Author's Note: Here we are! The wrap up of 'The Smith's and Jones'; I hope everyone enjoyed it. I've loved your comments!
A really quick special thank-you to tenthdoctor10, who wished me well when I had pneumonia over the last few weeks. And to Ashena-Iulik, who let me bounce ideas and opinions off of her, and has promised to let me do so in the future. Thank-you both!
And without further ado…
##############################################################################
"Come on, Rose," the Doctor says, holding his hand out to help her up.
She looks up at him and takes his hand, but when he tries to pull her away she resists, turning back to Swales, she says, "You'll be okay."
Swales looks up at her and smiles, content showing even through her obvious worry. "I know."
##############################################################################
When Martha, Rose, and the Doctor reach Mr. Stoker's office, Martha and Rose both fighting for breath, Mrs. Finnegan and her slabs were nowhere to be found, and lying on the floor in the prone position, his eyes glazed and dead is Mr. Stoker.
The Doctor immediately drops Rose's hand to inspect the body. While he looks Mr. Stoker over, Rose stumbles up to him and drops ungracefully to her knees; reaching out a hand, she gently closes the man's unseeing eyes.
"Drained him dry," says the Doctor once he's finished his examination. "Every last drop. I was right. She's a plasmavore."
Martha had been watching the proceedings, she had also been thinking that someone should close the man's eyes. She gives the blonde a warm smile, though Rose doesn't notice. Finally, Martha turns to the Doctor. "What was she doing on Earth?"
"Hiding," he tells her. "On the run. Like Ronald Biggs in Rio de Janeiro. What's she doing now? She's still not safe—the Judoon could execute us all. Come on."
He leads them aimlessly down another hall as he tries to think, engaging his respiratory bypass automatically when he begins to breathe heavily. Behind him, the humans heave as they try to keep up with his long strides. "Think, think, think. If I was a plasmavore surrounded by police, what would I do? AH!" He exclaims, noticing an MRI sign. "She's as clever as me… almost."
Somewhere very near them come the heavy thuds of feet and the sound of Judoon speaking. "Find the non-human. Execute."
All three faces go pale for different reasons. Martha knows if they find the Doctor then there is no for this hospital; Rose and the Doctor are thinking only of each other.
"Stay here," he orders Martha, knowing she's their only option for a distraction. He begins to pace back and forth for a few quick seconds before coming to a decision. He looks intently at the medical student. "I need time. You're going to have to hold them up."
"How do I do that?"
"Martha, forgive me for this," he begs, looking her in the eye, but really begging Rose. "It's to save a thousand lives, it means nothing. Honestly, nothing."
He grabs her face in both hands and kisses her hard on the lips, making sure to leave behind enough DNA to alert the Judoon's scanners. Her lips are soft, he decides. Rose has soft lips too, and hers were more pliant…then again she'd really been Cassandra at the time. He pulls away with a 'pop' and grabs Rose's hand where it hung at the side of her motionless body, and together they run down the hall toward the MRI room.
Behind them, both can hear Martha's quick intake of the hospital's thinning air, and her disbelieving sigh, followed by, "That was nothing?"
##############################################################################
They stop just outside of the MRI room and listen to the strange noises coming from within. Rose can barely hear over the humming in her own ears. Her chest is heaving ineffectually for just a little bit more oxygen and she allows her body to slump against the nearest wall; she can't seem to make her eyes focus.
Taking a quick peak inside the room, the Doctor turns to her and says, "Please, stay here. I'll come get to you soon."
Rose opened her mouth to protest, but stopped herself short. 'What am I supposed to say? No, I'm coming with you so you don't die? What if you don't come back…maybe you'll just take Martha and leave me here? No, I can't say that; it makes no sense. It's the oxygen starvation. I'm useless.' Her half-formed worrying lasts only a few seconds before she realizes that right now she's a liability, she nods her head in acquiescence.
He gives a relieved sigh, and marches into the room.
For a while, Rose does as he asks and tries to keep her breathing from becoming panicked as she leans against the wall. The last thing she needs is to start hyperventilating in a building where no breathable air is to be had.
