Anywhere in the Universe
"Get them," Miss Foster was ordering just as Donna and Caroline left the room, the guards somehow not managing to immediately follow them as the two woman hunted for a staircase, find one and rush up it.
Caroline glanced back at Donna as she managed to get slightly ahead, thankful for the fact she'd eaten. "You know the Doctor?"
"You know the Doctor?" Donna responded, just as Caroline rounded a corner only to run flat into the Doctor, who caught her to stop her from falling.
He very nearly gave her a hug, but seemed to decide against it before hugging Donna instead, Caroline taking a moment to lean against the railing. "Oh, my God," Donna breathed when they stepped apart. "I don't believe it. You've even got the same suit! Don't you ever change?"
"Yeah, thanks, Donna. Not right now." They all glanced down below them, seeing the guards, Miss Foster behind them, making their way up the stairs. "Just like old times!" he laughed, grabbing Donna's hand and tugging her along, Caroline following behind.
They reached the roof rather quickly, Caroline closing the door to the building behind them as Donna immediately began talking, though the Doctor did flash a blue light over their heads at the door. "Because I thought, how do you find the Doctor? And then I just thought, look for trouble and then he'll turn up." They ran towards the controls for the window cleaner cradle, the Doctor hurrying to work on it.
"So I looked everywhere. You name it. UFOs, sightings, crop circles, sea monsters. I looked, I found them all." The Doctor had some sort of pen like device, with a blue light on the end, that he was somehow using to work on the electronics. Caroline decided to just label it an alien thing and wait to question it later. "Like that stuff about the bees disappearing, I thought, I bet he's connected. Because the thing is, Doctor, I believe it all now. You opened my eyes. All those amazing things out there, I believe them all. Well, apart from that replica of the Titanic flying over Buckingham Palace on Christmas Day. I mean, that's got to be a hoax."
Caroline widened her eyes at Donna. "What makes you say that?" she asked quietly. Even if she hadn't actually seen it, that didn't mean it wasn't real.
The Doctor glanced back at Donna. "What do you mean, the bees are disappearing?"
Donna shrugged, choosing his question over Caroline's. "I don't know. That's what it says on the internet." The Doctor leapt up the staircase that led to the cradle, jumping inside of it. "Well, on the same site, there was all these conspiracy theories about Adipose Industries and I thought, let's take a look."
The Doctor leaned back down to them, gesturing up. "In you get!"
Caroline frowned at it. "In that thing?" she asked, Donna nodding in agreement.
The Doctor nodded. "Yes, in that thing."
"Doctor, if we go down in that, they can just call us back up again."
He shook his head. "No, no, no, because I've locked the controls with a sonic cage. I'm the only one that can control it. Not unless she's got a sonic device of her own, which is very unlikely."
The cradle was the only way off the roof that Caroline could see, and the Doctor seemed to think it would be safe to use. Donna went up the stairs first, the cradle a tight fit for three people. Caroline was very thankful she wasn't afraid of heights.
They dropped slowly, far too slowly for Caroline to actually think that they were any safer there then on the roof. But she really shouldn't have wished for speed, because the moment she thought it there were sparks from the pulley and the cradle began to drop at an alarming rate, only stopping with a jerk when the Doctor somehow managed to use his alien pen thing on it.
They had stopped right next to a window, thankfully. "Hold on," he began to run the pen, which had the blue light, around the edge of the window. "Hold on. We can get in through the window." However, it failed. "Can't get it open!"
Donna picked up a spanner from the ground. "Well, smash it then!"
Caroline very nearly snatched it from her hands. "This building has a deadlock and if she's activated it then it can withstand a bomb!"
There was a hissing sound above them, and Donna looked up to see a fire starting on one of the cables. "She's cutting the cable!"
A moment later the cable snapped, the entire cradle tipping sideways. Caroline just barely managed to grab hold of the inside of it, but Donna was thrown out. "Donna!" the Doctor shouted, leaning over the edge and holding on to the still surviving piece of cable with all his strength.
