A/N: Hello to you all! Quick apology for any spelling or grammatical errors that may be present! Now, enjoy!
"How did you know that doctor back there?" The Doctor asked Kari as the TARDIS took them back to the Powell estate and back to where Rose was waiting for them.
"Uh, friend of my brother." Kari told him nervously. She knew that the Doctor would never meet any of them from Torchwood, at least as far as she was aware he didn't. "Anyway, Rose has probably worked out that we've gone, and she is most likely waiting for us. You are in some big trouble if I'm right, mister." She hoped that he would leave it, and not ask her any more questions about Tosh or her brother.
The Doctor rolled his eyes at her. "Right, this is your all knowing power talking, isn't it?" He said, taking a step towards her.
Kari put on an innocent face. "What? No, course not. It's just an educated guess."
"Hmm, if you say so." It was clear that he didn't exactly believe her, but Kari was glad that he wasn't going to push it. "Anyway, what do you think of the crash?"
"What do I think? I think this whole thing is a fake. I mean, the alien was a fake, that's what you said, so the crash must have been a fake. If the pig was from Earth, then that means that the ship must have come from Earth at some point." She was trying her best to make it sound like she was piecing things together, not that she already knew all the answers.
All the Doctor could do was smile at her. "Very good, well done." He told her, before reaching down and pressing his lips against hers. He quickly pulled away when the door slammed open and one very unhappy Rose came barging in. "All right, so I lied." He said quickly, looking at the scanner. "We went and had a look. But the whole crash landing's a fake. I thought so. Just too perfect." The Doctor rambled as Rose joined them both. "I mean, hitting Big Ben, come on. So I thought, let's go and have a look."
"My mum's here." Rose warned the pair.
The Doctor turned and looked behind him to see both Jackie and Mickey standing there. "Oh, that's just what I need. Don't you dare make this place domestic." He warned, clearly not happy. He had other things to be worrying about.
"Why not? We make it domestic all the time." Kari joked, giving the Doctor a slight shove. He simply rolled his eyes at her, knowing that she was just trying to be awkward.
"You ruined my life, you two. They thought she was dead. I was a murder suspect because of you." Kari was taking back slightly by Mickey's attitude, she knew he would blame the Doctor, but she didn't expect he would blame her as well. It was actually a bit of a shock for her.
And yet all the Doctor did was roll his eyes. "You see what I mean? Domestic." He wasn't fazed at all by what the man was saying, and Kari knew that she shouldn't be bothered by it either.
"I bet you don't even remember my name." Mickey spat.
"Ricky." The Doctor announced, turning around and facing the man that was standing there.
"It's Mickey." Kari said at the same time as Mickey. Kari had always respected Mickey, and sometimes she really didn't like the way that the Doctor treated him.
"No, it's Ricky."
Kari was sure that the Doctor was only doing it to wind the man up, and it was certainly working. "I think I know my own name." Mickey retorted, both the men now seeming to have a little stand off.
The Doctor scoffed a little, and Kari just let out a sigh. "You think you know your own name? How stupid are you?"
"Right, that's enough from the pair of you. Doctor, his name is Mickey, and Mickey, don't encourage him." Kari said, as Rose ran off after her mother. "Can you boys just play nicely? Please? I'm sorry that you got the blame for everything, Mickey, it was never our intention for that to happen." All she wanted was for the pair of them to get along, at least until Rose got back.
It really didn't take that long for Rose to charge back in and up to the scanner where the Doctor was still back to looking at it. "That was a real spaceship?" Her curiosity was definitely showing now, gone was the anger and annoyance that the pair had left her there to go off and investigate.
"Yep." The Doctor told her, a huge grin on his face as he wrapped an arm around Kari.
"So it's all a pack of lies? What is it then? Are they invading?" Rose was asking all the right questions, and it made Kari smile. She may have been young, but Rose Tyler was certainly not stupid or useless.
Then Mickey put his own thoughts forward. "Funny way to invade, putting the world on red alert." And that comment proved that he wasn't as stupid as the Doctor liked to think he was either.
Kari smiled at him while the Doctor answered. "Good point. So, what're they up to?"
"Well, if you ask me, there's really only one way to find out." Kari said, getting everyone to look at her. "But since the Doctor is still worried about taking the TARDIS in to battle, we better go with plan B."
