A/N: Hello there everyone! So, first week back at work after the Christmas break, and it had completely had me wiped out. Due to that, I believe that I may have missed a few spelling mistakes and grammatical errors along the way. I do apologise for that, and I will try to go through it and knock them out when I can. Hope you enjoy the chapter!
The Doctor was sitting there picking bits out of his teeth with his finger, as Craig leaned forward and dumped his plate on the coffee table in front of him. "Oh, that was incredible. That was absolutely brilliant." Craig said, complimenting the Doctor once more for his food. "Where did you learn to cook?"
"Paris, in the eighteenth century. No, hang on, that's no recent, is it?" He asked no one in particular, while Kari shuffled over to grab Craig's dirty plate. "Seventeenth? No, no, no."
"I think you mean twentieth, dear." Kari told him quietly as she reached down to get the plate.
He looked at her and gave her a smile. "Sorry, I'm not used to doing them in the right order." The Doctor admitted, just making himself look even more crazy than he already was.
All Craig could do was look at the Doctor, a slight frown forming on his face. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a bit weird?" The man on the sofa ended up asking him.
"Oh, Kari tells me that every day. But, you have to remember, if I'm weird, then she must be even weirder, since she seems to want to stay around me." Even though she wasn't looking at him, she knew he was grinning, and Kari simply rolled her eyes. "Ever been to Paris, Craig?"
"Nah, I can't see the point of Paris." Of course, there was one person who knew exactly why Craig couldn't see the point of Paris. "I'm not much of a traveller."
The Doctor looked at Craig, while Kari quickly dried her hands on the towel. "I can tell from your sofa." She heard the Doctor tell him, just before she turned around.
Kari could see the confused look on Craig's face as he looked at his sofa, trying to make sense of how the Doctor could tell he wasn't a traveller from the sofa. But he couldn't work it out, and he had to ask. "My sofa?" He queried, as Kari plonked herself down on the other end of the sofa. She loved the Doctor's cooks, she really did, but it always seemed to make her feel so full that she wanted to curl up and have a nap afterwards.
"He thinks you're starting to look like it." Kari said before the Doctor could.
Craig laughed, it was a rather strange laugh really. It was along the lines of a, 'you have got to be kidding me' laugh, with a 'I can't believe you said that' laugh. "Thanks, mate, that's lovely." The Doctor was actually smiling a little when Craig said that, at least he hadn't managed to offend him yet. "No, I like it here. I'd miss it, I'd miss…" He hadn't realised it, but he had been sitting there playing with the set of keys with the pink fluffy key ring on them the whole time. it was an action that he probably wasn't even aware of doing.
"Those keys." Kari and the Doctor said at exactly the same time, causing Craig to jump a little.
He looked between the pair, obviously a little freaked out. "How do you keep doing that?" He asked, having heard them both saying the same thing at the same time before. There had been several moments when they had been chatting while eating, a little getting to know each other sort of thing, and the pair of them were saying a rather lot at the same time.
The smile that had been on the Doctor's face just grew even bigger. "We just know each other so well, we can tell what the other one is thinking." He told the man, glancing over to Kari. She was sitting there with her eyebrows raised slightly. "And right now she thinks that I'm talking too much."
Craig looked to the woman at the other end of the sofa, and then back at the Doctor. To him, it really did look like there was a silent conversation going on, their eyes were locked and they just didn't seem to be blinking. "Anyway!" He ended up announcing, forcing himself off the sofa, and breaking the staring contest that was going on. "These are your keys." Craig ended up holding out a set of keys.
The Doctor jumped off the sofa, grabbing Kari as his past her, and stopped when they were standing in front of the man. "We can stay?" He seemed to be a little excited as well as surprised, and Kari could see that he wanted to bounce up and down like an idiot.
There was a light chuckling coming from Craig. "Yeah, you're weird and can cook." He told the Doctor, before looking at Kari. "You seem to like things clean and tidy, and that's good enough for me." He seemed to be rather happy with that, and neither the Doctor nor Kari really minded. "Right, outdoor, front door, your door." He added, listing off what each of the keys were for.
The grin that was on the Doctor's face just seemed to be getting bigger and bigger. "My door. My place. My gaff." Yes, he was definitely excited, and Kari couldn't help but smile at that. She already had her own place, sort of, so it was nice for her to see the Doctor so happy and excited. "Ha ha, yes. Me with a key." He held onto the keys tightly, that stupid grin of his making Kari want to burst out laughing now.
But she managed to hold it in. "Calm down, dear, it's only a set of keys." She reminded him, lightly placing her hand on his arm, giving him a gentle hint that he was getting a little too excited.
