Chapter 26 The One where the Doctor Dances
Sorry for the delay! To make up for it it's a longunnnn! The last twenty minutes of so of this ep really was action packed!
I own nothing recognisable x
The Doctor walked towards the radio cautiously, before raising his eyebrows at the girls and reaching behind it, pulling out a bundle of cut wires. "How are you speaking to us?" He asked the grainy voice of the captain who had been in the room mere seconds before.
"Om-Com." Came the response. "I can call anything with a speaker grill."
"Now there's a coincidence." The Doctor commented, looking down at Florence, who was frowning at the radio.
"What is?" Jack asked.
"The child can Om-Com too…" The Doctor told them, and Rose looked at him in concern,
"He can?" She asked, and the Doctor nodded.
"Anything with a speaker grill."
"The TARDIS phone." Florence muttered, remembering the Doctor's confusion over the police phone box's ringing.
Rose looked between the two of them in confusion, having missed the excitement of the TARDIS phone ringing when she was hanging from a blimp. "Hang on, you mean the child can phone us?"
The Doctor opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by a much younger voice replacing Jack's American twang on the radio in front of them. "And I can hear you… coming to find you!" He began to sing. "Coming to find you!"
"Doctor, can you hear that?" Jack asked from his safe space on his ship, and Florence looked around the small room they were trapped in, knowing the creepy child was on his way.
"Yeah, just slightly!" She told the Captain, who huffed out a slight laugh in response over the Om-Com,
"Alrighty, Flo, I'll try and block out the signal. Least I can do."
There was a crackle of static from the radio as the child's voice came through the grill once more. "Coming to find you, mummy!"
"Remember this one, Rose?" Jack asked, before the soft music of an old-timey orchestra filtered through the speaker, overpowering the voice of the child.
Florence looked at Rose and raised her eyebrow, causing the blonde to shrug and blush slightly. "It's uh, our song…" She mumbled before turning away, the Doctor covering a gentle laugh with a cough as he continued to find a way for them to escape.
Florence sighed as she leaned against the wall for the second time, her five minutes in the wheelchair over and the valuable seat handed to Rose for the next cycle. She turned her head to watch the Doctor face the wall near the window, pointing his screwdriver at it after a second of patting it down and letting the high pitched noise echo through the silent room. She let him continue for a moment before clearing her throat slightly.
"What are you doing?" She asked gently, noticing his shoulders tense slightly at the sudden interruption.
"Trying to set up a resonation pattern in the concrete, loosen the bars." He explained as if it were a perfectly rational plan of action.
"Right, might be being a bit ungrateful, but the seven story drop still isn't the best solution!" Florence complained, thinking back to the bare garden that surrounded the hospital, not a bush in sight to break their fall.
"You're right..." The Doctor nodded, and Florence sighed,
"Finally, some acknowledgement."
"You're being very ungrateful." The Doctor finished, with a satisfied smile in place. "Now let me get on with my plan."
Rose spun around in the wheelchair to look at him accusingly, "You don't think he's coming back, do ya?"
"Wouldn't bet my life on it…" The Doctor mumbled harshly.
"Why don't you trust him?" Rose questioned.
"Why do you?"
She sighed at his response. "He saved my life." She told him plainly, and Florence had to admit it was a good enough reason, better than her telling the Doctor something spoiler-y about his future with them in the TARDIS. "Bloke-wise, that's up there with flossing." Florence let out a laugh at that. "I trust him because he's like you… except with dating and dancing."
"She's got you there!" Florence commented, remembering his stark refusal to dance at Donna's not-wedding reception. The Doctor huffed. "What? She does!"
"You just… Both of you just assume I-" He cut himself off with a slight grunt of agitation, Rose prompted him with raised eyebrows.
"We what?"
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "You just assume that I don't dance." Florence laughed,
"You don't!"
"What?" Rose asked incredulously, looking at Florence in support. "Are you telling me you do dance?"
The Doctor straightened his shoulders slightly, "Nine hundred years old, me. I've been around a bit." He turned his eyes back to the wall stubbornly. "I think you can assume at some point I've danced." Florence raised her eyebrows at his emphasis on 'dance', suddenly very aware that the three of them had inadvertently stumbled upon a conversation that was not about dancing.
Rose kept swinging around in her wheelchair, tongue between her teeth as she grinned up at him.
"You?" She asked, and the Doctor huffed again,
"Problem?" He asked, slightly warningly but Rose refused to back down,
"Doesn't the universe implode or something if you dance?"
The Doctor turned slightly and caught Florence's eye quickly before resuming his task. "Well, I've got the moves but I wouldn't want to boast."
Rose stood from her spot and reached over to turn the volume of the radio up, the trumpeting orchestra echoing throughout the room. The Doctor looked over at her before stubbornly facing the wall.
"You've got the moves?" She asked, holding out her hand to him. "Show me your moves." She challenged him, causing Florence to laugh slightly.
The Doctor turned to look at her. "Rose, I'm trying to resonate concrete." Florence smiled at him before stepping up next to him on the chest he stood on.
"Go on, Doctor." She smirked, placing her hand over his that held the screwdriver and attempted to take it from him. "Dance with Rose, I'll resonate the concrete." He looked down at her hand that gently resting on his own and hesitated.
"Jack'll be back." Rose added. "He'll get us out… so come on. The world doesn't end because the Doctor dances." The Doctor still hadn't taken his eyes off Florence's hand, instead he took a hold of it in his left and ran his thumb over her soft skin gently.
