The Doctor watches John worriedly. He trudges back into the TARDIS with heavy feet. He seems sad as he trails his fingers along the rail. He changed his trainers—probably for the best, considering how much they run on an average day. "You okay, John?"
"Yeah, he nods with an unsure smile. His hand in his jean pocket fingers the key there. He likes the feel of the metal, now warm from never leaving his grasp or his pocket.
"John," the Doctor approaches with a diplomacy about her. She rests her hands on his arms. Her eyes, looking up at him, are understanding, and ask questions without demanding answers. "Tell me if you want to go on. This life isn't easy, especially if you have a family back…home."
John looks back at the Doctor, knowing his eyes are as sad as he feels. He likes her comforting touch; it supplies a warmth he can't summon from his own heart at the moment. Chiswick isn't home, though, not anymore. Sure, there's Gramps, and he'll owe Mum a visit every now and then, but it isn't home. Home is where he flops onto his super bouncy bed the TARDIS gave him. He thinks of home as where he crashes through the doors with the Doctor after being chased off of yet another planet. "How could I go back to a normal life after all this? I want to continue on, like this - us - for…ever."
The Doctor seems spooked for a moment, flinching but never moving back. Her eyes take on a new expression, swirling with a new circulation of energy. She doesn't seem to realize as she whispers an echo of his word: "forever."
John falls to the rail, dragging the Doctor as he holds her in his arms. He looks to the ceiling; "what?!"
"What's going on?" The Doctor asks the TARDIS as well. Her familiar grinding sounds as she continues to spark and hiss at them. "What's wrong, sweetheart, where are you taking us?!"
"Doctor, what's happening?" John follows the Doctor back up to the controls, stumbling along the way. He manages to latch onto a bit of coral for dear life. "How can the TARDIS pilot herself?"
"I don't actually know what's going on," The Doctor admits as she pulls at a lever. It refuses to budge, though. She glances to where a murky jar of liquid rests on a little shelf. The liquid bubbles excitedly. "You seem to like it, don't you?"
"Who—what?" John looks from the Doctor to the jar, wondering just what's in there. With a final jerk the TARDIS stills, throwing John over the railing yet again as the Doctor lands on the jump seat.
"John, you all right?" she calls down to him. She leans over to look, flipping her hair in doing so.
"Oh, I'm…dandy," John remarks in a vaguely Scottish lilt as he puts himself right side up. He pulls at his plain blue shirt, making sure the sleeves are still rolled up to an acceptable level of casual-ness. "So, where are we?"
The Doctor reaches for his hand and leads them out. It's a dark, dank, rough looking place. They seem to be in a tunnel, where the only light is artificial. The ground is nothing but upturned soil, littered with rocks and roots. "Why would she bring as here?"
"Kind of exciting," John admits. The Doctor looks at him with fond wonderment, and he shrugs. "That feeling you get…like you swallowed a hamster."
The Doctor is about to ask when the hell he ever swallowed a hamster to have that frame of reference when there's a commotion. Two soldiers rush from another end of the tunnel, holding guns. They shout to drop their weapons, surrender, typical soldier jargon. "Oi, no weapons, G.I. Junior, we're safe!"
"Look at their hands, they're clean," the young one - Junior, suppose - says. "Process them; her first."
"Leave her alone!" John struggles against another soldier, and a third who appears to have popped up out of nowhere. "What are you doing to her?"
"It's taking a tissue sample," the Doctor narrates as the machine goes, squirming and yelping as whatever happens, happens. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow; not winnin' any awards for hospitality, eh, mate? What's this, then, some sort of extrapolator?—accelerator?"
The machine releases the Doctor's hand and John pushes through the guards. He takes the Doctor's hand, once smooth and white - save a smattering of freckles - now has a clear red mark. It looks like someone ripped the vein out of her hand.
A hiss draws their attention and out of a chamber steps a girl. She's young, but nearing adulthood, at least physically. She has blond hair, for some reason, and brown eyes, contrasting the Doctor's blue ones. As she emerges she seems confused, but sound of mind enough to accept the gun offered and load it.
"Doctor, who is that?" John asks the woman who looks just as startled as he is. "Where did she come from?"
"From me," the Doctor mutters. She looks from her scarred hand to the young woman freshly spawned. "She's, erm, well, my daughter, I guess you could say."
"Hello, Mother," the blond girl greets with only a dash of personality.
"Okay," John nods and shifts on his feet as if preparing to take a racing position. His lips purse for a moment before resuming questioning. "How?—you said she was your daughter, but how? I mean, they took a flesh sample and - what? - grew her?"