"And listen, Mark and I, we had an arrangement where if you ever need me out of your hair, just give me a shout, okay?" Kari knew that Craig was trying to be delicate, but she knew that sometimes that was not the best way to get things through to the Doctor.
And she was right, he didn't understand it. "Why would we want that?" He asked, a confused look on his face.
Kari looked at him, her eyes locking with his. "Uh, he… he means, if we ever want some… alone time." She called in his head, really not wanting to say it out loud. Yes, they were engaged, yes they had a tendency to share the same bed, but their relationship had not gone past that. It wasn't even something that Kari had really thought about, and she was happy with the way things were between them both.
The Doctor's eyes suddenly widened in realisation. "Oh… oh!" He called, a pink tint rushing to his cheeks, just like it had with Kari as well. "Yes, right. Well…" It was evident that he really had no idea what else to say, he was feeling just as uncomfortable about the turn the conversation had made as Kari was. "We will. Yes, of course."
There was silence between the three of them for a few moments, before Kari quickly broke it. "Oh, and by the way, that rot up there, I really don't think we should be touching it."
The Doctor looked up and studied it from where they were standing. He was getting the strangest feeling when he looked at it, something was telling him that it was wrong. "Yes, I agree. Best to just leave it alone for now."
"Okay, I need to go and call my brother." Kari announced, causing the Doctor to frown at her. "I should probably let him know the news, that we've found somewhere." The look she was giving the Doctor was telling him to just go along with it.
Lucky for her, he did actually catch on. "Oh, right, yes. Her brother is a bit of a worrier, trust me, you do not want to get on the wrong side of him." The Doctor shut up when an elbow came into contact with his side. "Anyway, we'll be back." He said, before grabbing Kari's hand and leading her out of the ground floor flat and back out to the streets of Colchester.
Once they were outside, Kari pulled her phone out of her pocket. "Right, time to call in a favour from big brother Jack." She ended up muttering as she scrolled through the names on her phone.
"And what favour is this then?" The Doctor asked her curiously as they wandered down the street. He didn't mind her calling Jack, it meant that he could keep track of where she was and if everything was all right, and that was all the Doctor really cared about, his Kari being safe.
Kari simply smiled at him as she lifted the phone to her ear. "You're just going to have to wait and find out." She said to him, reaching up and lightly kissing his cheek as she waited for the phone to ring at the other end.
It was just after the first ring that the call was answered. "Hey, Princess, how you doing?"
"Time check, what year are you in?" She needed to be speaking to a Jack who was at the same point of time as her, or maybe a little earlier, that could work as well.
"Last time I checked, it was 2008." Jack replied, causing Kari to let out a long sigh. "I take it that you're after something then?"
"Uh yeah, I am, but in the future a little. We're stuck in Colchester, in Essex, and I was just wondering if it would be possible for you to kind of send some stuff over?" She asked him, putting on her sweetest voice. It was a big of a big thing that she was about to ask him, and she knew he would do it, and she knew she would have to find a way to make it up to him again later.
She heard Jack chuckling at the other end of the line before he decided to answer her. "Sure, no problem, Princess. Just text me the address and I can get everything sent over to you in a few hours. It will give Ianto something to do, he's been a little bit weird recently."
Kari couldn't help but frown at hearing that. "What do you mean, weird?" Ianto and weird just did not belong in the same sentence, not now and not ever.
"I don't know. He's been moping around the place for the last few days, I haven't got a clue what's going on with him." Jack complained. "I don't know, maybe he just needs a few days off or something." It was easy to see that Jack was a little frustrated, because he didn't know what was going on with Ianto or what to do about it.
"Hmm, have you thought of asking him out for a few drinks after work?" Kari suggested, wondering if Ianto was upset because he wanted to spend a bit of time with Jack, and Jack just wasn't paying attention.
"Oh, playing match-maker as well now, are you?"
Even though he couldn't see it, Kari still rolled her eyes. "No, I am not. Look, just be nice to him, go for a few drinks, and I'm sure he will perk up a bit." At least that was what she hoped. She knew that 2008 was a pretty bad year for Torchwood, and it was only going to get worse from there. "Anyway, back to the matter at hand, the reason why I call you in the first place."
Jack sighed a little, not wanting to get to the real reason for her call, but wanting to just talk to her for a while. "Sure, whatever you need, you got it, Princess."
"You know, you really are the best big brother ever." Sometimes she did feel guilty for all the things that he done for her, when he really didn't have to, but she was so grateful to have him in her life. "I'll text you all the details, and I'll come visit you soon, I promise."