Then she hears the heavy thuds of the Judoon marching her way, and she knows she has to warn the Doctor. Forcing herself upright, she sweeps her way into the room to warn him, and lets out a startled gasp at what she finds.
##############################################################################
The Doctor throws the doors to the MRI room open and steps in, pretending to breathe heavily like the rest of the humans in the hospital, he sees the plasmavore and walks right up to her, though half of his concentration was with the woman on the other side of the door.
"Have you seen—there are these things… those great big space rhino things… I mean rhinos from space. And we're on the moon. Great big space rhinos, with guns, on the moon. And I only came in for my bunions. They're all right now, perfectly good treatment, I said to my wife, I'd recommend this place to anyone, but then we end up on the moon. And did I mention the rhinos?"
"Hold him!" The plasmavore instructs her slabs and they grab hold of the Doctor. Then Florence Finnegan goes back to fiddling with MRI machine.
"That thing," asks the Doctor. "That big machine thing, is it supposed to be making that noise?"
She shoots him a condescending sneer. "You wouldn't understand."
'I suppose she needs a little more prodding than your usual megalomaniac.' "Isn't that a magnetic resonance imaging thing? Like a ginormous sort of a magnet? I did magnets at GCSE. Well, I failed, but all the same."
"The magnetic setting is now set to 50,000 Tesla."
'Damn.' "Ooh. That's a bit strong, isn't it?"
She nods. "I can send out a magnetic pulse that will fry the brain-stems of every living thing within 250,000 miles. Except me, safe in this room."
"But... hold on, hold on, I did geography for GCSE, I did pass that one, doesn't that distance include Earth?" He inquires pointedly.
"Only the side facing the moon. The other half will survive. Call it my little gift."
"I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive me, I'm a little out of my depth. I've spent the past fifteen years working as a postman, hence the bunions—why would you do that?"
"With everyone dead," she tells John Smith, the postman, "the Judoon ships will be mine, to make my escape."
"Now, that's weird. You're talking like you're some sort of an alien."
"Right-o."
"No!" Says the Doctor with an exaggerated shake of the head.
"Oh, yes."
"You're joshing me."
She gives him a confused shake of the head. "I am not."
"I'm talking to an alien? In hospital? What, has the place got an ET department?"
"It's the perfect hiding place. Blood banks downstairs for a midnight feast, and all this equipment I'm ready to arm myself with should the police come looking."
"So, those rhinos, they're looking for you?"
"Yes. But I'm hidden," she tells him, indicating the 'X' on the back of her hand. 'I guess I'll have to improvise…'
"Oh. Right! Maybe that's why they're increasing their scans…"
"They're doing what?"
"Big chief rhino boy, he said, no sign of a non-human… we must increase our scans... up to setting two?"
"Then I must assimilate again."
"What does that mean?" He cocks his head inquisitively.
"I must appear to be human."
"Well, you're welcome to come home and meet the wife." He imagines bringing a plasmavore round the TARDIS for dinner and barks out a real laugh. "She'd be honored. We can have cake."
"Why should I have cake when I've got my little straw," she gives her straw a little shake.
"That's nice. Milkshake? I like banana."
"You're quite the funny man. And yet, I think, laughing on purpose at the darkness. I think it's time you found some peace. Steady him!"
"What are you doing?"
"I'm afraid this is going to hurt," she teases. "But if it's any consolation, the dead don't tend to remember."
Just as the Doctor is beginning to feel woozy, the MRI door gives a squeak, informing the room's occupants of someone's entrance. If that hadn't been enough, Rose gasps loudly at the scene she had just walked in on.
"Hello, sweetheart. What're you doing here?" He ground out in a slur. If he wasn't so lightheaded right now, he'd be very put out with her. The Plasmavore just goes on drinking his blood.
