His Favorite Star
The Empty Child
Chapter 2
It was so calm before the alarm went off. The loud blaring woke a sleeping ginger from leaning on a railing and threw her to the floor with the force from the machine jerking forward. Her signature army jacket was now over a Union flag tee she got at Hendricks in London, before she blew it up. The TARDIS is in pursuit of a small spacecraft. It's jerking Star and Doctor to every side of the TARDIS, when they are also trying to stay where they're at to drive the machine properly. "What's the emergency Doctor?!" she asked thinking it was him who jerked the space machine forward.
"It's mauve." Doctor said with urgency getting a confused face from his younger sibling "The space craft!" He pulls the monitor around to show her and she nods, but is still confused.
"Mauve?" She asked totally lost.
"The universally recognized colors for danger, Star please tell me you didn't forget the meaning of colors!" The doctor said like it was supposed to be obvious.
Star got a confused face going to her side of the console and starting to work. "Well what happened to red? I liked red!" She said slightly offended.
"That's just humans, Star, something you're not, but by everyone else's standards, red's camp. Oh, the misunderstandings. All those red alerts, all that dancing." Doctor said with a disappointed tone but she was tuning him out already, strapping herself to the raggedy seat to stay where she was.
"It's got a very basic flight computer. I've hacked in, slaved the TARDIS. Where it goes, we go." Star said typing on the key board, her finger moving like lightening.
"And you think that's safe Star?" Doctor said, with disbelief in his voice.
"Totally! You wanted to follow it didn't you?" She said as there was a loud bang and they both fell to the floor, the belt strapping her in unhooked at the sudden jerk of the box.
"Okay… reasonably. Should have said reasonably there." She said getting up and hearing quiet beeps goes to the monitor. "No, no, no, no! It's jumping time tracks, getting away from us. "
She keeps typing and Doctor looks at the monitor.
"What exactly is it?" he asked.
"No idea yet." She said continuing to type.
"Then why'd you latch onto it?" Doctor asked astonished that they may be chasing nothing.
"It's mauve and dangerous, and about thirty seconds from the centre of London. I'm going to land her…" Star said and landed the TARDIS silently.
The TARDIS materializes in a back alley between two terraces, the sort of crowded housing that no longer exists, and a cat running off when they exit the TARDIS. Except it was night and Star was the first out of the TARDIS getting a small slap on the back of the head from Doctor.
"Do you know how long you can knock around space without happening to bump into Earth?" Doctor asked forgetting the thing their looking for, for a moment. Star smiled and knew the perfect sarcastic answer for him. "Five days? Or is that just when we're out of milk?" She smirked and got another playful slap on the head. "Of all the species in all the Universe and it has to come out of a cow." Doctor smiled amused at her and she laughed a little as well hitting him back in the side lightly. Star suddenly felt a chill down her spine and both hearts started to beat a little quicker than normal. She looked on top of the roofs, because she felt like someone was watching them.
"Must have come down somewhere quite close. Within a mile, anyway. And it can't have been more than a few weeks ago. Maybe a month." Doctor said ruffling her hair proudly. "Good job."
"A month!? But I was right behind it!" She looked at him utterly shocked at her failure. "It was jumping time tracks all over the place. We're bound to be a little bit out. Do you want me to drive next time?" he asked and she could hear the humor lacing his voice."No! I'm driving her!" she said with a pout "b-but… how much is a little?" she asked, mostly wanting to know how badly she failed to reach the correct destination.
"A bit." He replied getting an irked expression in return for his estimation.
"Is that exactly a bit, or just a little bit?" she asked trying to get a straight answer.
"Ish…" is all she got and she sighed and pushed her red rimmed glasses up from her nose. "What's the plan, then? Aren't you going to scan for alien tech or something?" She asked which secretly meant 'Doctor I'm so bored I will chew your left hand off.'