"Barrage balloon?" He muttered, causing her to frown.
"Sorry?" He dropped her hand and put his screwdriver back into his jacket pocket, turning and jumping off the box to stand in front of Rose, holding a hand out to Florence to help her down, which she accepted with a slight roll of her eyes - she had managed to get up there on her own with little trouble.
"You said you were hanging from a barrage balloon." He reminded Rose, grabbing her hands and inspecting them as she spoke.
"Oh, yeah. About two minutes after you left me. Thousands of feet above London, middle of a German air-raid, ginger spice all over my chest!" She added, looking over at Florence and laughing slightly.
The Doctor was flipping her hands over. "I've travelled with a lot of people, but you're setting new records for jeopardy friendly."
"Is this you dancing?" Rose asked with a smirk. "Because I've got notes."
"Hanging from a rope thousands of feet above London." The Doctor continued. "Not a cut, not a bruise."
Rose nodded, looking at her hands too. "Yeah, I know, Captain Jack fixed me up." The Doctor raised his eyebrows,
"Oh, we're calling him Captain Jack now, are we?" Rose rolled her eyes,
"Well, his name's Jack and he's a Captain." She retorted, causing the Doctor to frown,
"He's not really a Captain, Rose."
Florence laughed at the Doctor's grumbling, "Says you!" The Doctor turned to glare at her, mouth opened in response but was cut off by Rose's laughter,
"Do you know what I think? I think you're experiencing Captain envy!" She told him, before manoeuvring his arms into a classic waltz position. "You'll find your feet at the end of your legs. You may care to move them."
"If ever he was a captain he's been defrocked." The Doctor told her stubbornly.
"Yeah? Shame I missed that." Rose quipped, swaying them lightly. Florence went to turn up the speaker once more before feeling a strange tingling in her fingertips, she snapped her eyes up to the back of the Doctor's head to warn him before looking around to realise that somehow in a split second the three of them had managed to escape the room without the need to resonate concrete.
"Actually, I quit." Came the smooth American from the pilot's chair in front of Florence. "Nobody takes my frock." The Doctor and Rose suddenly turned at the interruption, both having been distracted with their argument. "Most people notice when they've been teleported. You guys are so sweet." The Doctor looked back at Florence, giving her a quick look up and down as if to ask if she was alright, to which she smiled in return. "Sorry about the delay. I had to take the nav-com offline to override the teleport security."
"You can spend ten minutes overriding your own protocols?" The Doctor threw at the Captain, with barely concealed judgement. "Maybe you should remember whose ship it is."
"Oh, I do." Jack replied, a charming grin etched on his face. "She was gorgeous. Like I told her, be back in five minutes." He gave them all a cheeky wink before going under the controls to tamper with some wires.
"This is a Chula ship." The Doctor commented, looking around.
"Yeah," Jack confirmed, "just like that medical transporter. Only this one is dangerous."
The Doctor clicked his fingers, and a golden glow of what looked a bit like cartoon fireflies surrounded his hand, Florence started slightly at their appearance. "What the hell are they?"
"They're what fixed my hands up!" Rose told her, before frowning slightly. "Jack called them, er…"
"Nanobots?" The Doctor wondered. "Nanogenes?" Rose nodded,
"Nanogenes, yeah."
"Sub-atomic robots." The Doctor explained. "There's millions of them in here, see?" He wiggled his fingers slightly as the nanogenes continued to inspect his hand. "Burned my hand on the console when we landed. All better now. They activate when the bulk head's sealed. Check you out for damage, fix up any physical flaws." He swatted the golden dust away with a flick of his wrist before turning back to Jack. "Take us to the crash site. I need to see your space junk." He nodded,
"As soon as I get the nav-com back online." He sat back in his pilot's chair. "Make yourself comfortable. Carry on with whatever it was you were… doing."
"We were talking about dancing." The Doctor told him defensively, and Jack raised his eyebrows,
"It didn't look like talking."
"Didn't feel like dancing." Rose mumbled, and the Doctor turned to Florence with an offended face,
"Florence, will you please...?" He motioned the other two, in a vague cry for help.
The brunette laughed in response, "Don't look at me, McGyver, you're the one refusing to dance!"
There was a sudden silence in the Chula ship as the Doctor turned away from his last hope, pouting, broken only by Rose clearly her throat after a moment.
"So," she began, "you used to be a Time Agent, now you're trying to con them?" Jack shrugged slightly,
"If it makes me sound any better, it's not for the money." Florence raised her eyebrows,
"Oh yeah? What for, then?"
Jack sighed slightly before turning away from the fiddling of controls, "Woke up one morning when I was still working for them, found they'd stolen two years of my memories. I'd like them back." He explained simply, as if it didn't hurt him to have been betrayed like that.
"They stole your memories?" Rose asked incredulously, and Jack nodded,
"Two years of my life. No idea what I did." His eyes flickered over to the Doctor briefly. "Your friend over there doesn't trust me, and for all I know… he's right not to." Florence looked down at her hands at that, she felt oddly guilty not to be able to reassure either of the men that Jack could be trusted, from what she knew of the man at least. One of the screens next to him beeped, distracting them all from the dark turn the conversation had taken. "Okay, we're good to go. Crash site?"