"You better, Princess. This place is… different now." There was sadness in Jack's voice now, and Kari knew why.
She swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat before speaking again. "I know, Jack. I'm sorry, I wish I had been there, I wish I could have done something. I should have been there, I should have helped." He had lost half of his team, the fantastic five was now down to just the three of them.
There was silence from Jack, and Kari wondered if he was even there still. But then she heard Gwen's voice, asking who he was on the phone to. "Listen, it wasn't your fault, Princess, okay?" Something about the way he was speaking was causing Kari to think he was hiding something. "Anyway, I got to go. Say hi to the Doctor for me, and I'll get the stuff sent out to you when it's time."
"Okay, thanks. I love you, Jack." She told him, trying to actually hold back a few tears. She hadn't really thought about what things would be like without Tosh and Owen around, it hadn't even crossed her mind. But now she knew that they were gone, and in the year she was in, Ianto was gone as well.
"Hey, I love you too, Princess. Stay out of trouble." He called back to her, before the line went dead.
Kari just stood there, the phone still held to her ear, and the first tear rolling down her cheek. They were dead, and she hadn't even bothered to ask Jack how he was. She cared more about getting what she wanted than checking that her big brother was all right. Now she understood why Ianto was being a little weird, because some of his only friends had died.
She was in such a state of shock that she didn't even notice the Doctor gently tugging the phone from her hand. "Kari? Kari, what's wrong?" He asked her gently, now standing in front of her and gazing at her.
"Tosh and Owen… they're… they're dead." She managed to tell him in a whisper. With all her adventures with the Doctor, she forgot what was going happening on Earth while they were out there, exploring the universe. It had slipped Kari's mind that every day, her friends and family at Torchwood were defending the Earth, putting their lives on the line. Now, some of her friends had paid the ultimate price for that, and it hurt.
In an instant, the Doctor's arms were around her, holding her tightly. He knew that she dealt with loss badly, especially when it was someone close to her, a friend, someone she knew well and really cared for. "Hey, come on, it's all right." He didn't really know what else to say to her, he never did in situations like that. All the Doctor could really do was be there for her, to be that shoulder that she cried on.
She only accepted his embrace for a few moments before she pushed him away. "I need to text Jack. I need to let him know what I need so that he can get it all sorted." She told him, holding out her hand and waiting for him to give her phone back to her. With a frown on his face, the Doctor gave it to her. "Thanks." She muttered, before quickly texting her brother with all the things she needed, clothes for herself and the Doctor, plus a few extra bits, and the address of where they were staying.
"Come on, we better head back." The Doctor told her once she placed her phone back in her pocket. "We need to check in with Amy, make sure everything is all right with her."
Kari just nodded at him, and let him lead her back along the street and the direction that had come from, back to the flat that they now shared with Craig. Her mind was elsewhere now, and it was going to stay like that for a good few hours.
When they got back, Kari just headed straight for the room that she and the Doctor would be sleeping in, completely ignoring Craig as she went. "Is everything all right?" Craig asked once Kari had closed the bedroom door.
The Doctor's eyes drifted towards the door. "She's… uh, she's just had a bit of bad news from her brother. Some friends of hers, they've…" He didn't really have to say any more, it was obvious from the change of Craig's expression that he completely understood. "I better…" Craig simply nodded, and the Doctor rushed off to the room where Kari had disappeared.
He saw her huddled up on the bed, hugging one of the pillows tightly, the tears streaming down her face. It was going to be a long night, and he knew he was going to have to keep a close eye on her. The Doctor sat down on the bed and gently tugged her away from the pillow and closer to him.
"I should have been there, Doctor. I should have been there and stopped it. I could have stopped him from shooting Tosh, she'd still be alive now if I had been there." He had seen that coming, he knew that Kari was going to start blaming herself for it, even though she had no control over it at all.
He shushed her and gently rocked her. "Hey, come on, it wasn't your fault. You're born, you live, you die, you know that, Kari." The Doctor knew he had to be gentle with her, and he was really trying. "I know it's hard, I know how much they both meant to you, but you'll see them again."
"Jack won't." She muttered into the Doctor's shirt. "And neither will Gwen and Ianto. They won't get the chance to see them again, will they?"
The Doctor simply let out a sigh, realising that no matter what he said, Kari was going to have some sort of response for it. Instead, he just continued to hold her, letting her get it all out of her system, and just being there for her. Eventually, she fell asleep.
"Earth to Pond, Earth to Pond. Come in, Pond." The Doctor called, trying to contact Amy through the earpiece he had made before Kari arrived.
"Doctor!" Amy's voice screeched, as well as some horrible and loud feedback, into the Doctor's ear.
