A/N: Another week has arrived, and another chapter is due. As always, I apologise if I have missed any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. Enjoy!
Kari was growing tire of just sitting around now, and began to pace the room while Rose was on the phone to Mickey. In her head, she was playing out the entire conversation, and remembering what would have happened to Jackie back at her flat. She knew that Jackie was moaning that she could have died, but that was true. If Mickey hadn't shown up when he had, who knows what would have become of Rose's mother.
"Is she all right, though?" Rose asked her previous boyfriend, the one she left behind when she ran off with a mad man with a box and his Kari. "Don't put her on, just tell me." The blonde knew that if her mother was put on the phone, they would never get anywhere with all her moaning and warnings.
"Is that Rickey?" The Doctor said, snatching the phone from Rose and putting it to his own ear. "Don't talk, just shut up and go to your computer." He ordered, giving Kari a small smile as he pasted her.
"It's Mickey, and why should I?" Kari heard Mickey say, before she sent a confused look to the Doctor. He was opening his mind up so that she could hear both sides of the conversation, something that surprised her.
"Mickey the idiot, I might just choke before I finish this sentence, but… er, I need you." An elbow swiftly came into contact with his ribs, knocking the wind out of him slightly.
The Doctor gave Kari an annoyed look. "Call Mickey an idiot again and I'll do more than just knock the wind out of you." She warned him, starting to feel a little more like herself now.
"Please don't." The Doctor asked her, before lightly kissing her cheek. "Right, Mickey, you need to go to the unit website. It's a government website." That was his way of telling Mickey the web address that he needed to go to. It wasn't a corporation, so it wasn't a 'co', it was a 'gov'.
"It says 'password'." Kari heard Mickey tell the Doctor.
The Doctor, sick of listening to Mickey all by himself and having to project it all to Kari, shoved the phone into a dock on the table that placed him on speaker. "Say again?" He asked, ready to get all of this sorted now.
"It's asking for the password."
"Buffalo." The Doctor and Kari both called to him, causing Harriet to look at them with that strange look once more. Rose paid no attention to it, well she did a little, but it just made her smile. "Two F's, one L." Kari finished, the Doctor giving her a strange look now as well.
Kari knew that Mickey was doing exactly as he was told, but she still heard Jackie in the background. "So, what's that website?"
"All the secret information known to mankind. See, they've known about aliens for years. They just kept us in the dark."
The Doctor couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Mickey, you were born in the dark." He said, earning himself a poke in the ribs from Kari, who was standing right beside him, ready to defend Mickey whenever she needed to.
"Oh, just leave him alone." Rose called, sounding rather fed up with the Doctor always putting her boyfriend-not-boyfriend down. At least she knew Kari felt the same, and was ready to correct the Doctor when it was required.
"Thank you." Mickey replied, before there was a moment of silence. "Password again."
"Just repeat it every time, Mickey." Kari told him, knowing that he was going to have to keep on typing, and that Jackie was about to take control of the phone call.
The Doctor looked at Kari, a slight frown on his face. His eyes were locked with hers, and she felt like he was trying to get inside of her head. "Big Ben, why did the Slitheen go and hit Big Ben?" He was asking her directly, but obviously everyone else had heard him as well.
"You said to gather the experts, to kill them." Harriet reminded him, trying to be helpful as she dashed around the table, giving him a glass of alcohol. Even Rose had a glass in her hand as well.
"That lot would've gathered for a weather balloon. You don't need to crash land in the middle of London." He answered, still locked with Kari. She knew what he was doing, he was trying to find out what she knew, if she knew anything.
Rose could see that Kari was starting to feel a little uncomfortable, she kept paying with her hands and tugging at her pockets. "The Slitheen are hiding, but then they put the entire planet on red alert. What would they do that for?" She knew she had to keep the Doctor on track, because he was starting to lose focus.
"Oh, listen to her." Her mother moaned down the phone.
"At least I'm trying."
"Well, I've got a question, if you don't mind. Since those two walked into our lives, I have been attacked in the streets." Jackie said, finally getting everything that had been bothering her off her chest. "I have had creatures from the pits of hell in my own living room, and my daughter disappear off the face of the Earth."