Florence looked around in concern as the foursome trawled through the seemingly unoccupied military site, she was unnerved by the lack of patrol and the foreboding sense that something terrible was due to happen at any moment. It always seemed to be when things were at their quietest that the Doctor found himself in the most amount of trouble. Jack pointed ahead of them, where there was a figure striding back and forth in front of a young soldier in the light,
"There it is." He told them, as they crouched behind a barrier, trying to maintain an illusion of secrecy that Florence was sure would fail at any moment. "Hey, they've got Algy on duty… must be important."
"We've gotta get past." The Doctor told them, and Rose smiled slyly,
"Are the words, 'distract the guard' heading in mine or Florence's general directions?" She asked, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she straightened her jacket, only for Jack to place a hand on her arm to stop her in her tracks.
"I don't think that's such a good idea." Florence nodded in agreement,
"He's right, too dangerous, plus we stick out like sore thumbs…" Jack chuckled slightly,
"Uh, not that… I've gotten to know Algy quite well since I've been in town. Trust me, you're not his type… I'll distract him." He winked coyly at the three of them as he began to walk off. "Don't wait up."
He wandered down towards the officer while Rose scoffed slightly in confusion.
"What?" Florence laughed slightly, turning to see the Doctor holding back a laugh of his own, but not hiding the slight grin on his face.
"Relax!" He told the blonde. "He's a fifty-first century guy, he's just a bit more flexible when it comes to dancing." Florence laughed again,
"So much dancing!"
"How flexible?" Rose asked, a hint of curiosity and judgement clouding her voice.
The Doctor shrugged slightly, waving his hand around as if it were no big deal. "Well, by his time, you lot have spread out across half the galaxy."
"Meaning?" Rose asked, eyebrows raised.
"So many species, so little time." The Doctor sang with a slight grin, and Florence looked over at the handsome captain who had no difficulty flirting with anyone he met, clearly no matter the time period. Rose scoffed slightly, and Florence had a feeling it was more to do with her small crush on the guy rather than her apparent distaste for the future of humanity.
"What, that's what we do when we get out there? That's our mission? We seek new life and… and…?"
"Dance." Florence finished for her simply, causing the blonde to roll her eyes and huff slightly, focusing her attention back on the objection of her attraction flirting with a 1940s Army captain. "Either way, Rose, I don't think you're missing much," Florence commented, nodding her head to the image in front of them, "might need you to step in after all." The three of them watched curiously as Jack tried it on, only for his companion to retch to the side a few times in response.
"Something isn't right." The Doctor murmured worriedly, stepping out from behind their makeshift cover and running towards the twosome. Florence gasped as they came to a stop beside a fully transformed gas masked figure, just like the ones at the hospital.
"Doctor, how…?"
"Stay back!" The Doctor ordered, holding a hand up to a handful of soldiers who had tried to approach, Jack stepping forward and following suit, looking a little more authoritative in his captain's uniform. "The effect has become air-borne, accelerating."
"So, we could be next?" Florence asked, looking between the Doctor and the prone figure on the floor, just as the air raid siren began wailing once again.
"What's keeping us safe?" Rose asked, and the Doctor shook his head slightly,
"Nothing."
Jack looked up at the sky with a groan, catching sight of the oncoming airplanes. "Here they come again." He muttered, Rose nodding in agreement,
"All we need. Didn't you say a bomb was going to land here?" Florence closed her eyes in frustration, she had forgotten about the godawful bomb that was going to earn Jack a quick hit of money.
"Never mind the bomb." The Doctor told them. "If the contaminants are airborne, there's only hours left."
"For what?" Jack asked.
"Til nothing, forever." The Doctor said plainly, Florence stepped back slightly, running her hands through her hair, she hoped the Doctor had some kind of plan. "For the entire human race." Okay, he didn't sound too hopeful.
She stopped suddenly. There was something faintly coming through the site, it was barely there but she was sure she could hear -
"Is someone singing?" She asked, looking back and forth between the Doctor and the soldiers that had tried to approach. "I can hear singing." Everyone was silent for a moment, and sure enough the soft sound of a woman singing was drifting out from the cracks in the wood of the hut nearby and across the bomb site. Without a word from the Doctor, Florence headed towards the building nearby where there was a slightly ajar door with a stream of light trickling out of it.
She gently pushed the door open slightly further to poke her head around to, only to find the street urchin who had managed to evade hers and the Doctor's questions on at least three separate occasions, sitting, handcuffed to the table singing softly to the sleeping gas masked soldier opposite her.
"Rockabye baby, on the tree tops… when the wind blows the cradle will rock…" Florence put her finger to her lips before gesturing to the young girl to keep singing, feeling the Doctor slide around her and into the room quietly. He crouched on the floor next to her and pulled out his sonic screwdriver, and Florence cringed in anticipation for the familiar whirring that usually came with it, but the Doctor moved quickly, pulling the loose cuffs off of Nancy and ushering her back out of the room before the soldier could even stir.
Florence sighed in relief before closing the door gently behind her, following the others back towards the bombsite.
Rose flinched under the blinding lights that Jack had switched on in order to help see the empty husk of an aircraft that he had promised them. He pulled off the dust cover with a flourish and what appeared was a steel-ish type of material in the shape that she had seen floating through the vortex on the TARDIS' scanner, something that felt like years ago as she stood in a World War Two bombsite.
"You see? Just an ambulance." Jack declared, watching the Doctor walk around the shell inspecting it intently. Rose placed her arm around the young girl that Florence had introduced to her as 'Nancy' as she tried to step forward for a closer look.
