This chapter was really fun to write.

Enjoy!

~RainingCoffee

"You have to connect the hydrocometer into the supercooling conduit first, then you are able to connect it to the dematerialization circuit." The Doctor states, ignoring the shower of sparks that explodes from the wires above his head.

I look at him through a pair of googles, unimpressed. "You know I have no idea what those words mean without context." He opens his mouth to respond but I cut him off. "Why don't you just show me, I get things easier like that."

He gestures for me to come closer, so I get out of the sling I'm in and carefully walk around the round holes in the ground to get to him. We are underneath the Tardis right now, and there are bundles of wires going every which way.

Brushing aside my frustration, I focus on the instructions the Doctor is giving me, paying close attention to the way his hands are connecting and disconnecting the components.

Humming in concentration, I wait for him to complete the operation. Once he's finished I follow the path his hands had taken. The process makes so much more sense now that I have my hands physically on the components instead of just hearing about it.

The Doctor's pride washes over me and he plants a kiss to the side of my head. "Perfect!"

I flush slightly in response, pleased with the praise before shaking it off and looking at the Doctor with determination. "Show me something else."

He smirks, eyes glinting, and puts me to work.

That's how many of the days progress as I wait to jump again. I'm bound and determined to learn about this world now, instead of just hiding behind the Doctor's knowledge and my own intuition.

This Doctor doesn't seem to mind. He's always willing to share his knowledge with me, and very rarely gets frustrated when I don't know anything.

It's a nice change from his younger self calling me useless if I'm to be honest.

And it's nice to feel like I'm actually helpful. I'm tired of just standing around when we go somewhere.

When I mention that to him, the Doctor gets a sad look on his face.

"What?" I ask.

"Don't be so quick to throw yourself out into the fray Mabel." He murmurs. "You don't always have to be the one doing something. There's two of us, we can share responsibility."

I frown at him. "I know that. But it's only been you who's been taking charge of everything. I don't want-" I pause, not entirely sure how to phrase what I want to say without making him feel bad. "The situation that happened before, no one was hurt by the fact I didn't have the knowledge to do what needed to be done. I want to learn as much as I can to prevent something like that from happening in the future."

The Doctor looks at me, eyes kind, and I know he heard the words that I censored. The 'I don't want you to have a reason to call me useless ever again.'

Averting my eyes from his own, I give the wires in front of me far more attention than they deserve. I forget sometimes that he's known me for far longer than I've known him. The fact that he can see through me so easily makes me want to go and hide.

He seems to realize this because he doesn't try to push, just gives me more work to do.

And so I learn, absorbing the information like a sponge.

xxxx

Several weeks after I jumped to this Doctor, I finally feel the slight warmth that indicates I was leaving. I was grateful for the warning, it allowed me to set down the plate I was carrying and wave goodbye to the Doctor.

He waves back, smiling, and his 'Have fun dear!' rings in my ears as the world around me goes bright.

I reappear in the next area, stumbling over something on the ground and painfully tripping my way to the floor.

"Mabel!" I hear the Doctor's voice come from the other side of the room.

I groan in response, blinking the spots from my eyes and blearily frowning at the ceiling. Footsteps hurry in my direction, and then the Doctor's head pops into view.

"What're you doin' down there?" He asks, confused.

"Oh y'know, I just got here and thought I'd take a nice trip. It didn't quite go the way I thought it would, though." I reply sarcastically.

The Doctor's lips twitch as he reaches out a hand to help me up.

Once upright, I lean in and kiss him hello. "Hello sweetheart!"

He looks pleased. "Hello dear, where are we for you?"

I hum in contemplation. "The last time I saw this you was the death of the Earth."

"Early days then." The Doctor responds, his mood not dropping at the revelation like I sort of thought it might.

"Yeah." I reply, pleased that he doesn't mind. "The you I was just with was teaching me to do maintenance on the Tardis."

His eyes roam over my face, hand coming up to swipe at something on my forehead. "I can see that." He shows it to me. It's grease.

I laugh, looking down at my grimy clothes. "I suppose I should go take a shower."

"Yes, probably a good idea." The Doctor says, stepping aside so I can walk by.

I start to walk off, but I look over my shoulder to meet his eyes as I do so. "I might just need some help washing my back."

The Doctor's mouth twitches up into a smirk. I can feel his interest, and with two quick steps he's matching my pace down the hallway. "I think I can help you with that.

And well, that's exactly what he does.

xxxx

Refreshed and squeaky clean from our shower detour, the Doctor and I make our way towards the kitchen.

Rose is already there, blinking blearily at us over her cup of tea. I smile, waving hello. She groans in response. "No, too cheerful. Go be happy somewhere else."

My smile wavers, and I look back to the Doctor in confusion. 'Rough adventure' He mouths while Rose's head is down. Ohh.

I pat Rose on the shoulder as I walk by on my way to the counter, but ultimately decide to let her be. Deciding on a banana, I grab one for the Doctor as well, throwing it over to him.

Two cups of tea later, the growly grinch that Rose has turned into disappears and the normal girl I'm used to emerges.

Just in time too, as the Tardis jerks and the lights dim, an alarm sounding. "What the hell is that?"

"It's mauve!" The Doctor exclaims, already taking off down the hallway towards the console room. I exchange a look with Rose, both of us running after him.

"What's mauve?" Rose asks.

I shrug. "I have no idea, but it doesn't sound good."

We turn the corner to the sight of the Doctor flipping a lever while intently watching the monitor. The Tardis is still jerking about, and it's hard to stay on my feet.

Rose stumbles closer, using the console to steady herself. "What's the emergency? What's mauve?"

"The universally recognized color for danger." The Doctor responds.

I frown, stumbling my own way over to the console. "Whatever happened to red?"

There's a flash of teeth as the Doctor smiles at me, before he focuses back on the monitor. "That's just humans. By everyone else's standards, red's camp. Oh, the misunderstandings. All those red alerts, all that dancing." He types something into the keyboard. "It's got a very basic flight computer. I've hacked in, slaved the Tardis. Where it goes, we go."

"And that's safe, is it?" Rose asks.

"Totally!" The Doctor answers far too fast.

The Tardis jerks, sparks exploding from the console. I send him a dirty look.

"Okay, reasonably. Should have said reasonably there." Stumbling over to the monitor, I'm just in time to see whatever it is on the screen vanish. "No, no, no, no! It's jumping time tracks, getting away from us."

"What was it?" I ask him.

"No idea." He responds.

Rose looks between us, confused. "Then why are we chasing it?"

"It's mauve and dangerous." The Doctor explains. "And about thirty seconds from the center of London."

Of course it is.

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" I push urgency over our connection.

He nods, pulling a lever and the shaking stops as we materialize.

"Did we make it?" Rose asks.

"Yep, this is Earth all right." The Doctor's face turns petulant, and he puts a hand on my back to direct me down the grating and out of the front doors. "Do you know how long you can knock around space without happening to bump into Earth?"

Rose closes the door behind her, looking around the alleyway we've stepped into. "Five days? Or is that just when we're out of milk?"

"Of all the species in all the Universe and it has to come out of a cow." His voice is plaintive.

I pat him on the back. "So where is the thing that we were chasing?"

The Doctor starts walking down the alleyway. "Must have come down somewhere quite close. Within a mile, anyway. And it can't have been more than a few weeks ago." He pauses, reconsidering. "Maybe a month."

"A month?" Rose asks, incredulous. "We were right behind it."

"It was jumping time tracks all over the place. We're bound to be a little bit out." The Doctor sends her a frustrated look. "Do you want to drive?"

Rose rolls her eyes. "Yeah. How much is a little?"

"A bit." He responds.

"Is that exactly a bit?" Rose asks, sending him a look.

The Doctor shrugs. "Ish."

"What's the plan, then?" Rose asks, jumping tracks. "Are you going to do a scan for alien tech or something?"

He gives her a very patient look. "Rose, it hit the middle of London with a very loud bang." Pulling out the psychic paper, he shows it to her. "I'm going to ask."

She leans in, reading. "Doctor John Smith, Ministry of Asteroids."

"It's psychic paper. It tells you-" The Doctor begins, but Rose cuts him off.

"Whatever you want it to tell me, I remember." Her voice is annoyed.

He sends her an apologetic look. "Sorry."

My eyes flit between them, a frown tugging at my lips. I've never seen them so out of sorts with one another. They've always had a pretty good relationship from what I can remember. So seeing them like this is troubling.

We arrive at the end of the alleyway. There's a door marked 'Deliveries only' and the Doctor leans in to listen.

"Not very Spock, is it, just asking." Rose states.

The Doctor pulls back from the door, gesturing to it. "Door, music, people. What do you think?"

"I think you should do a scan for alien tech." She answers. "Give me some Spock, for once. Would it kill you?"

He ignores her, pulling out the sonic and pointing it at the door. The lock clicks and the Doctor puts the sonic back into his pocket, eyes flickering over Rose's shirt. "Are you sure about that t-shirt?"

Fair question, her shirt does have the union jack all over it.

Rose looks down at it herself. "Too early to say. I'm taking it out for a spin."

Shrugging, the Doctor gestures to the open door. "Come on if you're coming. It won't take a minute."

I link our hands, smiling at him. It doesn't bother me, doing it this way. And I'm fairly certain I know why he does it this way anyways. It wouldn't be any fun to scan for alien tech. What kind of adventure would that be? 10 minutes and you'd be done. This way he got to talk with people and interact.

He squeezes my hand, his exhaustion brushing up against my mind. I can tell that this hostility thing between the two of them is wearing on him.

Following the hallway in, we turn right at the intersection as we see a waiter going through a beaded curtain. Smooth Jazz is playing, and a singer is singing some sort of sultry song. Everyone is wearing clothes that belong in a 40's movie.

The woman finishes her song, and the Doctor's hand loosens as he starts to walk forward. He wants to address the people no doubt, ask some questions. I tighten my hand and pull him back.

He sends me a questioning look. I nod to the poster that's on the wall. It says 'Hitler will send no warning' and shows off an aerial view of an air raid.

The Doctor straightens up, looking from the poster to the people around us. "Oh."

