Author's Notes: I still do not own Doctor Who. I can't imagine why. I'll change it when I come to power. Anyway, thanks for the reads and reviews, I'm glad you were still interested after my three week hiatus and look! It hasn't been three weeks at all! So, in the last review, helikesitheymikey gave me an idea that actually worked quite well for me. I won't tell you which one because I don't want to ruin it, but I felt like I should give some credit. Anyway, thank you so much everyone. Let me know what you think and happy reading!
Jack Smith stared hopelessly at his homework.
He had listened to the audio file of the story for his English assignment. He had even liked it, now was the bad part, though, doing the worksheet. Writing about who was in the story, what they did and what he thought of it. His mum had been the one to help him with this, but she was working now. She said it was for her own sanity, whatever that meant. He knew she would help him when she got home or his dad would, but that also meant he would have less time to just have fun with them. So, he hated doing that. Yet it looked as if that would be his lot tonight. Great Grampy was great, but he had fallen asleep. He would have asked Charlotte, but she was well, his older sister. He would just as soon jump off a bridge.
Jack heard the doorbell ring. He assumed his Great Grampy would awaken to open it, but was surprised to hear his little brother's voice at the door. That couldn't be allowed! He rushed and ran to the door.
Jamie was standing there talking to Rose! The girl who had helped him at the Tube station. What was she doing here?!
"You're to stay away from us!," Jamie warned in a stern voice. "My dad wants nothing to do with you! That's why he left you!"
"But-"
"You're a stupid girl, Rose Tyler!"
Jamie slammed the door in Rose's face. Wilf stirred awake.
"What's that racket?," asked Wilf.
"Nothing," said Jamie.
Jack walked over to his younger brother. "Why did you do that to Rose?"
"Because she's a stupid, selfish brat," said Jamie.
"You don't even know her," said Jack.
"The TARDIS does."
"What's a TARDIS?"
"Time And Relative Dimensions in Space."
"What are you talking about?"
Jamie leaned in. "Can you keep a secret?"
Jack followed his little brother into the potting shed and saw the big, blue box.
"So? Dad's got a box?"
"She's not a box!" Jamie insisted. He opened the door. "Come on!"
Jack followed his brother inside, preparing himself for a tight fit. What he found made no sense at all.
"It's bigger on the inside," said Jack.
"It's another dimension," said Jamie.
Jack walked around, looking at the strange space in front of him. There were coral walls, metal grating for floors and the room hummed.
"What is this place?"
"I told you she is called the TARDIS," said Jamie.
"And what's that?"
"She's a time machine."
Jack shook his head. "You're just making that up."
"I am not!"
A cupboard door opened.
Jamie looked at Jack. "She wants you to get your box."
"My box? How can I have a box here?"
Jack walked inside the cupboard A light shone down on a wooden box. It was the second of two on a shelf.
He picked it up and opened it to see an old fob watch. He picked it up and walked outside to where Jamie waited.
"You have to open it," said Jamie. "Then you have to keep it with you to act as a perception filter. At least for now, until everyone's sorted out."
Jack shook his head. "What do you mean?"
"This is Dad's time machine. He's an alien."
"No, he's not."
The ship groaned.
"She says if you don't believe that, you should open the watch."
Jack opened the watch.
It was morning. The kids weren't quite down to the breakfast table yet, so it was just the Doctor and Donna. He looked at her as she groaned at her mobile.
"Not him again," she said.
"Not who?," asked the Doctor.
She smiled ruefully. "So, that's me caught then."
"Caught at what?"
She sighed. "There's this bloke at work, head of human resources, Lance, he's called. He will not stop hassling me. Ever since I wouldn't take his bloody cup of coffee."
"You love coffee."
Donna looked startled as if that was some sort of revelation. "Well, I'm trying to cut back."
"You didn't tell me that."
"Well, I am now. Anyway, he keeps trying to give me bloody coffees and I keep saying 'no.' God, I know what he wants and I'm a married woman, for pity's sake. The creep won't stop and now he's mad because I've told the whole office about him and there isn't a woman in there who will give him the time of day now. I ought to take him in front of a bloody tribunal."
"Shall I have a talk with him?," asked the Doctor.
Donna laughed. "That's all I need, my husband coming in to straighten the boys out. I can handle myself, thank you very much."
"Still, Donna, if he's ringing you at home-"
"I've got it, John, seriously. I'm a big girl, I've been looking after myself for a while now."
"I know," said the Doctor. "I like looking after you, though."
She smiled. "I know you do."
The Doctor looked. There were tears in her eyes. "Donna, are you alright?"
"Of course I am. I'm just being silly. Women's problems."
