Amara pushed the box of Chocos cereal (which was appropriately shaped like moons and stars) across the table in the TARDIS kitchen to the Doctor, who placed his blue bowl on the table. He smiled at her, sitting down. "Thanks."
"You're welcome." She shrugged, shoving a spoonful of the chocolate cereal into her mouth.
It had been a month since the fake Atlantis incident and two months since she landed in the Tenth Doctor's time. The two of them had settled into a comfortable routine of having chocolate cereal for breakfast- the Doctor adding milk in it and Amara just eating them dry. They'd then go to the console room and go somewhere to explore, or the Doctor would receive a distress call and they'd have to go and help some people. However, the latter case was pretty rare. They'd mostly just go on fun trips to different parts of the universe. The troubling bits were actually pretty uncommon, to Amara's surprise. They'd then come back, shower, have lunch (or, well, a random meal, according to the Doctor, since they lived in a time machine and there was no concept of time in there), after which they'd either just go and relax or go somewhere else, depending on their moods. They'd then have "dinner" (Amara dubbed it as that because the term 'random meal' being used twice irked her for some reason), and relax for a while before writing in their journals and going to sleep. In Amara's case, at least. According to the Doctor, Time Lords needed sleep only once a week, so he'd either be reading in the library or fix the TARDIS or go on an adventure of his own. Things were starting to properly settle, but Amara always had the uneasy feeling that she would jump away soon since it already hadn't happened yet.
"So, I was just looking at some stuff on the TARDIS monitor when you were sleeping," The Doctor said, after swallowing a spoonful of cereal. "And discovered something interesting in London."
Amara raised her eyebrows, chewing on her cereal.
"There's this company, Adipose Industries. They sell diet pills, and there's been some suspicious activity around them lately- it's an episode, isn't it?" He said, noticing Amara's wide eyes.
She nodded, swallowing her food. "What gave it away?"
"You're really not good at hiding things, Mara. Especially from me."
"Really?" She raised her eyebrows. "How do you know I'm not lying to you right now?"
"You have a very obvious tell." He shrugged. "And, well, you're my best friend."
She smiled at that. "You're my best friend too." And he really was. The two of them had become quite close, and she came to enjoy his company a lot. As danger prone as he was, she found that one could never have a dull moment when he was around.
He smiled back at her, before looking back into his bowl and putting another spoonful of cereal into his mouth. "Anyway, I'm assuming you know exactly what's going on, so here's the plan. We pose as health and safety inspectors, snoop around a bit, and fight whatever alien is going to almost kill us since this is an episode, and well, every single episode I've experienced so far involves that aspect."
"This is a more low-key one, though, thankfully." She said after swallowing her last spoon of cereal. Partners in Crime had always been one of her favourite episodes, and Donna was probably one of the companions she wanted to meet the most. Plus, it was one of the more chill episodes, excluding the one death at the end. It was also the peak of comedy, which she appreciated.
"Oh, then that's good. We can probably stop for ice cream after we go and investigate today, if you want."
She nodded. "Sounds like a plan."
"Would it kill you to enter a building like a normal person?" Amara hissed, turning back to the fire exit door the Doctor had opened with his screwdriver. He opened the door and gestured for her to get in. He followed her inside and closed the door again, grinning at her.
"Since when have I ever done anything like a normal person?"
She shrugged. "Fair enough."
He grinned at her as they walked towards another door. He opened it with the screwdriver and gestured forward, a playful grin on his face. "After you, my lady."
She shook her head and chuckled. "Why are you doing this?"
"Why can't I?" He shrugged, placing the screwdriver back in his pocket and pulling out his psychic paper.
They walked into the basement of the building. It had metal walls and pipes running across the sides of the walls.
A man wearing a black suit and a mic passed them. The Doctor showed him his psychic paper. "John Smith, Health and Safety." He secretly passed the paper to Amara, who showed it to him, thinking about what she wanted him to see. "Amara Kashyap, Health and Safety."