Rose let out a barely audible sigh, but Kari hadn't missed it. "I told you what happened."
"I'm talking to them." Jackie said, interrupting her daughter. "'Cos I've seen this life of yours, Doctor, you and your little girlfriend. And maybe the pair of you get off on it, and maybe you think it's all clever and smart, but you tell me… Just answer me this, is my daughter safe?"
Kari knew that had been coming, but before either her or the Doctor could reply, Rose was speaking. "I'm fine." She told her mother, wanting to forget all about it and just move on.
But Jackie wasn't happy. "Is she safe?" The woman asked again, only a little more firmly this time. "Will she always be safe? Can you promise me that?" Silence. Kari had closed her eyes and let out a sigh, because she knew what the truth was going to be. "Well, what's the answer?"
The Doctor lightly brushed his thumb on Kari's cheek, getting her attention and causing her to open her eyes. "We're in." The voice of Mickey called, as Kari looked at the Doctor with a pleading look. She was giving him the look that told him she didn't want to talk about it, at least not at that moment, and he understood that.
He quickly planted a kiss on the top of her head before getting back on track. "Now then, on the left at the top, there's a tab, an icon. Little concentric circles. Click that."
Mickey done as he was told at the other end of the line, and soon a strange noise was coming through the speaker. "What is it?" Mickey asked, having no idea what it was or why the Doctor had told him to go to that particular website and page.
"The Slitheen have got a spaceship in the North Sea and it's transmitting that signal." He explained, trying to listen. "Now hush, let me work out what it's saying."
"He'll have to answer me one day." The heard Jackie say, before she was also hushed, but by Mickey.
The Doctor rested his hands on the table, leaning forward, getting slightly closer to that he could listen better. "It's some sort of message."
"Yeah, but what does it say, Doctor?" Kari asked him, knowing full well exactly what it was saying, but she wasn't going to let him know that.
"Don't know. It's on a loop, keeps repeating." Suddenly there was the sound of a bell, a doorbell. "Hush!" The Doctor shouted, hearing the buzzing bell more than the message. The bell kept buzzing, as Mickey told Jackie to go an see who it was, even if it was three in the morning. "It's beaming out into space, who's it for?" He risked a glance over at Kari, who had picked up the glass he had put on the table. She downed the drink all in one, which just caused the Doctor to worry even more.
All they could hear was the message, which the Doctor was still trying to work on translating. Until they heard Jackie rush back into the room, panicking. "They've found us." Mickey told them, knowing that Jackie was about to freak out.
"Mickey, I need that signal." He needed a few more minutes, just a few to work it all out.
But Rose wasn't having any of that. "Never mind the signal, get out! Mum, just get out! Get out!" She shouted, worrying over her mother and the situation she was stuck in.
"We can't. It's by the front door." Mickey told them, while everyone tried to think of something. "Oh, my God, it's unmasking. It's going to kill us."
"There's got to be some way of stopping them!" Harriet shouted, fed up with sitting there and doing absolutely nothing. She wanted to help, she wanted to do something useful. "You're supposed to be the experts, think of something!" She looked between the Doctor and Kari.
"I'm trying!" He shouted back at her, while Kari just stared at the empty glass. In her head she was playing out what was going on at Mickey's flat, the door splintering, the green alien barging in, Mickey preparing himself with a baseball bat to take on the creature.
"That's my mother." Rose protested, annoyed that the Doctor cared more about that signal that was being transmitted than her mother and Mickey.
It seemed that her words did actually get through to him, as he quickly sprung into action. "Right, if we're going to find their weakness, we need to find out where they're from. Which planet. So, judging by their basic shape, that narrows it down to five hundred planets within travelling distance. What else do we know about them? Information!" It was easy to see that he was in his element now, and Kari slowly sat herself back down, feeling a little lightheaded.
"They're green." Rose added to the list.
"Yep, narrows it down."
But Rose wasn't finished yet. "Good sense of smell."
"Narrows it down." The Doctor replied again, noticing how Kari was now sitting there with her head in her hand. As far as he was concerned, she had been acting strange since this whole thing started, and it really did worry him. He knew that she wasn't going to talk to him, not yet at least.
"They can smell adrenalin."