"That's an ambulance?" She asked, and Rose shook her head lightly,
"It's hard to explain, it's… from another world." This was certainly harder to explain to the 1940s girl than it had been to convince Adam that she had in fact brought him to a satellite in the year 200,000, although she guessed at least Adam had seen Star Trek by 2012, poor Nancy hadn't even been subjected to Flash Gordon yet.
"They've been trying to get in." Florence noted, standing on her tiptoes to get a look at the top of the shuttle, where there seemed to be a slight hatch. "More secure than it looks."
The Doctor nodded. "They think they've got their hands of Hitler's latest secret weapon, of course they've been trying to pry it open. What are you doing?" He asked Jack, who had begun to type something into the keypad.
"The sooner you see this thing is empty, the sooner you'll know I had nothing to do with it." As if by some ironic hand of God, the moment the words left his mouth there was a flash of sparks followed by a blaring alarm that echoed through the courtyard. "Well, that didn't happen last time!"
"So much for incognito." Florence muttered from Rose's side, having sprung back in alarm.
"It didn't crash last time." The Doctor explained blankly. "There'll be emergency protocols."
Rose stepped forward, catching a glimpse of a flashing red light, almost like a beacon. "Doctor, what is that?" She asked, but Florence grabbed her arm in panic before he could respond.
"Never mind that!" She pointed to the wooden doors that kept the gas masked soldiers away, being shaken back and forth by a force that Rose presumed came from the creatures themselves.
"Captain, secure those gates!"
"Why?" Jack asked, but the Doctor simply glared at him,
"Just do it!" He turned to the young girl. "Nancy, how'd you get in here?" He asked her quickly, and she pointed behind her,
"I cut the wire." The Doctor nodded and reached into his jacket, pulling out his screwdriver and tossing it to Florence,
"Show Florence. Setting two thousand four hundred and twenty eight D." Florence looked down at the silver contraption she held with a blank stare.
"Huh?"
"It reattaches barbed wire, now go!" Rose grabbed the brunette's arm and pulled her away from the crash site, following Nancy as she led them to the hole in the fence she had made.
"I don't… How do you…?" Rose gently took the screwdriver from the younger Florence with a smile before crouching down in front of the fence and gesturing to Nancy to hold the pieces together.
"I got it." She assured her, holding down the button and aiming it towards the problem as she had seen the Doctor do countless times before. It was moments like these where Florence's experience - or lack thereof - showed, moments when she didn't understand one of the Doctor's rambling trains of thoughts, or a story that should have been between only the two of them, or when he expected her to just know exactly what he was thinking at any given time. She felt slightly bad for the girl, if a little part of her wasn't also a bit chuffed to be able to prove herself to the Doctor instead and show off a little in front of the two people she admired most in the world.
"Who are you?" Nancy asked, drawing Rose out of her musings. "Who are any of you?"
Florence laughed slightly. "Trust me, best not to ask."
"You'd never believe us anyway." Rose assured her, and received a frown in return.
"You just told me that was an ambulance from another world! There are people running round with gas mask heads calling for their mummies, and the sky's full of Germans dropping bombs on me." She looked at the two other girls firmly. "Tell me, do you think there's anything left I couldn't believe?" Rose shared a look with Florence, raising her eyebrows slightly, before nodding to herself.
"Right, okay then…" She took a breath. "We're time travellers from the future." She told Nancy simply, and the girl automatically shook her head,
"Mad, you are!"
"We have a time machine and all." Florence chipped in, but Nancy looked between the two of them with a slightly sad expression.
"It's not that." She told them. "Alright, you've got a time machine, I believe ya. Believe anything, me. But… what future?" She looked up at the sky full of explosions and enemy planes, and Rose gave her a soft smile, she understood her pessimism.
"Nancy, this isn't the end." She promised. "I know how it looks, but it's not the end of the world or anything."
"How can you say that?" Nancy asked incredulously. "Look at it!"
Rose stopped fiddling with the screwdriver and looked Nancy in the eyes. "Listen to me." She smiled at her. "I was born in this city. I'm from here. In like… fifty years time." Nancy frowned, shaking her head.
"From here?" Rose nodded,
"I'm a Londoner. From your future."
"Trust her, Nancy." Florence told the younger girl softly.
"But… she's not…" Nancy looked at the blonde curiously. "You're not…"
"Not what?" Rose asked.
"German." Nancy breathed out shakily.
Rose shook her head. "Nancy, the Germans don't come here. They don't win." She reassured her, and Florence took the girl's hands into her own.
"Fuck it." Rose heard her whisper slightly to herself. "You know what, Nancy? Don't tell the Doctor I told you but… you win."
That was probably the first time Rose had ever heard Florence break one of her own rules about what she could and couldn't tell people about the future, and Rose would be lying if she wasn't curious to see how much more she could get out of the time jumper before she closed up again.
"We win?" Nancy asked, and Florence let go of her hands, slapping her thighs sharply and jumping up, inspecting their rewiring with a nod.
"Come on then ladies. Let's see what trouble the boys have got up to in our absence."
Rose pursed her lips slightly, there went that fleeting moment of hope.
The three of them made it back to the crash site with the alarm still blaring but one small change, the hatch had been opened by Jack, who was still adamantly pleading his innocence.