She watched as the Doctor smiled at her. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Kari smiled back at him and nodded. "I suppose we better get started then." He told her, before dragging her around the console a little and yanking up part of the grilled floor.
Soon enough the pair of them were on the floor, well, technically the Doctor was under it and Kari was sitting on the grills and helping him as best she could. "So, what're you doing down there?" Mickey asked, leaning against the console a little.
"Ricky…"
"Mickey!" Kari growled while Mickey said his name with a little hint of spite.
The Doctor rolled his eyes, mainly at Kari. "If I was to tell you what I was doing to the controls of our frankly magnificent time ship, would you even begin to understand?" Now Kari rolled her eyes, she knew the Doctor was being a pain on purpose.
"I suppose not."
"Well, shut it then." The Doctor snapped.
Kari watched as Mickey walked away and over to where Rose was standing. She knew the pair of them was going to have a little chat, so she decided to have a little chat with the Doctor. "Oi, you need to start behaving yourself, mister." She warned him, as he twisted a few wires together. "Mickey has had a rough year. Everyone thought he had murdered Rose, he lost all his friends and the people on the estate terrorised him."
He pulled his sonic screwdriver out from him mouth so that he could speak. "What are you sticking up for him for?"
"Because Mickey is not an idiot. I don't care what you say, he isn't, and one day you'll see that." She knew she had to be firm with him, because Kari knew that particular regeneration of him was pretty stubborn. "And until that day, I will hit you every single time you call him Ricky, or an idiot. His name is Mickey, and he is not an idiot. Got it?"
The Doctor looked at her, a slight frown on his face. "Why are you defending him so much? What do you know?" He was sure that there was more to it than what she was saying, but he just couldn't quite work it out.
"I know that Mickey is a much better man than you think." Kari told him, not wanting to give anything away.
This time he rolled his eyes, before getting back to work. The Doctor knew that she was keeping things from him, but he figured that it was most likely due to the amount of things that she knew. Instead he just concentrated on what he was doing, with Kari sitting there watching him.
"So, now that you've come back, are you going to stay?" They both heard Mickey asked.
Before Rose could answer, the Doctor was interrupting. "Got it! Ha, ha. Patched in the radar, looped it back twelve hours so we can follow the flight of that spaceship." He told them, getting up from where he was and rushing to the monitor, dragging Kari along with him. "Here we go, hold on. Come on." He had to tap the scanner a few times before it actually showed up on the screen. "That's the spaceship on its way to Earth, see? Except, hold on, see? The spaceship did a sling shot round the Earth before it landed."
"Just as I said it did. Oh, I am good, you know." Kari said, bragging a little. Yes, she knew the episode, but she was still trying to impress the Doctor and Rose for some reason.
"What does that mean?" Rose asked, looking between the pair.
Kari smiled at her blonde haired friend. "That spaceship came from Earth in the first place. It went up and then it came back down again." She explained.
The Doctor nodded. "Whoever those aliens are, they haven't just arrived, they've been here for a while. The question is, what have they been doing?" He instantly looked at Kari, hoping that she was going to tell him something, to give him some clue. But all she did was look at him and shrug her shoulders. She was doing a really good job at making him believe that she didn't know what was going on.
"We should probably check up on what's been going on. The government were gathering, and didn't they say something about the Prime Minister being missing?" Kari reminded them, knowing that there was a lot more going on than just a pig and a spaceship.
Someone kissed the top of her head, before the monitor began to flick through different television channels. Kari knew it that would have been the Doctor, and she knew that he was going to spot something soon enough. It was actually rather fun for her to just watch him and let him work everything out on his own. She didn't get to see it very often, because he was always turning to her for help, almost always.
"How many channels do you get?" Mickey asked as they flicked from one station to another.
"All the basic packages." Kari replied, feeling the Doctor now wrap his arms around her from behind while she stood there chewing on her thumbnail a little. She knew that he was thinking, trying to work it all out still, but she wasn't worried, because she knew he would get it without her help.
"You get the sports channels?"
The Doctor rolled his eyes at Mickey's question. "Yes, I get the football." He told him, before the screen changed to something else and grasped his attention. "Hold on, I know that lot."
"It is looking likely that the government's bringing in alien specialists, those people who have devoted their lives to studying outer space." The woman commentated on the television.