"We're partners." The Doctor shrugged, when the man, who seemed to be part of the security, raised his eyebrow.
The two of them snuck into the projector room behind the lecture hall in Adipose Industries ("I'm telling you, Mara, nobody would ever find us there, it's the best hiding place!") and were standing there, looking through the glass window to see what was going on.
"Adipose Industries," A blonde woman wearing glasses was standing at the podium, lecturing a group of news reporters and health and safety officers. "The twenty-first century way to lose weight. No exercise, no diet, no pain. Just lifelong freedom from fat. The Holy Grail of the modern age." Amara rolled her eyes at the joke. "And here it is. You just take one capsule. One capsule, once a day for three weeks, and the fat, as they say," She turned on the presentation, where the narrator said, "The fat just walks away." Along with the words appearing on the screen.
"You might want to pay attention to that particular detail." Amara leaned towards the Doctor and whispered. He nodded absently, murmuring, "Will do, Mara."
"Excuse me, Miss Foster. If I could?" A woman from the audience asked. "I'm Penny Carter, science correspondent for The Observer. There are a thousand diet pills on the market, a thousand con men stealing people's money. How do we know the fat isn't going straight into your bank account?"
Amara knew that it would be mean to smile, but the slowly declining smile on Miss Foster's face was just too much for her. She pursed her lips together, trying to prevent a massive grin from forming on her face.
Miss Foster plastered a fake smile on her face. "Oh, Penny, if cynicism burnt up calories, we'd all be as thin as rakes. But if you want the science, I can oblige." She removed her glasses and gave her a stare that Amara was sure looked like something a serial killer would give. Honestly, she wondered if Penny felt the same or if she was just overthinking.
The projector turned on again, this time showing the anatomical image of a human body. "Adipose Industries. The Adipose capsule is composed of a synthesised mobilising lipase, bound to a large protein molecule."
As the presentation continued, Amara noticed someone coming into the projector room. She nudged the Doctor, who looked at her for a moment before flashing the psychic paper at the man. "Health and Safety. Film department." He added at the end, making Amara want to internally smack her forehead against a table. However, the man seemed to believe him, so that was a good thing, probably.
After the presentation got over, Penny asked Miss Foster how many people had taken the pill, to which she responded that there were a million customers in London alone. She also mentioned that they were going nationwide the next week.
"We need to get that customer list." The Doctor murmured, to which Amara nodded.
The two of them got the customer list and went to visit the first person on it- a Mr Roger Davey. He stated that he'd lost about fourteen kilograms after starting to use the pills, and mentioned a particularly interesting detail about how his burglar alarm always went off at the same time every night. Amara seriously wondered how he was so casual about that- something happening on a daily basis at the exact same time unprecedented- that was some serious Conjuring shit if you asked her.
After that, just as they were leaving, the Doctor's machine that went ding when there was stuff went ding. They ran towards the signal, which was in a sketchy black van, but before they could do anything, it sped off. The two of them returned to the TARDIS Amara looking behind her for a moment at the street she knew Donna was in for a few moments before she turned away and ran behind the Doctor.
After the two of them went back to the TARDIS, the Doctor immediately punched in the flight coordinates for Kramebia, a planet that was just outside the Solar System. It had the Doctor's favourite ice cream shop in all of time and space, and the two of them stopped there for ice cream and some sandwiches as they made a game plan for exactly what they were going to do the next day. Hide out all day and then start investigating after hours. Which completely baffled Amara, because they had a bloody time machine and they could just go in and out any time they wanted. But, of course, the Doctor being the Doctor hyped up hiding in the closet so much even she was slowly warming up to the idea of it. That didn't stop her from making sure she was completely prepared, though.
"Well, good to know you started abusing the whole 'bigger on the inside pockets' privilege so quickly. I always wondered when you started doing that." The Doctor murmured as Amara pulled out a foldable table and chair from the pocket of her brown trench coat (the TARDIS was kind enough to have ones that fit inside the pocket, bless her).