"Doctor!" Donna, who Caroline could just barely see was holding onto a line of cable with a long piece of metal at the end, called back.
"Hold on!"
"I am!" Caroline couldn't do anything from her position which wouldn't have ended up with either her falling or her making the Doctor fall. He tried to pull the cable that Donna was holding onto, but he couldn't get a good enough grip on it with one hand. "Doctor!"
He looked up at Caroline before handing the alien pen to her. "Aim for her pen!" he informed her. "Just press the button!"
Somehow, Caroline managed to point the device upwards and press the first button she found, miraculously aiming it exactly on Miss Foster's hand and making her pen fall out of it with a spark.
The Doctor leaned backwards and snatched the falling pen from the air. He climbed up to where Caroline was clinging, Miss Foster's pen between his teeth, and used it on the window, Caroline not protesting that time. If Miss Foster was an alien, it would make sense that her device would be able to override her own deadlock.
"I'm going to fall!" Donna shouted. "This is all your fault. I should've stayed at home."
He managed to unlock the window, sliding it up and climbing inside before turning and pulling Caroline up as well. "We won't be a minute!" he told Donna before grabbing Caroline's hand and running down to the room a floor below, which turned out to be Miss Foster's office. The Doctor rushed to the window, where they could see Donna's legs dangling, and began to use Miss Foster's pen on it.
"Is anyone going to tell me what's going on?" Penny, who was still tied up in the chair, asked them.
Caroline looked back at her. "Are you a journalist?"
"Yes," Penny nodded.
"Well," the Doctor said just as the window unlocked, "make it up." He grabbed Donna's legs, who, understandably, began to kick him off.
"Get off!"
"I've got you! I've got you! Stop kicking!" with Caroline's help, somehow, magically, the two managed to get Donna inside the office without anyone falling to their death.
Donna sighed in relief, nearly laughing. "I was right. It's always like this with you, innit?"
His grin was comical. "Oh, yes! And off we go!" They all turned and ran out of the office, though the Doctor turned around to zap Penny free after her shout reminded them of her presence. "Now do yourself a favor. Get out."
They ran through a few halls, Caroline and Donna switching off between taking the lead, until they reached the call centre again, stopping short as they found Miss Foster and her two guards waiting for them there.
"Well then," Miss Foster cooed, her voice as soft as Caroline had ever heard it. She pulled off her glasses. "At last."
Donna waved. "Hello."
"Nice to meet you, I'm the Doctor."
"And I'm Donna."
"Caroline," she reminded Miss Foster, "one of your employees."
Miss Foster nodded, though Caroline would have been shocked if the woman had actually remembered who she was. "Partners in crime." The Doctor and Donna looked at each other and nodded, agreeing with the title that had been bestowed on them. "And evidently off-worlders, judging by your sonic technology." She eyed Caroline. "You should have said something."
The Doctor pat his pockets up and down, Caroline still holding his own apparently 'sonic' device, before pulling out the pen from Miss Foster, which was an actual pen. "Oh, yes, I've still got your sonic pen. Nice. I like it. Sleek," he showed it to Donna and Caroline. "It's kind of sleek."
Donna nodded. "Oh, it's definitely sleek."
"And if you were to sign your real name," the Doctor addressed Miss Foster again, "that would be?"
"Matron Cofelia of the Five Straighten Classabindi Nursery Fleet," Miss Foster seamlessly announced. "Intergalactic Class."
"A wet nurse, using humans as surrogates."
"I've been employed by the Adiposian First Family to foster a new generation after their breeding planet was lost."
The Doctor frowned. "What do you mean lost? How do you lose a planet?"
"Oh, politics are none of my concern," Miss Foster shrugged. "I'm just here to take care of the children on behalf of the parents."
"What," Donna asked, "like an outer space super nanny?"
"Yes, if you like," Miss Foster agreed.