"UNIT. United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. Good people." The Doctor said, clarifying who those people being shown on the screen were. The woman had just called them specialists, but he knew better, as did Kari.
Rose continued to look at the screen, her brow furred. "How do you know them?" She asked, her eyes not leaving the screen they were looking at.
Out of the corner of her eye, Kari saw Mickey, and she knew he was going to answer for the Doctor. "'Cause he's worked for them. Oh yeah, don't think I sat on my backside for twelve months, Doctor. I read up on you. You look deep enough on the internet or in the history books, and there's his name, followed by a list of the dead."
The Doctor didn't seem that fazed about it at all. "That's nice. Good boy, Ricky." Kari swiftly elbowed him in the ribs and gave him a glare. She had warned him what would happen if he made fun of Mickey.
"And she's just as bad. She doesn't even exist." Kari had to force herself not to look up, to take it like it was nothing. "Oh, but wherever he goes, she shows up. But they don't call her Kari, nah, she's this Golden Angel. She's even more weird than him from what I've found out." Kari's eyes were still fixed on the screen, but a few tears had made their way down her cheeks. She hoped that if she didn't move, if she didn't react, no one would notice the tears.
But there was someone who knew her more, someone who knew her better, and he had noticed the tears. "Well, if you know so much about her, you'd know not to make her angry." The Doctor warned him, holding Kari a little tighter. He knew that Mickey had upset her, but he knew she was taking it all in her stride.
Rose could feel the tension building between the two men. "If you know them, why don't you go and help?" She asked, trying to move things along and defuse the situation a little. The things that Mickey had said about Kari didn't bother her, because she already knew all about it, she knew more about Kari than he did.
A slight sigh escaped the Doctor's lips. "They wouldn't recognise me. I've changed a lot since the old days. Besides, the worlds on a knife-edge. There's aliens out there and fake aliens. We want to keep these aliens out of the mix." He said, resting his chin on Kari's shoulder as he looked at the screen. "We're going undercover. And, er, I'd better keep the TARDIS out of sight. Ricky, you've got a car, you can do some driving." He expected a sharp jab from Kari's elbow, but he received nothing from her, she didn't even flinch.
"Where to?" Mickey asked as the Doctor started bouncing around the console, Kari right beside him the whole time. She didn't really have a choice, he was keep a tight hold of her.
The Doctor was still dragging Kari along with him as he headed down the ramp and over to the doors. "The roads are clearing. Let's go and have a look at that spaceship."
The moment they were outside, there was a blinding light shining down on them from above. "Do not move! Step away from the box and raise your hands above your heads." A voice called to them from somewhere, before the sirens began and a mass of police cars arrived. Even the army had come to greet them, and that was the point in which Mickey decided to make a run for it and hide behind some of the bins.
Kari just let out a sigh as more people surrounded them, guns being aimed at them and a helicopter keeping them under a bright search light. She wasn't panicking as she held onto the Doctor's hand, in fact, she looked more bored than anything else.
"Rose!" A voice called, getting the Doctor's attention. He looked over to see Jackie being held back by several of the armed men. She was definitely panicking, but Kari knew she was the one that called them in the first place. The reason they were surrounded by police and soldiers was because Jackie Tyler had called a special helpline, because she was concerned for her daughter, and her dislike towards Rose's new friends.
"Raise your hands above your head. You are under arrest." The three of them slowly raised their hands, the Doctor beaming away like it was Christmas or something.
Rose was a little more unsure as she looked up at the helicopter. But the Doctor just couldn't hold in his glee. "Take me to your leader!" He exclaimed, causing Kari to let out a groan.
They ended up sitting in the back of a rather nice, sleek black car. "This is a bit posh." Rose said, running her hand over the leather upholstery. "If I knew it was going to be like this, being arrested, I would have done it years ago."
"We're not being arrested, we're being escorted." Kari told her, sitting between her and the Doctor in the back of the car. "All the way to Downing Street."
"What? Seriously?" It was pretty obvious to see that the blonde was still in shock, while the Doctor could do nothing but smile and nod. "Oh, my God. I'm going to 10 Downing Street? How come?"
