A/N: Hey everyone! I'm pretty sure there are a few little spelling/grammar errors that I have missed, so I will be reading through it again once my eyes stop itching. Apologies for them at the moment.
Kari and the Doctor was still up on the roof, still waiting for Rose to finish sorting things out with her mother. "Seriously?" Kari asked the Doctor, looking at him suspiciously as she sat higher up on the roof and away from the edge.
"What? I swear, it's true." The Doctor protested, doing his best not to smile.
She only shook her head at him. "Nah, I don't believe you. I have absolutely no reason to believe that any of that is absolutely true."
"It did happen, you were there." It was clear to see that he was getting a little frustrated with what he was trying to tell her now.
A smile stretched across her face. "Spoilers!" She sung to him, ready to put him out of his misery. "Seriously, Doctor? You're just telling me everything that is going to happen, totally ruining the surprise for me."
Her response came with the Doctor rolling his eyes at her. "What, and you couldn't have told me that before? You couldn't have given me a little warning that I was giving you spoilers?"
"Uh, you didn't give me a chance. That mouth of yours just kept on running and running and running. Every time I tried to speak, you interrupted me, which wasn't very nice. You were so determined to tell me that story that I couldn't stop you." Kari told him, folding her arms across her chest as she watched him.
The Doctor was about to reply, when Rose appeared on the roof. There was a bit of a sympathetic smile on her face as she looked at the Doctor. "You all right?" He nodded at her, watching as she pulled herself up so that she was sitting next to Kari.
"How's your mum?" Kari asked her, knowing what was actually going to happen next.
"I can't tell her. I can't even begin. She's never going to forgive me. And I missed a year." Kari couldn't help but chuckle a little. She knew that Jackie would forgive her, that she would eventually come around and understand everything. "Was it good?"
Kari shrugged her shoulders while the Doctor did the answering. "Middling."
"You're so useless." Kari nodded her head in agreement with Rose. Sometimes the Doctor was a bit useless, not knowing things that he should.
The Doctor rolled his eyes at the pair of them, and gave Kari a little nudge with his elbow. "Well, if it's this much trouble, are you going to stay here now?" He could see the smirk that was working its way onto Kari's face, so he knew that she already had the answer to that question.
Rose let out a sigh. "I don't know. I can't do that you her again though."
"Well, she's not coming with us." The Doctor told her firmly, causing both Kari and Rose to start laughing a little.
Even the Doctor joined in with the laughing. "No chance." Just the thought of Rose bringing her mother along was enough to make them let out a few more laughs.
"Yeah, the Doctor doesn't really do families." Kari said, knowing that it was what the Doctor would have said anyway. "He's got me, I think that's enough for him to have to deal with."
There was silence for a few moments, before Rose broke it. "She slapped you." She said, looking at the Doctor while Kari giggled a little more. She knew it wasn't going to be the last time he was slapped, and definitely not the last slap from someone's mother.
"Nine hundred years of time and space, and I've never been slapped by someone's mother." The Doctor was definitely not going to let it go any time soon, and Kari wanted to say something, to tell him that it was only the start of a new trend, but she managed to hold it in, along with some more of her giggles.
"Your face!"
He looked at Rose. "It hurt!" The Doctor moaned, touching the side of his face where Rose's mother had actually slapped him.
"You're so gay." Rose said, before starting to calm down a little. "When you say nine hundred years…"
The Doctor felt Kari wrap her arms around his neck from behind. She had been sitting there quietly, just letting the pair of them banter around, but she knew things were going to change very soon. "That's my age." He told the blonde who was looking at him with curiosity.
"You're nine hundred years old?" She asked, having the Doctor nod in confirmation. "What about you, Kari? How old are you?"
Kari froze, she didn't really know how old she was now. "No idea, I stopped counting. What's the point in counting how old you are? Nah, makes life more depressing that way. It's not the time that matters, it's what you do with it."
"My mum was right, that is one hell of an age gap." Rose was obviously a little shocked at what she had just found out as she jumped down from where she had been sitting. "Every conversation with you two just goes mental. There's no one else I can talk to. I've seen all that stuff up there, the size of it, and I can't say a word." Kari couldn't help but grin. She knew that there were more people who knew about it all than she realised. "Aliens and spaceships and things, and I'm the only person on planet Earth who knows they exist."