"It's progenation: reproduction from a single organism. Diploids become haploids become…her," the Doctor frowns deeply. She glances at the young girl before her before shots sound. Her hands take John with her and behind cover.
"Detonate!"
The Doctor guides John and the girl back behind some crates. The explosion is contained but seals off the tunnel, blocking the TARDIS. She looks to John - he's all right - then to the soldiers. Junior's fine, same as before, whole lot of good that does them. Then, there's the progenated one. "Why did you do that?"
"The Hath would have killed us," the blond responds.
"That's my ship, and my home, I need it," the Doctor barks back at her.
"It's just a box: collateral damage," the blond tries to reason again.
"She's a TARDIS, a sentient being, and it's our home, not collateral damage!" John also snaps at the female soldier. She certainly has the emotional capabilities of a piece of cardboard. At the very least she looks chastised at John's words.
"Look, you two don't make sense. Come on; we'll take you to General Cobb," Junior waves the gun at them. He only succeeds in getting an eye roll from the Doctor and John. Nevertheless they put their hands up and start walking.
John glances at the girl several times, trying to determine what to make of her. She seems so unlike the Doctor - a progenation, was it? - and yet he sees a lot of her in the girl. The blond hair is different, and her eyes are actually kind of like his own, in color. She walks like the Doctor, though, and he guesses she has all of her brilliance. "I'm John; what's your name?"
"Don't know, don't have one yet," the girl answers looking ahead.
"If you don't know your name what do you know?"
"How to fight."
"The machine probably embeds military history and tactics; just enough to keep a soldier going," the Doctor says with all the contempt a woman can muster in her voice. "She's a generated anomaly."
"Generated anomaly," John rolls on his tongue. The blond giggles at his silliness and he grins at her. "Generated…Jenny, how about that?"
"Jenny," the girl brightens like a child, "yeah, I like that: Jenny."
"How's that, then," John looks at the Doctor, who only seems annoyed with him, "Mum?"
"It'll do," the Doctor grinds her teeth in his direction. She doesn't know what to make of Je—the progenation anymore than John does. There's no way of knowing what of her genetic makeup went into the girl, only that any of it is buried under miles of a soldier's brain.
"Oh, come on, you never spent sleepovers in your girl years toying with baby names? My cousin Harry - that's Harriet - used to do it all the time at sleepovers. She'd pick some really dumb ones, though." John blathers on just for the sake of it.
"What, like Nerys?" the Doctor still sneers at the very thought of the name and the girl.
"Come on, you have to give her some credit," John phases out the joking atmosphere and lowers his voice. "She's your daughter, you said that, so isn't she?"
The Doctor sighs. She really could slap him in the face right now, she could. John is entirely in the right, and that only furthers her irritation. The girl is as much her as an actual child, more so, if you really think about it. Still, that doesn't mean she wants to mother a progenation for which she didn't even sign up. "Where are we, anyway?"
"Messaline," G.I. Junior responds, "or, what's left of it."
It's like pictures of the war camps Wilf used to show John when he had a school project. There are loose fires and crates upon crates of supplies. Tents are made from ripped cloth and the whole area has a kind of salvaged feel to it. An intercom reads off numbers, naming factors of the deceased and even some as extinct. It looks like hell.
"This is a theater, though, why would they build camp here?"
"Maybe they're method actors," the Doctor offers with flattened snark.
"It's like an entire town based down here," John looks around him. He'll address the Doctor on her lackluster later.
"General Cobb, I presume," she sourly greets an older man. He pays her little to no mind.
"If you are pacifists from the Eastern tunnels we'll have none of it here," he tells her blatantly. "We're committed to the fight."
"Right, well, I'm not really one for fighting, so that's not a problem. I'm the Doctor, by the way, this is John." The Doctor even looks entirely bored with it all; very unlike herself.
"And I'm Jenny," she offers with a smile.
"We're at war, there is no room for peacemaking," says Cobb.
"Yeah, you're a single minded lot, I get that, but you're fighting with, what was it, the Hath?"
Cobb starts walking off without a word. G.I. Junior and Jenny follow him, prompting John and the Doctor to follow as well (much to her chagrin). "Back at the Dawn of this planet, these ancient halls were carved from the earth. Our ancestors dreamt of a new beginning: a colony where human and Hath work and live together. But that dream died along with Hath promises; they wanted it for themselves, but the pioneers fought back. They first used the machines to produce soldiers instead of colonists."