His smile faltered for a moment. "I hate to say it, but Mickey was right. Over the years I've visited this planet a lot of times, and I've been, er, noticed." He was deliberately leaving out Kari, because he knew that what Mickey said about her was completely and utterly rubbish. At least, it was to him. He didn't want her to feel like who she was, was defined by the things that happened on Earth, the good or the bad.
"Now they need you?" Rose asked him, noticing how Kari seemed to just be shrinking in her seat, like she wanted to disappear and not be noticed.
The Doctor had noticed it as well, and he quickly grabbed a hold of her hand. "Like it said on the news. They're gathering experts in alien knowledge. And who's the biggest expert of the lot?"
"Patrick Moore?" Rose suggested, giving Kari another worried look.
"Apart from him. And Kari." She didn't even seem to notice that someone had said her name. She didn't look at the Doctor or make any sign that she had heard him.
Rose rolled her eyes at his comment. "Oh, don't you just love it." She said, knowing that he was showing off and completely enjoying it.
"I'm telling you, Lloyd George, he used to drink me under the table." The Doctor said, before he had a thought. "Who's the Prime Minister now?" He had absolutely no idea.
Rose shrugged at him. "How should I know? I missed a year."
Kari ended up resting her head back and closing her eyes. She knew what was going to happen, and she was trying to think of a way to stop it. People were going to die, and she didn't want that to happen. She was also wondering what was going to happen to her, was she going to be left outside with Rose, or would they know who she was and let her in with the Doctor?
"What's up?" The Doctor asked her quietly. He could see something was wrong, it was written all over her face.
Kari shrugged her shoulders. "Not much, just… thinking, you know? Still trying to make sense of it all. This is all just a diversion, it has to be." She already knew exactly what it was, but she wanted to give the Doctor his moment to shine, it didn't hurt to pretend that she knew absolutely nothing about what was going on.
The Doctor didn't question her on that, he just nodded in agreement with what she had said. Of course, he had pretty much worked everything out now, he just needed to wait and see what was going to happen next. "Ah, but a diversion for what? What are they really up to? And who exactly are they?"
"I don't know, aliens?" Kari said, wishing that the Doctor would just leave her alone. She didn't want to talk about it, she didn't want him to work out that she knew.
He rolled his eyes at her. "Yes, we've established that. But what else? What else do we know about them?"
"They like pigs? Or do that hate pigs?" Rose said, trying to get some sort of reaction from Kari. "Maybe… maybe they love their pork chops? Or maybe they really don't like bacon. Maybe they think that pigs are cute, like the ones in the films. Maybe they've watched 'Babe' a few too many times."
"Oh, if only it was that simple. What is it that they're up to?" It was easy to see that the Doctor was getting a little frustrated with it all now. He wanted to ask Kari for some help, but he doubted that she would give him any. Something was wrong, he just knew it was.
It didn't take too much longer for them to arrive at Downing Street, cameras flashing the moment the car arrived and they stepped out. Kari was doing a pretty good job at keeping her face hidden with her hair, and the use of the Doctor's arm. She hadn't exactly told Jack what they were up to, and she knows she probably should have. He was going to be pretty annoyed with her if when Tosh got back to the hub she mentioned that Kari had been there.
Rose was just in awe, as the three of them stood there in 10 Downing Street, waiting to find out what was going on. Kari and the Doctor were both much more relaxed, and Kari had to keep calm and relaxed when a woman that she recognised walked into the room. She was the only face she really knew among the mass of UNIT and government workers.
"Ladies and gentlemen, can we convene?" A man called, grasping everyone's attention. "Quickly as we can, please. It's this way on the right, and can I remind you ID cards to are be worm at all times." He approached the Doctor and Kari, ID cards in hand. "Here's your ID cards. I'm sorry, but your companion doesn't have clearance."
The Doctor looked at Kari and Rose, before turning back to the man. "We don't go anywhere without her." He told the man firmly, ready to stand his ground.
The man let out a sigh. "You're the code nine, not her." He said, nodding towards Rose. "I'm sorry, Doctor. It is the Doctor, isn't it? She'll have to stay outside."
"She's staying with us." The Doctor told him even more firmly than before, while something turned over in Kari's mind.
"Look, even I don't have clearance to go in there. I can't let her in and that's a fact." It was clear that the man was getting slightly frustrated now.