Right at that moment, there was a loud blaring noise coming from a horn. The three of them had wide eyes as they spun around, looking up at the sky as a rather large spaceship came flying over them, black smoke billowing behind it. The Doctor grabbed hold of Kari, yanking her from where she had been sitting and covering her, trying to shield her from the ship.
They all watched as it flew across the London sky, narrowly missing from smacking into Tower Bridge before circling around St Paul's Cathedral. The dark plumes of smoke became thicker as there came a loud boom from the ship. It began to dive, taking a large chunk out of Clock Tower at the Palace of Westminster, the sound of the bells chiming as it disturbed them. The spaceship finally crashed into the Thames, smoke still rising from the scene.
"Oh, that's just not fair." Rose moaned, at the all stood up properly.
Kari quickly pulled her phone out of her pocket. "The universe is very rarely fair, Rose." She told her, sending a quick text message to someone.
All the Doctor could do was laugh. He was ecstatic that he had been there to witness it, to see a spaceship crash landing into the river Thames. He just couldn't help but smile and laugh and enjoy himself. "So, what do we do now?" Rose asked, looking at Kari who was having her hand tugged at by the Doctor.
"Well, I suppose this one here is going to want a look at it." Kari replied, nodding to the big child who was bouncing around. There wasn't time for anyone to say anything else after that, as the Doctor was dragging her over to the stairs, ready to rushed down them and go and investigate what had happened and what was now going on.
He was clearly excited, and he wanted to get to that crash site as quickly as possible. So they ran, through the mass of cars that were going nowhere, the angry drivers all getting out of their cars and having a bit of a rant. That was when they saw the soldiers. "It's blocked off." The Doctor commented, finally coming to a stop and letting Rose get her breath back.
"We're miles from the centre. The city must be grid locked." Rose told him, looking around and trying to work out what they could do. "The whole of London must be closing down."
But the Doctor was just too excited to let that get him down. "I know. I can't believe I'm here to see this. This is fantastic!" He cried, unable to contain his glee. Kari could do nothing but roll her eyes at him and the way he was carrying on.
"Did you know about this?" Rose asked both the Doctor and Kari. Kari didn't really know what to say, yes she did know about it, she knew it was going to happen and she knew what was going to happen next.
Straight away the Doctor noticed, and he knew in an instant that she did. "Nope." He announced, taking the attention away from Kari.
"Do you recognise the ship?"
"Nope." He said, smiling away.
"Do you know why it crashed?" Rose wanted him to at least know something.
"Nope."
Rose rolled her eyes at him. "Oh, I'm so glad I've got the pair of you."
"I bet you are. This is what we travel for, Rose." The Doctor told her, still a little too excited. "To see history happening right in front of us."
"Hmm, sometimes it's him that causes it in the first place." Kari muttered, knowing that he was always interfering with history and creating some events all by himself.
That was when Rose had an idea. "Well, let's go and see it. Never mind the traffic, we've got the TARDIS."
Straight away Kari said no, while the Doctor gave his own answer. "Better not. They've already got one spaceship in the middle of London. I don't want to shove another one on top." Kari knew more of what was going on than the Doctor did, and he was rather tempted to ask her what was going on.
"Yeah, but yours looks like a big blue box. No one's going to notice." Rose reminded both of them, hoping that they would agree and take the blue box into the city to go and find out what was really going on.
"You'd be surprised. Emergency like this, there'll be all kinds of people watching." The Doctor told her, receiving a nod from Kari. "Trust me, the TARDIS stays where it is."
Rose let out a sigh as she looked at the pair of them. "So, history's happening and we're stuck here."
"Yes, we are." The Doctor told her, giving Kari a quick glance. She was being rather quiet, a bit too quiet for his liking, which just made him more suspicious that she knew exactly what was going on. She would always get quiet when she knew too much.
"We could always do what everybody else does." Rose suggested, looking at the Doctor and then at Kari. Even she had noticed how quiet her friend was being. "We could watch it on TV."
The look on the Doctor's face was priceless, and if Kari had been paying attention, she could have laughed a little at it. He seemed to be not only bemused, but a little put off by having to watch the action unfold on the television.