"Narrows it down." His eyes were still fixed on Kari, he just wanted her to talk to him.
With Rose struggling to think of anything else, Harriet jumped in. She couldn't help but think that Kari had been nothing but useless, considering she wasn't even trying to help, she was just sitting there. "The pig technology."
The Doctor nodded his head a little. "Narrows it down."
"The spaceship in the Thames, you said slipstream engine?" Rose could remember that, and she hoped that it was going to be helpful. Although she had noticed Kari, and she was worried about her, she knew that worrying wasn't going to help.
That was when they heard a loud noise coming down the phone line. "It's getting in!" Mickey cried down the phone at the three of them. There was fear in his voice, but he was masking it will with is bravery and determination.
"Raxacoricofallapatorious!" Kari shouted, making everyone jump. "Hunts like a ritual, the passing wind that smells like bad breath, that's calcium decay. One planet, Raxacoricofallapatorious." It was a basic explanation of how she had worked it out, but none the less, she had done something.
The Doctor's eyes were just lighting up. "Brilliant!" He called rushing around the desk and over to her. "That's my girl." He added, pulling her out of the chair and hugging her tightly. He was proud of her, but he didn't need to be since Kari already knew who they were anyway.
"Mickey, get in the kitchen." Kari shouted towards the phone as the Doctor let her go.
"Calcium, weakened by the compression field. Acetic acid." The Doctor was beaming away now, most of his worries having left him in an instant.
"Vinegar!" He cried at the same time as Kari.
Even Harriet seemed to be impressed now. "Just like Hannibal!" She cried, smiling just a little. Maybe her views on Kari had been a little harsh, because to her it now seemed like she had been listening the whole time and trying to work it out. But Harriet was wrong, because Kari had always known.
"Just like Hannibal. Mickey, have you got any vinegar?" The Doctor asked him, knowing that he had to work fast, and she did they.
"How should I know?" Mickey replied, causing Kari and the Doctor to both roll their eyes. It was his kitchen after all, you would have thought that he would know at least some of what he had in there.
"Cupboard by the sink, middle shelf. Anything that has vinegar in it, gherkins, pickled onions, pickled eggs, all of it." Kari wasn't going to waste any time now, she knew action had to be taken and she needed to stop being so miserable.
Rose just looked at her, an expression of curiosity etched across it. "How'd you know where that stuff is?"
"Uh, educated guess?" Kari told her innocently, forgetting that she was going to have to try and explain herself now. "Anyway, never mind that. How's it going there?"
"You were right, gherkins, pickled onions, pickled eggs." Jackie called down the phone, clearly mixing everything together.
The Doctor wasn't frowning, he wasn't curious as to how Kari knew those things. In all honesty he was just glad that she had finally said something and gotten involved. "And you kiss this man?" He put on an act of disgust at hearing the contents of Mickey's cupboard.
There was a horrid screeching coming from Mickey's flat, and Kari couldn't help but flinch a little at the noise. It wasn't a pleasant sound, it was the type of screech that really hurt your ears, like nails being dragged across a chalkboard.
But suddenly the screeching stopped, and they all waited with baited breath, before there was a rather muffled farting sound, followed by a loud pop. The only noise to be heard in the silence was the breathing of Mickey and Jackie. "Well, now we're in trouble." Kari muttered, knowing that the other Slitheen were going to know what had just happened, and that they were not going to forgive it either.
"Hannibal?" Rose asked, breaking the silence that was in there Cabinet room.
The Doctor didn't answer, he was too busy hugging his Kari. "Hannibal crossed the Alps by dissolving boulders with vinegar." Harriet told them, feeling a slight sense of relief.
"Oh, well, there you go then." Rose said, picking up her glass, the dark red liquid sloshing around a little. The Doctor and Harriet both done the same, raised their glasses in a toast. When the Doctor noticed that Kari had nothing but an empty glass, he picked up the decanter, ready to fill it up for her. But Kari just shook her head at him, she didn't really want anymore of it, she wasn't a big fan of port.