John wanders away from them as General Cobb starts talking of war again. He has no desire to hear of suffering, and has something to look at anyway. On a wall there is a plaque, with dusty old numbers in it. It sits below a window, which is blocked off by dirt. "There's nothing outside but build everything underground?"
"The surface is too dangerous," says Junior.
"If that's the case then why build windows?" the Doctor asks the question John was thinking of.
"Yeah, and what about these?" John points to the numbers.
"The meanings were lost in time. This war has been going on longer than any of us can remember, generations, marked by the death toll."
"Do not talk to me of war," the Doctor sparks some of her old self back now. It's a dangerous spark, though, and the General backs away from it. Her eyes begin to glow a bit, dangerously gold with fury. "I know of war and if you knew of true unending suffering you would stop this."
"We only know how to fight," Jenny speaks up, capturing the Doctor's - her mother's - attention. She looks to John, who is also listening. "Every child of the machine has this knowledge, of only the fight, and the death."
"You're born to fight, only knowing how to die," the Doctor whispers. Her frightening flame wisps out as she turns to the girl. She bends a bit and looks the girl in the eyes. There is so much to be found in them, though. There's a locked away knowledge, she sees. She could teach this girl so much of how to be…an echo of a Time Lord, at the very least. She can't, though, because that would mean taking this girl for what she is: her daughter. That's a price the Doctor cannot afford to pay at the moment, so she turns away. "How do I get back to my ship?"
"It was in the western tunnels," Junior volunteers, while Cobb pulls up a virtual map begrudgingly. "There are more important things to worry about, though. The progenation machines are powered down for the night but come morning we could breed a whole platoon from you two."
"Breed what?" John squeaks a bit. The Doctor spares him a shadow of her usual bemused smirk and he tries to speak words. "I can't have a bunch of technical sons and daughters with a machine! I mean, no offense, but you're not, I mean, that is-"
"How am so technically different from a child birthed? I have a body, I have a mind, all spawned from her and then shaped by my own experience once separate, how is that different from your process of parenthood?" Jenny looks away from John, who she dares say looks impressed at her words, to her mother. That's what she's calling her, at least, her Mum. Her Mum, who looks both impressed at the fire in her and fed up with the attitude (which Jenny is quite certain comes directly from her).
"Well, said, Soldier," Cobb nods to her, despite the Doctor's flared anger at him calling Jenny "Soldier". "We need more like you if we're ever to find the source."
"The source?" John echoes in askance.
"What's that, then? What is the source? Everyone likes a good source, come on?" the Doctor glances at Cobb expectantly. He glares back and it's almost comical watching the two try to interact without getting into a fist fight.
"It's the breath of life. In the beginning the Great one breathed life into the universe. Then, she looked at what she'd done, and she sighed." G.I. Junior recounts the myth of their beginnings.
"She…I like that," Jenny smiles at John in conspiracy. He smiles back; definitely her mother's daughter, this one.
"So, it's a myth," the Doctor rolls her eyes yet again - they're getting sore from overuse - and takes out her glasses. She directs the Sonic at the map and turns it. "There's encoded information, keeping you from accessing the data encryption, probably because you're so thick. Not you lot, but specifically him, I mean. Here we are, and your source is probably in this larger area where the tunnels diverge."
"That's the lost temple. That must be where the source is," Cobb smiles for the first time, possibly ever.
"Hold on, I didn't find this source for you to go and try to claim it in war!" the Doctor rips her glasses off and grabs Cobb's arm. "If there is any intention of bloodshed over this thing I will find it and destroy, do you understand me?"
"You'll have time to think over your decision from a prison cell." Cobb gestures for G.I. Junior to take arms.
"Oi, oi, oi, cool it, Rambo," John rambles at him, bringing Jenny and the Doctor away from the weapon's barrel.
"And if you try anything I'll see that your husband dies before your eyes."
"You're not gonna touch him," the Doctor challenges Cobb fearlessly. Her face is darkened as she threatens. "I'll stop you, Cobb, know that."
"I have an army," he retorts.
"We have a Time Lord," John spits back, only slightly grinning on the inside at being able to insert a reference to his favorite super heroes. No one else seems to get the reference, though (shame).
"I have the breath of God on my side," Cobb says with finality. "Put the new soldier with them. If she's from this one we can't trust her."