Kari was silent all the way back to the flat. The Doctor and Rose had been talking, hoping that she would join in the conversation at some point, but she didn't. It was starting to bother the Doctor more and more.
Once inside the flat, Rose was hounded by her mother once more, being made to feel guilty, while the Doctor watched the news on the television. "Big Ben destroyed as a UFO crash lands in Central London. Police reinforcements are drafted in from across the country to control widespread panic, looting, and civil disturbance." The reported on the screen said. "A state of national emergency has been declared. Tom Hitchinson is at the scene."
It flicked over to a live feed of a man standing close to the scene of the crash. "The police are urging the public not to panic. There's a helpline number if you're worried about friends or family."
The Doctor rolled his eyes a little as he flicked the channel over to another station. "The military are on the lookout for more spaceships." The American newsreader announced on the US news channel. "Until then, all flights in North American airspace have been grounded."
The channel changed back to News 24. "The army are sending divers into the wreck of the spaceship. No one knows what they're going to find."
Kari was just sitting there on the arm of the chair while the Doctor continued to flick through the news, and land back on the American station. "The President will address the nation live from the White House, but the Secretary General has asked that people watch the skies."
That was when Jackie decided to come back into the room, carrying a mug of tea for her daughter. "I've got no choice. I make them welcome or I run the risk losing you." She said, passing the mug to her daughter but completely ignoring Kari and the Doctor.
"You broke your mother's heart." A woman said to Rose, a friend of her mother. "Your mother sobbed in my arms. I cradled her like a child."
"Oi! I'm trying to listen." The Doctor shouted, getting rather fed up with all the noise in the background. He wanted to find out what was going on, but they just wanted to keep moaning at Rose and making her feel even worse. Jackie only disappeared when the doorbell rang.
Then the reported on the television changed, and the Doctor listened intensely. "News is just coming in. We can go to Tom at the Embankment."
Once again, the man that was at the scene appeared on the screen. "They've found a body. It's unconfirmed, but I'm being told a body has been found in the wreckage. A body of non-terrestrial origins. It's being brought ashore." The camera zoomed into the raft that was at the bank of the Thames, where paramedics were taking something away.
While the Doctor and Kari had been watching the news, more and more people had arrived in the flat. It was like there was a little party going on, as Jackie handed out some wine and beers. Kari was starting to get more and more nervous. There were too many people coming into the flat now, and she really didn't like it all that much.
"I'm going to go get some fresh air. It's getting a bit too crowded in here for me." She whispered to the Doctor, getting up from where she had been sitting and heading towards the front door.
Both Rose and the Doctor watched her go. "She all right?" Rose asked him over the noise. The Doctor just nodded at her, even thought he knew very well that Kari wasn't all right.
Once she was outside, Kari pulled out her phone and scrolled through the numbers. When she found the one that she wanted, she hit the call button. She listened to it ringing on the other end, and eventually someone answered. "Hey, everything okay, Princess?" Her big brother Jack asked her.
"Yup, just watching all the excitement of a crashed spaceship on the telly." She told him, wondering if her call had gone through to him at the same point in time or not. She really should remember to ask about things like that.
"Wait, you're here?" He sounded a little surprised, but his response made Kari realised that they were in fact on the same time.
A small smile crept across her face. "Oh, yeah, I'm in London, obviously, I saw the whole thing when I was standing on top of the roof of a block of flats." She informed him.
"What the hell were you doing standing on top of a block of flats?" Jack shouted at her, clearly not happy at her for doing that.
"Nothing much, just watching the world go by. Anyway, why are you so stressed? It's not like I was going to fall off or anything. I was rather safe up there." Kari told him, wondering why he was getting all protective over such a small things like that.
She heard him let out a sigh. "Sorry, it's this whole crash landing thing. They've found a body and they're taking it to Albion Hospital. How am I meant to keep this contained when the whole world has seen it and is talking about it?" Jack asked. Kari could understand why he was so stressed out now.
"You'll think of something, Jack, you always do." Kari knew that it would all be sorted soon enough, the Doctor was going to get involved to take care of it all, not that Jack knew anything about that. "Anyway, how are you and everyone else? Apart from being stressed because of the crashed spaceship in Central London."