He quickly moved his head away form Kari's, hoping that she hadn't heard it, that it hadn't disturbed her. She had cried herself to sleep, and he was determined that she got a little more sleep, and hopefully slept through till the morning. "Could you not wreck my new earpiece, Pond?" He asked, sounding a little annoyed.
"Sorry. How are things going at your end? Have you worked out what's going on yet?" Amy asked him, hoping that he would soon be able to fix the problem so that she could get out of the TARDIS. It wasn't much fun for her being trapped in there on her own.
"We're working on it. I've got a feeling that the man upstairs has something to do with it, but I'm not sure. Something doesn't seem right, but there are bigger things to worry about at the moment." He told her, looking down at Kari, still peacefully sleeping in his arms. He was glad that Amy's shout had not woken her up or disturbed her at all.
"Hang on, we? And what's more important than fixing whatever is wrong and getting me out of here?" The Scottish red head was clearly not impressed with what the Doctor had just said to her, and being who she was, she wasn't going to hold it back.
The last time he spoke to Amy, Kari hadn't been there, in fact, Amy said she had just left the TARDIS after having only been there for a very short time. "Kari's here, and she has just had some bad news." The Doctor told her, wondering if he should tell her what the bad news was. The silence at the other end informed him the Amy was waiting for an explanation. "Two of her friends, they've died."
"Oh… I'm sorry, I didn't know." Of course she didn't know, Kari had only found out a few hours ago as well. "How is she?"
"Asleep. She blames herself, like she always does, even though there was nothing she could do to prevent it. She'll be fine, she just needs a little time." The whole conversation seemed to just take a very awkward turn now, and neither the Doctor nor Amy liked it. "Anyway, how's the TARDIS coping?"
"Hmm, see for yourself." Amy told him, before the sounds from inside the TARDIS flooded his ear. Thing's didn't sound too good, not one bit.
A frown formed on the Doctor's face as he listened to it. He could hear familiar sounds, but they were wrong, it wasn't normal. "Oh, nasty. She's locked in a materialisation loop, trying to land again." He told the red head that was trapped in there. "But she can't."
"Yeah, Kari did mention that. Whatever's stopping her is upstairs in that flat. So, go upstairs and sort it." Amy really did want to get out of there now. She was constantly being thrown around inside of the blue box, and she had no idea what to do.
The Doctor quickly glanced down at Kari. "We don't know what it is yet. Anything that can stop the TARDIS from landing is big. Scary big." He hoped that Kari knew what it was, and that she would be able to tell him, that she would want to tell him.
"Wait, are you scared?" Amy had actually noticed that in his voice, and it worried her. If the Doctor was scared, then she needed to be really scared. "Come on, Doctor, just go up there and see what it is."
"I can't go up there until I know what it is and how to deal with it." The Doctor told her firmly. Of course he wanted to get the TARDIS back safely, but he couldn't do that without first knowing what was going on, and he only has two ways to do that, investigate or ask Kari. "And it is vital that this man upstairs doesn't realise who and what Kari and I am. So, no sonicking, no advanced technology. I can only use this because we're on scramble. To anyone else hearing this conversations, we're talking absolute gibberish." He had a feeling that someone was trying to listen to his conversation, that maybe Craig, in the next room, could hear him speaking.
A sigh came from Amy's end of the line. "Well, isn't that just great."
"Now, all I've got to do is pass as an ordinary human being. Simple. What could possibly go wrong?" As the Doctor said that, Kari began to stir a little. He kept as still and silent as he possibly could, hoping that she wasn't going to wake up and that she was just making herself more comfortable.
Even Amy had noticed how suddenly silent it had gone with the Doctor. "Doctor? Doctor, is everything all right?" She asked, speaking quietly to him. "Doctor?"
He shushed her, something that Amy really didn't like him doing to her. However, she took note of it, and kept quiet, waiting for the Doctor to say something, for something to happen. The Doctor was just holding his breath, trying not to move, watching as his Kari gripping his shirt tightly, bunching the fabric up in her fist. The death of her friends was on her mind, he had no doubt about that.
After a few more moments, Kari seemed to settle back down, and her hand relaxed a little. The Doctor reached down and kissed the top of her head, but she didn't even flinch. "Okay. It's okay." He said, partially to Kari and partially to Amy.
"Doctor? What happened?" She hadn't been able to hear anything, so she had no clue as to why the Doctor had shushed her, as to why she had to be quiet and why the Doctor had been so quiet.
"Nothing, I thought Kari was waking up." He was definitely speaking quieter now, because he really didn't want her to wake up before the morning. He wanted her to get a good night of sleep, to rest peacefully. "But she's not."