She let them all have a bit of their drink, before clearing her throat. "You know that they are still out there? Mickey and Jackie just dealt with one, but they are crawling all over Downing Street. And I can guarantee that it is only going to get worse." Kari said, turning very serious very quickly. "Any luck with that broadcast, Doctor?" He looked at her and shook his head, he was still trying to figure it out in his head. "Right, well while you let your brain work on that, Mickey, find out what's going on in the world outside. You are our only contact."
There was once again a moment of silence, until the television could be faintly heard in the background. "Listen to this." Mickey said, before holding the phone closer to the television so that they could hear what was going on.
"Our inspectors have searched the sky above our heads and they have found massive weapons of destruction. Capable of being deployed within forty five seconds." The voice of Acting Prime Minster Green call through to them.
"What?" The Doctor scoffed, while Kari sat there and rolled her eyes.
"Our technicians can baffle the alien probes, but not for long. We are facing extinction, unless we strike first. The United Kingdom stands directly beneath the belly of the mother ship. I beg of the United Nations, pass an emergency resolution. Give us the access codes. A nuclear strike at the heart of the beast is our only chance of survival." Both Rose and Harriet were now starting to look horrified, but Kari still wasn't fazed by any of it. "Because from this moment on, it is my solemn duty to inform you, planet Earth is at war."
It was clear from the look on the Doctor's face that he was far from impressed. "He's making it up. There's no weapons up there, there's no threat. He just invented it." He said, ignoring the way Kari was lightly drumming her fingers on the table.
"Do you think they'll believe him?" Harriet asked, causing Kari to scoff. The older woman frowned at her, not sure what to make of the strange girl who seemed to know what other people are going to say.
At least Kari still had Rose on her side. "They did last time." The blonde said, knowing that her friend was thinking the exact same thing.
"That's why the Slitheen went for spectacle. They want the whole world panicking, because you lot, you get scared, you lash out." The Doctor was finally starting to piece it all together, but he was still missing a lot, and he knew that he was. He just wanted Kari to help him out, because he was almost one hundred percent sure that she knew exactly what was going on. There had been too many little things she had said or done that had made him suspicious.
"They release the defence codes…" Kari muttered at the same time as Rose, while the other two women followed the Doctor over to the door that was still blocked by the metal shutter.
The Doctor only glanced at her for a moment, before carrying on. "And the Slitheen go nuclear." He told them, before pressing the button by the side of the door and opening the door, finding three green monsters standing there. "You get the codes, release the missiles, but not into space because there's nothing there. You attack every other country on Earth. They retaliate, fight back. World War Three. Whole planet gets nuked." That was his theory, and he was pretty confident that it was the right one.
"And we can sit through it safe in our spaceship waiting in the Thames. Not crashed, just parked. Only two minutes away." Kari recognised the voice of the Slitheen, it was the one that had been chasing Rose and Harriet. Although she wasn't in her natural state, she was wearing her skin suit, the skin of Margaret Blaine.
The older woman just looked at the creature in confusion, with a hint of horror evident on her face as well. "But you'll destroy the planet, this beautiful place. What for?"
"Profit." Kari called, finally getting up and joining the others. "The signal that is beaming out into space, it's an advert." The Doctor just smiled at her as she came and stood beside him, and he quickly wrapped his arm around her.
Margaret looked at the pair of them with a hint of disgust. "The sale of the century. We reduce the Earth to molten slag, then sell it piece by piece. Radioactive chunks, capable of powering every cut-price star liner and budget cargo ship. There's a recession out there, Doctor. People are buying cheap. This rock becomes raw fuel."
By now the Doctor's eyes had darkened a little, like Kari knew they would. She could feel the anger starting to radiate from him, and that wasn't a good thing. "At the cost of five billion lives."
"Bargain." The woman commented, smirking away at them all.
"I give you a choice. Leave this planet or I'll stop you." The Doctor's words made the woman, and the family that were standing behind her, laugh.
In fact, the woman found it so amusing that she took a few step forwards, getting closer to the Doctor and Kari. "What, you? Trapped in your box?" It was clear that she wasn't impressed, and that she wasn't scared of the Doctor either, or Kari standing beside him.
But the Doctor wasn't intimidated by her, unlike Harriet who seemed to be cowering back a little. "Yes. Me." He replied, before slowly reaching up for the button to close the shutters once more. And again she laughed, but it faded as the metal began to slid across, the serious look on the Doctor's face still there, holding her gaze.