"Oh," said the Doctor nodding. John Smith had never had a damn clue about "women's problems." The Doctor had it down to a science. Funny, by his estimations, she wasn't due to go completely off the rails for another two weeks, He looked up to see the boys enterng. "Jack-jackety-jacks! James-james-" He stopped and frowned. "Never mind that. Failed attempt. I'm going to think up a good one. Do you mind changing names?"
"John..." said Donna.
"Oh, come on. That could be fun if everyone picked their own names."
"What would yours be?," asked Jamie.
The Doctor opened his mouth to answer then stopped. "Uh, never mind."
The boys sat at the table.
"How did your homework go?," asked Donna. "I'm so sorry that I didn't get a chance to look over it last night."
"It's fine, Mum," said Jack.
"Do you want me to have a look at it now, sweetheart?"
Jack shrugged and retrieved the papers from his knapsack. Donna took them with her usual smile. She always tried to stay smiling while she helped the children with their work. She told the Doctor that she figured that the one person who always ought to have patience for them should be their mum, so he was very surprised when she frowned.
"What's wrong, Mum?," asked Jack.
"Jack, this is perfect." She handed the papers to the Doctor. "Have a look at these!"
The Doctor took them as Zoe sat down beside him. They were perfect, there were no transversed letters or confused words. The punctuation was perfect. The sentence structure was a bit more complex than what Jack should have been capable of. "Did your grandfather help you?"
"No," said Jack.
This was strange. First, Jamie. Now Jack's suddenly disappeared dyslexia.
Just then, Charlotte stalked in.
"Good morning, sweetheart," said Donna.
"What's good about it?," she asked taking a seat.
"That's no way to start the day," said the Doctor.
"How should I start it? Lola, Sally and Ava kicked me out of the group."
"For the talent show?," asked the Doctor.
"Those little brats," said Donna.
"You could always enter on your own," said John.
"Miss Cooper already entered me," she grumbled.
"Good for you," said Donna. "That'll show them. What are you going to do?"
Charlotte looked up at her mother in confusion. "Sing."
"Oh," said Donna, looking at the Doctor with eyes that betrayed her panic, even as she forced a smile on her face.
Charlotte couldn't sing. That girl. Lola, had made it to the third round of Britain's Got Talent. It was really no surprise if Charlotte had been dropped from a singing group.
"Well," said Donna, "we'll be watching."
The Doctor drove the kids to school. Then as he began his commute across town, he got to thinking about Donna and the cup of coffee. He wasn't jealous. Time Lords didn't get jealous and besides that, Donna was not a cheater. It just wasn't in her.
Why did Lance want her to have that cup of coffee so badly?
So, he called the office and let them know he wouldn't be in today. Then he headed over to Donna's office at H.C. Clements, It finally occurred to him that he had no idea what H.C. Clements did, so he looked it up. Government contracts, top secret ones, so that could only mean UNIT.
He used the psychic paper to get inside and had to carefully evade Donna as he spotted her going around on the main floor. He found Lance's office easily enough. He walked in.
"Hello! I'm the Doctor! Mnd telling me why you've been harassing my wife?"
Lance looked at him skeptically from his desk. "Who's your wife?"
"Donna's my wife."
"And you're called the Doctor?"
Right. Failure there.
"Look, I'll leave her alone, I swear. Just don't beat me up."
The Doctor frowned. "What did you want her to drink the coffee for?"
"Nothing!"
The Doctor took out the sonic screwdriver.
"What's that thing?," shouted Lance.
"Well, obviously, you would want Donna to drink the coffee only if there was something in it."
"No, I just thought she was... hot."
The Doctor glared at him. "She was married and she told you 'no' and you kept after her. You just denied there was something in it and now I think whatever it is must be in here... Aha!" He opened a desk drawer and saw a vile of glowing particles suspended in water. He turned to Lance. "Where did you get these?"
The Doctor forced Lance to show him where. He followed him all the way down to a secrey basement down a long tunnel and into a lab with all kinds of "Top Secret" badging on it.
In there were lots of Huon particles, suspended in giant tanks. He turned to Lance.
"What do you need the Huon particles for?"
"I can't tell you."
"You can't tell me? You had better start talking. These particles are deadly and you wanted to put them in my wife. Why?!"
Suddenly, one of the walls started moving up and the Doctor found himself face to face with...
"You're one of the Racnoss."
"Empress of the Racnoss."
"You shouldn't even exist!"
The Empress turned to Lance. "Who is he?"
"Donna's husband."
"Who is Donna?"
"The one I was gonna give the Huon particles to."
The Doctor looked down at the giant hole in the floor. "How far down are you drilling? What for?"
"A curious little spouse," said the Empress.
"You wanted to eat my wife? Okay, what's the point in that? What do you need a meal laced with Huon particles for? Why?"
The Empress smiled menacingly.
"That wasn't a rhetorical question," said the Doctor.