"What would you expect in a Chula medical transporter? Bandages? Cough drops?" The Doctor asked sardonically, before turning to Rose. "Rose?" He asked the blonde, who shook her head,
"I dunno." The Doctor smiled at her before holding his hands up in front of him, posing slightly,
"Yes, you do." Rose's face lit up when she realised just what the Time Lord was hinting at.
"Nanogenes!"
"It wasn't empty, Captain." The Doctor told him. "There was enough nanogenes in there to rebuild an entire species."
Jack looked horrified. "Oh, God."
The smile was gone from the Doctor's face. "Getting it now, are we? When the ship crashes, the nanogenes escape. Billions upon billions of them, ready to fix all the cuts and bruises in the whole world. But what they find first is a dead child, probably killed earlier that night, and wearing a gas mask." Florence covered her mouth in disgust at the image he was conjuring.
"They brought him back to life?" She asked quietly. "They can do that?"
"What's life? Life's easy. A quirk of matter." He folded his arms tightly across his chest. "Nature's way of keeping meat fresh. Nothing to a nanogene. One problem, though. These nanogenes, they're not like the ones on your ship. This lot have never seen a human being before. Don't know what a human being's supposed to look like. All they've got to go on is one little body, and there's not a lot left. But they carry right on. They do what they're programmed to do. They patch it up. Can't tell what's gas mask and what's skull, but they do their best. Then off they fly, off they go, work to be done. Because, you see, now they think they know what people should look like, and it's time to fix all the rest. And they won't ever stop. They won't ever, ever stop. The entire human race is going to be torn down and rebuilt in the form of one terrified child looking for its mother, and nothing in the world can stop it!" He ended his rant shouting, and Jack looked suitably cowed by his anger,
"I didn't know." He still maintained, and the Doctor shook his head at the con man, moving past Florence and Rose to get to the head of the shuttle to continue examining it. Rose and Jack awkwardly moved to the side, both not wishing to get in the warpath of the angry Time Lord, while Florence swallowed her own apprehension and gently placed a hand on his leather clad shoulder, which stiffened automatically before relaxing ever so slightly under the pressure.
"Rose!" Came Nancy's voice from a few feet away, and Florence turned her head away from the back of the Doctor's to see what had caught the girl's attention, a gaggle of patients led by what seemed to be the figure of Doctor Constantine, all heading towards them. Rose ran back to the shuttle and glanced at the red flashing light that was still going.
"It's bringing the gas mask people here, isn't it?" She asked the Doctor, who looked away from the wiring for a moment.
"The ship thinks it's under attack. It's calling up the troops. Standard protocol."
"But they're not soldiers? Not all of them." Rose argued, but the Doctor shrugged,
"They are now. This is a battle-field ambulance." He explained. "The nanogenes don't just fix you up, they get you ready for the front line. Equip you, programme you…" Florence thought back to the strength of the child who was able to punch a hole through a concrete wall,
"That's why the child could call the TARDIS… and break out of his room…"
The Doctor nodded. "It's a fully equipped Chula warrior, yes. All that weapons tech in the hands of a hysterical four year old child crying out for his mummy. And now there's an army of them." Florence watched the army of patients stop at the barbed wire, patiently waiting for something.
"What are they waiting for?" She asked the Doctor, who had finally stopped fussing with the controls of the shuttle.
"Good little soldiers, waiting for their commander." He told her, and Jack glanced at him,
"The child?"
"Jamie." Nancy cut in quickly, causing the four time travellers to look at her, but she simply continued to look sternly at Jack, who looked mildly confused,
"What?" He asked almost dismissively.
"Not 'the child'..." Nancy corrected him. "Jamie."
Rose looked at the Doctor, drawing their attention away from the tension between the two. "How long until the bomb falls?"
Jack answered for the Doctor, not even sparing a moment to glance at his watch. "Any second now."
"What's the matter, Captain?" The Doctor asked him snarkily. "A bit too close to the volcano for you?"
"He's just a little boy…" Nancy told the Doctor, clearly fearful not of the gas-masked patients that were heading towards them but of the idea of a little boy being harmed in the middle of it all.
"I know." The Doctor tried to comfort her, but she shook her head.
"He's just a little boy who wants his mummy." She told them, and the Doctor tried to catch her eye as she refused to look at anyone.
"I know. There isn't a little boy born who wouldn't tear the world apart to save his mummy." He looked around at the crash site, listening to the whistles of bombs falling around them. "And this little boy can."
"So what are we gonna do?" Rose asked, having to raise her voice slightly over the noises of the war. The Doctor shook his head,
"I don't know." The two girls who had arrived with the Time Lord blindly reached for each others' hands at his statement, neither ever finding comfort when one heard the Doctor use that term.
"It's my fault." Nancy suddenly told them, and Florence immediately shot her down,
"No, Nancy…"
"It is. It's all my fault." She repeated, blinking away tears.
The Doctor stepped closer to her. "How can it be your-" He was cut off by the voices of the masked patients that had gathered around them growing louder.
"Mummy! Mummy! Mummy…" They all looked around to see if the child had arrived, but Florence couldn't spot his tiny body out of the hundreds that had gathered. She caught the Doctor's eye, just in time to see them light up with some sort of breakthrough.