"Star…" he turned to look at her with a grin that told her she just asked something stupid "It hit the middle of London with a very loud bang. I'm going to ask." Star took out her wallet and handed it to him. "Use the psychic paper alright?" She looks at it and shows him with a smirk "Doctor John Smith, Minister of Asteroids." She knew he saw the paper as something other than just a slip of white paper in a wallet. He saw the ID she wanted him to see. They both walk until they come to a door marked "DELIVERIES ONLY" and he took the wallet, putting it in her pocket.
"Not very… Spocky… are you?" she said, wondering if he got the reference, which he didn't, or so she thought.
"Door, music, people. Who do you think I am, some fictional Vulcan with pointy ears from one of your favorite human shows?"
"I think you should do a scan for alien tech. Give me some Spock, for once. Would it kill you?"
The Doctor opens the door with the sonic screwdriver while rolling his eyes, and looks at Star's Union Flag top. In his opinion it was a little too low cut for how young she looked. On Earth she could pass for anywhere between 7 years to 17 years old. And in all reality she was 823 years old in Earth years. The shirt stopped right above her bra just enough to cover it but low enough to show the black and red lace, leaving nothing to the imagination. And the way she cut it into a mid-drift made him wonder how she hasn't complained about being stared at by every man around her.
"Are you sure about that t-shirt?" he asked turning to her with a little worry in his tone and gave her a serious 'I-Hate-That-Shirt-On-You' look. "Too early to say, I'm testing it out." She said with a small twirl. He rolls his eyes annoyed and continues to work on the door.
"Mummy? Mummy?"
Star turned surprised and looked around not seeing anything. Then Doctor tapped her shoulder "Come on if you're coming. It won't take a minute." With that he left her outside, and she knew he didn't hear what she was hearing, along with the taps of four in the back of her mind.
Wonderful, something else he'd think I'm crazy for hearing… She thought to herself.
"Mummy?"
It sounded like a child to her. She looks up to the roofs and sees a little boy on a nearby roof. Star urgently turns back to where her brother was. "Doctor? Doctor! There's a kid up there!" She said finally turning fully to see he had already went into the night club.
The Doctor follows a waiter through a bead curtain to where a saxophonist and jazz band is accompanying a woman in 1940s clothes. "For nobody else gave me the thrill. When I have uphold silence still, it had to be you, wonderful you"the woman sang.
Star was one that was all for a good night club. But she felt that if she just let this kid wander around on the roof and let something happen to them that she would blame herself and nothing good would ever come from a depressed Star, other than some peace and quiet. "Are you alright up there?" She yelled, looking for some way to get up to him.
"Mummy?"
She finds a stair case for a fire escape and runs up them, her small legs taking her up amazingly two steps at a time.
"It had to be you." The singer finished beautifully, reminding him of a time Star would have done anything to be on stage like that. He shook the thought from his mind and as she was coming down he quickly went up and took her place. "Excuse me. Excuse me. Could I have everybody's attention just for a mo? Be very quick. Hello! Might seem like a stupid question, but has anything fallen from the sky recently?" asking totally serious. But after a few silent moments, all he heard was laughter.
Star gets to a flat roof; the child is still above her. She wonders how he could move so quietly and envied that ability quite a bit.
"Mummy? "
"Okay, hang on. Don't move!" she said, searching for something she could climb up, civilly, before having to do it army style and climbing anything she could get a grip on. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a rope dangles down in front of Star. She takes hold of it after a few moments of being utterly shocked, and pulls. It seemed secure enough to hold her light weight. She only weighed 85lbs. Okay, 90lbs at most.
"Sorry, have I said something funny? It's just, there's this thing that I need to find. Would've fallen from the sky a couple of days ago." He said confused on why they were all laughing, like it was a joke. A siren starts blaring and everyone else jumps up and, taking their drinks, starts to leave."Quickly as you can, down to the shelter." A man yelled for every one of them to hear.
"Would've landed quite near here. With a very loud—"He finally notices something that should have been quite obvious. If Star were with him he would have gotten a slap upside the head and a lecture on why he never pays attention to details around him. It was a WWII poster that said- HITLER WILL SEND NO WARNING!
"Bang…" he said finally realizing his mistake.