John says nothing as he takes Jenny with them using gently leading hands. He keeps quiet as they're led to the prison cell. He's just thankful they haven't separated him from the Doctor. It doesn't often happen, but when it does, it scares him more than any reason they could be in there for. Usually it's because they know humans aren't any threat (one time he was put in with a planet's livestock, he meant so little). Sometimes, though, some brutes will get a little handsy with the Doctor, and it makes John sick when she's lead out of his sight. She shouts that she'll find him and that they'll be all right but all he ever thinks is that he'll kill them if they touch her in any way. Every time an alien looks at her too long, or a guard touches her cheek like a creeper it drives John mad. Now, he can only be grateful that Cobb isn't the kind of soldier to take women captive.
"John," the Doctor nods to the number on the inside of the cell. She hasn't thought much of them, assuming they're a cataloging system for territory, but John might discover something else. He's brilliant like that. "That breath of life story might be a myth but the source could still be something real, chances are a weapon."
"And we basically gave Captain Nutjob a brochure on how to find it," John sighs and sits himself next to the Doctor's tired form.
"Yeah, but I remember the schematics. If we can get out of here we should be able to beat him to it before he can slaughter the Hath, whoever they are," the Doctor glances at her nails. when she looks up Jenny is wearing the same bemused look she claims as her own. "What are you starin' at, Missy?"
"You keep disdaining soldiers yet here you are drawing up plans like a proper General!"
"I am trying to stop the fighting," the Doctor corrects her, but she can already feel that emotion welling up inside her.
"Isn't every soldier?" Jenny continues to challenge her mother.
"Well, it's," the Doctor shakes her head, cursing her logic of all things going into that kid, "that's different."
"How?" Jenny leans to face her mother directly. The redheaded woman takes on a perfectly maternal warning expression and Jenny at least has the sense not to get in her face while it's there.
"Not like you indeed," John scoffs from his seat. "I have never seen her speechless like this. You keep on, Jenny."
"Don't you encourage her," the Doctor scolds him. She raps her nails against her cheek in thought. How can they best get out of this mess?—without taking Jenny with them? She can hear the troops chanting; this is not going to end well. "They're getting ready to move out, and we have to get past that guard."
"I can deal with him," Jenny volunteers without a second thought.
"No, you will not, you're not even coming with us," the Doctor points a finger, making Jenny back up from it.
"Wait, shouldn't she, though? I mean, she's your daughter." John tries to ease the tension in the room while maintaining a protective position by Jenny. He doesn't know exactly what has the Doctor so unlike herself but it's no direct fault of Jenny's, and maybe the girl could do her mother some good. "Have you got your stethoscope?"
The Doctor sighs but gives it to John nonetheless. She watches him and knows what he's doing. He smiles and she knows what it means. "She has two hearts?"
"Yeah," he affirms. The Doctor backs into the corner, though. It's not a motion of fear, but more of exhaustion, a haunted kind of movement trauma victims carry with them. "Is she a Time Lord, then?"
"What's a Time Lord?" Jenny asks. She doesn't understand, but it's something important. John was kind enough to believe in her so why is her own mother having such problems. Is she disappointed? Maybe that's it, Jenny thinks. Maybe it's like the story of creation. She breathed life into something and she sighed; maybe that sigh was of disappointment.
"It's who I am," the Doctor admits with difficulty. She approaches Jenny again, with the same intimidating stance as before. This time, though, she takes the girl's chin in her hand. The Doctor's eyes spark and Jenny's follow suit. "You are an echo of who I am: a Time Lord. It's a sum of knowledge, a code of shared history and shared suffering." The Doctor and Jenny both break away, looking scared and physically drained. Jenny is supported by John while the Doctor leans against the wall. "It's gone now, though."
"A war," Jenny mutters. That connection, a link into her mother's mind. By God, that was…there isn't a word for it. There was so much to understand, like the whole universe, all of time, was crammed into her. There were amazing things, but also awful, horrifying things.
"A war," the Doctor confirms. "A war, so large…everything is gone."
"You," Jenny looks at her mother in a new light. She had a family - one Jenny can't see - and a life. The memories are foggy, like trying to look out of glasses that have misted up from the temperature. She still knows, like a distant instinct telling her, what happened. "You drew up plans, played your part."
"Yes," the Doctor looks so tired as she says it.
"How are we different, then?" Jenny goes up to her mother, looking into her eyes. They're bleak, unlike before, and hollow seeming. These memories are so draining. "Why are we different?"
"You can't see what I see, you don't know what I know," the Doctor looks at Jenny. This girl is a few hours old. The Doctor raises her hands to Jenny's cheeks but gets a whisper of a touch before she lowers them again, like she has been hurt by it. "You don't deserve that burden. You might be a soldier but you don't deserve the burden of a Time Lord. You're not even a day old."
