Thanks to the lovely anonymous guest for your review. Remember, Barry comes from 2005, and at this point, Sarah Jane doesn't have her gang yet. We will, however, definitely see more of her and her team later on. As for Torchwood…I'm not so fond of that lot, since the show seems to go out of its way to be gratuitously adult, but I am thinking about doing one crossover episode since there's a certain fellow who joined Torchwood in this story. You may have spotted a hint to him in Last of the Time Lords...

Barry and the Doctor strode side-by-side into Adipose Industries, Barry smiling and nodding to random people while the Doctor flashed his psychic paper. While the Doctor charmed an office assistant, Barry dashed around the place, scouting every inch he could find within a minute or so.

"Well?" the Doctor asked quietly, as they met up by the printer.

"Couldn't find anything obviously alien," Barry replied in the same undertone. "No mysterious buttons on the elevator, no doors saying "do not open," no one glowing or sprouting wings or scales or saying "Klaatu Barada Nikto" or anything. One thing, though…"

The Doctor looked at him, eyebrow raised.

"With that amount Ms. Foster, the CEO, is pushing on the sellers, it's not really sustainable. Which means that whatever she's doing, we're close to the endgame already."

"We'll figure it out," the Doctor promised. "Here…"

He held out a sheet of paper, "are the names and addresses of all the customers. You take this half, I'll take these, and we'll meet up by the TARDIS once we're done."

"Anything in particular you want me to look for?" Barry asked, stuffing the paper under his arm with a nod.

"Nah, you know, the usual."

"Got it. Good luck, Doctor."

"And you."

Barry spent the next hour and a half dashing around the Greater London area, interviewing people. Of the addresses he took, most weren't home or didn't answer the door, some doors were opened by adorable kids whose parents weren't there, several thought he was selling something and refused to talk to him, a few reported nothing unusual at all, two complained about the secrecy of the company (Barry made a mental note of that) but otherwise couldn't find anything unusual to talk about, other than how miraculously effective it was, an old lady invited him in for tea, and one teenager tried to flirt with him.

Needless to say, he wasn't in the best of moods when he finally got back to the TARDIS, where he ate dinner and exchanged notes with the Doctor, who examined one of the free pendants the company was giving away through a magnifying glass.

"Bio-flip digital switch. Specifically designed for…parthenogenesis. No. No, no…yes, that's it!"
"Parthenogenesis?" Barry asked, sitting upright. A thought hit him, and he stared at the Doctor, thinking of the company's tagline.
"The fat just runs away…" they said together.


That evening, only a few minutes later from the Doctor and Barry's perspective thanks to TARDIS travel, they stood in front of the office building once more. Getting in proved to be incredibly easy-Adipose Industries had all kinds of security and defenses, but none accounted for a speedster running up the side of the building to the roof with a Time Lord riding piggyback-and what a crazy universe, Barry thought, where that kind of sentence is practically normal.

"Nice job, Barry," the Doctor said once they'd reached the roof.

"Yeah, thanks. I wanted to try the cyclone arms, but thought it might be a bit obvious," he admitted as he climbed into the window cleaner's cradle with the Doctor.

"Just a bit, yeah," the Time Lord agreed. The duo descended until they could climb through a window, and were soon listening in on the newest grand scheme to conquer/destroy the Earth…though they got distracted when they rose to look out of the window, Barry over the Doctor's shoulder, and saw none other than Donna Noble.

While Ms. Foster, the CEO of the company, chattered on to a woman she'd bound to a chair, Barry, Donna, and the Doctor engaged in a mime conversation that reminded him of trying to pass notes across the classroom when he was in middle school (not that he'd ever done such a thing, of course). They kept on miming, with Donna making a particularly silly face just when they looked over…and saw Ms. Foster watching them.

"Sorry. Are we interrupting you?"

The Doctor jerked his head in an expression that needed no translation.

"Oh my God, I don't believe it!" Donna gasped as they piled into a quick group hug on the stairs, looking the Doctor up and down. "You've even got the same suit! Don't you ever change?"

"Oh, Donna, you have no idea," Barry grinned.

"Not now!" the Doctor snapped. "Run!"

They headed back up to the roof, bursting through and moving back from the door as Donna babbled away. "Because I thought, how do you find the Doctor? And then I just thought, look for trouble and then he'll turn up."

"Sounds about right," Barry nodded, mock-seriously. The Doctor looked like he was trying to argue, but couldn't quite get the words out.

"So I looked everywhere. You name it. UFOs, sightings, crop circles, sea monsters. I looked, I found them all."

"I did the same!" Barry high-fived her. She grinned, then continued.

"Like that stuff about the bees disappearing, I thought, I bet he's connected. Because the thing is, Doctor, I believe it all now. You opened my eyes. All those amazing things out there, I believe them all. Well, apart from that replica of the Titanic flying over Buckingham Palace on Christmas Day. I mean, that's got to be a hoax."

Barry smirked, but the Doctor turned to her, frowning.

"What do you mean, the bees are disappearing?"

"I don't know. That's what it says on the internet. Well, on the same site, there was all these conspiracy theories about Adipose Industries and I thought, let's take a look."

"What now?" Barry asked.

"I want to find out just who Ms. Foster is and what she's planning. Barry, get Donna to safety."

"No chance, sunshine, I'm staying with you!" she exclaimed, and the men shared a shrug as the guards stormed onto the roof with Ms. Foster, who halted in surprise.

"Hello," the Doctor said cheerfully. "Nice to meet you. I'm the Doctor."

"And I'm Donna."

"Barry. What's your names, guys?"