"Yeah, I don't think you're going to get anything from them." I respond.

A siren starts up, and all the patrons stand up and rush for the door. The Doctor slumps in response. "I'm thinking you might be right."

I tug on his hand. "C'mon, let's go get Rose."

His head snaps up, looking around. "She didn't follow us in?"

"No, dear. I think she went back to grab something." Releasing his hand, I head back the way we came. Out of the back door and up the alleyway.

"Rose?" The Doctor calls.

A cat meows, jumping off of the dumpster.

Looking at me, he purses his lips. "You know, one day, just one day, maybe, I'm going to meet someone who gets the whole don't wander off thing."

I raise an eyebrow. "I'm told you before, and I'll tell you again. It isn't the companions who wander off most of the time, it's you."

He opens his mouth to respond, but the Tardis phone goes off. The Doctor's mouth snaps shut and he swings around to stare at it in confusion.

Laughing, I can't help but tease him. "You act like you've never seen a ringing phone before."

"It's not supposed to be ringing." The Doctor states, stepping up to the box and opening the panel with the phone. "What am I supposed to do with a ringing phone?"

"Don't answer it. It's not for you." A woman states from behind us, startling us both and causing us to whirl around to face her.

The Doctor looks at her evenly. "And how do you know that?"

"'Cos I do." She responds. "And I'm telling you, don't answer it."

"Well, if you know so much, tell me this. How can it be ringing?" The Doctor asks, turning back to the still ringing phone and pulling out his sonic. "It's not even a real phone. It's not connected-"

"You can stop now." I interrupt. The woman had left as soon as he turned his back, taking off down the street and disappearing into the darkness like a ghost.

He huffs, frowning at the phone. I roll my eyes, pulling the receiver off and bringing it up to my ear. "Hello?"

There's no response.

"Hello, this is Mabel speaking. Is anyone there?" I try again.

'Mummy? Mummy?' A child's voice responds.

My face stiffens in shock. "Who is this?"

The Doctor takes the receiver from me, putting it up to his own ear. "Hello?"

'Mummy?' The child asks again.

There is no recognition on his face at the voice, so that's one concern down. For a second I thought that this might be.. well, looks like it wasn't.

"How did you ring here?" The Doctor asks. "This isn't a real phone. It's not wired up to anything."

Just the same response. 'Mummy?' And then the dial tone.

The Doctor and I exchange a look. He leans closer to the door and knocks on it. "Rose, are you in there?"

There's no response. But there is a noise from the other end of the alley. I take a step towards it, the Doctor right behind me. The noise had come from the left, an area that we hadn't gone down before, so I follow it there.

There's a brick wall, but on the other side I can hear voices. "The planes are coming. Can't you hear them? Into the shelter. None of your nonsense, now move it!" A woman scolds someone.

There are a couple of conveniently placed trash bins next to the wall, which the Doctor and I take advantage of so we can see what's going on.

A woman is hurrying her child into a shed like building.

"Come on, hurry up, get in there. Come on." The woman turns and yells towards the house. "Arthur! Arthur, will you hurry up? Didn't you hear the siren?"

A man who I'm going to assume is Arthur comes out of the house. "Middle of dinner, every night. Blooming Germans. Don't you eat?"

"I can hear the planes!" The woman insists.

"Don't you eat?" The man yells out at the sky.

"Oh, keep your voice down, will you?" The woman scolds, bustling the both of them into the shelter. "It's an air raid! Get in. Look, there's a war on."

The man doesn't sound pleased as he responds. "I know there's a war on. Don't push me."

The door shuts, and the sound of bickering quiets down. I'm just about to move, when the woman who warned us to not answer the phone earlier steps out from behind a bush and goes into the house the family just came out of.

Turning his head to look at me, the Doctor raises an eyebrow. I nod. And then we are quietly making our way down from the trash bins, and over to a gate in the wall.

It's just a latch gate, easy to open, and we are through in seconds. Slowly opening the back door, I step inside. What's happened is easy to see. A rack for cooling bread with crumbs underneath, that no bread is on now. A cupboard that wasn't quite closed properly.

Huh, the woman goes into houses during air raids and clears out food. That's pretty ingenious, I have to admit. And it wouldn't hurt the family in the bunker to miss out on a loaf of bread.

The Doctor gestures farther down the hall where a murmur of hushed noise has begun to swell. It sounds like children.

"All right, then. One slice each, and I want to see everyone chewing properly." The woman insists, and I come around the corner just in time to see her start passing a plate of sliced meat.

The children, for there are several around the table, each take one slice and pass it down. The Doctor slips in quietly and goes to an open spot in the table, but I stay near the door.

"Thank you, miss." "Thanks, miss." "Thank you miss." Every child thanks the woman for the food.

"Thanks, miss!" The Doctor chimes in, taking his own slice of meat. The children finally seem to notice him and panic. Many rise from their seats looking ready to bolt.

"It's all right." The woman insists. "Everybody stay where you are!"

"Good here, innit? Who's got the salt?" The Doctor asks, pretending like everything is normal. Sometimes this man is just too much. His eyes flicker up and catch mine, a hint of a smile lingering around his mouth.

"Back in your seats." The woman states, frustrated. She turns and catches my eyes as well. "They shouldn't be here either."

The children do as she says, slowly, while shooting confused glances between the two of us.

The Doctor takes a bite of his food. "So, you lot, what's the story?"

"What do you mean?" An older boy asks.

"You're homeless, right?" I ask.

"Living rough?" The Doctor continues.

One of the younger boys puffs up, confrontational. "Why would the two of you want to know that? Are you coppers?"

I scoff. "In these clothes? Nah, I'm not a copper and neither is he."

"What's a copper going to do with you lot anyway? Arrest you for starving?" The children laugh, even though it wasn't really a joke. The Doctor continues, briefly glancing at his watch. "It's 1941. You lot shouldn't even be in London. You should've been evacuated to the country by now."

"I was evacuated." A different child chimes up. "Sent me to a farm."

"So why'd you come back?" The Doctor asks.

"There was a man there." The child responds, looking down.

"Yeah, same with Ernie." A boy from the other side of the table says, gesturing to the older looking child. "Two homes ago."

"Shut up." Ernie scowls. "It's better on the streets anyway. It's better food."

"Yeah. Nancy always gets the best food for us." Another child states, eating a piece of meat off his plate.

"So, that's what you do, is it, Nancy?" The Doctor asks.

"What is?" The woman we've been following, now Nancy, retorts.

"As soon as the sirens go, you find a big fat family meal still warm on the table with everyone down in the air raid shelter and bingo!" The Doctor states, leaning back in his seat. "Feeding frenzy for the homeless kids of London Town. Puddings for all, as long as the bombs don't get you."

Nancy raises an eyebrow. "Something wrong with that?"

"No." I chime in, taking a step forward. "I think it's amazing."

"Though mind you, I'm not sure if it's Marxism in action or a West End musical." The Doctor continues.

"Why'd you follow me?" Nancy asks, looking between the two of us. "What do you want?"

"I want to know how a phone that isn't a phone gets a phone call." The Doctor states. "You seem to be the one to ask."

"I did you both a favor. I told you not to answer it, that's all I'm telling you." Nancy replies.

Well, she obviously knows something that's she's not willing to talk about.

"Great, thanks. And I want to find a blonde in a Union Jack. I mean a specific one. I didn't just wake up this morning with a craving." The Doctor says, causing the children to laugh once more. "Anybody seen a girl like that?"

Nancy gets up, walks over to where the Doctor is and takes his plate away.

"What have I done wrong?" He asks, bewildered.

"You took two slices. No blondes, no flags." She states. "Anything else before you leave?"

I shift from my position next to the door. "Yeah, we're looking for something else too. Would have fallen out of the sky about a month ago, something that wasn't a bomb. It wouldn't have exploded." Rummaging in my pockets, I pull out a small notepad and a pen, quickly sketching out what it looks like and showing everyone. "It would have looked like this."

The children lean in, most shaking their heads. Well, it was a long shot anyways. We are all startled, however, when a knock comes from the window.

"Mummy? Are you in there, mummy?" The Doctor brushes the curtains back to show a young child with a gas mask on, one with a very familiar voice. This is the same child who called the Tardis earlier, I'm certain of it.

The child tilts it's head. "Mummy?"

"Who was the last one in?" Nancy whispers, staring at the child with dread on her face.

"They were, miss." One of the children points to the Doctor and me.

"No." Nancy shakes her head. "They came round the back. Who came in the front?"

"Me." One of the younger children states fearfully.

"Did you close the door?" Nancy asks urgently.

The child looks upset, shaking his head. "I don't remember."

Nancy turns on her heel and runs, and the Doctor and I take off after her. She ends up in front of the door and latches it right before the child outside can get there.

"Mummy? Are you there mummy?" The child asks.

"What's this, then?" The Doctor asks, there is a ball of disapproving emotions spilling over from his side of the connection. "It's never easy being the only child left out in the cold, you know."

"I suppose you'd know." Nancy states, disbelieving.

"I do actually, yes." The Doctor responds.

She pauses, looking back at him with pained eyes. "It's not exactly a child."

There's a knock at the door. "Mummy?"

Nancy turns the corner into the dining room. "Right, everybody out. Across the back garden and under the fence. Now! Go! Move!"

The children get up, some stuffing food into their pockets as they do so, before rushing towards the back of the house.

"Mummy?" The child with the gas mask outside of the house asks again. "Mummy? Please let me in, mummy. Please let me in, mummy." His hand comes through the mailbox hole, reaching for something. There's a mark on his hand, like he's been scratched or something.

I take a step forward. "Are you okay?"

"Please let me in." The child says, voice plaintive.

A vase breaks against the side of the door before I can get there, scaring me, and causing the child to pull his hand back.

"You mustn't let him touch you!" Nancy insists.

"Why?" The Doctor asks. "What happens if he touches you?"

She purses her lips. "He'll make you like him."

"And what's he like?" I ask, not happy with the situation at all.

"I've got to go." Nancy says, shaking her head and turning to leave.

The Doctor places a hand on her arm. "Nancy, what's he like?"