"Well, how old are you?" Jenny asks in earnest.
"Almost a thousand years." The weight of the statement carries itself, and makes the air in the room heavier by extension. There is almost a millennium of pain and burden in her voice, in her mind, in her eyes.
"Doesn't mean you deserve to bear that burden alone," John interjects when he feels it appropriate. Jenny moves to allow him access to the Doctor. She looks up at him, eyes glassy. It breaks his heart but it's better than the dark blankness that held them before. "You carry so much with you, shouldering the pain of time itself, but maybe this is an opportunity for you to teach someone else of it. There might be pain, but there is in any learning experience, right? What's the good of learning and gaining if there's nothing you give in return?"
Jenny watches in absolute awe. She has barely witnessed interaction of her own kind, let alone of humans (or Time Lords). John holds her mother's cheeks tenderly, forcing her eyes to meet his. It's not like the connection she held with the Doctor, though. This doesn't seem quite so tangible. This is more like a a surreptitious sharing of words and meaning through the unspoken. It's like offering a hug through the eyes, or warming the heart with words. It's fascinating. What interests Jenny most is when tears slip from her mother's eyes. In instinctual caring Jenny wishes them away, fretful at seeing her mother sad (strange, she thinks, how the machine gave her no instinctual love for a parent yet she feels it naturally). There's no need, though, as John wipes them away with his thumbs as gently as a flower petal shirks off a raindrop. He leans in, and at first Jenny thinks he might kiss them away, but instead he whispers shushes, and 'there-there' against her cheeks. He does kiss her hair,and it seems less personal than a kiss to the flesh. Jenny tells herself she'll ask John about the logistics of it later.
"There, now, how do we get out of here?" John asks with an encouraging smile. To his great relief the Doctor smiles back, seeming to come back to her normal self. He reminds himself that she's also probably recovering from the Poison Sky incident. She might act immune but all that compassion in her is probably just as heavy a weight on her as it is key in making her the Doctor.
"I can still help, you know," Jenny offers, seeing how the intimacy has lessened. "That soldier is male, I am a female, I should be able to distract him-"
"Wait," both John and the Doctor interrupt for different reasons. John flushes pink and scratches the back of his neck. He looks to the Doctor then down at his feet in embarrassment. She takes it as her cue to step forward. "Jenny, darling, you are a female, but how much do you actually know about female and male interaction?"
"I only know that males seem to find females distracting," Jenny reasons out verbally. "Their eyes seem attracted to certain sections of our bodies. That young soldier stares here a lot."
The Doctor chuckles as Jenny gestures to her breasts, "he is a bloke after all."
"And John stares at yours an awful lot too," Jenny points out. She is still a bit confused as to why the Doctor turns a shade of pink in her cheeks, while the back of John's neck seems to have gone entirely red. "What does that mean?"
"I'll…tell you later," the Doctor harrumphs as she stands. With a hand at Jenny's back she sends her to stand with John. "You two stay out of sight for a bit, and Jenny, don't you go trying this."
John gets a bad feeling but only raises his eyebrow. His hand rests on Jenny's shoulder, and clenches anxiously as the guard approaches the bars. The Doctor bats her eyelashes a bit, fingering the bars delicately. The guard leans in to hear what she is saying in a low, husky tone. John meshes his teeth tight as the Doctor captures the soldier's lips in hers, making a falsified moaning sound for show. All the while her hand seeks the gun at his belt. He only realizes it when the clack of the safety breaks him from his daze. The Doctor is looking sly as ever as she commands him to open the door quietly. "Yeah, Jenny…don't you go trying that."
"Go Mum!" Jenny bounces and claps excitedly at the new show of behavior. How entertaining that was! "Why are you angry, John? Mum got us out of jail."
"Yeah, brilliant," he grunts unhappily as they head for the door. They sneak down a hallway, him in the back, when the Doctor backs them up.
"That's the way out," she says to Jenny, who is grasped by the shoulders to prevent her from walking any which way she pleases.
"Right," Jenny readies the gun the Doctor pulled off the soldier but is stopped.
"Don't you dare, young lady," the Doctor scolds her progenated child.
"Well you're not goin' and kissin' him, that's for sure," John grumbles roughly.
"Why is John so angry that you kissed that bloke, Mum?" Jenny asks with a thumb gestured towards the brown haired man.
"Never you mind," the Doctor mutters, making a feasible effort not to meet his gaze. "I have just the thing."
The Doctor Sonics the far wall, making a few rocks crumble down. It works as a distraction and the soldier responds to it. She's about to sneak right behind him when Jenny clobbers him right in the back of his neck. "Oi, what was that for?"