There was another moment or two of silence before Amy remembered what they had been talking about previously. "And in response to your previous question as to what could possibly go wrong, have you seen you, Doctor? You want to pass as a normal person, get rid of the bow tie." She was never going to change her mind on bow ties, Amy was always going to think that they looked silly.
But there was no way that he would ever get rid of it. For a start, the Doctor liked his bow ties, and secondly, he knew that Kari liked them as well. She was always adjusting it for him, making sure it looked perfect, and there was always a smile on her face when she did. "Bow ties are cool. Come on, Amy, I'm a normal bloke with his fiancée. Tell me what normal blokes do."
"They watch telly, they play football, they go to the cinema." Amy said, listing off just a few things. "They go down the pub."
"I could do those things. I don't, but I could." The Doctor informed her, before there was a loud bang coming from above him, from the flat upstairs. "Hang on, wait. Wait, wait. Amy?" Something was wrong, he knew it was. It wasn't just because of the noises that he knew something was wrong, he could feel it as well, he could sense it. Something was happening, something bad.
Back in the TARDIS, Amy was being throw around like a rag doll. She grabbed hold of the edge of the console and tried to keep herself standing. The last thing she needed was to be thrown onto the glass floor and to get herself hurt, especially since there was no one else there with her.
When the Doctor looked at his watch, he noticed the hands on it turned this way and that way, backwards and forwards, even the alarm clock sitting on the side table was doing the same thing. "Interesting. Localised time loop." He muttered, now having more information on what was going on upstairs.
"Ow!" Amy cried, now hanging on tightly to the railings around the edge of the console. It was difficult for her to keep her grip, it was too unstable inside the TARDIS. "What's all that?"
"Time distortion. Whatever's happening upstairs is still affecting you." The Doctor told her, before glancing back down at Kari. It didn't seem to be affecting her, which was a good thing. With the time vortex being a part of her, it was possible that it could have some kind of impact on her as well, but she seemed to just be sleeping soundly still.
"It's stopped. Ish." Amy told him a few seconds later, the TARDIS seeming to have calmed down a little. "How about your end?"
He looked at his watch once more, and everything seemed to be back to normal. The hands were no longer spinning madly out of control, not on his watch or the alarm clock. "My end's good.
"So, doesn't sound great, but nothing to worry about?" Amy was worried, she was very worried. She really did wish that Kari was still there with her, that someone was there with her and that she wasn't on her own. Being trapped in a time travelling spaceship on her own wasn't really much fun.
The Doctor didn't reply straight away, he was still lost in his own thoughts. "No, no, no, not really. Just keep the zigzag plotter on full. That'll protect you." In the silence he heard a screeching noise. "Amy, I said the zigzag plotter."
I pulled the zigzag plotter!" Amy cried in frustration. Kari had shown her where it was, and what to do, she knew what she was doing. At least she was pretty confident that she did.
"What, you're standing with the door behind you?" Amy quickly turned and looked at the door in the TARDIS and confirmed that she was. "Okay, take two steps to your right and pull it again." He waited and listened, and the noises coming from his beloved ship seemed to settle down. "Now, I must not use the sonic. I've got work to do, need to pick up a few items. I'll check in with you later, Pond. Over and out." He called to her, before swiftly disconnecting the communication with Amy.
There were things that the Doctor needed to do, that he needed to go out and get, but he couldn't leave Kari on her own, he didn't want to. Everything else was going to have to wait, the Doctor had to get his priorities in order, and Kari would be first every single time.
The Doctor pulled her closer to him, holding her just a little tighter. He pressed his lips against her forehead, and frowned slightly. For some reason, she felt a little warm. His hand was soon pressed against her head, and then lightly against her cheeks, just to make sure. No, she was definitely a little warmer than she was a short time ago, and that was faintly worrying for the Doctor.
He had hoped that the time loop wouldn't have any kind of impact on her at all, and he was so sure that it hadn't, but, now he was starting to think differently. There was only one thing that the Doctor could really do now, and that was keep a very close eye on her throughout the night to make absolute sure that she was fine, and to take care of her. Everything else that needed to be done could wait, she was more important.
A/N: Well, I do hope that you all enjoyed the chapter, I know that I can't please everyone and I'm not going to try to do that because it will just turn into one great big mess if I do.
I want to say a big thank you to all of you who have taken the time to leave a review. I do read them, and I really do appreciate it. Also, a big welcome to all of the new readers and those who have favourited/followed this story.
I will be getting the next chapter out on time next week, I hope! So until then...
Pippa.