"So…so those little things…" Donna was attempting to reason it out, clearing doing so by speaking rather than letting her brain work it out, as Caroline was attempting, "they're…they're made out of fat, yeah, but that woman, Stacy Campbell," Caroline looked over sharply at that, Stacy was the woman from her street, "there was nothing left of her."
Caroline had seen Stacy, Stacy had thanked her for the Adipose pills.
Miss Foster nodded almost sadly, though it didn't feel like she was sad for Stacy. "Oh, in a crisis the Adipose can convert bone and hair and internal organs. Makes them a little bit sick, poor things."
Donna stepped forward. "What about poor Stacy?"
The Doctor was only staring at Miss Foster with a stoic expression. "Seeding a level five planet is against galactic law."
Miss Foster raised her eyebrows. "Are you threatening me?"
"I'm trying to help you, Matron. This is your one chance, because if you don't call this off, then I'll have to stop you."
"I hardly think you can stop bullets." Her two guards stepped forwards and took aim, the Doctor immediately moving to stand slightly in front of Donna and Caroline.
"No, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. One more thing, before dying," he held out a hand and Caroline handed him his sonic, which she had, admittedly, been clutching quite hard for the last few minutes. "Do you know what happens if you hold two identical sonic devices against each other?" he held the two devices up.
Miss Foster breathed in deeply. "No."
The Doctor shrugged. "Nor me. Let's find out."
Immediately, there was an awful noise, high pitched and squeaking and burrowing into their skulls. It even shattered a nearby window. Caroline grabbed her head, bending over in an attempt to fight it. As she fell, she unintentionally hit the Doctor's arm, which made him stop the sound.
"Come on!" Donna yelled, and the three of them spun and ran out of the room, the Doctor pushing to the front to led them somewhere.
It was quite some time before they reached what looked like a maintenance corridor, finally coming upon an open storage cupboard. The Doctor chucked out the ladder and mops inside while Donna and Caroline tried to catch their breath.
"Well, that's one solution," Donna nodded as he threw out a bright yellow suit. "Hide in a cupboard. I like it."
He was messing with the back wall, pressing on it until it slid away, revealing a big green machine that looked like some sort of core. Donna and Caroline came up on either side of him, and Caroline had to restrict her urge to touch whatever clearly alien technology was in front of her. "I've been hacking into this thing all day, because the matron's got a computer core running through the centre of the building. Triple deadlocked." He slid on a pair of glasses. "But now I've got this," holding up the Matron's sonic pen, "I can get into it." The Doctor began to sonic it as the two of them watched. "She's wired up the whole building." Pulling out two of the wires, he held them together as they heard guards began to run down the hall. "We need a bit of privacy."
Their screams made him release the wires, his goal now completed. Caroline felt slightly sick, but she couldn't tell if it was from fear or excitement. "Just enough to stop them. Why's she wired up the tower block? What's it all for?"
"Inducer online," the computer declared.
The Doctor pulled out a wire and began to work. Caroline leaned against the wall next to her, watching, while Donna leaned forwards. "You look older."
"Thanks."
"Still on your own?" Caroline noticed that Donna glanced at her when she said that.
He nodded. "Yup. Well, no. I had this friend." Now he looked at Caroline, but he seemed to determine that she wasn't a threat and kept talking. "Martha she was called. Martha Jones. She was brilliant. And I destroyed half her life. But she's fine, she's good. She's gone."
"What about Rose?"
"Still lost," his voice dropped and Caroline reached forward, gently touching his arm, which made him look at her. They held eyes for a second before she pulled away and he looked back at Donna. "I thought you were going to travel the world?"
Donna shrugged. "Easier said than done. It's like I had that one day with you, and I was going to change. I was going to do so much. Then I woke up the next morning, same old life. It's like you were never there. And I tried. I did try. I went to Egypt. I was going to go barefoot and everything. And then it's all bus trips and guidebooks and don't drink the water, and two weeks later you're back home. It's nothing like being with you. I must have been mad turning down that offer."