"Sorry, but… if he's the code nine, why do I have clearance?" Kari asked, getting his attention. The Doctor couldn't help but smile at her.
The time the man looked at her nervously. "Well, you're Kari Conner, right?" She nodded a little in response, still waiting for her answer. Just because she was Kari Conner, that did not mean she had clearance, she wanted to know why. "You have special clearance, higher clearance than the Doctor."
Now Kari was confused, why did she have a higher clearance than the Doctor? Who could have possibly arranged that? It was way too early for it to have been him, at least she thought it was. "Seriously? You are kidding me, right?"
He shook his head at her. "No, you have a higher clearance. But your friend still needs to stay outside, I'm afraid."
"It's all right." Rose said, not wanting to cause trouble. "You two go."
That was when the woman that Kari recognised decided to jump in She had been listening to them, and now she was taking her moment. "Excuse me. Are you the Doctor?" The woman asked, not just curiosity spilling out from her voice, there was something else in there as well, and Kari knew it was fear.
"Sure."
The man who had given them the ID cards seemed to be getting more irritated now. "Not now. We're busy. Can't you go home?"
But the woman just ignored him. "I just need a word in private." She said, hoping that the Doctor would find a few moments to spare her.
But it appeared that the Doctor hadn't heard her. "Right, come on." The Doctor said, tugging at Kari's hand. "Don't get in any trouble." He added, looking at Rose.
But Kari was going to give her a little more help than that. She hadn't expected to be going into the room with the Doctor, she had expected to be with Rose and a woman called Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North. "Just keep calm, Rose. Everything is going to be fine." She whispered to her. "Go with her, and don't do anything stupid." She managed to say, before the Doctor literally dragged her off.
"What was all that about?" The Doctor asked Kari, just as they waked into the large room where everyone was now sitting and looking through some packets of paperwork.
She shrugged her shoulders at him. "Just reminding her that she is in Downing Street and that she really needs to behave herself." The look she received from the Doctor just showed that he didn't entirely believe her. "Come on, this is Downing Street, she's going to be excited and want to explore. I'm just telling her not to do anything stupid, like steal an ashtray or something."
"Nah, she wouldn't do something like that." The Doctor countered, as the pair of them took their seats towards the back of the room.
Kari looked around the room while the Doctor read through the packet of information. Her hand reached down and tugged at the ID card that was hanging around her neck, and she quickly yanked it off. "Take off you're ID card, Doctor." She told him, dropping her one on the floor in front of her. Kari really didn't feel like being electrocuted.
With a frown on his face, he done as she asked. "Kari, what's going on?" He knew something was a little off, but he wasn't sure she was going to tell him.
"This is all wrong, Doctor, you know it is. Right now, the only person I trust in this room is you. So, I'd like it if you would trust me and take off that ID card, now." Kari on edge a little now. She didn't want to see anyone wearing the ID cards, because she knew what they would do, only she didn't really know how to warn them all. "We're all in the room now, why do we still need to be wearing these ID cards?"
The Doctor just looked at her, before taking it off and putting it in his pocket. "You know exactly what's going on, don't you, Kari?" He asked her carefully. So far she had been rather reluctant to let him know if this was one of those times where she knew all the tiny little details.
"I've just got this really bad feeling, Doctor, and you know that when I get them, they're usually right. Please, don't keep asking me if I know everything." It was a bad feeling, a bad feeling about everyone in the room being electrocuted and killed on the spot.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention, please." General Asquith called, getting everyone to stop taking and look at him. "As you can see from the summaries in front of you, the ship had one porcine occupant."
Before he could say anything else, the Doctor was butting in, just like Kari knew he would. "Of course, the really interesting bit happened three days ago, see, filed away under 'Any Other Business'." Now he was up and on his feet, but Kari stayed exactly where she was, sitting at the back of the room. "The North Sea, a satellite detected a signal, a blip of radiation, at one hundred fathoms, like there's something down there. You were just about to investigate and the next thing you know, this happens. Spaceships, pigs, massive diversion. From what?" Now he had everyone's attention.
Kari couldn't help but feel completely and utterly useless by doing nothing, so instead of just sitting there quietly, she leaned forward to the people in front of her. "Take off those ID cards. Don't question it, just do it." She ordered them in a hushed voice. They gave her a rather quizzical look, before doing what she asked. "Now, pass it on, put them on the floor, just don't touch them. Everyone needs to take them off." And they did, she saw people starting to slowly and carefully take them off, trying not to let it be noticed too much.