When they were safely locked away again, Harriet let out a sigh of relief. "They're going to release them." Kari whispered. "The UN, they are going to give out the release codes."
While Harriet looked stunned, Rose looked nervous and began to chew on her thumb. But the Doctor, he just gave her a small, reassuring smile. "All knowing power?" He asked her, causing her to nod at him slightly. "I thought so. Why didn't you just…"
"Tell you?" Kari finished, looking up at him. "I don't know, I didn't want to, I guess. I just wanted you to do it without me saying anything for once. I wanted you to be fantastic and show off." She explained, not really sure how to explain herself to him. "If you thought I had no idea what was going on, then everyone would get to see just how brilliant you are, something that I get to see every day."
The Doctor let out a sigh. "What am I going to do with you?" He said, pulling Kari closer towards him and giving her a tight squeeze.
"Uh, not squeezing me to death would be a nice start." She managed to breathe through his crushing hold. "Seriously, Doctor, can't breathe here."
He quickly realised what he was doing and promptly let her go. As he did, her phone started to ring again. "Oh, let me guess, big brother?" The Doctor moaned, watching as she glared down at her phone.
Kari nodded to him before answering the call. "Yeah, still busy if you haven't noticed." She called down the phone, wondering why he had decided to call again when he knew that she was in the middle of something.
"I saw the broadcast, we all did." Jack actually sounded really concerned, and Kari knew he had every right to be. "It's all a bunch of lies, there is no ship up there, I know, I've looked."
"Yeah, they just want to nuke the planet, that's all. They'll be safe in their ship in the Thames while the rest of us are blown to smithereens." Kari told him, walking around the room a little and away from Harriet and her eager ears. She didn't like the way the woman kept looking at her, it was making her feel uncomfortable.
"But you have a plan, right?" Her big brother asked her hopefully.
Kari couldn't help but roll her eyes, even thought he couldn't see her. "Maybe, and it's more like a thing at the moment. Big Ears hasn't come up with a plan yet."
"Oi! My 'big ears' heard that. I'd watch it, if I were you." The Doctor warned her, wagging a finger at her as well.
She simply rolled her eyes at him while Jack replied. "So, definitely nothing to worry about then? I'm not going to have to make several calls and try to stop some nuclear war or anything?"
"Everything is going to be fine. We will sort it. Now shut up and get back to work, Captain." Kari said, knowing that he was just worrying over nothing, but that wasn't unusual. She knew that Jack would worry over the smallest thing, especially when he knew she was at the centre of something, and somewhere with possible danger. "And say hello to Janet for me." Jack chuckled before saying his goodbye and ending the call.
The Doctor had been watching her the whole time, knowing who she was talking to and having a rough idea of what the conversation was about. But there was one thing he was curious about. "Who's Janet?" He asked, folding his arms across his chest as he rested back against the large wooden desk.
"Uh, the team mascot?" Kari told him innocently, trying not to smile too much at him. She wasn't going to tell him that her brother had an alien locked up in the vault in his super secret base in Cardiff. "Anyway, back to business. Mickey, what else is going on out there?" She could tell from the look on the Doctor's face that he was far from impressed with her answer, but she wasn't going to let it bother her.
"Everyone is talking about it. Every channel is going on about this invasion, and that includes America, listen to this one." Mickey told them all, once again putting the phone by the television so that they could hear what the reporters were saying.
"It's midnight here in New York. The United Nations has gathered. England has provided them with absolute proof that the massive weapons of destructions do exist. The Security Council will be making a resolution in a matter of minutes, and once the codes are released, humanity's first interplanetary war begins."
"Right, so what do we do then, Doctor?" Rose asked, starting to get a little more nervous but making sure that she didn't show it.
The Doctor didn't answer her, he just took a hold of Kari's hand and dragged her over to the corner of the room, needing to talk to her with a little more privacy. "So, they're going to give out the codes, right?" He asked her as quietly as he could, hoping that Rose and Harriet couldn't hear them. Kari just nodded at him a little. "Okay, next question, is there a way out?"
"Doctor, there's always a way out." Kari told him, glancing at Rose who was chatting away to the older woman. "And you know that. So why did you bring me over here to ask me something that you already knew?"