Star is using the rope to help her climb up to the child, and being trained in military was a good thing for this hard work out on her arms. "Damn I haven't done this in a while… I need to find kid's on roofs more often..." she said to herself struggling to climb.
"Mummy. Balloon!" the child said in an amused tone.
The barrage balloon drifts, pulling Star away from the wall and the child, and dangling her over the alleyway making her squeal and hang on to the rope for dear life. She never told anyone of her greatest fear ever, heights and she closed her eyes shut tightly trembling in fear.
"DOCTOR! DOCTOR?! DOCTOR!" she yelled hoping he would hear her cries, and come to save her yet again. Searchlights comb the sky above her, explosions and fires start in various parts of London. A squadron of German WWII planes head for her, and she easily recognizes the Blitzkrieg. At that moment her shirt stuck out like a sore thumb in the sky, like a Union flag being flown for everyone to see. "O-Okay… M-Maybe not this tee." She said trying to stay up on the rope, her arms becoming weak quickly.
"Star?"
Doctor was heading back to the TARDIS thinking she went back because she was bored. He hears a cat meow and pets the animals head. "You know, one day, just one day, maybe, I'm going to meet someone who gets the whole don't wander off thing. Nine hundred years of phone box travel, it's the only thing left to surprise me." He said to the cat. Suddenly the police box phone rings. "How can you be ringing? What's that about, ringing? What am I supposed to do with a ringing phone?" he asks himself. His younger sibling's voice rang in his head. "Uh, answer it you dummy!' He goes over stunned at how the fake phone could possibly be ringing. He opens the small door and picks up the phone. He gets out his sonic screwdriver. A young woman has appeared not far from the TARDIS, up the alley.
"Don't answer it. It's not for you." she said.
"And how do you know that?"
"'Cos I do. And I'm telling you, don't answer it"
"Well, if you know so much, tell me this. How can it be ringing? It's not even a real phone. It's not connected its not-" but before he could even finish the girl was gone. So he decides to do the stupid thing and answers the phone. "Hello? Hello? This is the Doctor speaking. How may I help you?" he said into the fake phone.
"Mummy? Mummy?" it was a child's voice.
"Who is this? Who's speaking?" Doctor asked.
"Are you my mummy?"
"Who is this?"
"Mummy? "
"How did you ring here? This isn't a real phone. It's not wired up to anything." Doctor was still astonished that a child could ring a fake phone, in the TARDIS.
"Mummy? " Then a dialing tone is all he hears. The Doctor knocks on the TARDIS door wondering if it was just Star trying to prank him again. "Star? Star, are you in there?" He hears a noise and runs out of the alley and into the streets.
"The planes are coming. Can't you hear them? Into the shelter. None of your nonsense now move it!" The Doctor climbs onto a dustbin and looks over the wall into a back garden, where a well-fed middle-aged woman is shepherding a young boy into an air raid shelter. "Come on, hurry up, and get in there. Come on. Arthur! Arthur, Will you hurry up? Didn't you hear the siren?" Her equally well-fed husband comes out of the house, seeming rather annoyed that the Germans chose to have a war right at that moment. "Middle of dinner, every night. Blooming Germans. Don't you eat?" he said rather miffed. "I can hear the planes!" his wife said. "Don't you eat?" he yelled at the sky. "Oh, keep your voice down, will you? It's an air raid! Get in. Look, there's a war on." His wife pushed him into the shelter. "I know there's a war on. Don't push me." Mr. Lloyd said annoyed at being rushed by his wife. With the family safely in the shelter, the Doctor watches Nancy enter the garden and go into the house. Once in the kitchen, she starts taking tinned goods from a cupboard.
Meanwhile, dangling over the Thames near St Paul's, Star has an excellent view of a typical night raid during the Blitz, while struggling to keep hold on the rope, slipping a little and wrapping her legs around it for extra support.
An officer in a great wool grey coat stands on a balcony using a pair of very non-WWII binoculars. He has a very attractive face with dark brown hair and eyes. With those beautiful eyes he spots Star in her predicament, and smiles even if there are Germans dropping bombs all around where he's standing. "Get those lights out, please. Everyone down to the shelter." Another officer says to the few in the room just inside of the balcony.