"ME!" she shrilled. "Me! What the hell, Doct—"
The doors slam open again, and in charge a horde of Judoon and an exhausted Martha. Rose was stuck against the wall behind the rest of the assembly now, judging it impossible to navigate her way through the tightly packed Judoon; the Doctor watched her through heavy, unfocused eyes as she slid down the wall to the floor.
Florence was forced to stop drinking his blood and ripped the straw forcefully out of his neck. The Doctor collapsed to the floor, losing consciousness on the way.
##############################################################################
"Now see what you've done. This poor man just died of fright."
"Scan him! Confirmation: deceased," intoned the chief Judoon.
Behind the group, no one heard Rose's panicked gasp, or saw her eyes fling themselves open. She struggled to push her body off the floor so she could make her way over to her Doctor.
Martha, who was already fighting unconsciousness from asphyxia, felt her breathing ratchet up further. "No, he can't be. Let me through, let me see him."
"Stop." The Judoon told the struggling human. "Case closed."
"But it was her. She killed him. She did it. She murdered him."
"The Judoon have no authority over human crime."
"But she's not human," said Martha.
"Oh, but I am. I've been catalogued."
"But she's not! She assimil—Wait a minute. You drank his blood. The Doctor's blood," Martha realized, and grabbed the scanner from the Judoon's hand, pointing it and activating it at the unbothered woman.
"Oh, all right. Scan all you like," she opened her arms out wide.
"Non-human."
The smirk dropped immediately from her face. "What?"
"Confirm analysis," said the Judoon.
The Plasmavore tried to claim it was a mistake, but Martha just shook her head sadly, "He gave his life so they'd find you."
By now Rose had managed a wide arc around the walls of the room since pushing through the Judoon still wasn't a viable option. With a final burst of energy she pushed herself off the wall and took the few clumsy steps necessary to reach the Doctor where he lay, stumbling to the floor beside him.
Around her the Judoon and the Plasmavore continued speaking but she hears none of it. There is no air left to breath in, and only through force of will and adrenalin is she still conscious at all. She doesn't feel a pulse, but her own heartrate is so high with panic, she could easily have missed it. 'Maybe he's in a healing coma.'
Rose looks up briefly when she sees a flash of light, eyes coming to rest on the source just in time to see a slab disintegrated by a Judoon. "Verdict: guilty. Sentence: execution."
Her eyes land despairingly on Martha, but then her attention is again diverted up a sign lighting up the words, "MAGNETIC OVERLOAD."
"Enjoy your victory, Judoon, because you're going to burn with me. Burn in hell!" Screams the Plasmavore for the last time, and the Judoon disintegrate her.
Martha rushes over to the Rose and the Doctor, but when the Judoon says case closed she turns back, confused. Her tone seemed to suggest the case was most certainly not closed. "What did she mean, "burn with me"? The scanner shouldn't be doing that. She's done something."
"Scans detect lethal acceleration of monomagnetic pulse."
"Well, do something! Stop it!"
"Our jurisdiction has ended. Judoon will evacuate."
"You can't just leave it. What's it going to do?"
"All units withdraw," said the Chief Judoon into his com-link, and all began to evacuate.
Martha continued to yell after them, "You can't go. That thing's going to explode and it's all your fault."
Rose had stopped paying attention to the room at large moments before. She had dealt with the Judoon before, and the moment their leader had announced their jurisdictions' end, she'd known their only hope had been with the Doctor.
She'd started CPR on him immediately, and once Martha had watched the Judoon go she has joined Rose at his other side and begun to keep count for her.
"One two three four five. One two three four— five. Why are you doing it like that? His heart is there," she said, indicating the area of his chest under Rose's right hand and panting harshly. "One two— three four five. One two three four five."
"Two…" Rose grunted. "Hearts."
The Doctor begins to cough just as Martha finally falls to the ground, unconscious.
##############################################################################
His first instinct had been to take deep breaths. It had been the wrong thing to do. There was no air left in the hospital, and the lack of it made the newly conscious Doctor begin coughing and panicking.
Once he realized where he was and what was happening, he engaged his respiratory bypass and began taking stock of the room.
