didn't hurt that much.

After taking in a deep breath, Donna turned to continue with her task, and was shocked to see a woman with a bleeding head wound, staggering towards her. She held out a hand to help the woman negotiate some fallen bricks. "This way, love. You'll soon be alright."

It was the voice rather then the face that she recognised. "Thanks."

She peered into dazed eyes. "Is that you, Joan? Oh my god, it is!" She quickly grasped Joan's hand to guide her. "Can you remember what happened to you?"

"I… don't…" Joan's startled eyes didn't seem to be aware of what she was seeing.

"Never mind," Donna sympathised. "Follow me and we'll get you some help."

Joan obediently gripped Donna's hand. "I think I hit my head," she stated and then began to swoon.

"I've got you," a man declared as he appeared by Donna's side and quickly grasped Joan's limp body. "What's her name?" he asked Donna.

"Joan. Joan Redfern," she supplied. "I've not seen you before," she then added.

He smiled genially. "It's been a bit of a bad first day," he commented, still holding on to Joan. "I'm Dr Newman."

"In more than one way. Don't tell me your name is Randy," Donna joked as they eased Joan down onto the seat in front of Martha.

Fortunately, he laughed. "No, it's Stanley Newman. 'Stan' to my friends."

"Thanks for helping, Stan," she answered. "Shame we won't be more than ships that pass in the night."

"Oh? Why's that?" he wondered, keeping half an eye on his rescued patient.

"This is probably our last day."

"We expect to leave in the morning," Martha added as she tended to Joan's head wound, "since we've finished what we needed to do here."

Beside her, Jenny was casting her gaze between the new doctor, to Joan, and back again.

"What can you see, Jenny?" Donna quietly asked.

"Lines. Lots of lines," Jenny replied. "Pretty colours. And they are almost the same."

"Really?" Donna mumbled and then twigged what it might mean. That moment below Pompeii sprung to mind. "Between them? Oh. Good job we have our new friend here to look after Joan for us when we go." She then aimed at Stan, "You don't mind keeping an eye on our friend Joan while we're gone, do you? She's a lovely woman and I'd hate for her to feel she's on her own."

His face lit up with a beautiful smile. "Of course. I'd love to."

"That's settle then," Donna sighed. One guilty box ticked off the list.

Martha immediately sat back with some satisfaction. "All done. It looks as though we've got everyone out and dealt with. Time to go pack."

"Bye Stan. It was lovely to meet you," Donna called out as she took Jenny's hand.

"Bye Stan! Bye Joan!" Jenny yelled, and was pleased when she received a small wave from the pair of them.

"Did you mean they get together?" Donna hastily whispered when they got the chance.

Flashing blue lights from emergency services and the general hubbub of oncoming rescuers made normal talking difficult.

"I think that's what it means," Jenny commented. "The bright lines were wrapped all around them."

"Lucky Joan," Donna murmured, thinking of how nice Stanley had seemed.

At that moment a strange but familiar elephantine noise came from the interior of their temporary flat, and thoughts of her own future grew upmost in her mind. The Doctor was back, and he was bound to be thoroughly pissed off with her. Who could blame him? A relationship with a frumpy old temp from Chiswick had been the last thing on his mind before he had changed into a human.

The Doctor stood at the console, flicking switches as he tried to ignore the expressions on his companions' faces, having related how he had dealt with the Aubertide.

"You did what!" Donna exclaimed in shock. "Even houseman Steve, and Kimberley, that little girl?"

This made him look up from his task to sternly reply, "They wanted eternal life, so I gave it to them."

"Oh really? I don't call throwing Lydia into a dying star as giving her eternal life. More like instant death by freezing or suffocation," she argued, stepping closer. "Why did poor sweet Lydia deserve to die like that?"

"Because," he countered, moving around the console to confront her, "Lydia was already dead at that point and the creature, the Aubertide, that had taken over her body threatened Jenny."