"It worked, didn't it?" the blond rebuts.
"I am not going to argue with you on this," the Doctor flattens her brows but leads them on. She traces the memory of the map in her mind. "This is the tunnel we saw earlier."
"You got a pen, and some paper?" John asks as he finds another set of those numbers. "These end differently than the ones from earlier."
"Always thinking, both of you," Jenny muses at…well, she could call them her parents, couldn't she? The Doctor is her mother and she could very well call John the Doctor's mate, in a sense of the word. What a pair they make! "What do you do, exactly?"
"She," John begins proudly, "saves planets, rescues civilizations, defeats terrible creatures…and runs a lot."
"And he helps me through it all, brilliant as he is," the Doctor ads, sure to include how important John is to her— and things in general. Finally a wall slides after being Sonicked and she stands. "Here we are!—there's that running he mentioned!"
John spares Jenny a small look of amusement before they take off. They round a corner only to be met with a web of lasers. The Doctor goes about rewiring the whatnot. "Wait, there are more numbers. There are always eight digits, counting down."
"I'll hold them off," Jenny declares but the Doctor takes her arm. "It's them or us."
"That does not mean you have to kill them. Hurting people—killing them, it's like a disease that will never let you go. You always have a choice." Despite her words Jenny still runs towards the sound of Cobb and his troupes. The Doctor goes back to her work to try and ignore her hearts shouting and crying for her - now only - child to come back. The lasers blink out and she calls. "Jenny, come on!"
"Jenny, leave them, let's go," John calls to her as well. He takes the Doctor's hand on instinct and the two run to the end of the hall. When he turns back Jenny is almost— "Jenny, no, stop!"
The blond skids to a halt as the lasers blink back into place. She sighs to herself, determined to prove herself of her mother's make. Tossing the gun aside she smirks her mother's patented smirk. "Guess I'll have to manage. Watch and learn, Mum!"
John's brows rise to his hairline as Jenny back-flips in and around the lasers. She never falters, never hesitates, and never hits them. He looks at the Doctor, who is no less amazed at it. "Can you do that?"
The Doctor doesn't answer as her jaw hangs open until Jenny is once again standing upright. Instead she hugs the girl tightly, "you were brilliant!"
Jenny winks at John, who gives her a thumbs up. "I didn't kill him!—Cobb, I mean, you were right, I had a choice!"
"Oh, she's big on the choice, yeah," John pats his girls on the backs, gesturing that they should really be on their way. The three continue running down the halls until they find a complex. The Doctor goes about searching out the right route.
"So, what's the travelling like, with her?" Jenny asks. Her mind is abuzz with memories that come more into focus as time goes on. There are some she still can't see, like seeing the stars with a man named Lee. She can see the memories of John clearly, though. Those memories are…amazing, and sometimes scary, and very…emotionally loaded. With each memory received there is the filter of emotional perception with them. John's are always put through several filters, trying to be understood. There's always an unknown element attached to them.
"Oh, it's amazing," John grins at Jenny's curiosity. "It can be terrifying, yeah, but brilliant, and just totally wonderful. I've seen whole new worlds, I never could have imagined, wit her."
"New worlds, oh, I'd love to see those," Jenny sighs.
"Oh, I bet you will," John looks from Jenny to the Doctor. "Won't she, Doctor? Do think Jenny will see some new worlds?"
The Doctor smiles at the tone John takes, like the tone of an adult entertaining a child. Jenny is like a child, in many ways, and unlike one in many others. Still, she supposes either way, Jenny is her child. "I suppose she will."
"I can come, then?" Jenny bounces up and down in excitement and hugs her mother tightly. Afterwards she hugs John in the same manner, all the while repeating, "thankyouthankyouthankyou!"
"There we are!" John smiles warmly at her.
"Come on, let's hurry up!" Jenny rushes off, completely enthused.
"Careful!" the Doctor shouts after her. The instinct gives way to thought, though, and soon she's saddened by it all.
"What's wrong?" John asks, knowing too well what that face means. "I know that look, Doctor, so what's wrong?"
"It's just," the Doctor sighs. "John, I've been a mother before."
"I know," John admits nonchalantly, figuring it's the best way to approach the situation. Seeing her surprise he continues in a softened, feather light tone. "You're too sweet, too good, too kind not to have been."
The Doctor considers his words of observation best left for a later time. Instead she swallows heavily. "I lost it all along with my home. I thought that part of me died with them, and now, she, Jenny…it's like seeing their ghosts."