She looks at him, eyes full of hurt. "He's empty.

Then the telephone rings. "It's him. He can make phones ring. He can. Just like with that police box you saw." Nancy tells us.

Picking up the phone, I bring it to my ear. "Mummy?" The child asks.

Nancy grabs the phone from my hand and hangs up. A radio screeches from the dining area. "Mummy? Please let me in, mummy." Comes the child's voice, mixed with a smooth jazz number.

I go into the dining room, taking a step closer to the radio and a clockwork monkey starts clanging its symbols behind me. "Mummy, mummy, mummy."

"You two stay if you want to." Nancy tells us, panic in her voice, then she rushes away heading towards the back door.

"Okay, not going to lie. This is freaking me out." I murmur to the Doctor.

He slips his hand into mine, squeezing. "Braveheart Mabel."

Then, together, we walk back to the front door.

"Mummy? Let me in please, mummy. Please let me in." The child repeats, hand reaching through the mail slot again.

"Your mummy isn't here." The Doctor explains, kneeling down to see the hand better.

There is a pause. "Are you my mummy?"

He shakes his head even though the child can't see it. "No mummies here. Nobody here but us chickens."

"I'm scared." The child states.

I swallow. "Why were those other children scared when you knocked on the window?"

"Please let me in, mummy." The child continues, like he can't hear us. Or maybe it's that he can't understand us. "I'm scared of the bombs."

"Okay." The Doctor murmurs. "I'm opening the door now."

The boy pulls his hand back from the mail slot and presumably steps away from the door. Unbolting the top and bottom of the door, the Doctor opens it.

No one is there.

I step by him, looking down the street, but no one is there. "He's gone."

The Doctor purses his lips, looking back at the house. "The child might be gone, but we know someone who can tell us about him."

"Nancy." I nod in agreement. "But she ran off."

"I can follow her." He smirks at me, tapping his nose.

"I mean, I knew you could smell hormonal changes and all, but you can follow her just like that?" How interesting, the Doctor is like an old fashioned bloodhound.

"It's not that difficult. Though I've always seemed to have the better nose between the two of us." The Doctor replies, distracted. He's already heading back through the house towards the back door. "Humans are always throwing out chemosignals. Scared? Tired? Happy? The stronger the feeling, the stronger the scent. And Nancy was very afraid just then."

Hmm. Y'know, I have never been as glad as I was just then that the Doctor was a generally good force in the world. I don't think anyone would have been able to go up against him if the reverse was true.

His eyes slide over to me. "What?"

I shrug. "Just glad you're on our side. S'all."

"You say that like I'd be on any other side." The Doctor responds.

"Sap." I can't help but tease him.

The Doctor smirks. "You bet." Then he shushes me, gesturing to an abandoned looking shack beside the railroad tracks.

The sound of someone rummaging around reaches my ears, and by the time we're reaching the shack Nancy is standing up to where we can see her through a window.

She startles at the sight of us. "How'd you follow me here?"

"I'm good at following, me." The Doctor tilts his head and studies her. "Got the nose for it."

"People can't usually follow me if I don't want them to." She states, eyes flickering between the two of us.

"My nose has special powers." He rocks forward on his heels, smiling.

Nancy smiles, just a little. "Yeah? That's why it's-" She cuts herself off.

The Doctor looks confused. "What?"

"Nothing." She replies.

"What?" The Doctor asks, tilting his head.

"Nothing." Nancy insists. "Do your ears have special powers too?"

I snort involuntarily, turning away to hide my face.

"Oi!" He elbows me, then turns back to Nancy with a raised eyebrow. "What are you trying to say?"

Nancy laughs. "Goodnight, Mister."

As she's turning away, I take a step forward. "Nancy, that boy, he's following you and the other kids. That all started about a month ago, am I right?"

She had stopped when I was speaking, and she slowly turns around once I finish. I can see on her face that I'm right. "Remember how I said we were looking for something? It would have fallen somewhere close to here around the same time, and you know what I'm talking about don't you?"

Nancy nods reluctantly. "There was a bomb. A bomb that wasn't a bomb. Fell the other end of Limehouse Green Station."

"Will you take us there?" I ask her.

"There's soldiers guarding it." She states, shaking her head. "Barbed wire. You'll never get through."

The Doctor looks at her, letting her see how serious he is. "Try us."

"You sure you want to know what's going on in there?" Nancy asks again.

"We really want to know." I verify.

She nods, as if to herself. "Then there's someone you need to talk to first."

"And who might that be?" The Doctor asks.

"The Doctor." Nancy responds, taking off with the full expectation that we'll be following her.

The Doctor and I exchange looks, then hurry to catch up with Nancy.

She leads us down the railroad tracks, to a set of stairs that has a good vantage point of an area that's behind barbed wire, patrolled by soldiers. The Doctor pulls out a pair of fancy looking binoculars, looking through them out at the camp.

"The bomb's under that tarpaulin. They put the fence up over night." Nancy nods to the building on the right. "See that building? The hospital."

"What about it?" The Doctor asks, distracted.

"That's where the doctor is. You should talk to him." She tells us. This is the second time she's said the same thing.

The Doctor hums, still focused on the guards. "For now, I'm more interested in getting in there."

Nancy frowns, insistent. "Talk to the doctor first."

I nod, letting her know I'll go talk to the Doctor she wants us to talk with. But, still I have to know. "Why are you so determined for us to talk to this Doctor?"

"Because then maybe you won't want to get inside." She says, turning around to walk up the stairs.

The Doctor pulls the binoculars down. "Where're you going?"

Nancy pauses. "There was a lot of food in that house. I've got mouths to feed. Should be safe enough now."

I can feel the Doctor's hesitation, then his determination. "Can I ask you a question?" He turns to look at Nancy. "Who did you lose?"

"What." She states, voice shaper than earlier.

"The way you look after all those kids." The Doctor continues, voice soft. "It's because you lost somebody, isn't it? You're doing all this to make up for it."

Nancy looks away. "My little brother. Jamie. One night I went out looking for food. Same night that thing fell. I told him not to follow me, I told him it was dangerous, but he just." She hesitates, voice breaking. "He just didn't like being on his own."

"What happened?" He asks.

"In the middle of an air raid?" She scoffs. "What do you think happened?"

The Doctor looks down, not looking surprised.

I look up at the sky, brushing my shoulders against his. You can just barely make out the planes flying overhead. This is history in action.

Laughing, he looks at me then looks at the sky. "Amazing."

"What is?" Nancy asks.

"1941. Right now, not very far from here, the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it. Nothing." The Doctor tells her. "Until one, tiny, damp little island says no. No. Not here. A mouse in front of a lion. You're amazing, the lot of you. Don't know what you do to Hitler, but you frighten the hell out of me." Nancy doesn't look like she knows what to make of that, and the Doctor gestures up the stairs. "Off you go then do what you've got to do. Save the world."

Nancy spares us one last look, then turns on her heels to do exactly that.

The Doctor and I walk down the rest of the stairs, turning to the right where the hospital is. 'Albion Hospital' is in huge letters over the front gate. Pulling out his sonic to work the lock, the Doctor spares me a concerned look. "You're awfully quiet tonight."

"The whole situation with the kids, and the child in the gas mask. And I still think Nancy knows more than she's letting on." I shrug "I don't know. I just feel off."

The lock snaps open, but the Doctor isn't paying attention to it. In fact, after my last words he had abruptly stood and turned to face me. He reaches forward and puts his hands on either side of my forehead.

Bewildered, I stare at him. "What are you doing?"

"I might have better physical senses, but you've always had the better empathic senses." A furrow starts between his eyes. "How long ago was your physiology reset?"

"A little over three weeks ago." I answer, still thoroughly off kilter. "Wait, are you trying to say that I'm an empath?"

The Doctor laughs. "All Gallifreyans are empaths, to an extent. It's impossible to take in the amount of sensory information we do and not be affected in any way. You've always been a little more open to it than most."

"Telepathic, empathic, what's next? Technopathy?" I snark, unable to help myself.

Pulling his hands back, the Doctor taps my nose in response. "There. Better?"

It hadn't felt like he had done anything in the first place, and I go to be sarcastic once more but the look on his face stops me. Instead, I actually think about it. "I..feel clearer."

"Yep, that was me." The Doctor states. "Cleaned out the cobwebs making you feel 'off' and put up a thin barrier to filter out the negative energy until you get used to doing it automatically yourself."

"Negative energy?" I ask, rubbing my forehead.

He nods. "You have a tendency to feel too much, taking in everything around you until it starts to make you 'fuzzy'. One day, you'll learn to filter it out."

This is getting to be too much.

"Doctor." I hesitate. "What I don't get is why are all of these things happening now? Why are they suddenly popping up when I never noticed them before?"

"It isn't." He murmurs, studying me. "You've always been this way. Have you ever touched someone and suddenly knew they had been lying to you? Or reacted to another person's sadness with the same intensity that they were showing? These things were already a part of you. But you were untrained. When you started to use your telepathy more, you started exercising that part of you."

Turning my head and lifting my chin, the Doctor kisses me. Comfort, affection, with just a hint of promise. "There. Look at all that information you just got from that kiss."

I flush bright red. If I was able to ascertain that from his kiss, just what was it that he just got from me? His finger trails across my cheek, no doubt following my blush. "Okay..that was very convincing."

The Doctor laughs. "Now let's go find out what's going on here."

"Yes, let's do that." I reply quickly, trying to force my cheeks to cool. He quirks his eyebrow at me as if he knows exactly what I'm thinking but I do my best to ignore him.

The front door is unlocked, which strikes me as strange, but it only gets stranger from there. It's deserted. There's no one in the halls, no nurses, no doctors, nothing. At least until I poke my head into a ward. There are people on the beds, people who are very clearly not breathing. Everyone is wearing a gas mask.

Returning from his own peek into the ward across the hall, the Doctor and I share a concerned glance. Continuing down the hall, everything we see is the same. Wards full of people wearing gas masks lying down on the beds, dead.

That is until we reach the ward at the very end of the hall. As soon as we walk into that one, an old, grumpy looking man appears, using a walking stick.