Amara scowled at him as she laid out the table and sat down on the chair. "Well, if you've forgotten," She laid out her coat on the table and reached into an inside pocket, "We're going to be stuck here for the next," She looked at a digital clock she pulled out, "Eight hours." She pulled out a few books from inside. "So it wouldn't kill to be a little prepared."
"A little prepared." The Doctor deadpanned, looking at the assorted collection of items she pulled out from her pockets. Her books, her journal, her laptop, a portable charger, and a board game were a few such items. "This could be enough entertainment for us for about three years."
However, the Doctor was proven wrong a few hours later as he finally caved in and started playing Snakes and Ladders with her. She was so close to winning, when the digital clock she'd placed on the table began to beep. The two of them turned to the clock, the Doctor's hand hovering over the board as he was about to move his piece down a snake. It was six ten in the evening.
The two of them turned towards each other again, staring at each other for a moment with wide-eyed gazes before hastily packing the game back into Amara's coat and heading out of the storage closet.
The two of them ran up to the roof and lowered themselves next to Miss Foster's office window using a window cleaner's cradle and the Doctor's screwdriver.
The two of them ducked as Miss Foster and her bodyguards dragged in the reporter from the previous day- Penny Carter, and tied her up to a chair. The Doctor handed Amara a stethoscope and pulled one of his own. The two of them put the stethoscopes on and pressed them onto the window to hear whatever was going on without being seen. Which was debatable, since Amara thought that stethoscopes on the window was something literally anybody could notice. Which was why she kept peeking into the room occasionally, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.
"So come on then, Miss Foster," Penny demanded, "Those pills, what are they?"
"Well, you might as well have a scoop, since you'll never see it printed." Said Miss Foster, presumably picking up one of the pills. "This is the spark of life."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"Officially, the capsule attracts all the fat cells and flushes them away." She explained, "Well, it certainly attracts them. That part's true. But it binds the fat together and galvanises it to form a body."
"A body? What do you mean, a body?"
"I am surprised you never asked about my name. I chose it well. Foster. As in, foster mother. And these are my children." Amara heard her open a drawer. And then, a gurgling sound came- one that sounded similar to a baby cooing.
The Doctor turned to Amara, his eyes wide. She looked up, trying to indicate that they both had to straighten up to look inside the room. The two of them did so, and Amara turned towards the door to the room, spotting a redhead woman staring at the Adipose baby in shock.
The baby, in question, was a rectangle-shaped mass of a whitish cream substance with arms, two stubby legs, eyes, and one tooth.
"Are you kidding me? What the hell is that?" Penny gasped.
Miss Foster got up from her chair and started walking around the room. "Adipose. It's called an Adipose. Made out of living fat."
"But I don't understand!"
Miss Foster continued explaining what it was to Penny, but the conversation was completely blocked out for the Doctor and partially to Amara, who had both noticed the red haired woman who was now gaping at them in shock. Donna Noble. The one and only.
"Doctor!" Donna mouthed, her eyes wide.
The Doctor mouthed back, frowning, "But- what? What?"
"Oh. My. God!"
"But how?"
"It's me!" Donna pointed to herself.
Amara looked past the Doctor to see what Miss Foster was doing. She knew they'd get noticed later, but she didn't want her to accidentally notice them sooner than she should.
She turned back to Donna, who was waving at her. "Amara!"
"Hi!" Amara waved to her, a smile forming on her face. Looks like she was going to be there when The Runaway Bride happened.
The Doctor then mouthed, "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I came here to find you!"
The Doctor blinked, pointing at himself. "What for?"
Donna started miming something about how she was looking up the place on the internet to look for trouble because trouble equaled the Doctor, but Amara didn't catch most of it.
She looked to the side, her eyes widening as Miss Foster had noticed the two of them and was staring at them back and forth. She gently nudged the Doctor, who was too preoccupied in Donna's mime to notice her.