"I'm sorry," John whispers to her, giving her hand a squeeze. He no longer wonders when the hand holding begins or ends, just figures it's there unless otherwise occupied. "Why didn't you ever tell me, though? You talk all the time yet you never really say anything."
"I just," the Doctor shrugs sadly, "even now, I can't bear to face it. The part of me that was ripped away with them, the pain that swallows you. I couldn't…I can't."
"She'll help you," John says less as a statement and more as a promise. "I will, too. I can't imagine what it was like, but if it takes me forever, I'll make sure you're happy, so long as it's in my power."
"I don't know if that's something you or she can help, John," the Doctor admits in defeat.
"I don't say this to you, much, you know, but," John stops walking and quietly begs the Doctor's attention with his eyes; "I think you're wrong."
"Time to run again!" Jenny zooms back to them in time to grab her mother's hand and resume motion seamlessly. "Keep up, John!"
"Those numbers," John takes his hand from Jenny's and takes out his notepad.
"We're trapped!" Jenny says between John and her mother.
"This is a door!"
"This can't be a cataloging system," John murmurs as he writes.
"They're almost here!" Jenny bounces with urgency.
"Then get over here!" the Doctor orders her daughter.
"They're too similar," John clicks his pen.
"Come on!" the Doctor takes Jenny and John with her, Sonicking the door behind them. As they turn she looks up. "It's a fusion-drive transport! This is a ship!"
"The original one, like, for the colonists?" John looks around as well and tries not to trip over his feet while following.
"Maybe, but the power cells would have burnt out in time," the Doctor rushes to a control panel and pulls out her glasses. "This one is working. Ship's log, mission commander dead, human and Hath have divided into factions!—that's why war broke out, they turned on each other, it's a power vacuum."
"Look!" John points to a digital display. The Doctor joins him, still wearing the glasses (he is delighted to notice). "I've got it! I spent six months working as a temp in Hounslow Library and I mastered the Dewey Decimal system in two days. I am good with numbers; it's been staring us in the face!"
"What?" Jenny asks, caught between the rapid fire speech of her mother and John intertwined.
"It's the date," John smirks. "Each section's code is a completion date for the section."
"Finish the area stamp the date on it," the Doctor nods.
"Look at the date today," John gestures and his and the Doctor's face light up with simultaneous bursts of brilliance: "seven days."
"What does that mean?" Jenny asks, entirely confused. She'd be more worried about being dim if it weren't for the fact that her mother is a genius and at least says that John is too.
"This war started only seven days ago," says John.
"They said years," Jenny shakes her head in disbelief.
"No, they said generations," her mother pipes in.
"And if they're all like you, they can twenty generations in a day," John bursts in victory. This might be the most brilliant moment of his entire life!
"John, you're a genius!" The Doctor shakes John by the shoulders at his brilliance. She could just kiss him!—oh, but this isn't the time for that. "The source must have something to do with this, come on!"
Jenny follows the adults, still caught up in the excitement, but a little disappointed she didn't get to see what a kiss is like (she thought for sure her mother was going to kiss John). "Can you smell something?"
"Flowers," John says to the Doctor. They follow her down a new set of ramps and into a veritable greenhouse. "What is this?"
"It's the source: a terraforming device. It makes a stable ecosystem for uninhabitable planets." The Doctor pets the orb of glowing gases like it's a creature. Jenny hears the approaching soldiers first and takes position. To the Doctor's relief John drags her close, next to the terraformer. "Cobb, this war can't be won, you need to listen to me! It won't be over and it won't be won if you continue on! You can't distort your own reason for fighting any longer! This is what you want—this is the source! It's a bubble of gases for rejuvenating a planet! Methane, hydrogen, ammonia, amino acids, nucleic acids, proteins, all to make this planet a home. That' all you'r fighting for…is a home."
"I am the Doctor," she picks up the terraformer. "By my word this war is done. There will be no more death, no more killing…just light. Light and life that can be brought about by this. I declare this war over!"
The light that bursts from the terraformer is entirely mystical, despite its scientific origins. It glows with colors that dance like a fiery aurora. It draws all eyes to it, in its beauty, and pure, wonderful magnificence.
"What's happening?" Jenny asks her mother.
"The gases will intermingle with the atmosphere and trigger the terraforming process." The Doctor looks down at her daughter lovingly and sighs. "It's a new world."
"A new world," Jenny sighs as well. It doesn't escape her, the irony of how the woman who scoffed at their myth has just made it a reality. A woman creates a world, and when she sees what she has done, she sighs. Jenny decides that the sigh in the story will be a sigh of contentment. Take that Cobb—oh no, Cobb: "no!"