"I wanted to see if you would tell me the truth this time." The Doctor just wanted to know that she really did know what was happening around them, and that she wasn't going to hide it anymore.
She let out a sigh as she looked at him. "Doctor I… I know I probably should have told you that I knew everything that was going on, but I told you why I didn't. I just wanted you to be your fantastic and brilliant self."
"Well, I just want you to be your fantastic and brilliant self. I don't want you hiding who you are, not for anyone in the universe." He replied, gently cupping her face with his hands. "If you know what's going on, then just let me know that. I'm not telling you to tell me everything that's going to happen, but just tell me that your all knowing power is working. Okay?"
Kari nodded at him the best she could. She hadn't realised that he would be that upset with her for not telling him that she knew what was going on and what was going to happen, in all honesty she had hoped that he would not find out she knew it all. But he had, and he wasn't mad at her for not telling him, he was upset because she thought it was better if no one knew that she knew.
With a smile on his face, the Doctor slowly reached down and placed a soft kiss on Kari's lips, taking her by surprise and causing the blood to rush up her neck and to her cheeks, leaving her red faced. "All right?" He asked her still smiling at her.
"Yeah, but, um… we should probably get back to saving the planet. I mean, I don't think the Earth is ready to be blown to pieces to be sold for scrap, at least not yet." She replied, willing the redness on her cheeks to hurry up and go away.
The Doctor's smile actually grew wider. "End of the world is a long way off yet, about five billion years, roughly."
"And that was you trying to show off to Rose for her first trip on the TARDIS." Kari told him, completely forgetting the situation as she thought about the end of the world, and wondered when she was going to go there.
"Oi, you were trying to show off to her as well. And, if I remember rightly…" Kari quickly put the index finger of her left hand on his lips to shut him up.
The Doctor looked at her with complete confusion. "Spoilers, Doctor. Spoilers. I know all about it, but I haven't been there yet. You don't really want to spoil it all for me, do you?" She asked him, knowing that she had to stop him from telling her any more. She really didn't like finding out all the little things that went differently when she was there.
Before the Doctor had the chance to even think of a reply, someone was clearing their throat and getting the pair's attention. "I'm sorry, am I interrupting?" Harriet asked them both, a hint of spite in her voice. "We do have rather important matters going on over here."
Kari rolled her eyes, but not so that Harriet could see her. Now, she knew that the Doctor was going to be impressed with the woman, that he was going to be on her team, and proud of what she would accomplish. But what Kari also knew was that Harriet Jones would do something that would turn the Doctor against her. "She is really starting to annoy me now." Kari mumbled to the Doctor, as he dragged her back over to where Rose and Harriet were.
"Why do I recognise her name, do you know?" She nodded in response. "And are you going to tell me?"
She looked at him, an eyebrow raised. "Not at all. You're going to have to work it out on your own. I am not helping you on that." Kari told him, being slightly stubborn. There really was no real reason as to why she couldn't tell him, he would work it out by the time they got out of there after all, she just didn't want to.
"Oh, well aren't you helpful." The Doctor replied, rolling his eyes but with a smile on his face.
Kari actually seemed to be enjoying herself, well, now that the Doctor knew she already knew everything that was going to happen, as long as there weren't any little surprises along the way. She probably should have been honest with him from the start and not keep it all secret, but she really did have her reasons, and she really did want him to just be brilliant. At least she had managed to do something good, she had managed to save some lives already, and now the Doctor understood how. So far, everything was going pretty okay, she just hoped that they would really make it through the next part.
A/N: Okay, so maybe this is going to end up being a 3-parter as well. Sorry! I really do just get carried away with writing sometimes, and then I don't know when to stop.
Now, I have a few special things planned for in a few weeks time, so pay attention, you never know what hints I'm going to be dropping in the chapters to come building up to it.
I would like to say welcome to all the new readers who have favourited/followed the story, glad to know people are still enjoying it after all this time! And for those of you who take the time to leave a review, thank you all so much, you are absolutely fantastic! I love reading them and still smile when I get that little email notification.
I'm going to shut up now and get back to work on the next few chapters. So, until next week!
Pippa.