"You'll find them everywhere." The man states. "In every bed, in every ward. Hundreds of them."

"Yes, I saw." The Doctor replies, his voice low. "Why are they still wearing gas masks?"

"They're not. Who are you two?" The man asks us, voice sharp.

I take a step towards him. "Are you the doctor here?"

The man studies me. "Doctor Constantine. And you are?"

"I'm Mabel." Gesturing to the Doctor, I continue. "That's the Doctor. Nancy sent us."

"Nancy?" Doctor Constantine raises an eyebrow. "That means you must've been asking about the bomb."

"Yes." The Doctor confirms.

Doctor Constantine starts limping towards a desk in the middle of the room, leaning heavily on his cane. "What do you know about it?"

The Doctor tilts his head. "Nothing. Why I was asking. What do you know?"

"Only what it's done." Doctor Constantine responds. Sitting down heavily on the chair next to the desk, he eyes us wearily.

"These people, they were all caught up in the blast?" The Doctor asks, turning his attention to the people on the beds.

Doctor Constantine shakes his head. "None of them were." He laughs, which turns into a wet sounding cough.

"Are you alright Doctor Constantine?" I ask, concerned. "You sound very sick."

He smiles at me. "Dying, I should think. I just haven't been able to find the time." His eyes drift over to the Doctor. "You're a doctor?"

"I have my moments." The Doctor murmurs.

"Have you examined any of them yet?" Doctor Constantine asks.

The Doctor shakes his head.

Doctor Constantine nods out at the patients, but cautions us. "Don't touch the flesh."

"Which one?" I ask, already turning away.

"Any one." Doctor Constantine replies, making me pause.

Exchanging a look with the Doctor, he nods and pulls out his sonic screwdriver. Being careful to not touch the skin, he does a scan of the nearest patient.

Doctor Constantine watches this happen. "Conclusions?"

"Massive head trauma, mostly to the left side." The Doctor murmurs. "Partial collapse of the chest cavity, mostly to the right. There's some scarring on the back of the hand and the gas mask seems to be fused to the flesh, but I can't see any burns."

"Examine another one." Doctor Constantine orders.

The Doctor does, and I can tell from the connection before he even turns around what's happening.

"They're the same?" I ask.

"This isn't possible." The Doctor replies, running over to a patient on the other side of the room and scanning them as well.

Doctor Constantine watches us. "No, it isn't."

The Doctor stops what's he's doing and looks at Doctor Constantine. "They've all got the same injuries."

"Yes." The man confirms.

"Exactly the same." The Doctor murmurs, like he can't believe it.

Doctor Constantine nods. "Yes."

"Identical, all of them." The Doctor continues. "Right down to the scar on the back of the hand."

A scar that the child in the gasmask had as well. And one that I can see on the back of Doctor Constantine's hand. Chills shoot down my spine.

"How did this happen? How did it start?" The Doctor asks intently.

"When that bomb dropped, there was just one victim." Doctor Constantine tells us.

The Doctor narrows his eyes. "Dead?"

"At first." Doctor Constantine explains. "His injuries were truly dreadful. By the following morning, every doctor and nurse who had treated him, who had touched him, had those exact same injuries. By the morning after that, every patient in the same ward, the exact same injuries. Within a week, the entire hospital. Physical injuries as plague." He pauses looking up at the Doctor. "Can you explain that? What would you say was the cause of death?"

"The head trauma." The Doctor replies.

Doctor Constantine shakes his head.

The Doctor frowns. "Asphyxiation?"

"No." The man replies.

"The collapse of the chest cavity." The Doctor offers, a look of confusion on his face.

Doctor Constantine looks at him. "No."

"All right." The Doctor states, slightly annoyed. "What was the cause of death?"

"They aren't dead, are they?" I ask, goose bumps forming along my arms.

Doctor Constantine's eyes flicker to mine. "You are correct. They aren't dead." He reaches out with his cane and smacks it against a garbage can. All of the patients sit up, heads turning to look at us.

The Doctor and I jerk back from them, moving towards the center of the room.

"It's all right." Doctor Constantine states. "They're harmless. They just sort of sit there. No heartbeat, no life signs of any kind. They just don't die."

"And they've just been left here? Nobody's doing anything?" The Doctor asks.

The patients lie down once more.

"I try and make them comfortable. What else is there?" Doctor Constantine tells us, a tired look of his face.

"Just you?" The Doctor looks at him. "You're the only one here?"

"Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather." Doctor Constantine states. "Now I am neither. But I'm still a doctor."

The Doctor walks over to me and links our hands, squeezing hard. "Yeah. I know the feeling."

Oh Doctor. I can feel his pain. Suddenly his desperate hope from the first time he saw me in this body makes sense. If he lost someone.. I press support up against the barrier between our minds, feeling his gratitude in return.

"I suspect the plan is to blow up the hospital and blame it on a German bomb." Doctor Constantine reveals, looking around at the patients.

"Probably too late." The Doctor murmurs.

"No. There are isolated cases." Doctor Constantine coughs, words coming out strained. "Isolated cases breaking out all over London." The Doctor and I take a step forward, but he holds up a hand. "Stay back, stay back. Listen to me. Top floor. Room eight zero two. That's where they took the first victim, the one from the crash site. And you must find Nancy again."

I tilt my head, suspicion rising. It had seemed like there was more she wasn't telling us. "Nancy?"

"It was her brother. She knows more than she's saying. She won't tell me, but she might-" Doctor Constantine coughs again, starting to choke. "Mummmmy. Are you my mummy?"

Horrified, I watch as his mouth pushes out and turns black. The distinct shape of a gasmask forming. Pulling me back, the Doctor directs us out of the room.

"Doctor." I say, shocked and very frightened.

He shakes his head, just as off kilter as I am.

"Hello?" Rose calls from somewhere far away, breaking us out of our funk.

A male voice, who sounds very familiar, also calls out. "Hello?"

Grateful for the distraction, and also grateful that we finally know where Rose has gotten to, I take off down the hallway towards the noise, the Doctor right behind me.

We push through a door and come face to face with Rose, and..Jack. Huh, I knew that voice sounded familiar. "Rose, Jack!" I exclaim. "It's good to see the both of you."

Jack, who had been in the process of extending his hand for a handshake looks confused. "Have we met before?"

I'm confused myself, before I remember just what my life has become. "Sorry." I murmur sheepishly. "I don't always meet people in the right order."

He appraises me, a saucy smirk appearing once he gives me a full body look over. "Captain Jack Harkness, at your service." Bending over my hand, he kisses it, smirking at me on the way up.

I raise an eyebrow, more amused than anything else. The Doctor is a big ball of disapproval at my back, but I soothe his ruffled feathers by letting him feel how unaffected with the whole thing I am. "Hello Captain Jack Harkness, my name is Mabel." Tilting my head, I extract my hand from where it's still in his. "And I would try reigning those pheromones in, I'm happily in a relationship and not looking for another partner."

"Pity." Jack murmurs. "I had to try. Though I wouldn't mind a night, if you two ever change your mind." He drops the smirk, getting serious. "I've been hearing all about the two of you on the way over."

"He knows." Rose states, shifting uncomfortably. "I had to tell him about us being Time Agents."

"And it's a real pleasure to meet you, Mister Spock." Jack says to the Doctor before walking past him towards the ward we just came out of.

"Mister Spock?" The Doctor asks Rose incredulously.

"What was I supposed to say?" Rose asks. "You don't have a name. Don't you ever get tired of Doctor? Doctor who?"

"Nine centuries in, I'm coping." The Doctor responds. We all turn and walk down the hall after Jack. "Where've you been? We're in the middle of a London Blitz. It's not a good time for a stroll."

Rose looks unconcerned. "Who's strolling? I went by barrage balloon. Only way to see an air raid."

"Wait, what?" I ask her, confused.

"Listen, what's a Chula warship?" Rose continues, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

The Doctor narrows his eyes. "Chula?"

Rose nods, opening the door to the ward.

Jack is in the process of scanning a patient. He frowns, scanning another. "This just isn't possible. How did this happen?"

"What kind of Chula ship landed here?" The Doctor asks him.

"What?" Jack frowns at him, clearly not seeing the reason he's being asked that.

"He said it was a warship." Rose chimes in. "He stole it, parked it somewhere out there, somewhere a bomb's going to fall on it unless we make him an offer."

The Doctor narrows his eyes at Jack. "What kind of warship?"

"Does it matter?" Jack shakes his head. "It's got nothing to do with this."

"Yes it matters." I tell him, voice sharp. Maybe we know him in the future, but I'm quickly getting sick of his attitude. "All of this originated at the bomb site. Answer the question."

Jack purses his lips in annoyance. "It was an ambulance." Pressing a button on the contraption strapped to his wrist, a 3d hologram comes up of what we saw on the Tardis monitor. "Look. That's what you chased through the Time Vortex. It's space junk. I wanted to kid you it was valuable. It's empty. I made sure of it. Nothing but a shell. I threw it at you. Saw your time travel vehicle, love the retro look, by the way, nice panels. Threw you the bait-"

"Bait?" Rose echoes, annoyance in her tone.

"I wanted to sell it to you and then destroy it before you found out it was junk." Jack finishes.

Rose crosses her arms. "You said it was a war ship."

Jack gives her a patronizing look. "They have ambulances in wars." Walking away, he turns back to us and continues. "It was a con. I was conning you. That's what I am, I'm a con man. I thought you were Time Agents. You're not, are you."

"Just a couple more freelancers." Rose murmurs.

"Oh. Should have known." Jack laughs bitterly. "The way you guys are blending in with the local color. I mean, Flag Girl was bad enough, but now we have U-Boat Captain and Boho." He rolls his eyes. "Anyway, whatever's happening here has got nothing to do with that ship."

Frowning, Rose looks around at the patients. "What is happening here, Doctor?"

"Human DNA is being rewritten." The Doctor states. "By an idiot."

"What do you mean?" Rose gives him a confused look.

"I don't know. Some kind of virus converting human beings into these things." The Doctor murmurs. "But why? What's the point?"