"Well, not too bad, I suppose. But hey, when are you going to come and visit? Been a while since a last saw you, and since we're in the same time, maybe you could find some space in the extremely busy schedule of yours to come and visit." Kari couldn't help but chuckle a little at Jack's comment.
"Hmm, I don't know. I've got a Dalek attack planned at sunset, and the destruction of the Earth planned for tomorrow." She told him, trying to sound as serious as she could. "Then there is the discovery of an ancient race of reptiles that hunts humans for fun. Kind of have a jam packed timetable here."
Jack chuckled a little at the other end of the line. "That's nothing new with you. But seriously, I miss you, Kari. It really has been a long time since I saw you."
Kari wondered exactly how long ago it was that he had seen her. It hadn't been that long since she had seen him, she had just left him with the Doctor. "I'd say that I miss you and that it's been a long time since I last saw you, but it's only been a few hours."
"So, you last saw me a few hours ago and yet you're still giving me a call?" Jack was right, obviously, even though she had just left him, she was still calling him. "Sounds like you miss me as well already."
She let out a slight sigh. "Yeah, okay, I kind of missed you a little. Truth is, where I am there is just too much noise going on. They're having a party, what with the alien spaceship crashing and all that. I couldn't stand it in there any more."
"Is the Doctor not there with you?" Jack asked, his curiosity finally getting the better of him.
"Yeah, he's still in the flat watching the news. This is the Doctor before you met him, so don't even think about come to find him, Jack." She knew that this Jack was still waiting, and that he would be waiting for some time to come still.
"He's watching it on the news? He's not in the middle of it all? Wow, that's a first." He seemed surprised that the Doctor was taking a step back and not getting involved for once, it just didn't seem right to him.
Kari couldn't help but smile. "Hmm, for now. It won't last long, Jack, you know that. The Doctor hates to sit still, he can't resist, you wait, he'll get involved soon enough, I can guarantee it."
"Do you know all about this? Do you know exactly what is going on and what's going to happen?" Jack asked her with curiosity.
"Nope, of course not." Kari lied, although he was going to find out that she did know eventually, especially when she arrived at the hospital with the Doctor. "I have no idea what is going on. Honest."
There was silence on the other end for a few moments. "Now, why do I not believe you?"
Kari giggled a little, knowing that Jack had already caught on to the fact that she wasn't telling him the truth. "Because you know I'm not going to tell you anything. No point even asking me if I know what's going on, I simply will not tell."
"Yeah, well that figures. You and your spoilers."
Before Kari had a chance to reply, the door to the Tyler's flat opened and the Doctor came out. He looked like he was in a bit of a mood, and a little flustered. "Yup, that's me. Anyway, I have to go now, someone has just come out and he's looking a little grumpy." She told her brother as the Doctor walked over to her.
"Okay, well take care of yourself, and call soon. Actually, no, don't call, come and visit, Princess." Jack was basically demanding to see her now.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. Catch you later, Jack." She said, before ending the call.
"Who were you talking to?" The Doctor asked her, wrapping his arms around her from behind as she put her phone back in her pocket.
She couldn't help but smile as she rested her head back against the Doctor's chest. "Just my brother. You know how he worries if he doesn't hear from me, so I was just checking in with him, letting him know everything was all right."
"So, is he all right then?" The Doctor asked, knowing that he shouldn't probe her too much about that strange brother of hers that he had never met but was always hearing about.
"Yeah, he's just stressed with work at the moment."
The door to the flat opened again and Rose appeared. "And where do you think you two are going?" She asked, looking at the Doctor and Kari.
"Nowhere." The Doctor told her quickly. "It's just a bit human in there for me. History just happened and they're all talking about where you can buy dodge top-up cards for half price. We're off for a wander, that's all." He said, trying to sound as convincing as he could.
Rose looked at them both suspiciously, she wasn't so easily fooled. "Right. There's a spaceship on the Thames and you're just wandering?"
"Nothing to do with me. It's not an invasion. That was a genuine crash landing. Angle of descent, colour of smoke, everything. It's perfect." The Doctor told her.
"Hmm, maybe a little too perfect." Kari muttered, knowing that it was no where near being what everyone thought it was.
Luckily, the Doctor and Rose hadn't heard her, because Rose was still too busy being suspicious of them. "So?"