The men didn't answer, naturally. Goons seldom did, in Barry's experience.

"Partners in crime," Ms. Foster drawled.

"Yup, that's us," Barry agreed.

Thankfully, they quickly got to the bit where the villain revealed her Evil Plan™ (in this case, to grow a new species, the appropriately-named Adipose, out of human fat) and the Doctor gave his first and last warning.

"I hardly think you can stop bullets," Foster said coldly. "Any last words?"

"Yeah, actually. Barry?"

The speedster zipped forwards, grabbed the guns, and swung them so that the men would knock each other out, then returned to exactly where he had been a subjective moment earlier. As Matron Cofelia turned to gape at her fallen men, the Doctor spoke once more, after whispering something to Barry.

"Here's another good word. Bye!"

A second later, Donna had disappeared from the roof and staggered to a stop to the basement, followed almost instantly by the Doctor, who ran forward to open a closet door, then rip away the false back as well, revealing an alien computer, and got to work on it with his sonic screwdriver.

"Gaah!" the Doctor yelled, almost slapping the computer. "It's triple-deadlocked, there's nothing I can do to stop the signal!"

"Signal? What signal?"

"They've started emergency parthenogenesis," the Doctor growled. "Skeletons, organs, everything. A million people are gonna die, and I can't stop it!"

"Stand back," Barry ordered, grinning.

As the Doctor and Donna watched, the latter wide-eyed, he ran back and forth along the hallway, going faster and faster, then wheeled and launched a bolt of lightning over his shoulder and into the machine, which sputtered, sparked, and went dormant.

"Yes!" the Doctor cheered. "Overloaded the system entirely. Well done, Barry!"

As they stood there, catching their breaths for a moment, they heard a rumbling overhead.

"What the hell was that?" Donna asked.

"The nursery…" the Doctor breathed.

"Fine," Donna said, obviously trying to keep calm. "And when you say nursery you don't mean a créche in Notting Hill."

"Nursery ship," Barry clarified. "Right?"

The Doctor nodded, face drawn. "We'd better get up there. Barry…"

The speedster rolled his eyes affectionately, but nodded and ran them back up.

"What you going to do, then?" Donna asked as she looked at millions of Adipose marching through the streets below. "Blow them up?"

"They're just children. They can't help where they come from," the Doctor shook his head as he hurried towards Matron Cofelia. "I'm more worried about their nanny!"

"That makes a change from last time," Donna remarked quietly.

"The difference being that Racnoss are born starving," Barry reminded her as they caught up with the Doctor. "These little guys won't hurt anyone."

"Uh-huh," she said, but smiled.

"I'm waving at fat," she added after a moment.

"You'll get used to it," Barry grinned. "They're so cute! Wish all the invaders were this sweet."

"Well, as a diet plan, it sort of works," the Doctor agreed. "Nicest invasion I've seen for centuries."

Barry kinda wanted to cuddle one, though his smile disappeared abruptly when Matron Cofelia floated up to roof level, all smug and accomplished.

"Listen to me!" the Doctor urged her. "Breeding on Level Five planets is a crime, and you're an accomplice! Can you shift the levitation beam?"

"I'm far more than that," she proclaimed. "I'm nanny. To all these children."

"Exactly!" the Doctor pleaded. "Mum and Dad have got the kids, they don't need nanny anymore!"

As if on cue, the levitation beam switched off, and she hung impossibly in the air for a moment, like Wile E Coyote, before plunging to the ground with a scream. Or at least she would've, had Barry not seen it coming and taken a running start, grabbing Cofelia and carrying her to the next rooftop over in a single, gigantic leap. Moments later, the two of them were back on the roof with Donna and the Doctor.

"You will pay for this," she hissed.

"Do you accept credit cards?" Barry asked innocently.


Once they'd gotten back to the TARDIS, Matron Cofelia having been handed over to UNIT, Donna started unpacking all of her stuff from her car.

"Donna, we've got a wardrobe in there," Barry grunted under the weight of several boxes. "You really don't need this."

"Can't hurt!" she argued. "Oh! I've still got my car keys."

Barry grabbed them and disappeared in a burst of lightning, before sliding to a stop in front of them moments later. "Left them with one of the policemen over at the Adipose building. Call your mom and tell her."

"Blimey, that's gonna take a bit of getting used to," she blinked. He grinned at her.

"Imagine it from my point of view. One minute I'm in a coma, the next I'm running into walls!"

She barked out a laugh and pulled out her phone to call her mother. As she did so, Barry and the Doctor slipped inside the TARDIS.

For her very first trip, they went two and a half miles over, passing Donna's granddad as he watched the stars through his telescope, and Barry smiled as the family waved to each other.

"Take care of him, Donna," he advised. "You can never spend enough time with loved ones. Trust me. I know."

"I'll bear that in mind," she promised, for once tactful enough not to ask. "Where to now?"

The Doctor grinned and pumped a lever. "Onwards and upwards."

By the way, there were less Adipose born here, thanks to Barry smashing the machine earlier. Still thousands, though.

If it seems like Donna is still a little shocked by Barry's speed, bear in mind that last time they met (a few years back, from her perspective), she was dealing with getting unwittingly and unwillingly teleported into a bigger-on-the-inside spaceship; getting kidnapped by a robot Santa; missing her wedding; having more robot Santas attack the reception; meeting a giant, talking omnivorous alien spider; having her fiance cruelly dump her; and watching said fiance get killed in front of her. With all that going on, a guy with super speed kinda wasn't the biggest thing on her mind that day.

As always, please review.