As if triggered by his words, the patients all sit up. But this time they don't stay on their beds. A chorus of "Mummy" rings out around us creating an eerie backdrop.

"What's happening?" Rose asks.

"I don't know." The patients start to walk towards us. "But whatever you do don't let them touch you."

Rose looks at me with a frown. "What happens if they touch us?"

"You're looking at it." The Doctor explains, gaining looks from both Jack and Rose.

"Seriously?" Jack asks.

"Why do you think they all have the same injuries?" I ask, sending him a scathing look.

Unfortunately, they have us surrounded and are successfully backing us into a wall. "Doctor." I murmur, reaching out and grabbing his hand.

He looks back at me, before something hardens behind those eyes of his. Raising his chin, he drops my hand and takes a step closer to the patients. "Go to your room."

The patients still. My heart is pounding so hard I can barely hear the words, but hear them I do, and I can hardly believe they are working.

The Doctor continues, voice stern. "Go to your room. I mean it. I'm very, very angry with you. I am very, very cross. Go to your room!"

There is a second where nothing happens, but then the patients lower their heads and slowly turn away. Shuffling their ways to their respective beds and lying down once more.

"I can't believe that worked." I breathe out, tension fading from my shoulders.

"I glad it did though." The Doctor smirks at me over his shoulder. "Those would have been terrible last words."

I shove him, annoyed with his flippancy. Terrible last words indeed.

Jack goes over and sits down at the table in the middle of the room, propping his feet up. Rose wanders over to one of the patients, kneeling down and examining them. "Why are they all wearing gas masks?"

"They're not. Those masks are flesh and bone." Jack explains. With an attitude, again.

"I'm a bit slow on the uptake sometimes." I tell him, narrowing my eyes and crossing my arms. "So you'll have to explain. Just how was your con going to be run again?"

"Simple enough, really." Jack states. "Find some harmless piece of space junk, let the nearest Time Agent track it back to Earth, convince him it's valuable, name a price. When he's put fifty percent up front, oops!" He mimes something blowing up. "A German bomb falls on it, destroys it forever. He never gets to see what he's paid for, never knows he's been had. I buy him a drink with his own money, and we discuss dumb luck. The perfect self-cleaning con."

The Doctor raises an eyebrow. "Yeah. Perfect."

Jack leans back in the chair. "The London Blitz is great for self-cleaners. Pompeii's nice if you want to make a vacation of it though, but you've got to set your alarm for volcano day." He laughs, full on amusement on his face until he realizes that no one else is laughing with him, then his amusement fades quickly. "Getting a hint of disapproval."

"Take a look around the room." The Doctor gestures to the people on the beds. "This is what your harmless piece of space-junk did."

"It was a burnt-out medical transporter. It was empty." Jack insists.

"Rose." The Doctor calls out, turning on his heels and heading for the door. I'm only a second behind him.

Rose quickly catches up and looks at us expectantly. "Are we getting out of here?"

The Doctor points to the ceiling. "We're going upstairs."

The chair scrapes across the floor as Jack stands up. "I even programmed the flight computer so it wouldn't land on anything living. I harmed no-one. I don't know what's happening here, but believe me, I had nothing to do with it."

I pause, turning to face him, noting the Doctor doing the same at my side.

"I'll tell you what's happening." The Doctor states. "You forgot to set your alarm clock. It's volcano day."

A siren interrupts anything that Jack could have said in response.

"What's that?" Rose asks.

"The all clear." Jack responds.

The Doctor scoffs, shaking his head. "I wish."

Tired of the bickering, I walk off, making my way out of the ward and up the stairs.

"Mabel!" The Doctor calls out, catching up to me. I send him a look. He shrugs sheepishly in response. "Sorry, it's been a rough century. I've gone all pessimistic this time around."

"Well, looks like I'm just going to have to remind you to be less defeatist when I'm around." I state, slightly annoyed.

He nudges my hand with his, lowering his head and giving me his best smile. Shaking my head, I purse my lips, but I can already feel my frustration with him dissipating. "Fine. You know I can't stay mad at you for long."

"I know." He looks so pleased with himself.

"You are such a frustrating man." I mutter, grumpy now.

The Doctor smirks at me. "I know that as well."

I'm so wrapped up in the conversation that I don't realize we've left Rose and Jack behind until they start calling out for us.

Sticking his head out from around the top of the staircase that we've made our way up, the Doctor asks Jack a question. "Have you got a blaster?"

"Sure!" Jack responds

Rose and Jack hurry up the stairs.

"The night your space-junk landed, someone was hurt." The Doctor gestures to the heavy metal door in front of us. "This was where they were taken."

"What happened?" Rose asks.

"Let's find out." The Doctor nods at Jack. "Get it open."

While Jack is busy with that, Rose turns to the Doctor and lowers her voice. "What's wrong with your sonic screwdriver?"

That's something I'd like to know as well.

"Nothing." He replies.

Jack's blaster powers up, leaving a perfect square where the knob and lock used to be.

"Sonic blaster, fifty first century." The Doctor examines the gun. "Weapon Factories of Villengard?"

"You've been to the factories?" Jack asks, looking impressed at the knowledge.

"Once." The Doctor states, pushing past Jack to get into the room.

Looking vaguely annoyed now, Jack continues. "Well, they're gone now, destroyed. The main reactor went critical. Vaporized the lot."

"Like I said. Once. There's a banana grove there, now." The Doctor smiles. "I like bananas. Bananas are good."

"Nice blast pattern." Rose compliments Jack.

I roll my eyes and leave them to their flirting. The room inside is a mess. What was once supposed to be an observation window has been smashed. There are drawings clearly done by a child everywhere. Scribbles on the walls, a couple of toys.

"Looks like something bad happened here." I murmur.

The Doctor nods, eyes flickering to the two walking into the room. "What do you think?"

"Something got out of here." Jack responds.

"Yeah. And?" The Doctor looks at him expectedly.

"Something powerful." Jack states, looking around the room. "Angry."

"Powerful and angry." I shake my head. There's a buzz, one that's growing stronger the longer I'm in the room. The very walls are screaming out. "Powerful yes, but I don't know about angry. More purposeful I would think. And afraid"

Jack goes into the attached room with the children's toys and freezes. "A child?" He asks. "I suppose this explains Mummy."

Rose looks confused. "How could a child do this?"

The Doctor presses a button on the tape machine in the observation area. Doctor Constantine's voice comes over the speaker. 'Do you know where you are?'

'Are you my mummy?' The child asks.

I go over to the area with the drawings, the Doctor following me.

'Are you aware of what's around you? Can you see?' Doctor Constantine prompts.

'Are you my mummy?' The child asks once more.

There is a pause before Doctor Constantine continues. 'What do you want? Do you know-'

The child cuts him off. 'I want my mummy. Are you my mummy? I want my mummy! Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy? Mummy? Mummy?'

"I've heard this voice before." Rose states, turning to us.

"So have we." I respond, frowning.

"Always are you my mummy." Rose continues. "Like he doesn't know."

'Mummy?' The child continues to ask from the tape. It's heartbreaking.

"Why doesn't he know?" Rose asks.

The Doctor doesn't respond, eyes drawn to the walls. He looks to me, eyes wet with unshed tears. "Can you sense it?"

I nod.

"Sense what?" Jack asks, eyes flickering between the two of us.

"Coming out of the walls. Can you feel it?" The Doctor demands, pacing.

I place a hand on his arm. He takes a deep breath, letting it out and visibly calms down.

Looking back at Rose and Jack, who still look confused, he shakes his head. "Funny little human brains. How do you get around in those things?"

"Rude." I murmur, but he waves me off and starts to pace once more.

"When he's stressed, he likes to insult species." Rose explains to Jack.

"Rose, I'm thinking." The Doctor scolds.

She raises an eyebrow. "He cuts himself shaving, he does half an hour on life forms he's cleverer than."

"There are these children living rough round the bomb sites. They come out during air-raids looking for food." The Doctor thinks out loud. "Suppose they were there when this thing, whatever it was, landed?"

"It was a med-ship. It was harmless." Jack insists.

"Yes, you keep saying harmless." The Doctor brushes that aside. "Suppose one of them was affected, altered?"

"Altered how?" Rose asks, confused.

There's a noise that starts. A tick, tick, tick that wasn't there before.

"I'm here!" The child states.

The Doctor pauses. "It's afraid. Terribly afraid and powerful. It doesn't know it yet, but it will do." He smiles, one that's full of disbelief. "It's got the power of a god, and I just sent it to its room."

That noise. A cold sweat breaks out on the back of my neck.

The repetitive tick, tick, tick as the end of the tape continues to spin. A tape that's ended.

"I'm here." The child states. "Can't you see me?"

The Doctor had sent it to it's room. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I turn towards the broken observation window, unsurprised to see the child standing there.

"What's that noise?" Rose asks.

"It's the ends of the tape." I murmur. "It ran out about 20 seconds ago."

"I'm here, now. Can't you see me?" The child asks, tilting its head as it studies us.

The Doctor's realization bleeds over to me. "I sent it to its room."

I feel the rest of them whirl around beside me. "Doctor?" Rose prompts, voice shaky.

"Okay, on my signal make for the door." Jack states, coming up behind us.

"Mummy?" The child asks once again.

Pulling something from his coat, Jack aims it at the child in front of us. I'm about to knock the gun from his hand, never will I condone the death of a child if I can prevent it, when I realize it's a banana.

Jack seems to realize it at the same I do, and he looks at it in confusion.

The Doctor pulls the blaster out of his own coat, pointing it at the wall and making a perfect square. "Go now! Don't drop the banana!"

"Why not?!" Jack asks, doing as the Doctor has asked.

"Good source of potassium!" The Doctor exclaims, scrambling through the wall himself.

I'm through last, ducking just in time for Jack to grab the blaster back from the Doctor and put the wall back. Huh.

"Digital rewind." Jack explains before sending a half annoyed, half impressed look in the Doctor's direction. "Nice switch."

The Doctor takes the banana back, flipping it and placing it back into his coat pocket. "It's from the groves of Villengard. I thought it was appropriate."

Jack looks at him, actually looking this time. "There's really a banana grove in the heart of Villengard and you did that?"