"So maybe this is it. First contact. The day mankind officially comes into contact with an alien race. I'm not interfering because you've got to handle this on your own." The Doctor told her, holding onto Kari's hand tightly now. "That's when the human race finally grows up. Just this morning you were all tiny and small and made of clay. Now you can expand. You don't need me. Go and celebrate history. Spend some time with your mum." He said, turning around and getting ready to walk off with Kari.
Rose gave the pair a very sceptical look. "Promise you won't disappear?" She asked, clearly worried that the pair of them were going to just dump her there and not bother to go back for her.
He rolled his eye before turning back to her. He let go of Kari's hand as he patted down his jacket, only for Kari to reach into one of his pockets for him. "Tell you what. TARDIS key." He said, plucking it from Kari's hand and holding it out to Rose. "It's about time you had one. See you later." After dropping the key into the blonde's hand, he took Kari and they were off.
Kari waited until they were a safe distance away before speaking to the Doctor. "You lied, Doctor." She told him, knowing exactly where they were going. "We're not just going for a wander, you plan on going somewhere."
The Doctor ended up rolling his eyes at Kari now. "Yes, all right, I'm interested. I want to go and take a look, what's so wrong about that?" He asked her, as he unlocked the door to the TARDIS.
"Nothing wrong with wanting to take a look, something wrong with lying to Rose. She's going to find out, you know, and she isn't going to be happy about it." Kari warned him, sitting down while he dashed around the console. She knew that right now, outside of the blue box, Mickey had seen them, and he was going to tell Rose they had left.
"Are you telling me that you don't want to go and take a look?" The Doctor asked her, a frown on his face.
Kari quickly shook her head at him. "No, I do, but I just don't think you should be lying, Doctor. Lying causes all kinds of problems, I should know, you've lied to me often enough in the past, or future, or whatever." She hoped that what she had said made sense.
"We're only going to the hospital." He told her, trying to get her to relax a little. "I just want to take a look at this alien body, see what the human race is dealing with. I just want to make sure it's safe."
She eyes him suspiciously, because she knew it wasn't just about that. He was too interested, because he knew that it was too perfect to be a crash landing, he knew it was planned, she knew that he knew. "Fine. We go to the hospital, and that is it." Kari told him firmly. No, she wasn't entirely happy, but she knew there was no stopping him.
"Right, glad that's sorted." The Doctor announced, kissing the top of her head as he passed. "Now, are you going to sit there and be lazy or are you going to help me pilot her?"
With a rather loud sigh, Kari pushed herself up and started helping the Doctor. She knew where they were going, and who they were going to meet. Her eyes lit up as she remembered who she was going to meet.
But the Doctor had noticed. "What you smiling about?" He asked, just as they landed.
Kari quickly shook her head. "Nothing, just thinking, you know." He rolled his eyes before dragging Kari over to the doors with him, before yanking them open. "Oh look, we're in a cupboard." She muttered, as they both had to squeeze around the TARDIS and the stock that was in there.
The Doctor gave Kari a quick peck on the lips, hoping it would keep her quiet for a bit, while he pulled out his sonic screwdriver and set to work on unlocking the door and getting them out of the cupboard that they were stuck in. "Shush." He had to hush the device as it began to whirr.
While the Doctor wasn't looking, Kari grabbed a few bits from the shelves, things that she knew was going to be needed for a certain person. Unlike the Doctor, she was more prepared, even if that was just because she knew exactly what was happening and what would happen next.
Soon enough, the Doctor had the door open, and he was walking out with Kari slightly behind him. They both came face to face with a large group of soldiers. "Uh, hi?" Kari said meekly, before they all grabbed a hold of their weapons and pointed them at the pair.
That was when they heard a woman screaming, all of them. "Defence plan delta!" The Doctor shouted at them. "Come on. Move! Move!" He charged out of the room, taking Kari with him as the soldiers all followed with their guns.
They charged to where the sound had come from, the mortuary. When they arrived there, they saw a woman cowering behind a desk, a nasty cut on her forehead. "It's alive." She cried, as Kari moved over towards her.
"Spread out. Tell the perimeter it's a lockdown." The Doctor ordered.
"My God. It's still alive." The woman said, speaking directly to Kari.