She nudged him again, pretending to ignore Miss Foster, who had locked eyes with her more than once. However, neither the Doctor nor Donna noticed until Donna was pointing to Miss Foster with her thumb, her tongue sticking out. The Doctor and Donna stared at Miss Foster, who was looking at the two of them. "Are we interrupting you?"
Amara smacked her forehead with her hand, closing her eyes. This eerily reminded her of her school days, where her friends would be communicating with each other from different ends of the classroom and she was usually tasked with checking if the teacher was looking at them or not. However, it almost always ended in the teacher noticing them despite Amara warning them because they'd be too preoccupied with their long-distance conversation and eventually be moved to the first bench of the classroom.
The Doctor tilted his head to the side and mouthed, "Run!"
Donna ran towards the right, and Miss Foster pointed to the door behind which she was. "Get her."
The Doctor pulled out his screwdriver and pointed it at the door handle, locking it. Miss Foster then pointed at him and Amara, "And them."
"Mara, I am so sorry about this," The Doctor said, grabbing onto her hand. He pointed his screwdriver upward and pulled the cradle up at what seemed to be rocket speed. Amara felt like she was being uprooted from the ground and that she would fly away and fall off any minute as the wind blew through her hair and on her face. She shut her eyes tightly, burying her face in the Doctor's arm until it stopped.
She opened her eyes and saw that they were both back on the roof again. The two of them ran outside the cradle and down the ladder, back into the building.
They ran down the stairs, and made it down only a few floors before they ran into Donna, who pulled the Doctor into a hug. Amara looked down, grabbing onto the Doctor's hand as she saw Miss Foster and her bodyguards running up the stairs, gund pointed forward.
The Doctor and Donna were bantering when Amara interrupted the two of them, grabbing onto Donna's hand as well and pulling them both up the stairs. "There's a time and a place and this is neither!" She said between deep breaths as they made it to the roof. The Doctor slammed the door open and the three of them ran into the roof, Donna starting to talk about how she found Adipose while the Doctor ran underneath the top part of the roof, working his sonic on one of the electric panels.
"Because I thought, how do you find the Doctor and Amara? And then I just thought, look for trouble and then they'll turn up. So I looked everywhere. You name it. UFOs, sightings, crop circles, sea monsters. I looked, I found them all. Like that stuff about the bees disappearing, I thought, I bet they're connected. Because the thing is, Doctor, I believe it all now. You opened my eyes. All those amazing things out there, I believe them all. Well, apart from that replica of the Titanic flying over Buckingham Palace on Christmas Day. I mean, that's got to be a hoax."
Amara giggled at that, some of her anxiety disappearing, as the Doctor turned around, frowning. "What do you mean, the bees are disappearing?"
"Not the biggest of our priorities, especially judging by the fact that there's people with guns following us!" She nodded towards the roof door the Doctor had soniced earlier.
The three of them ran towards the ladder, the Doctor and Amara jumping into the cradle. The Doctor soniced the cradle as Amara called out to Donna. "Get in here!"
"What, in that thing?"
"Yes, in that thing!" The Doctor leaned forward.
"But if we go down in that thing they'll just call us up again!"
"No, no, no, because I've locked the controls with a sonic cage." Donna started climbing up and climbed into the cage. "I'm the only one that can control it. Not unless she's got a sonic device of her own, which is very unlikely."
"Don't say things like that, it's just an open invitation for some daridram to happen." Amara said as the Doctor soniced the cradle to go down. He turned to her and rolled his eyes. "There's no proof something like that has ever happened in the history of time and space. And I should know that, I'm very well versed in it."
At that moment, the cradle started to fall down at jet speed. Amara screamed and grabbed onto one of the railings on one side of the cradle, and felt someone wrap an arm around her tightly. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the painful swooping feeling in her stomach as the cradle came to a sudden stop. She opened her eyes, standing up as the Doctor removed his arm from around her waist and started sonicing the window they were in front of. When that didn't work, Donna picked up a spanner and yelled, "Smash it!"