At this point in the spat, Martha silently gestured to Jenny to leave the vicinity. She'd seen enough arguments between her own parents to know this could get ugly, very quickly, while emotions were running high.

Giving the two other adults a quick glance, and deciding she wouldn't be missed, Jenny obediently followed Martha out to the kitchen, where Martha sought desperately for a treat. Luckily, the TARDIS was more than willing to offer one.

Back in the console room, the Doctor and Donna were still mid-glaring match.

"Who made you judge and jury?" she demanded to know.

"Me," he answered. "I'm the only Time Lord left so I have to deal with it."

"What's Jenny then? Scotch mist?"

"You know what I mean," he hissed at her sarcasm. "It will take years for her to be able to take over her responsibilities."

"Yeah, all that dishing out torture she'll have to do, just like her dad."

"Don't start!"

He had pushed his face right up to hers, and they stood nose tip to nose. To be honest, he had expected her to strike him, like she had their first day together, but instead she completely astounded him by reaching out to touch his arm in an unaccountably tender way, and her eyes filled with tears.

"But you were kind to them, showing them mercy at first, and you ended up trapping them. Torturing them with chains, stuck inside a mask, or hidden in a mirror, for forever and a day," she wept. "You can't do that. It's inhumane when you could have let them die naturally or just put them to sleep like a vet would."

"They killed people, Donna."

"It was their nature to as hungry animals. You said so yourself. Surely, they've been punished enough. Or do we bring back the death penalty again?" When he didn't answer, she continued, "I just don't understand how you be kind enough to change your whole life for them one minute, and go all avenging caveman on them the next."

"I told you – they took Jenny. They would have killed her."

"But they didn't," she futilely pointed out. "We rescued her. And you've done stuff as a consequence that will weigh on your mind if you don't go back and release those creatures to live out the end of their lives with dignity. Otherwise, what was the point of you sacrificing yourself like you did? You're above them, not below."

"True."

"And the people they took… think of their families. Poor Kimberley's mum. Steve had parents and a sister, and I'm sure even Thompson had someone who cared about him. The other residents will miss Lydia even if her family never bothered to visit. Their families should get the bodies back, so they can grieve properly, and hold funerals according to their faiths."

"You're right," he admitted on a sigh. He then swept her up into a hug. "Thank you, Donna, for reminding me. As you said, sometimes I need to be stopped."

He chuckled when she whispered, "Of course, if they had actually harmed Jenny, I'd have taken them all out myself, and helped you chop them up, but that's by the by."

"Good to know," he stated, grinning, as he pulled back, still holding her shoulders. "I erm… I need to say something to you."

Please don't make it goodbye, she silently begged. I don't want to leave.

Hearing her thoughts, he continued by saying, "I can't be what John Smith was. I can't offer that life."

"I know. I knew that without you having to say something," she assured him.

"And yet, what he is, what he was, I can be that too. He is within me."

"Well, I'd guessed that too," she blustered. "It's not exactly news. You can love but not like a human. And the love you do have, that's reserved for Rose. You made that very clear with Martha and I promise I won't expect you to cross that line with me."

"What about what happened with John Smith?" he gently wondered.

"You had temporary amnesia," she stated, and gave him a small, self-deprecating shrug. "It would never have happened otherwise. Let's face it, if I hadn't been there, you'd have fallen head over heels for Joan Redfern, and ended up feeling really guilty about abandoning her. At least you won't have to do that with me."

"Why not?"

"Because I knew it wouldn't last, dumbo," she mocked; both him and herself. "The silver lining is that we can actually still be friends afterwards rather than you running off with my money to spend on someone else."

"Is that normal?" he warily asked.

"It is for me," she admitted. "Let's just say it's happened a few times and leave it at that."

"What do we do now?"

"Normally, I'd say have a cup of tea and then get Martha home. But I think she deserves a special trip, don't you, after all she's been through?"

The image was quite clear in her mind. "I think that can be arranged," he agreed, to please her.