The Doctor had to shout at the soldiers to get them to move, while Kari pulled a few things out of her pockets. "I know, don't worry, it's going to be fine Tosh. Let me take a look at your head." Kari got a confused look from the Doctor, but a smile from Toshiko.
"I swear it was dead, Kari." Tosh said, trying to calm down while Kari cleaned up the cut on her head.
"Tosh, just calm down." Kari told her quietly, knowing that it was still in the room with them. "The Doctor will sort this out, won't you?" She said, turning to look at him.
He was still frowning at her, and there were several questions running through his head, but now wasn't the time to ask them. "Coma, shock, hibernation, anything. What does it look like?" Before Tosh could answer, there came a sound, something clattering to the ground, something metal. "It's still here."
"Be careful, Doctor. And don't let them hurt it." Kari called to him, as he signalled for some of the guards to come and stay with her and Tosh.
The Doctor crawled on the floor, tracking the sound. Eventually he saw something, something that snorted and looked like a pig. "Hello." He called, before the pig ran out from its hiding place. It was standing on its back legs, wearing a spacesuit and looking rather petrified. "Don't shoot!" The Doctor ordered, stopping the guard from killing the poor creature.
Kari sat there with Tosh as the Doctor chased it out of the room. "So, Owen got a hangover then has he?" She asked the woman, trying to lighten the mood a little.
Tosh actually laughed a little. "He's going to be kicking himself when I tell him he missed seeing you."
"Yeah, well it's his own fault for going out and getting drunk, isn't it? If he took his job more seriously, then he wouldn't miss out on all the fun." Kari told her, having finally finished cleaning up the blood on her friends head.
"You call this fun?"
Kari chuckled a little as she gave the gash one last little check. "Hey, you know what my life is like, Tosh, it's one thing after another with the Doctor. Every day is an adventure, and you never have the same adventure twice."
Before Tosh could open her mouth to say something, they heard the gunshots ring out. Kari let out a sigh, knowing that the poor pig had been killed. There was no need for it, it wasn't a threat, it wasn't hurting anyone, so there was no need to kill it.
The Doctor came back with the body of the pig and placed it back down on the autopsy table. "I just assumed that's what aliens look like, but you're saying it's an ordinary pig from Earth?" Tosh asked, looking at the dead pig.
"More like a mermaid." The Doctor informed her, still wondering how Kari and the woman knew each other. "Victorian showmen used to draw the crowds by taking the skull of a cat, gluing it to a fish and calling it a mermaid. Now someone's take a pig, opened up it's brain, stuck bits on, then they've strapped it in that ship and made it dive bomb." He let out a small sigh as he took a hold of Kari's hand. "It must've been terrified. They've taken this animal and turned it into a joke."
"So it's a fake, a pretend, like the mermaid." Tosh said, not noticing that the Doctor and Kari was quietly slipping out of the room. "But the technology augmenting its brain, it's like nothing on Earth. It's alien. Aliens are faking aliens. But why would they do that?" Tosh turned around, and found the room empty. "Kari? Doctor?" She quickly rushed into the corridor. "Kari? Doctor?" The only sound that could be heard was the rough grinding and wheezing sound that brought up a gust of wind from nowhere. Tosh was left standing there on her own, with so many unanswered questions. At least she had managed to see her friend, she had seen Kari for a little while.
A/N: So… I couldn't resist. You have to throw a little Jack in there every now and again, right? And Tosh, can't forget about Tosh.
Okay, let me just answer a few questions here.
1. Yes, I will be doing the 12th Doctor eventually. I'm obviously going to be waiting until the whole series has been aired before I even attempt to write anything.
2. Yes, I am still going to do Classic, but right now I just do not have the time.
3. The first full episode with Clara is coming up soon. Just hang in there a little longer.
4. My average word count for each chapter is about 5000 words. I do have a tendency to go over, sometimes by a few extra thousand. I guess it's more of a 'minimum word count' than anything else.
5. I have watched the first episode with the new Doctor, but I will refrain from talking about it, spoiler and all that.
Phew, glad that's out of the way. Now, I would like to say hello and welcome to all the new people who have favourited/followed this story. 93 chapters in and still new people are reading it. Also, an absolutely massive thank you to all who have taken the time to leave a review. You guys are just totally awesome!
I'm going to shut up now, there is much work to be done! So, until next week!
Pippa.