"Nancy, what age are you?" He asked her, causing Florence to frown at the timing to ask such odd questions. "Twenty? Twenty-one? Older than you look, yes?" Florence looked at Nancy, trying to suddenly spot a single grey hair, or wrinkles - as if being twenty suddenly marked you down as decrepit and past your prime. She wondered whether Nancy's old soul came from having to look after the children on the streets or whether it was from in fact having a good decade on them. The sound of a bomb exploded so close to where they were standing distracted them from questioning Nancy for a brief moment, the orange glow of a fire erupting nearby caused Florence's face to momentarily flush warm.
"Doctor, that bomb." Jack reminded him. "We've got seconds."
Rose turned to him quickly, an escape route suddenly occurring to her. "You can teleport us out!" The former Time Agent shook his head,
"Not you guys. The nav-com's back online, gonna take too long to override the protocols." The Doctor didn't tear his eyes away from Nancy as he responded,
"So, it's volcano day. Do what you've got to do." Jack looked conflicted, causing Rose to look at him with hurt etched across her face,
"Jack?" She asked him incredulously, as he gave her one last look before holding us his device and vanishing in a blue light. Florence knew that Rose was upset by his abandonment, and tightened her grip on her friend's hand in comfort.
The Doctor had barely blinked at the con man's departure, eyes still glued to Nancy. "How old were you five years ago? Fifteen? Sixteen?" She couldn't look at him, starting to cry quietly. "Old enough to give birth anyway." Florence took a sharp breath in, realising where the Doctor was going, and why Nancy called out Jamie's name only moments beforehand. "He's not your brother, is he? A teenage single mother in 1941." She nodded tearfully. "So you hid. You lied. You even lied to him." Nancy opened her mouth to respond but the sound of creaking metal stopped her, all eyes turning to the swinging gate of the bomb site, and the little boy who had opened it. Rose dropped Florence's hand as she backed away ever so slightly, looking around for their next plan.
"Are you my mummy?" He asked.
"He's going to keep asking, Nancy." The Doctor told her, firmly but kindly. "He's never going to stop. Tell him." Nancy was trying to control her breathing, deep shuddering breaths escaping her.
"Mummy?" He asked again, as he began to walk towards them, his loyal army following behind.
"Nancy, the future of the human race is in your hands." The Doctor warned her. "Trust me and tell him."
Florence stepped next to the Doctor and smiled softly at the brave young woman who had helped them even when she hadn't wanted to. "Trust him, Nancy."
She swallowed hard, blinking back her tears and nodding, turning to face the secret she had hidden for the last five years.
"Are you my mummy?" Jamie asked again, and Nancy stepped closer to him, shakily nodding her head.
"Yes." She told him. "Yes, I am your mummy?"
"Mummy?" Jamie asked again, still stepping closer.
"I'm here." Nancy tried again, but Jamie still asked,
"Are you my mummy?" A wave of worry came over Florence, that Jamie wasn't really in there, that the Doctor's theory - whatever it was - wasn't going to work.
Nancy crouched to Jamie's level just as he reached her. "Yes." She said firmly.
"Are you my mummy?" Florence grabbed onto the leather sleeve of the Doctor's jacket,
"Doctor?" She whispered, looking up at his slightly worried face.
"He doesn't understand. There's not enough of him left." Whether or not Nancy heard him or not, she refused to give up, telling him again and again,
"I am your mummy. I will always be your mummy. I'm so sorry." She reached up and wrapped her arms around her little boy, and a swarm of nanogenes surrounding them, casting a golden hue over the bomb site. "I'm so, so sorry."
"What's happening?" Rose asked, ready to step forward and help Nancy. "Doctor, it's changing her! We should-" The Doctor waved her off, stopping her from moving any closer,
"Shh! Come on, please! Come on, you clever little nanogenes." He urged. "Figure it out! The mother, she's the mother!" The golden nanogenes were flitting between mother and son, back and forth in clusters. Florence couldn't quite work out what the Doctor was waiting for,
"What is it? What are they doing?" She asked and the Doctor grinned, pointing at the cluster as it focused on Jamie rather than Nancy,
"See! Recognising the same DNA!" Florence covered her mother in surprise as Nancy was thrown back and the nanogenes flew into the air, leaving Jamie standing. She ran to Nancy's side, to get her away in case whatever was meant to happen hadn't worked, Rose joining her as they helped the young woman to her feet.
"Are you okay?" She asked Nancy who nodded slightly, looking over at her son,
"Is he…? Is he okay?" They turned to see the Doctor standing tentatively in front of Jamie, arms spread out wide,
"Oh, come on! Gimme a day like this! Give me this one!" He approached the little boy carefully and reached out, gently pulling on the mouth of the gas mask and finally, finally, releasing it from Jamie's head, revealing a mop of blonde hair and his bright eyes wide with confusion. "Ha-Ha!" The Doctor cheered, and Florence felt Nancy's shoulders sag with relief as she hugged the other woman. "Welcome back!" The Doctor lifted the little boy up from underneath his armpits, swinging him around and making him giggle. "Twenty years til pop music - you're gonna love it!"
Nancy was shocked at what she had just seen, watching the two interact. "What happened?" She asked with an incredulous laugh.
"The nanogenes recognised the superior information, the parent DNA!" The Doctor explained, passing the boy back over to his mother. "They didn't change you, because you changed them! HA! Mother knows best!"
Nancy clutched Jamie to her chest and laughed in relief, "Oh, Jamie." Rose suddenly looked up, panic etched across her face.