He frowned. "What offer?"
"To come with you."
Now the Doctor froze, eyes wide. "Come with me?"
Donna grinned widely. "Oh yes, please."
"Right."
The computer interrupted them, lights blinking done the modem. "Inducer activated."
"What's it doing now?" Donna asked as the Doctor rushed to do something, anything.
"She's started the program!"
"Inducer transmitting."
"So far they're just losing weight, but the Matron's gone up to emergency pathogenesis."
Caroline stepped closer. "And that's when they convert-"
He nodded. "Skeletons, organs, everything. A million people are going to die. Got to cancel the signal." He pulled the pendant Caroline had given him earlier out of his pocket, dismantling it to reveal something that looked like a very small part of a computer. "This contains a primary signal. If I can switch it off, the fat goes back to being just fat." He attached the pendant to the computer core.
"Inducer increasing."
A sense of dread fell over all of them. "No, no, no, no, no. She's doubled it. I need-haven't got time." He ran his hands through his hair. "It's too far. I can't override it. They're all gonna die!"
"Is there anything we can do?"
He tried various knobs and buttons along the core. "Sorry, Donna, Caroline, this is way beyond you. Got to double the base pulse, I can't-"
"Doctor," Caroline tried, fighting her own terror, "tell us. What do you need?"
"I need a second capsule to boost the override, but I've only got the one. I can't save them."
Donna was very calm as she held up her own pendant, likely gotten the same way the Doctor had gotten his. He stared at her in shock before grinning, pulling it apart and adding it to the circuit he'd created. All of the lights shut off immediately.
He'd stopped it. They were saved.
A loud noise came from above them, something like a plane leaving or arriving, and they all looked up. "What the hell was that?"
"Fine. When you say nursery you don't mean a crèche in Notting Hill."
"Nursery ship," Caroline whispered.
The computer lit up again, though this time the center screen had a series of symbols that looked like some kind of alien language. "Incoming signal."
A voice, that was clearly alien, began saying something, and the Doctor seemed to be understanding.
"Hadn't we better go and stop them?"
The Doctor held up a hand. "Hang on. Instructions from the Adiposian First Family." The voice continued to speak, and the Doctor's eyes widened even more, if it was possible. "She's wired up the tower block to convert it into a levitation post. Ooo. Oh. We're not the ones in trouble now. She is!" Now they did turn and run, finding a lift that could bring them to the roof. The Doctor even soniced it so that they got up there even quicker.
On the roof, they found all of the little white baby aliens floating up towards a large circular ship in beams of blue light. Caroline stopped, staring in wide eyed wonder. Aliens. Real life aliens. Real life baby aliens that were being levitated right before her very eyes.
"What you going to do then?" Donna asked the Doctor. "Blow them up?" Caroline got the sense they'd faced a similar situation the last time the Doctor and Donna had been together.
He looked at Donna in surprise. "They're just children. They can't help where they come from."
Donna grinned. "Oh, that makes a change from last time. That Martha must've done you good."
He nodded. "She did, yeah. Yeah. She did. She fancied me." He looked down at Donna and Caroline, but Caroline was too busy being distracted by the aliens, her mind rushing to try and figure out how aliens made of fat would function, to really focus on what the other two were saying. If she could have seen him, she would have seen that he was chuckling at her wonder.
"Mad Martha, that one. Blind Martha. Charity Martha."
One of the baby Adipose waved at them as it passed, a little smile on its face. "I'm waving at fat," Caroline breathed, laughing.
"Actually, as a diet plan, it sort of works. There she is!" He'd spotted Miss Foster floating upwards after the babies, though she stopped at roof level. "Matron Cofelia, listen to me." The Doctor reached for her, but she was too far away for him to even think about pulling her closer.
"Oh, I don't think so, Doctor. And if I never see you again, it'll be too soon."