To his right, Martha lay slumped on the floor where she'd fallen, unconscious. He looked up at the shadow to his left, where Rose was looking down on him in relief.
Her breathing was beyond ragged. Her eyes were clouded and unfocused, her body was convulsively shaking from the lack of air. The moment she realized he was alright, her fight for consciousness seemed to fade, and her eyes rolled into the back her head. She collapsed wordlessly to the floor as he stood up.
Forcing himself not to check on her, he makes his way to the MRI machine. The thing looks seconds away from exploding. He feels for his sonic before he remembers he'd left it charred on the radiology room floor, and instead reaches around the machine to the plug on the wall, pulling it out.
He goes back to the two women he left on the floor and checks first Rose's, then Martha's pulses. Finding them both alive, though barely, he picks the blonde up off the floor and carries her out of the room and back down the halls, passing weak and unconscious humans all along the way.
Finally he reaches the balcony doors where their adventure had first started, and he sits down with Rose tucked securely in his lap.
Looking out the glass doors, he watches as the Judoon ships leave. "Come on, come on, come on. Come on, Judoon, reverse it."
When it begins to rain, he smiles and gives a relieved, manic laugh. Looking down at the Rose in his arms, he gives her a quick shake. "It's raining, Rose! It's raining on the moon."
The rush of air that forces its way through the hospital once it's moved back to its rightful place knocks shuffles papers and forms, rips signs from the walls. Much of the equipment and papers left standing or in the open from their trip to the moon, was flung around by the wind caused by air sweeping into a space where there previously wasn't any.
After a few moments of just breathing in Earth's oxygen, the Doctor lifts himself and Rose off the floor and carries them both inconspicuously out of the hospital. Already the scene outside was chaotic; doctors and nurses from different hospitals stood off to the side, waiting for something to do; UNIT had descended in full force, and uniformed men and science officers stood in groups, discussing, strategizing, and theorizing, while other soldiers stretched out across the barricade, keeping the civilian spectators far removed.
He slipped in and out of sight stealthily, and no one paid him any mind, except the pretty medical student who had helped Rose and the Doctor save hundreds of lives.
He takes a moment to adjusts Rose's weight, shifting her easily so that one arm is holding her to his chest without disturbing her, and with his newly freed hand he lifts it into the air and gives her a wave.
A truck drives between them and he uses it as an opportunity to escape unnoticed. By the time the truck has passed, the Doctor, the blonde, and the blue box he had been standing beside were nowhere to be seen.
##############################################################################
When she wakes up, Rose knows immediately that she's in her own bed. The content hum of the TARDIS surrounds her.
"You didn't listen to me," the Doctor said bluntly, his voice coming from his usual spot in her plush grey chair.
Rose replied in the same stoic manner as he. "Yeah? Well, you died today."
"Touché."
The two fell quiet.
She hated to admit it, but Rose was reluctant. She didn't think the Doctor felt any attraction to Martha, but she couldn't stop thinking about the kiss. This Doctor wasn't capable of doing anything by halves; 'Why give a peck on the cheek when you could suck a stranger's lower lip into your mouth?'
But she also had no right to feel possessive or jealous, even if she couldn't stop herself. They weren't like that, the Doctor and Rose. He'd made it clear, and she'd taken every moment since she'd at last gotten the message to adamantly refute any contrary statements.…And Martha Jones was good. She was kind, and brave, and quick under pressure; Rose would be the first to admit that she had a tendency to be petty, but to refuse Martha the chance to see the stars because of her insecurities would be so far beyond the realm of okay. The fact that she briefly considered it made her sick at herself.
No matter what the outcome, Rose finally decided, it wasn't up to her to deny the chance to travel with the Doctor if she had what it took, and she does. Rose just hoped she wouldn't look back on this moment years from now while she folded clothes in a department store, and regret it.
Eventually, she opened her eyes and sat up, reclining back on her elbows. "She's only the second person to ever pass both of our tests," Rose said, and thought about the first—the ex-conman turned friend who they'd shared their lives with before he'd kissed her on the mouth and run off to die a hero's death. She barely heard the Doctor's reply. "Yes, she is."