"Doctor, that bomb!" Florence looked up to see something hurling at them in the distance, but the Doctor didn't seem phased by it at all,
"Taken care of." He told the girls simply, and Florence tore her eyes away from the incoming bomb - which she couldn't quite believe she was even seeing - for a second to give him a disbelieving look,
"What do you mean 'taken care of'? How?!" She nearly yelled at him, but he gave her a smile,
"Psychology." As he spoke the bomb hurtled closer, only to be stopped in its tracks by a blue light beam emitting for a spaceship, holding it stationary a couple of feet from where they were standing, and a bit closer than Florence was comfortable with.
She squinted as she saw something attached to the bomb, and when the American accent echoed across the bombsite she realised that it was Captain Jack himself sitting astride the active German bomb.
"Doctor!"
"Good lad!" The Doctor called up to him.
"The bomb's already commenced detonation." The con man told him. "I've put it in stasis but it won't last long."
"Change of plan!" The Doctor shouted back, gesturing down to Nancy and her son. "Don't need the bomb. Can you get rid of it, safely as you can?" Jack nodded,
"Rose?"
The blonde looked up at him, slightly hopeful. "Yeah?"
"Goodbye." Florence could see his charming smile from where she was standing, before he disappeared. For all of two seconds, before he popped back for one final comment. "By the way, love the t-shirt!" Florence laughed as he disappeared once again, the same charming man she had met in her cafe all those months ago. The spaceship flew off into the sky and Florence rested her head on Rose's shoulder,
"He'll be alright." She murmured.
The Doctor stepped forward, raising his hands up and letting the golden hue of the nanogenes surround him. "What are you doing?" Rose asked him.
"Software patch." He responded, in classic Doctor fashion, as if that made all the sense in the world. "Going to email the upgrade." He turned back to give the girls a cheeky grin. "You wanted moves? I'll give you moves." He thrusted his hands out in front of him, throwing the nanogenes at the patients, causing them to fall to the ground. "Everybody lives! Just this once… everybody lives!"
Florence smiled. She couldn't stop smiling, her cheeks began to hurt with how wide she was smiling. She knew how much this meant to the Doctor. So many times she had to witness the Doctor fail to save someone, or leave someone behind, or simply be in the right place at the wrong time. It was bittersweet, the idea that for this Doctor it was 'just this once' when she knew that countless times he had saved more lives than he would ever realise, and countless times everyone lived.
The patients slowly began to stand, the gas masks had disappeared and they had regained their own mind once more, Doctor Constantine was the first one the Doctor ran to.
"Doctor Constantine." He called, greeting the man with a handshake and helping him stand. "Who never left his patients. Back on your feet, constant Doctor." Florence ran over to an older lady and helped her to her feet before handing her over to one of the nurses who was gathering patients together. She gave Constantine a large smile,
"Nice to see you again, Doctor."
"The world doesn't want to get by without you just yet, and I don't blame it one bit." He gestured around them. "These are all your patients. All better now."
Constantine looked around, clearly confused. "Yes, yes, so it seems. They also seem to be standing around in a disused railway station. Is there any particular reason for that?" The Doctor and Florence stared at each other for a moment, neither quite knowing where to start.
"Uhh… You know," Florence began, struggling to find the words, "cutbacks. Medical… cutbacks." The Doctor waved his hand in dismissal,
"Listen, whatever was wrong with them in the past, you're probably going to find that they're cured." He gave him a wide grin. "Just tell them what a great doctor you are. Don't make a big thing of it, okay?"
He didn't wait around long enough to let Constantine respond, simply giving him a pat on the back and grabbing Florence's hand, strolling back to the Chula warship. Florence laughed,
"So Doctor Constantine really was the Doctor."
"What do you mean?" He asked, and she nudged him with her arm, hand still attached to his,
"Well, helping people and not explaining how he managed it." He rolled his eyes at her and huffed a laugh, letting go of her hand and jumping on top of the ship, calling out to the crowd of former gas-masked drones.
"Right! You lot! Lots to do! Beat the Germans, save the world. Don't forget the welfare state!" He turned to his two companions as the crowd began to disperse. "Setting this to self-destruct, as soon as everyone's clear. History says there was an explosion here - and who am I to argue with history?"
Florence and Rose shared a look, before Florence smirked at him coyly. "Do you want us to answer that?"
"Because if you do then yeah, usually first in line."
The Doctor scoffed, but said nothing in response.
Florence sighed contently as the three of them approached the TARDIS, giving their incredible ship and loving pat as the Doctor reached into his pocket for his keys.
"Home, sweet home." She said with a laugh. "It's been a hell of a night." The Doctor swung the door open and gestured to Florence to go ahead of him.
"Only one night?" Rose asked incredulously. "God, feels like its been longer than that!" Rose strolled up the walkway and began to take her coat off, preparing to settle in for a night in the TARDIS. "So, what happens next?"
The Doctor grinned at them, bouncing around the console as if he had had four cups of coffee. "Well, nanogenes will clean up the mess and switch themselves off, because I just told them to." Florence gave him a thumbs up at that. "Nancy and Jamie will go to Doctor Constantine for help, ditto." Florence gave him another thumbs up. "All in all, all things considered, fantastic!"
Florence laughed, "Fantastic!" She agreed.
"Look at you," Rose commented, smiling at the Time Lord, "beaming away like you're Father Christmas."