He groaned. "Oh, why does no one ever listen. I'm trying to help. Just get across to the roof. Can you shift the levitation beam?"
"What," she scoffed, "so that you can arrest me?"
"Just listen. I saw the Adiposian instructions. They know it's a crime, breeding on Earth. So what's the one thing they want to get rid of? Their accomplice."
Miss Foster laughed. "I'm far more than that. I'm nanny to all these children." She gestured to the Adipose above her.
"Exactly! Mum and Dad have got the kids now. They don't need the nanny anymore."
The realization just seemed to hit her right when the levitation beam switched off, sending the wide eyed Miss Foster plummeting to the ground. They heard the crunch as the Adipose ship flew out into space, leaving the scene of their crime.
Caroline was sad that Miss Foster had been abandoned, but at least now she couldn't harm anyone anymore.
The three of them made their way back down to the ground, avoiding the attention of quite a few emergency service workers trying to deal with the circumstance. The Doctor threw the sonic pen into a waste bin.
"Oi, you three." The reporter from earlier appeared, still tied to the chair. "You're just mad. Do you hear me? Mad! And I'm going to report you for…madness." She walked away, grumbling.
"You see," Donna sighed, "some people just can't take it."
He shook his head. "No." He did look down at Caroline then, feeling a bit guilty already. He had lost her her job, accidently flung her into a dangerous situation. But she'd seemed…excited. Like she was loving the adventure. As Donna said, you didn't come across many people like that, especially not as randomly as he'd come across Caroline.
Donna shrugged, making him look at her. "And some people can. So, then. TARDIS! Come on." She grabbed his arm and pulled, but the Doctor stopped her, looking back at Caroline.
"Do you want to…" he offered, holding out a hand for her to take. He could at least show her the TARDIS, maybe to just take her home. And then he could point her in the direction of Martha yes, he could do that. Martha would help Caroline deal with any of the problems that would come from experiencing an alien adventure.
Caroline's mouth opened. "Is it your blue box?"
He grinned. "Do you want to see?"
She grabbed his hand and he led the way to the alleyway he'd parked the TARDIS in. There was a brilliantly blue car parked at the front of the alley, and in the darkness beyond Caroline could see what she recognized as the blue box she'd seen on Christmas. "That's my car!" she pointed at the car, laughing. "That is like destiny. And I've been ready for this." She ran to the boot of the car which Caroline saw was filled with a variety of suitcases. "I packed ages ago, just in case. Because I thought, hot weather, cold weather, no weather. He goes anywhere. I've gotta be prepared."
Donna began to unload the boot into the Doctor's arms while Caroline just stood and watched. "You've got a, a hatbox."
She laughed again. "Planet of the Hats, I'm ready." She'd finished unloading the car and began to bring all of her cases to the TARDIS, the Doctor following silently. Caroline was watching him quietly, not wanting to interrupt him. Donna leapt into the TARDIS, with Caroline standing slightly to the side. "I don't need injections, do I? You know, like when you go to Cambodia. Is there any of that? Because my friend Veena went to Bahrain, and she-" it seemed to occur to Donna that the Doctor had been quiet for a while. "You're not saying much."
"No, it's just…" he blinked quite a few times. "It's a funny old life, in the TARDIS."
Donna's face fell. "You don't want me."
He shook his head. Caroline had pressed a hand to her mouth, he could see her. "I'm not saying that."
"But you asked me. Would you rather be on your own?"
"No. Actually, no." He sighed. He needed to be careful this time. "But the last time, with Martha, like I said, it, it got complicated. And that was all my fault. I just want a mate."
Donna's mouth dropped open. "You just want to mate?"
Now it was his turn to look surprised. "I just want a mate!"
"You're not mating with me, sunshine!"
"A mate," he clarified. "I want a mate."
Donna stepped back out of the TARDIS. "Well, just as well, because I'm not having any of that nonsense. I mean, you're just a long streak of nothing." She gestured to him. "You know, alien nothing."