After another brief silence, the Doctor pushed ahead. "S'pose I could invite her along…Just one trip, mind. To say thanks. We can call it a trial run."
"Yeah," she said too quickly. "Yeah. Sounds good."
"Well, alright then…I'm…just gonna go change then. I'll just leave you to…rest up…" he finished awkwardly and began walking backward towards her open door.
"Kay. See you in a bit," he nodded and turned around to leave. "Oh, and Doctor? I forget to say, I like the new suit."
He turned to look at her and quirked him mouth up on one side, humming along with the old girl all the way to his bedroom.
##############################################################################
Later, Rose and the Doctor were sitting in the console room while he worked on finishing up his new sonic screwdriver and she read a history book on the planet Felspoon, from the years 22-68, which described the long Civil War that had broken out on the planet not long after its colonization.
They'd made peanut butter and banana sandwiches and tea for dinner, and by silent agreement situated themselves on the large jump seat in the console room to enjoy each other's (and the TARDIS's) company.
They had agreed that once he finished his new sonic, they'd run a scan for Martha Jones a few hours after the hospital incident, and ask her along. But Rose had fallen asleep nearly two hours ago, the history book he'd recommended at her request lay pillowed between her and the cushion under her head, and his long coat was draped over her.
Wanting to move on to the next adventure, the Doctor decided to run the search for Miss Jones and ask her himself. He ignored the disapproving hums of his TARDIS and pocketed his sonic.
"Come on, Sexy, just a simple search…You've been grumpy with me ever since I got back today, just tell me what I did so we can move on."
He felt a resounding "no" in his mind, but she performed the scan anyway.
"Thank-you," he said once the TARDIS had finished her search. He piloted her to the new location and stepped out, closing the door quietly behind him and turning to face a dank alley.
Following the alley to its end, the Doctor spots a pub on a nearby street corner. Outside the pub, a heated argument is drawing to its end, and in the center of the altercation, looking decidedly uncomfortable, is Martha Jones.
All at once, the group—which the Doctor assumes by their physical similarities is her family—breaks apart in different directions, leaving a frustrated Martha alone on the street. She seems to feel his eyes on her, because suddenly she looks up at him.
He smiles at her and then disappears back into the alley, knowing she'd follow. And she does. When she turns the last corner he is standing in front of his life-long companion, leaning into her.
He sees her recognition of the blue box he'd earlier disappeared with. "I went to the moon today."
"A bit more peaceful than down here," he jokes.
"You never even told me who you are."
"The Doctor," he says simply.
"What sort of species? It's not every day I get to ask that."
"I'm a Time Lord."
"Right! Not pompous at all, then."
He ignores that, and feels a moment of thanks that Rose isn't here just now to laugh at him like she and Sarah Jane had. "I just thought since you saved my life and I've got a brand new sonic screwdriver which needs road testing, you might fancy a trip."
He wonders why she looks so surprised. "What, into space?"
"Well—"
"I can't," she says sadly. "I've got exams. I've got things to do. I have to go into town first thing and pay the rent, I've got my family going mad..."
"If it helps, I can travel in time, as well."
"Get out of here."
"I can."
"Come on now, that's going too far."
"I'll prove it," he vows, realizing she had seen him this morning on the street. He almost sighed. 'Bloody paradoxes.'
He redirects the TARDIS, steps out and located the more naïve Martha Jones from this morning talking on her phone as she made her way through the crowd. He stepped right in front of her, removed his tie with a poorly concealed smirk, and said "Like so; See?!" before disappearing into the crowd and piloting the TARDIS back to its previous coordinates.
"Told you!" He said to this Martha Jones.
"I know, but..." she took in his appearance. He could have just walked in and removed it like he had earlier, her sceptic expression seemed to be saying. But then her eyes grew wide and he knew she'd noticed what he'd intended her to when he'd taken his tie off. He was in a different suit now."…that was this morning! But - Did you... Oh, my God! You can travel in time! But hold on, if you could see me this morning, why didn't you tell me not to go in to work?"