She started hitting the window with the spanner, and the Doctor held out a hand. "Mara, I'm going to need your baseball bat!"
Amara automatically put her hand in to get it, when a thought struck her. There was a chance the baseball bat thing would work, which would mean that there would be a part of the episode that wouldn't happen. And that would violate rule 1b in a way. But, if she did give the bat, then Donna wouldn't have to fall down and almost die, and that would definitely be a relief for her-
"Mara, baseball bat! Now!" She was jerked out of her thoughts by the Doctor, and pulled out the bat without thinking. She handed it to him and Donna exclaimed. "How the hell did you fit that in your pocket?"
"The TARDIS has clothes that have pockets that are bigger on the inside." Amara shrugged as the Doctor backed away. She gasped and grabbed onto the railing as he disturbed the cradle a bit while doing so.
"Right then, you both might want to duck." He murmured, and the two of them thankfully obeyed him as he swung the bat and hit the glass, shattering it. Amara shut her eyes tightly and covered her head with her hands. However, the glass particles thankfully seemed to fall inside and not outside, so they were safe. For the time being.
She slowly got up as the Doctor yelled at the two of them to get inside. She looked up and saw Miss Foster point her sonic pen at the wire holding the cradle. "Doctor!" She pointed upwards. He looked up, pointed his sonic screwdriver at her hand, making her drop her sonic pen, which he caught.
In the meantime, Amara got into the office, careful to avoid stepping on any of the glass. She stepped over all the glass shards and powder and looked up, only to notice Penny Carter, who was still tied up to the chair. "Hello," He smiled and gave her an awkward wave just as the Doctor got into the office, thankfully not injuring himself on any glass.
"Is anyone gonna tell me what the hell is going on?" Penny demanded as Donna started talking to the Doctor. The two of them ignored her, but Amara shrugged. "Well, Miss Foster almost killed us, but we escaped because of a sonic screwdriver and a baseball bat."
"What?" Penny looked at her like she'd gone completely insane.
"You're a journalist, aren't you?" The Doctor said, handing Amara the baseball bat, which she was grateful to have brought along with her despite her thinking it would be unnecessary (But what if you need it for self defence? Her mind had protested, and as usual, she gave in).
"Yeah?"
"Make it up!" The Doctor shrugged, and grabbed onto Amara's hand after she finished putting her bat back into one of the numerous inside pockets of the coat. The three of them ran outside the room, only for the Doctor to come back in and free Penny of her restraints and yell at her to run before running back outside.
The three of them ran down a corridor, only to come face to face with Miss Foster and her bodyguards. Amara backed away, glancing at their guns nervously as the Doctor and Donna said hello to her.
"I see, Partners in Crime. And evidently off-worlders, judging by your sonic technology." He nodded at the screwdriver the Doctor was holding.
The Doctor pulled out her sonic pen. "Oh, yes, I've still got your sonic pen. Nice. I like it. Sleek. It's kind of sleek." He showed it to Donna, who nodded.
"Oh, it's definitely sleek." She turned to Amara and offered her a smile, "What do you think?"
Amara shrugged, looking at the pen for a moment before turning to the bodyguards again, "I guess." She knew they weren't really going to do anything, but the fact that they were pointing the guns at her and her friends really unsettled her.
"And if you were to sign your real name, that would be?" The Doctor asked, holding up the pen after casting a quick glance at Amara.
"Matron Cofelia of the Five Straighten Classabindi Nursery Fleet. Intergalactic Class."
"A wet nurse." The Doctor nodded slowly, "And you're using humans as surrogates."
"I've been employed by the Adiposian First Family to foster a new generation after their breeding planet was lost."
"What do you mean 'lost'?" The Doctor frowned. "How do you lose a planet?"
"Oh, politics are none of my concern. I'm just here to take care of the children on behalf of the parents."
"So what, you're like an outer space super nanny?"
"Yes, if you like." She nodded.
"So. So those little things, they're, they're made out of fat, yeah, but that woman, Stacy Campbell, there was nothing left of her."