Ha, now he's getting it. "Most things the Doctor says tend to be ridiculous, and yet at the same time they still end up to be true ninety five percent of the time."

"Bananas are good." The Doctor states, smirking.

The wall cracks, like something is hitting it from the other side.

"Come on!" I prompt, and we are off down the hallway. Unfortunately, the ward opens up and patients spill out heading towards us. Taking off in the other direction yields the other ward doors opening up as well.

Now we are trapped with people coming from either side of the hallway, a child breaking through the wall in front of us and a several story drop outside the wall to our back.

The patients move forward slowly. "Mummy. Mummy. Mummy."

"It's keeping us here till it can get at us." The Doctor murmurs.

Jack directs a sharp look in his direction. "It's controlling them?"

"It is them." The Doctor explains. "It's every living thing in this hospital."

"Okay." Jack nods, pulling his blaster out and pointing it at the patients coming at us down the hallway to the right. "This can function as a sonic blaster, a sonic cannon, and as a triple-enfolded sonic disrupter. Doc, what you got?"

"I've got a sonic." The Doctor starts, pulling out his sonic screwdriver, but stops. I get a wave of embarrassment from him. "Er. Oh, never mind."

"What?" Jack asks.

"It's sonic, okay? Let's leave it at that." The Doctor replies, turning to face the patients coming up on our left.

"Disrupter? Cannon?" Jack points his gun between the groups of patients advancing on us. "What?"

"It's sonic!" The Doctor whirls around, holding up his screwdriver. "Totally sonic! I am soniced up!"

"A sonic what?!" Jack demands, sounding annoyed.

"Screwdriver!" The Doctor exclaims.

Jack pauses, turning to look at the screwdriver.

Seriously? We are about to be killed and the two of them are bickering? I nudge Rose, she's closer to Jack, and she grabs his blaster pointing it at the ground. A perfect square forms below us, and we drop down into the ward below. Jack is quick to get to his feet, pointing his gun at the ceiling and 'rewinding' so that there isn't a way for the patients up there to get to us.

I reach out to both Rose and the Doctor. "You two okay?"

The Doctor gets to his feet, brushing some dust off of his jacket. "Could've used a warning."

"Yeah well, you're alive." Looking over to Rose, I smile at her. "Good job Rose."

Rose preens, looking pleased. The room is dark around us, and she squints into it. "There has to be a light switch somewhere."

I nod, ignoring the squabbling still happening behind me, and head over to the switch I can see on the wall. Flipping it, the room lights up. Unfortunately, it also reveals a ward full of patients who sit up as soon as they see us. "Mummy."

"Door!" Jack demands, running to the closest one and aiming his blaster at it. Nothing happens. He smacks the side, embarrassment coloring his features. "It's the special features. They really drain the battery."

"The battery?" Rose asks, voice disbelieving. The Doctor pushes past the both of them and opens the door with his screwdriver. "That's so lame!"

I usher them into the room, closing the door behind me. The Doctor is right beside me, locking the door with his screwdriver.

"I was going to send for another one, but somebody's got to blow up the factory." Jack states with a pointed look in the Doctor's direction.

"Oh, I know. First day I met him, he blew my job up." Rose comments. "That's practically how he communicates."

"Seriously?" I state, sending him a wave of chastisement.

He shrugs, pulling back from the door. "It was over run with Autons." Looking over at everyone else, he nods. "That door should hold it for a bit."

"The door?" Jack scoffs. "The wall didn't stop it!"

The Doctor ignores him, darting over to the barred windows, presumably looking for a way out.

"Yeah, but it's got to find us here first." I chime in. "So before that happens, what exactly do we have to help us?"

Jack sits down, looking annoyed. "Well, I've got a banana, and in a pinch the Doctor could put up some shelves."

"Window." The Doctor barks.

"Barred. Sheer drop outside. Seven stories." Jack responds, voice clipped.

"And no other exits." Rose frowns, voicing the same thing I noticed as soon as we came into the room. Though calling it a room is generous. It's more of a large storage cupboard than anything else.

"Well, the assets conversation went in a flash, didn't it?" Jack asks sarcastically.

"The more you talk, the more I just want to smack you." I tell him, annoyed at this attitude. I know he travels with the Doctor at some point in the future, but god only knows why. Also y'know, I still wasn't completely over the fact he pushed me into traffic.

"So, where'd you pick this one up, then?" I hear the Doctor ask Rose in an undertone.

"Doctor." She mutters, voice telling him to shut up. So Rose has a habit of picking up sarcastic men huh? Should be fun to see in the future.

"She was hanging from a barrage balloon, I had an invisible spaceship." Jack replies. "I never stood a chance."

"Okay. One, we've got to get out of here. Two, we can't get out of here. Have I missed anything?" The Doctor asks.

"Yeah." Rose and I exchange a look. "Jack just disappeared."

The Doctor whirls around, taking in the room like he thought we were lying or something. "Huh, color me surprised." His gaze darts to me, and I know he's made a connection with the fact that I recognized him from the future and the likelihood of Jack being a companion at some point.

Rose leans against the wall with a huff. "Okay, so he's vanished into thin air. Why is it always the great looking ones who do that?"

"Here's a tip for you." I lean against the wall next to her, brushing our shoulders together. "Men like Jack are good for a month or so, but they'll always be looking for something else eventually."

"I know." Rose pouts. "But the attention is nice."

The Doctor shakes his head. "I'll never understand women." He sends me a look, and I get a suppressed flash of his jealousy. "You talk like you've had experience with that kind of thing."

I can't help my amusement in response. "I do." The suppressed flash ignites, jealousy on the forefront now. I suppress an eyeroll and walk over to the Doctor who's turned back to the bars like he's actually doing something. "I did have partners before you Doctor."

"I know." He grumbles. "Doesn't mean I can't be jealous of that."

Tugging lightly on his jacket to get him to turn around, I smile at him. "I heard this from an inside source, it's a secret so don't tell anyone, but I know a person who's pretty into you."

The frown slowly slides off his face, some of his usual charm replacing it. "This person, do they happen to be called Mabel?"

"Y'know." I pretend to think about. "I do believe that was their name!"

The Doctor smiles, eyes lighting up. He leans down for a kiss and I meet him halfway.

After a few seconds Rose clears her throat, so I pull back, but not before I let slip a tendril of satisfaction. Jealousy successfully taken care of. He sends me an amused look, wise to my plan.

I raise an eyebrow, daring him to say something and he looks away, innocence radiating through the connection.

An old-fashioned radio that's tucked in the corner crackles. "Rose? Doctor? Mabel? Can you hear me? I'm back on my ship. Used the emergency teleport. Sorry I couldn't take you. It's security-keyed to my molecular structure. I'm working on it. Hang in there."

The Doctor darts over to the radio, turning it right side up. I follow the cord, confused to how it's working. Unsurprisingly, the end of the cord isn't connected to anything. "How're you speaking to us?"

"Om-Com. I can call anything with a speaker grill." Jack responds.

"Now there's a coincidence." The Doctor states, exchanging a look with me.

There's a pause. "What is?"

"The child can Om-Com, too." The Doctor states.

Rose looks between us. "He can?"

I nod. "Yeah, he phoned us earlier on the Tardis phone. And spoke through the radio in this house we were in, as well as a talking monkey. It was pretty creepy."

"What, you mean the child can phone us?" Rose asks, looking alarmed.

"And I can hear you." The child speaks through the radio. "Coming to find you. Coming to find you."

"Doctor, can you hear that?" Jack asks.

"Loud and clear." The Doctor replies, lips pursed in displeasure.

"I'll try to block out the signal. Least I can do." I can hear him pressing a button and then 'Moonlight Serenade' pours through the speakers. "Remember this one Rose?"

"Our song." Rose smiles to herself. Get it girl. She meanders over to a wheelchair and takes a seat.

I nudge the Doctor's arm with my own. "So, do you think Jacks gonna come through?"

He shrugs. "Maybe, maybe not." His eyes flicker over to mine. "Though you know him in the future, which suggests that he sticks around. And I have a hard time believing that we let him do so if he doesn't help in some way."

Chagrin crosses my face. "I really need to control my reactions to people better." I'm really not cut out for this spoiler thing.

"It's difficult to keep secrets when you have a direct line to another's emotions and vice versa." The Doctor states, waving my concern away. "Though, I should probably work on a contingency plan in case.."

He trails off, heading over to the window and scanning the bars once again.

"What are you doing?" Rose asks.

"Trying to set up a resonation pattern in the concrete, loosen the bars." The Doctor replies, sounding distracted.

She tilts her head, studying him. "You don't think he's coming back, do you?"

The Doctor looks back at her. "I wouldn't bet our lives."

"Why don't you trust him?" Rose looks back and forth between us. "Either of you. Mabel knows him in the future and even then she doesn't really trust him."

The corners of my mouth turn down. That isn't an answer I really want to get into right now. And I already know the Doctor doesn't find out until later.

The Doctor frowns as well, but his frown is directed to Rose. "Why do you?"

"He saved my life. Bloke-wise, that's up there with flossing." Pausing, Rose seems to really think about it. "I trust him because he's like you. Except with dating and dancing." She receives two strange looks in return. "What?"

"I resent that, I date and dance, thank you very much." The Doctor states, annoyed.

"Yes." I chime in. "I can confirm that he does indeed date and dance."

Rose sticks out her tongue. "You two are an old married couple. I meant being mingly."

Giving her a wry look, I shake my head. "So tell me about what happened when we got separated. You said something about a barrage balloon?"

"Oh, yeah. About two minutes after you guys left me. Thousands of feet above London, hanging there in the middle of a German air-raid, Union Jack all over my chest." Rose explains.

I wince thinking about the state her hands must be in. "That must have hurt."

Rose shrugs. "I honestly didn't feel it at the time, then Captain Jack fixed me up."

The Doctor jumps down from his vantage point near the window. "Oh, we're calling him Captain Jack now, are we?"

"Well, his name's Jack and he's a Captain." She states, an amused look on her face in response to the Doctor's annoyed one.