"My children will be ever so hungry when they awaken."
"They're down there?," the Doctor said incredulously, looking at the hole. "Feed them the Huon particles, bring them to life, then what? Eat the Earth?"
"Such a tasty planet."
"Right," said the Doctor. "That's not going to work for me. See, I like it here. I live here. Disney World is here. There are cakes with edible ball bearings. Let me help you. We'll find a way to get your children out and find you a planet where you can coexist peacefully."
"Who are you to tell me what to do, you puny little human?"
"I'm not human."
"Then what are you?"
"I'm a Time Lord."
The Empress screamed. "They murdered the Racnoss!"
The Doctor noticed Lance fleeing. He would find him later. "Empress, this is your last chance."
The Empress didn't seem to be listening.
"Right," said the Doctor. "Excuse me then."
He ran out, watching Lance run back up the tunnel. He would deal with him later.
There had to be a UNIT computer in here somewhere. He found a panel and accessed it. UNIT had the room rigged to explode if need be. That figured. Typical UNIT overkill. Well, there was a definite need. First, he set off the alarms at the neighboring buildings and then set off the explosives, causing the room to flood. He only had a few minutes to get out of there himself. He took one of the tunnels up and climbed up into the dry Thames river bed. He climbed up over the banks and into the plaze of the office complex where the assembled workers had gathered for the evacuation.
"John!"
He froze, turning to see Donna running towards him.
"John, what on Earth happened to you?"
The Doctor realized he was completely drenched and partly covered in the muck from the river.
"Right, well, I was coming to take you to lunch-"
"It's ten in the morning!"
"Yes, that's what made it a surprise. Anyway, then the building flooded a bit."
"Oh, my God!," Donna shouted. She slapped him on the arm, causing some water to fly out of his sleep. "You could have been killed!"
"Yeah, well, I should be going."
"Right," said Donna, nodding. "Get changed before you catch your death. I'll meet you at home."
The Doctor managed to beat Donna home, he was not quite sure how. He ran into the garden first and the potting shed. He used the TARDIS scanners to find out there was a Racnoss ship in the orbit of the Earth, but there was no one on board. The Empress of the Racnoss hadn't made it back to her ship.
He had done it again. Genocide. There was no choice.
There never was.
The Brigadier was just getting some paperwork done when there was a knock at his office door. Jack Harkness appeared.
"Did you know someone just drained the Thames?," said Jack.
"What?"
"Also, our satellites are picking up an alien ship in orbit."
The Brigadier sighed and took out his flask.
That night, the Doctor sat with the rest of the family watching telly, searching for something besides the news about the Thames draining.
There was once absence from the family gathering and that was Charlotte, Yet her presence was felt or rather heard all the way from her room at the top floor.
"How long is she going to do that?," asked Zoe.
"Well, she's practicing," said the Doctor. "So, until she gets it right."
"Forever," groaned Jamie.
"Oi!," said Donna. "That's unkind!"
John looked at Donna woefully. "Should we tell her?," he whispered.
"Oh, that'll be just great," said Donna. "Her parents telling her she can't sing. I hope you like paying for therapy."
"Well, we can't let her get up there in front of everyone," said the Doctor.
"There are worse tragedies in life than a subpar performance at a school talent show," said Donna.
The Doctor looked back at Jack, who appeared to be hanging on every word.
That night after everyone had gone to bed, Jack went back out to the potting shed. He went inside the TARDIS.
"Hello," he said. "Uh, how have you been?"
The ship hummed warmly.
"That's good. Look, the watch helped me a lot and my sister, Charlotte, she's got this talent show coming up and she's awful."
He could have sworn the ship laughed.
"I was thinking maybe I could take her box and it would help her."
The ship hummed her approval. The cupboard door opened again and Jack walked to the shelf still holding on to its last box. He took it and walked out.
"Thanks," said Jack. "Do you need anything from the house? Food or something?"
The ship replied that all she needed was the company of her Time Lords.
"Okay," said Jack. "I'll try to visit tomorrow after school."
The TARDIS hummed with pleasure. Jack smiled back. "Good night."
He walked back into the back garden feeling the chill of the autumn night's air and looked at the stars. All the wonderful places there would be,
Then he saw a light crashing in the distance and hurried inside.
Jack knocked on Charlotte's door.
"What?," she spat.
He held out the box. "Here. This is for you. It'll help you with your competition, like mine helped me with my reading. You just can't let Dad know."
Charlotte took the box. "Why not?"
"Jack Smith!," they heard Donna shout. "Why aren't you in bed?"
"Gotta go," said Jack, going back down the stairs.
Charlotte shut the door and sat on her bed. She looked at the box and the strange circles on it. She traced her fingers over them and opened the box. Inside, there was a locket.
She opened it.