He nodded. "There we are, then. Okay."
Donna began to smile. "I can come?"
He grinned now. "Yeah. Course you can, yeah. I'd love it."
"Oh, that's just-" she ran forward to hug him but stopped, reaching for her pocket. "Car keys."
"What?"
"I've still got my mum's car keys." She ran past him back down the street. "I won't be a minute."
Next the Doctor turned to Caroline, who'd just been watching the two of them. "Are you alright?"
Her gaze was just focused on the TARDIS, and he realized that the door was open and she could see the fact it was bigger on the inside. "It's bigger…" she looked over at him. "How…"
He held out a hand to her. "Would you like to come see?" It made him excited when she did take it, letting him led her into the TARDIS. Maybe he would take her along, just for one adventure. To thank her for helping with Adipose. She had stayed calm, even voicing her suspicions and concerns before she'd even really understood what had happened. And she'd gone with Donna, even when she'd been perfectly able to leave. She'd realized something was wrong and she'd tried to help.
And he had lost her her job.
He would ask, at least.
Once they stepped inside, the Doctor stepped away to let Caroline see it in its entirety. She walked up the walkway slowly, staring up at the center console of the TARDIS. One of her hands was running along the railing and the Doctor walked up after her, hands in his pockets.
"This is called a TARDIS," he explained. "It travels in time and space."
Caroline turned to look at him, eyes wide. "This is a time machine?"
He laughed. "Would you like to go on an trip? Anywhere you want."
"Really?"
Donna returned back to the TARDIS then, keys no longer in hand. "Why are my suitcases still outside?"
With the three of them working on it the cases were in the TARDIS almost immediately. The Doctor kept looking at Caroline, ensuring she was still okay. Caroline would stop, every few seconds, and look back at the inside of the TARDIS like she didn't quite believe it was real. Thankfully, Donna didn't seem to question Caroline being on the TARDIS.
Caroline was just going to be there for one adventure. He promised himself, just one. Just one way to thank her for her help, and then he would send her to Martha. Donna was safe, Donna was his mate. Caroline, as helpful as she'd been, was not. She was still practically a stranger.
Once everything was in, the Doctor leaned against the console while Caroline and Donna stood together. "Off we go, then," Donna grinned.
The Doctor nodded. He'd never actually given Donna a proper introduction to the TARDIS. "Here it is. The TARDIS. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside."
"Oh, I know that bit. Although frankly, you could turn the heating up."
"So, whole wide universe, where do you want to go?" he was posing the question to both Caroline and Donna.
It was Donna who stepped forward first, though Caroline didn't look like she minded. "Oh, I know exactly the place."
"Which is?"
"Two and a half miles that way." She looked back towards the door and the Doctor set them in motion.
The place two and a half miles away turned out to be where Donna's grandfather watched the stars each night. Both the Doctor and Donna waved at him, with Caroline still attempting to comprehend how a spaceship could actually be able to travel in time and space.
"Right then," the Doctor said, closing the door as they, apparently, went into a place called the 'vortex'. "Where to next?"
Caroline and Donna looked at each other, somehow some silent understanding passing between them. "Ancient Rome."
The Doctor seemed amused they'd said it in unison.
Caroline didn't have any particular interest in Rome, but if you were told you could travel anywhere, who wouldn't go to Rome? It was one of the greatest civilizations in the history of Earth, after all.
If someone had told Caroline Attwater last year that she would have seen people appear and disappear on the abandoned streets of London, seen a blue box disappear from a field, run into an alien tracking something in her street, help said alien defeat an alien threat, and then by flying in said alien's time machine towards ancient Rome, she never would have believed you.
Now, she was much more open minded about the possibilities of the universe.
A/N: Caroline's joined the Doctor and Donna on their adventures through the universe! I wonder what could happen with a second companion tagging along?
Thank you to everyone who has read the story so far! It means so much to me that anyone's interested in reading this story :)