"He's not really a Captain, Rose." The Doctor explains. The world ripples around us, the walls of the storage room being replaced with the inside of a ship. "If ever he was a Captain, he's been defrocked."

"Actually, I quit. Nobody takes my frock." Jack states, smirking from the captain's chair. "Sorry about the delay. I had to take the nav-com offline to override the teleport security."

"You had to spend ten minutes overriding your own protocols? Maybe you should remember whose ship it is." The Doctor tells him, raising an eyebrow.

Jack's smirk turns even more lecherous, if that was possible. "Oh, I do. She was gorgeous. Like I told her, be back in five minutes."

The Doctor rolls his eyes, then directs his attention to the ship itself. "This is a Chula ship."

"Yeah, just like that medical transporter." Jack responds. "Only this one is dangerous."

Snapping his fingers, a golden glow surrounds the Doctor's hand. Not the glow of regeneration, but something else instead.

"They're what fixed my hands up Jack called them er-" Rose frowns, trying to remember the word.

"Nanobots?" The Doctor prompts. "Nanogenes."

Rose nods. "Nanogenes, yeah."

"Sub-atomic robots. There's millions of them in here, see?" The Doctor turns his hand to show us an unhurt patch of skin. "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 any physical flaws." He waves them away, then focusses on Jack. "Take us to the crash site. I need to see your space junk."

"As soon as I get the nav-com back online." Jack responds, giving us a look of impatience. "Make yourselves comfortable."

Rose heads up to speak with Jack, but I take the chance to look around. The ship is full of bits and bobs. Eventually, I meander over to the bed and take a seat. The Doctor plops down next to me, a contemplative look on his face. "Wanna talk it through?"

He shakes his head. "I don't have anything concrete yet."

I hum in acknowledgement. From their position near the control console, Rose and Jack's conversation catches my attention. Leaning into the Doctor, I tilt my head in his direction, like I'm paying attention to him and not the two talking on the other side of the room.

"So, you used to be a Time Agent and now you're trying to con them?" Rose asks Jack.

Jack looks at her, devoid of his normal attitude. "If it makes me sound any better, it's not for the money."

Rose tilts her head to the side. "For what?"

"Woke up one day when I was still working for them, found they'd stolen two years of my memories." Jack explains. "I'd like them back."

"They stole your memories?" Rose asks, confusion in her voice.

"Two years of my life. No idea what I did. Your friends over there don't trust me, and for all I know they're right not to." A beep interrupts Jack speech, and he spins his chair around to face the front. "Okay, we're good to go. Crash site?"

Jack pilots us closer to the site, setting us down right outside the off limit's area. He even directs us to an entrance that's not patrolled very often.

"There it is." Jack states, face lighting up when he sees the guard. "Hey, they've got Algy on duty. It must be important."

"We've got to get past him." The Doctor murmurs.

"Are the words distract the guard heading in my general direction?" Rose asks, saucy smirk coming to her face.

Jack laughs. "I don't think that'd be such a good idea."

Rose raises an eyebrow. "Don't worry I can handle it."

"I've got to know Algy quite well since I've been in town." Jack tells her. "Trust me, you're not his type. I'll distract him." He walks down the service entrance for a couple of steps, then turns around. "Don't wait up."

Rose has a look of disbelief on her face when she turns to us.

"Relax, he's a fifty first century guy." The Doctor explains. "He's just a bit more flexible when it comes to dancing."

"How flexible?" Rose asks.

The Doctor looks at her, fighting to hold back a smile. I can feel how much fun he's having with it. "Well, by his time, you lot have spread out across half the galaxy."

Rose scowls, not pleased at all. "Meaning?"

"So many species, so little time." The Doctor smirks.

"What, that's what we do when we get out there?" Rose asks. "That's our mission? We seek new life, and, and-"

I lean across the Doctor and smirk at her myself. "Dance."

She goes quiet, thinking about it. The Doctor looks over at me, obviously enjoying the byplay. I jerk my head towards the guards. We should really be watching to make sure Jack actually distracts this 'Algy' fellow.

It seems to be going successfully, but then Algy falls to his knees. I'm about to avert my eyes, trust Jack to go at it right there in public, but the sight of Algy's face contorting outward makes it evident that the situation has become more dire than before. We take off towards Jack. "Don't touch him!"

Jack takes over, yelling at the other guards coming up to see what's happening. "You men, stay away!"

We reach Jack and the newly infected Algy. The Doctor scowls down at them. "The effect's become air-borne, accelerating."

"What's keeping us safe?" Rose asks.

"Nothing." He responds.

The air raid sirens start up once more.

"Ah, here they come again." Jack looks up at the sky.

"All we need." Rose replies, a look of panic crossing her face. "Didn't you say a bomb was going to land here?"

"Never mind about that." The Doctor scolds. "If the contaminants airborne now, there's hours left."

More conversation happens around me, but my attention is caught by singing. Someone nearby is singing a lullaby.

Heading in the direction the singing is coming from, it leads me to a little shack. Nancy is inside, there is an infected guard lying face down on the table next to her. She turns to look at me when I enter, pausing in her singing. I gesture for her to continue, and she does but she shakes her hand to bring my attention to the fact she's handcuffed to the table.

Quietly, I slip over and examine the handcuffs. Single lock mechanism. Easy. I pull the ring from my finger and slip the small piece of metal out from the inside of the ring. Inserting it into the side of the handcuff, I jiggle it around until the handcuff opens.

I put it back inside my ring, placing the ring back on my finger, and hurry out of the shack with Nancy.

The Doctor's scowling face greets us as soon as I turn around from closing the door behind us. "What do you think you're doing?"

"You were busy preaching about the end of days, so I went and investigated." I respond, voice sharp.

He grimaces at me but doesn't respond. I look over at Nancy and shake my head mouthing the word 'men'.

She brings a hand up to cover her slight smile.

With the guards to afraid to approach now that one of their own has 'transformed' it's easy to make our way over to the chula ambulance.

Jack turns the spot lights on, and the Doctor and I pull a tarp up and off of the thing.

"You see? Just an ambulance." Jack states.

"That's an ambulance?" Nancy asks.

Rose puts an arm around her shoulders. "It's hard to explain. It's from another world."

Jack presses a couple of button on the side of the ambulance, frowning. "They've been trying to get in.

"Of course they have." The Doctor scoffs. "They think they've got their hands on Hitler's latest secret weapon." He pauses, watching as Jack inputs some kind of code in the keypad. "What're you doing?"

"The sooner you see this thing is empty, the sooner you'll know I had nothing to do with it." Jack responds, but something goes wrong and sparks shoot out of the panel. An alarm starts, and a red light starts flashing on the screen. The Doctor sends him an accusatory look. Jack purses his lips in response. "Didn't happen last time."

"It hadn't crashed last time. There'll be emergency protocols." The Doctor responds.

"Doctor, what is that?" Rose asks, eyes fixed on the red flashing light.

"Nothing good." I reply, having a feeling that everything is about to go to shit.

The gates on the far side of the fence start rocking back and forth, like someone is trying to get in. I take off towards them immediately. Placing a board across the front so it won't be so easy to open, and then moving on to the next gate.

Jack runs up at this point, helping me close them. We place a board across this as well.

"This isn't going to hold them off for long." I mutter, frustrated.

Jack nods in agreement. "But it'll buy us some time."

We hurry back to the ambulance and Jack finishes imputing his codes, finally getting the door open. "It's empty. Look at it."

The Doctor crosses his arms. "What do you expect in a Chula medical transporter? Bandages? Cough drops?" He looks down at his companion. "Rose?"

Rose shakes her head. "I don't know."

"Oh god." I murmur, finally getting it.

The Doctor nods at me. "Mabel gets it. C'mon Rose, you know this."

"Nanogenes!" Rose exclaims, realization crossing her face.

"It wasn't empty, Captain." The Doctor tells Jack. "There was enough nanogenes in there to rebuild a species."

Jack looks down at the ambulance, horror blooming on his face. "Oh, God."

"Getting it now, are we?" The Doctor scoffs. "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 gasmask."

"And they brought him back to life? They can do that?" Rose looks disbelieving.

The Doctor looks at her. "What's life? Life's easy. A quirk of matter. 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." I can feel his anger, simmering underneath everything, and it's about to boil over. I don't think I can blame him. "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 gasmask 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." The Doctor continues. "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!"

"I didn't know." Jack defends himself.

The Doctor shakes his head. I can feel that his anger has been spent now, and all that's left is disappointment. He gets off the top of the ambulance and starts running his screwdriver over the side.

"Rose!" I hear Nancy call out, and look up only to see a crowd of gas masked people slowly marching towards us.

Kneeling down next to the Doctor, I match his grim look. "The ambulance, it's calling the infected people to us isn't it?" Ever since the red light started flashing, I had a feeling something like that was going to happen.

"The ship thinks it's under attack. It's calling up the troops. Standard protocol." The Doctor murmurs.

"But the gas mask people aren't troops." Rose responds.

"They are now." The Doctor states. "This is a battle-field ambulance. The nanogenes don't just fix you up, they get you ready for the front line. Equip you, program you."

"That's why the child's so strong." Rose says in realization. "Why it could do that phoning thing."

The Doctor nods. "It's a fully equipped Chula warrior, yes. All that weapons tech in the hands of a hysterical four year old looking for his mummy. And now there's an army of them."

The infected create a perimeter around the area we are in, but don't come any closer.

"Why don't they attack?" Jack asks, looking out at them.

"Good little soldiers, waiting for their commander." The Doctor explains, pocketing his screwdriver.

Jack looks over his shoulder at us, eyes watery. "The child?"

"Jamie." Nancy interrupts, voice sharp.

"What?" Jack asks her.

"Not the child." Nancy states. "Jamie."

"So how long until the bomb falls?" Rose asks, looking around uncomfortably.

Jack looks at her, fear in his eyes as well. "Any second."

"What's the matter, Captain?" The Doctor asks. "A bit close to the volcano for you?"

Nancy lowers her head. It's obvious she's crying. "He's just a little boy."

I put a hand on her shoulder. "I know."

"He's just a little boy who wants his mummy." She continues.