"Who says I'm not?" He shot back, deadpan. "Red bicycle when you were twelve." Rose's smile dropped,
"What?" She asked, and Florence looked to and from them both,
"He's clearly kidding." She looked at him again. "I think."
"And everybody lives, you two! Everybody lives!" He continued to celebrate his achievement, throwing an arm around Florence's shoulder and giving her a little shake, causing her to roll her eyes, smiling. "I need more days like this."
"Doctor..." Rose was quiet from across the console, and Florence turned to see that the smile had fallen from her face. The Doctor, on the other hand, hadn't noticed.
"Go on, ask me anything. I'm on fire!"
"What about Jack? Why'd he say goodbye?"
There was a moment of silence. Florence turned to face the Doctor, she hadn't thought about it, truthfully. She supposed there was one of many problems with knowing someone's future, she was used to the idea that she simply had to see them again, and therefore they were always going to survive. And maybe, maybe, that wasn't always the case.
"We can help him." She said, half to herself and half to reassure Rose. "We can, I don't know find out where his ship is? Get to it first?" Jack was part of the reason, though since Cardiff she found out not the actual reason, why she was here. He came in to her cafe to see her, because he knew her, because they were friends, and this Jack may have only met her that night but she was going to try her absolute hardest to make sure that she saw that cheeky grin order that mango cooler even if she had to go and get him off his ship herself.
The Doctor's silence was mildly worrying, however. She could tell he wasn't the faux-Captain's biggest fan, but the way he was intently keying in coordinates and not looking at his two companions did make her worry.
"We can, can't we?" Rose asked. "There must be something. We can't just leave him."
"Doctor." Florence tried to get his attention, and it seemed to work. He looked up and rolled his eyes slightly,
"Oh are you two still going on?" He flipped the lever on the console. "Can't a super smart, super quick Time Lord plug in coordinates to latch onto the ship that's not yet been destroyed by a German bomb and save a dead man walking in peace?" He nodded to Florence. "Get them doors open, will you? And Rose, what was 'your' song again?" He asked sardonically, but with a grin. "Why don't we welcome the Captain in with something familiar?" Florence laughed, clapping her hands together and running down the walkway as Moonlight Serenade echoed through the TARDIS, swinging the doors open to reveal a rather desolate looking Jack sitting in his captain's chair, martini in hand.
"OI!" She called, and he whipped his head around at the sound, and the accompanying song. "Captain Jack Harkness." She nodded behind her. "You coming?"
"What the-?" He stood from his chair and Florence gestured him inside,
"Hurry up!" She turned around and headed back up the grated walkway, sure he would be following, unless he really did have a death wish. She laughed when she saw Rose and the Doctor waltzing around the console, Rose directing him tentatively.
"Okay, and right and turn…" He spun her around, ending up with her arm trapped behind her back awkwardly. "Okay, okay." She stepped away from him. "Try and spin me again, but this time don't get my arm up my back… No extra points for a half-nelson!" Florence laughed as the Doctor scratched the back of his neck.
"I'm sure I used to know this stuff." He turned to the surprisingly silent extra passenger standing in the middle of the walkway. "Close the door, will ya?" Jack immediately turned and did as he was told. "Your ship's about to blow up, there's gonna be a draft!" Once the door was secure the Doctor fiddled with the console once more, preparing the TARDIS for flight. "Welcome-" He began, but Florence cut him off.
"Welcome to the TARDIS!" She jumped up beside him and grabbed his arm enthusiastically leading him to the main console. The Doctor frowned at her interruption.
"Excuse me…" She waved him off,
"I never get to say it! They always already know!" She complained before smiling at Jack, who was looking around at the spacious room. "She's beautiful, isn't she?"
"Much bigger one the inside." Was all he said.
"You'd better be." The Doctor muttered slightly, and Rose rolled her eyes at him, taking the opportunity to flirt once more with the handsome captain who had now joined their little gang.
"I think what the Doctor's trying to say is… you may cut in." She held her hand out to him and Florence stepped away, gesturing for him to take it.
"Please, someone needs to dance with the poor girl."
"Florence!" The Doctor suddenly called out, and she turned her head sharply to look at him, worried something was wrong.
"Yeah?"
"I've just remembered!" He told her, and before she could ask him what it was, the music changed from a slow waltz to a fast paced swing number. "I can dance!" He started swinging his arms and clicking his fingers, doing quite an impressive two-step as he made his way towards her. "I can dance!"
Florence laughed and backed away from him slightly. "No, no, no!"
He grabbed her hand and swung her into him, leading her in a simple rhythm and bouncing her around the console as she giggled, the two of them trying to avoid Jack and Rose's slightly more impressive routine nearby.
Florence screamed as he swung her around, laughing and grabbing onto his neck to keep her balance, he pushed and pulled her over and over, bopping along to the music like he had been listening to it all his life before finally placing his hand flush against her lower back and dipping her, so low she felt the ends of her hair graze the grated flooring of the TARDIS. She screamed with happiness as she threw her head further back, kicking her leg out in what was definitely not proper form for a panel of judges and gripped his hand even tighter. For all his hesitation to dance back at Donna's wedding, he wasn't half bad.
If Florence Jensson was ever to be asked when she felt at her happiest, this memory would be a hard one to beat.
Helloooooo, hello! Welcome back welcome back! I agree with Rose, this story felt longer than one night, and I can't believe it took me so long to get out! I hope you'll all enjoy it, and the lovely little dance number at the end!
See you for chapter 27! xo