The Doctor reaches Jenny too late, and only feels her blood on her palm. Panic overtakes her hearts. "Jenny, Jenny, sweetheart, look at me."
"Jenny, honey, come on," John whispers, but his human instinct tells him it's for not. He strokes her forehead, and she smiles at him, teary eyed. He looks at the Doctor before taking her hand in quiet solidarity.
"A new world," Jenny whispers with all the life she has left in her. "It's so beautiful."
"Jenny, come on, love, you've got more worlds to see," the Doctor strokes Jenny's blond hair away from her cheeks. She kisses her brow as tears fall onto the blonde's ivory skin. The girl only succeeds in wiping the tears away with her thumb, as she had seen John do, before the life slips from her. Her greyish eyes flutter shut and her body becomes limp. The Doctor's strangled gasp is raspy as she tries to calm herself. She can't, though, not this time. Her eyes are full of mourning and pain but her brows knit together. She looks up.
John shoots to hold the Doctor. Her form is hunched in his arms, but her breathing is forced through her teeth, like a feral growling. Her eyes are on the murderer across the way. John knows that if she really wanted to she could throw him across the room with little effort. She doesn't, though, because they both know what she wants to do. Instead, John stands.
The room watches as he walks to Cobb with strong steps. He takes the gun - the very weapon that took Jenny - and points it at Cobb. He meets the man's eyes. The barrel is pressed to the older man's brow, stabbing into him. John breathes heavily. Cobb is held still by his men, who make no move to intervene. Finally, John kneels to Cobb, holding the pistol by the barrel. "She said that this new world will be a home. A home brings life and healing and light. It's no place for pain, or killing. You disgrace her presence, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't and she wouldn't either."
John tosses the gun with such force it sparks against the metal on which it skids away. "When you start this new world remember this! Remember that this new world is your home, where light and life and good must be your foundation! The foundation of a home is someone who wouldn't ever! Put an end to it, never kill again, never look back on this chapter of your past, just make a home."
The Doctor sits by Jenny solemnly. Her hearts are in so much pain, but in a distant echo through the numbness of shock. It's like her soul is aching. She knows this pain, though, she knows it of old. John's hand falls to her shoulder and she takes it in her own. It's not as heavy a weight as she expected it to feel like, but rather just a warmth. "Can you take her?"
"Of course," John whispers. He and the Doctor stand, John taking Jenny in his arms. He cradles her head against his chest without a word, or a sniffle. He keeps his head level, letting tears fall silently, if they must. The Doctor walks beside him, taking on the same, stoic, self-preserving expression. When they reach the base camp they lie Jenny on a table, covered in a pristine white cloth. The light brought in by the terraforming hits her face. Her hair becomes almost white, while the marks from her mother's tears are still visible of her pale cheek. "What about Jenny?"
"Let us give her a proper ceremony," the young soldier asks.
The Doctor only nods at him. She then nods to John that they're leaving. He follows without protest. Her steps to the TARDIS are heavy, and once inside she seems more drained and sad than ever.
John watches the Doctor worriedly. He can't imagine the pain of losing a child and now the Doctor has experienced at least twice. Part of him wonders if making her accept Jenny was the right thing. Then he remembers how the light had reappeared in her eyes, despite the reminder of her home's war and destruction around them.
John approaches silently but the Doctor shows no worry or resistance as he hugs her from behind. He kisses the crown of her head and sighs. His hands hover over her shoulders before resting over her hearts. They're slow, and even, but they sound so sad. "You feel that pain, in there. It doesn't mean you were wrong to let her in…it proves you were right."
The Doctor takes in a sodden breath. Her tears fall onto John's hands but doesn't seem to mind. He remains a warmth around her, embracing her as fully as possible, offering every comfort he can. "What now?"
"We go on," John whispers to the back of her neck. "We live, we remember. What else can we do?"
"The TARDIS brought us here because of Jenny, and then we ended up creating her," the Doctor mumbles without the usual crispness to her speech. "An endless paradox…where do you want to go?"
John contemplates the best answer as the Doctor pulls from his embrace just to turn and face him. "Let's find a new world…for her."
The Doctor smiles. It pulls at the corner of her lips, dragging them upward no matter how much she doesn't want to. John's gentle smile drags it out of her though. She thinks she might love nothing else in the world so much as him right now. "Onwards?"
John feels relief flood every cell of his body at the sign of hope in her.
"Allons-y."