"I know." The Doctor tells her. "There isn't a little boy born who wouldn't tear the world apart to save his mummy. And this little boy can."

"So what're we going to do?" Rose asks, urgency in her voice.

"I don't know." The Doctor admits.

"It's my fault." Nancy whispers, shaking her head.

"No." The Doctor denies, about to say more but I cut him off with a wave of my hand. There's been this itch, something I couldn't quite figure out. And I think I've just done it.

"Wait, before we go placing blame anywhere." I look at Nancy, ignoring the Doctors frown. "We're about to die so you may as well tell us the truth."

Nancy shakes her head.

"Your story has hole in it. You say Jaime is your brother, okay. But he's calling for his mother." I wait a moment, then continue. "Could be that she died recently, but I don't think so. You are very good at moving unseen. It takes time to learn skills like that. So, you were already living on the streets."

The Doctor's clued into the narrative by now. "Nancy, what age are you? Older than you look, I assume."

"Doctor, that bomb. We've got seconds." Jack says, it's clear that's he's torn between what to do.

"You can teleport us out." Rose states.

Jack shakes his head. "Not you guys. The nav-com's back online. Going to take too long to override the protocols."

The Doctor doesn't take his eyes from Nancy. "So it's volcano day. Do what you've got to do."

Rose looks over at Jack. "Jack?"

It doesn't take the lack of response to realize that Jack has disappeared.

"How old were you five years ago? Fifteen? Sixteen?" The Doctor asks Nancy. "Old enough to give birth, anyway."

"He's not your brother." I continue. "A teenage single mother in 1941. And so you hid. And you lied. You even lied to him."

The gate at the front of the bomb site slams open. Jaime stands there. "Are you my mummy?"

"He's going to keep asking, Nancy. He's never going to stop." The Doctor states.

"Mummy?" Jamie asks again.

"Tell him." The Doctor urges. "Nancy, the future of the human race is in your hands. Trust me and tell him."

Nancy takes a hesitant step in Jamie's direction, one step turns into two, which turns into three.

Jamie stops a foot away from Nancy. "Are you my mummy?"

"Yes. Yes, I am your mummy." Nancy tells him, tears in her voice.

"Mummy?" Jamie repeats.

Nancy kneels down. "I'm here."

Jamie tilts his head. "Are you my mummy?"

"Yes." Nancy breaths.

"He doesn't understand. There's not enough of him left." The Doctor says. I reach out and lay a hand on his arm.

"I am your mummy. I will always be your mummy. I'm so sorry. I am so, so sorry." Nancy leans forward and hugs Jamie. A cloud of nanogenes becomes visible around the two of them.

"What's happening?" Rose asks. "Doctor, it's changing her, we should-"

"Shush!" The Doctor interrupts her. "Come on, please. Come on, you clever little nanogenes. Figure it out! The mother, she's the mother. It's got to be enough information. Figure it out."

"You mean?" I look over at him, scarcely daring to hope.

"See? Recognizing the same DNA." The Doctor points at the cloud.

Jamie lets go and Nancy falls to the ground. The Doctor runs forward, pulling me along with him.

"Oh, come on. Give me a day like this. Give me this one." The Doctor breathes, carefully pulling Jamie's gas mask off before I can stop him.

Wait. He pulled Jamie's gas mask off.

"Ha-ha!" The Doctor crows, lifting Jamie up and hugging him. "Welcome back! Twenty years till pop music - you're going to love it."

"What happened?" Nancy demands.

"The nanogenes recognized the superior information, the parent DNA. They didn't change you because you changed them!" He sets Jamie down. "Ha-ha! Mother knows best!"

Nancy pulls Jamie into a hug of her own. "Oh, Jamie."

A bomb explodes from nearby. Rose puts a hand on the Doctor's arm. "Doctor, that bomb."

"Taken care of it." The Doctor informs her.

"How." Rose asks.

The Doctor beams. "Psychology."

Ah, Jack.

Like it was called by our thoughts, the sound of a bomb becomes clearer. A spaceship shoots out of nowhere, catching the bomb in some sort of stasis field. For some reason Jack then beams himself so that he's sitting astride the bomb. "Doctor!"

"Good lad!" The Doctor calls back.

"Jack Harkness! What in the hell are you doing sitting astride that bomb like you're riding a bull?" I can't help but scold him. Of all the dumbass things for a person to do.

Jack smirks. "Sorry Ma'am, couldn't help myself." Face falling, he looks back over at the Doctor. "The bomb's already commenced detonation. I've put it in stasis but it won't last long."

"Change of plan. Don't need the bomb." The Doctor informs him. "Can you get rid of it, safely as you can?"

Jack nods. "Rose?"

I look away, noticing the Doctor doing the same thing next to me. It's probably best to give them some privacy.

While I file their conversation as background noise, 'nice shirt?' really Jack? I notice that the Doctor has brought his hands up and is staring at them intently.

"What are you doing?" I ask him.

The Doctor beams at me. "Software patch. Going to email the upgrade." He waggles his eyebrows. "Check out these moves!" Throwing his arms out, the nanogenes move in a wave towards the patients who are still zombified. They all fall to the ground.

"Everybody lives, Mabel. Just this once, everybody lives!" The Doctor laughs, sounding so very happy about that fact.

All of the zombified people stand up, gas masks gone, looking very confused. The Doctor darts over to talk to Doctor Constantine, leaving us behind. I love over at Rose, who looks back at me and can't help but laugh. "That impossible man."

"Yeah, he is, isn't he?" Rose agrees, laughing as well.

The Doctor rushes back, getting on top of the Chula medical ship and pressing a few buttons. Looking out at the crowd of people, he raises his voice to be heard. "Right, you lot. Lots to do. Beat the Germans, save the world. Don't forget the welfare state!" Leaning down, he addresses us now. "Setting this to self-destruct, soon as everybody's clear. History says there was an explosion here. Who am I to argue with history?"

"Usually the first in line." Rose points out, but the Doctor just smiles at her.

Jumping down from the ship, he's almost skipping with joy. It arcs over the connection making me feel like I'm bouncing on a cloud myself.

We head back to the Tardis, a short walk now that we aren't going on any detours.

"The nanogenes will clean up the mess and switch themselves off." The Doctor tells us, walking through the doors to the Tardis. "Because that's what I just told them to do. Nancy and Jamie will go to Doctor Constantine for help, ditto. All in all, all things considered, fantastic!"

"Look at you, beaming away like you're Father Christmas." Rose states, returning his infectious grin.

The Doctor gives her a look. "Who says I'm not, red bicycle when you were twelve?"

Rose's face goes slack in shock. "What?"

"And everybody lives, Rose! Everybody lives! I need more days like this." He continues.

I send my own look his way, one of exasperation. "I know you're super hyped right now, but we aren't done yet."

His face twitches, realization setting in.

"We can't call it as everybody lives if there's still one person left." I tell him.

Nodding, the Doctor sets the coordinates. We materialize, I assume it's the right place and Rose opens the door.

Then comes the depressing sound of Jack talking to his own computer and sipping what looks to be a martini. With a mischievous look, I turn to the Doctor.

He smirks back at me, pressing a button and causing Moonlight Serenade to start playing. I match his smirk with one of my own, pulling him towards me. And then, we start to dance.

Rose has a longsuffering look on her face, as if she's seen far too much of us being mushy but doesn't say anything. There is a shift of movement from the door, and I hear her voice ring out. "Well, hurry up then!"

"And close the door, will you? Your ship's about to blow up. There's going to be a draft." The Doctor chimes in, not looking away from me. In fact, he's so smooth that he reaches out on one of our circuits around the console and manages to pull the dematerialization lever without interrupting the rhythm of the dance.

"Oh you think you're so slick, don't you?" I tease.

"Oh, I know I am." He responds, dipping me for the final part of the song.

Okay. I'll give him that one.

"Much bigger on the inside." Jack states, looking around with awe.

"Welcome to the Tardis." Pulling back from the Doctor, I send a smile in Jack's direction.

A new song comes on, this one more upbeat then the last one.

Rose waggles her eyebrows at Jack, who takes the invitation and starts twirling her around the room.

The Doctor sweeps me up as well, and soon the console room is full of laughter and good cheer. It's almost like a drug. The feeling of happiness suffusing the room. I feel high on it. The Doctor isn't any better, beaming away like he's just remembered how.

But all good things must come to an end, and the energy starts to wind down as people start to get tired, or at least as the humans get tired. Rose makes her excuses, taking Jack with her to show him a room. Then it's just the Doctor and I, together in a room, dancing. Though it isn't really dancing anymore, just two people pressed together, swaying back and forth.

I smooth a hand along the collar of his jacket. "You did a good job out there today."

The Doctor hums, staring down at me with a soft expression.

"The world is content, for the time being." I continue. "What does the Doctor wish to do now?"

"I can think of one thing." He responds, his heavy gaze making it evident what he's speaking of.

Laughing, I run my hands down his chest and loop my fingers into his belt loops. "I'm thinking that can be arranged."

And then, well, I once again get proof that the Doctor does indeed dance.

AGBreads – Pirates are lovely, sometimes.

Gabumon7 – Thank you for the review! And I'm glad you didn't mind the skipping part of it.

Rosealyn – The fluff is killing me as well! Like I'll write a particularly fluffy part and then have to sit back and try not to melt. Thank you very much for your review. ?

Almadynis Rayne – Good question! I decided to leave it like that because I felt it was one of the principle moments in Amy's development. Over the show, and even I my fic here, Amy chooses the Doctor over and over again. By this point in her timeline, she's only just chosen Rory for good. Yes she cares for him very much, I'm not saying that she doesn't. And there were moments in her timeline before this, for example Amy's choice, where she does choose Rory. But in my mind, this was where she finally realizes that she truly wouldn't want to live in a world where Rory Williams wasn't alive. I also saw this part as the point where her faith started to shift from the Doctor towards other things. Because you're right, they could have found some fancy alien device to help and yet they didn't. -shrug- So I left it that way.

Squish The Squirrel Fish – I'm glad you are liking the story!

Kittyrsocute – Thank you for the review! I'm glad you are liking the story!