"If aliens fake an alien crash and an alien pilot, what do they get?" The Doctor asked them all, looking around, and noticing what Kari was doing, whispering to people. "Us. They get us. It's not a diversion, it's a trap."
There came some murmuring from the other people in the room, and a slightly panicked look on the face of General Asquith, but only for a moment. "I hope you know what you're doing, Doctor." Kari ended up calling to him in his head.
"What's going on with the ID cards?" He asked her, his curiosity piqued now that he had seen everyone else remove them and place them down by their feet.
"I don't like them, there's something wrong about them. It's just a feeling I've got, but I don't care, it's just a safety precaution." There was no way that she was going to tell him the truth, that they were going to kill everyone.
He nodded at her, before getting back on track with what he was talking about beforehand. "This is all about us. Alien experts. The only people with knowledge how to fight them, gathered together in one room." The man who was acting Primes Minster suddenly let out a rather loud fart. "Excuse me, do you mind not farting while I'm saving the world?" The Doctor asked him, clearly not impressed with his disruption.
A smirk spread across the man's face. "Would you rather silent but deadly?" He then shared a look with the General, and everyone watched as General Asquith took off his hat.
Even he was smirking, as he reached up to his forehead, finding a zipper and starting to pull it across his head. A man's laughter filled the room, as a blue light began to emit from his head. And then the lights went out, the whole room flooded with darkness, apart from that eerie blue light. Amongst the light, the body of General Asquith could be seen, only it was no longer a man that was standing there, as a green creature began to wiggle out of the skin.
The creature started to roar a little, finally freeing itself from the disguise it was in. Every person in the room was just look on in awe, everyone except for Kari. She had already reached the door, she was ready, she had a plan of her own.
As soon as the disguise was completely removed, the lights all came back on, and everyone managed to get a good look at the green monster that was standing before them. It had beady block eyes, wrinkly skin, long talons, and were rather tall. "We are the Slitheen." The voice was raspy, and it gave Kari the shivers.
"Thank you all for wearing your ID cards." Acting Prime Minster Green said, standing up and pulling something out of his pocket. "They'll help to identify the bodies." He flipped the switch on the device in his hands, and pushed the button.
"Get out!" Kari shouted, holding the door open. "Move! Get the hell out of here!" People actually listened to her, and they rushed out of the room, a few of them screaming or crying.
But Kari was disappointed when she noticed that not everyone had listened to her warning, and some people were still holding the ID cards in their hands. She knew there was no hope for them, not with the power of the charge that was flowing through them. And then she saw the Doctor, the ID card in his hand. Really, she just wanted to smack him, but she knew he actually still needed it, it was going to be useful to him, and he could survive the current that was shocking him.
Rose and her mother were also flooding through Kari's mind. She knew that they were going to be facing the same creatures that she was with the Doctor, but she knew they would be okay, they would make it out alive. Kari couldn't help but feel guilty for those who had died, the people who hadn't listened, and for Ganesh, the secretary whose name no one seemed to know. She knew, Kari knew his name, and she would remember it as well.
A/N: I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, once I started this episode, I just got a little carried away, hence why it has taken three chapters to get through it rather than the normal two.
Just to quickly answer a few questions and comments that people have left me.
1. The way I have written this story means that Kari could have seen every single episode of Doctor Who. This way it leaves it open when new episodes do come out, and they can then be worked with as well. I hope that makes sense.
2. I will be doing 12, and I'm still trying to decide on how that is all going to go. It won't be for a while that it happens, there is still much more that needs to happen first.
3. There are a few episodes of Torchwood that I want to do, one in particular that is stuck in my mind. I'm not sure if that will be in here, or if that will be a little spin off. I'm open to suggestions.
On with the thanks! A big hello and welcome to everyone who has favourtied/followed the story recently, I do get excited when I know new people are finding my story AND enjoying it. Also, an absolutely massive hugs and thank you to everyone who has taken the time to leave a review. You guys are just too awesome for words!
Hoep you all enjoyed the new episode of Doctor Who, and if you have yet to see it… well, spoilers! Until next week!
Pippa.