"Oh, in a crisis the Adipose can convert bone and hair and internal organs. Makes them a little bit sick, poor things."
It also made Amara slightly sick. She automatically put a hand on her stomach, swallowing slowly.
"Well, what about poor Stacy?" Donna demanded.
"Seeding a level five planet is against galactic law." The Doctor said seriously.
"Are you threatening me?"
"I'm trying to help you, Matron. This is your one chance, because if you don't call this off, then I'll have to stop you."
"I hardly think you can stop bullets." Matron Cofelia shrugged, and the bodyguards cocked their guns. Amara jumped and closed her eyes, her heart giving a painful jolt.
"No, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. One more thing, before dying." The Doctor said, moving towards Amara. "Do you know what happens if you hold two identical sonic devices against each other?"
"No."
"Well, neither do I!" The Doctor held the pen and the screwdriver together, and Amara quickly slammed her hands over her ears. But even that wasn't enough to stop the ear-piercing noise from reaching her ears. She only wondered how bad it would've been for the people who had no warning at all.
Just as the Matron and her guards were distracted by the noise, the Doctor grabbed onto Amara's hand and the three of them ran towards the corridor exit.
They ran down to the basement and managed to stop the Matron from formulating her backup plan which she decided to do because of the Doctor. However, quite a few Adipose babies were created and the Adiposian first family was called. They picked up all the Adipose babies and took them into their ship. However, they killed Matron Cofelia as they knew that she had committed a crime and wanted to eliminate their accomplice as soon as possible.
After this, the Doctor, Amara and Donna left the building and a few roundabout conversations and misunderstandings later, came to an agreement that Donna was going to come with them.
After they surprised Donna's grandfather by flying across the sky above her house, Amara decided that they'd all had a pretty hectic day and that she was going to give Donna a short tour of the TARDIS before going to sleep, and the Doctor decided to tag along because he felt like he had nothing better to do.
"So, basically, the rooms of the TARDIS keep changing places every day, and it's completely random," Amara said as they were walking down one of the coral corridors, "I've tried mapping out every single possible pattern there is-"
"Something you should never do, the TARDIS thrives on unpredictability and making her predictable by doing some boring nonsense like making a map would just make her cross." The Doctor finished Amara's sentence.
"If you don't remember, the 'boring nonsense like making a map' was what saved your ass in faux Atlantis."
The Doctor pouted at her as Donna snickered into her hand. "Oi, stop laughing." The Doctor scowled at her, but that just made her laugh more. Amara giggled as well, and he rolled his eyes. "Is that why you like my companions so much? So that you all can laugh at me?"
Donna laughed harder at that, but Amara shook her head, placing her hand on the wall. "Sorry, it's just- it's just that you're always hilarious when people laugh at you."
"I'm sorry for not liking when people gang up on me."
"We're not-" Amara took a deep breath, trying to prevent the laughter, "We're not laughing at you."
"Oh really, because it looked like you were."
"Well, can you blame us, Spaceman?" The Doctor turned to Donna, frowning at her new nickname for him. "It's not our fault you always end up doing something completely stupid and laugh-worthy all the time, is it?"
"Stupid and laugh-worthy?!" He turned to Amara, who shrugged, pursing her lips together tightly.
He groaned. "Oh, this is brilliant. Fantastic." He shook his head.
Amara shook her head, laughing, just as she felt the familiar warmth start to flood her fingers. She opened her eyes immediately and stared at her hand, which had started to glow. "Oh no…"
"What's happening to her?" Donna pointed at Amara, her eyes widening. The Doctor turned to her and blinked, a glimmer of sadness in his eyes.
"I'm gonna miss you." Amara tried to smile at him, and he smiled back. "Don't. You're gonna see me soon, I promise."
"What do you mean, what's happening to her?!"
She patted his arm and turned to Donna, waving weakly as the gold light bega to take over her vision. "Bye, Donna."
"Doctor, what the hell is going on?!" She heard Donna demanding as everything went black.