"Crossing into established events is strictly forbidden—Except for cheap tricks."
"And that's your spaceship?"
"It's called the TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension in Space."
"Your spaceship's made of wood. There's not much room. We'd be a bit intimate; by the way, where is Rose? Doesn't she travel with you?"
"She does; she's inside. Fell asleep," he told her. Sighing when she looked a bit disappointed that it wouldn't be the two of them. 'Trying not to hurt Rose is hard enough without a pining companion.' He thought uncharitably, but he reproached himself immediately. Who knew what Martha had really been thinking in that moment. "Take a look."
He really did love this part, he thought as Martha went in, and ran back out again. He hasn't had the satisfaction of this particular act in quite some time… since Adam, in fact; Jack had taken it all in stride.
"Oh, no, no," she exclaimed as she made her full rotation around the old girl, who herself, was laughing merrily. "But it's just a box. But it's huge. How does it do that? It's wood." She knocks on it, to be sure. "It's like a box with that room just rammed in. It's bigger on the inside."
After playfully mouthing along the sentence with her, with Sexy saying it in his head, he quirks his head to the side and asks, "Is it? I hadn't noticed." He shuts the door loudly, forgetting about Rose on the jump seat. "All right, then, let's get going."
"Goin' where?" croaks a sleepy voice that goes ignored in the excitement.
"But is there a crew? A navigator? Is it really just you and Rose?"
He nods. Noticing Rose sitting curled on the jump seat and watching Martha's string of excited questions with an amused smile on her face, he skips across the room to lean against the seat beside her. Martha follows him with her eyes, and when she sees Rose, gives her a little smile and a wave, which Rose returns. "Hi."
"All on your own?"
"Well, sometimes I have guests… I mean some friends, travelling alongside. And now I have Rose."
"How long have you been traveling with the Doctor?" she asks.
"Umm, 'bout two-and-a-half years, I think. You lose track of time after a while."
"Really, that long? How old are you? Don't you ever miss your family? Or do you visit them often?" Martha asks quickly, hoping she isn't being rude.
"Well, I was nineteen when I met 'im. That'd make a little over twenty-one now, I s'pose. And I do miss my family; we used to visit them all the time, but we can't anymore. They—well, they're gone."
"I'm so sorry; I shouldn't have asked." Martha said. As glad as she was to hear the Doctor say Rose was a "friend" that traveled with him, and that she was so much younger than the Doctor, she felt bad that her prodding questions might have surfaced painful memories.
"No, it's okay," she said. Beside her, the Doctor looked down sadly at the metal grating.
"Just one trip to say 'thanks'." He told her. No reason to get her hopes up if she didn't fit.
"You're the one that kissed me," Martha half-joked.
"That was a genetic transfer," he frowned. Beside him, Rose snorted. Easily mistaking her snort of derision at the Doctor, for amusement, Martha felt no offense when she excused herself from the room to go to sleep in her much more comfortable bed with a quick, "Nice to have you along, Martha! See you in the morning cycle."
She continued to tease, much to the distress of the Doctor, and to the TARDIS, who didn't like to see her Rose upset so. "And if you will wear a tight suit..."
"Now... don't!"
"And then travel all the way across the universe just to ask me on a date..."
"Stop it," he said, and she finally did.
"For the record? I'm not remotely interested. I only go for humans."
"Good. Well, then." He said, hoping that really meant the end. He didn't want Martha to get false hope, and he certainly didn't want a silly crush coming between himself and Rose. "Close down the gravitic anomalizer. Fire up the helmic regulator. And finally - the hand brake. Ready?"
"No."
"Off we go," he pulled the handbrake and sent them into the Vortex for the night.
The TARDIS knocked him on his butt in displeasure
"Blimey, it's a bit bumpy," Martha observed.
"Welcome aboard, Miss Jones."
"It's my pleasure, Mr. Smith," she tells him, and they shake hands.