"Jack? Are you going down to the shelter? Only I've got to go off on some silly guard duty." Said another guard walking up beside him, noticing what he appears to be looking at. "Ah, barrage balloon, eh? Must've come loose. Happens now and then. Don't you RAF boys use them for target practice?" The other officer asked. Jack zooms in on Star's butt and smirks.
"Excellent bottom" he speaks with an American accent. "I say, old man, there's a time and a place. Look, you should really be off." Said the other officer to Jack, obviously thinking Jack was talking to him. "Sorry, old man. I've got to go meet a girl. But you've got an excellent bottom too." Jack says with a smirk, walking past the pink cheeked officer with a wink.
Nancy finishes filling her little sack with provisions and heads for the front door. In the hallway she stops and looks into another room and smiles, then goes outside into the street, where she whistles twice then goes back inside. A pair of urchins runs in to see the feast she's discovered. "Many kids out there?" she asked. "Yes, miss." Jim and his friend dive for the food. "Ah! Still carving. Sit and wait. We've got the whole air raid." She said sternly, like a mother. "Look at that. Bet it's off the black market." Jim said. "That's enough." She said continuing to carve patiently.
High over Westminster, Star finally loses her grip on the thick rope, as her arms and legs give out on her. Screaming, she falls with her eye clinched shut, but is caught in a beam. She opens one eye and sees this giving a sigh that she's not falling to her next regeneration soon.
"Okay, okay, I've got you." A man's voice said and she looked around confused. "Who's got me? Who's got me, and you know, how? What kind of anti-gravity ray is this and how'd you get it?" she asked still a little scared of how high up she is. "I'm just programming your descent pattern. Keep as still as you can and keep your hands and feet inside the light field." Said the voice and Star could hear the amusement lacing every word. Then two words struck her with fear.
"D-Descent pattern!?" she asked shakily.
"Oh, and could you switch off your cell phone, or whatever?" she makes a sound of protest "No, seriously, it interferes with my instrument." Said the voice in response to her stubbornness. "You know, no one ever believes that." She muttered under her breath, but pulls out her high-tech spacey-wacey electric astrolabe and turns a dial turning it off.
"Thank you. That's much better." Said the voice lined with amusement again.
"Oh, yeah, that's a real bloody load off, that is. I'm bloody hanging in the sky in the middle of a damn German air raid with the bloody Union Jack across my chest, but hey, my bloody UPS's off." She said utterly agitated now. "Be with you in a moment." The voice almost had a sarcastic sound to it.
"She's not from around here, no." he said to himself with a smirk "Ready for you? Hold tight!"
"To what do you b-bloody expect me to hold on to?!" Star said with an annoyed tone. "… Fair point" he said typing on his keyboards on his arm rests.
Star hurtles down the light field bracing for whatever impact was going to happen, but fell into Jack's arms instead. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut behind tilted red rimmed glasses and her hands were wrapped around her chest, keeping her shirt from flying up too much and she didn't open her eyes even after Jack caught her. That made Jack smile thinking of how innocent she must be. Bloody hell, was he wrong.
"I've got you. You're fine, you're just fine. The tractor beam, it can scramble your head just a little." He said kindly like he was talking to a child. She opened one emerald eye and then the other, fixing her glasses and looked straight at Jack. A soft pink dusted her cheeks and she was finding it hard to speak because of his angelic looks. "H-Hello" is all she could manage.
"Hello" Jack responded with an amused grin, which just made her blush a little more.
"H-Hello. Sorry, that was hello twice there. Dull, but you know, thorough." She said, trying very hard not to say the wrong things. Star doesn't know how to flirt very well by human standards. "Are you alright?" Jack asked looking her over, stopping at her chest for more than one reason, her breathing was more like silent hyperventilating and she was trembling with rope burns around her lower legs and arms, especially her hands. Not to mention the look of utter freight in her face, along with the pink in her cheeks. In result she looked like she had a fever along with anxiety. "F-Fine…" Star manages to stutter out.
He puts her down and she sways a little from her fatigue in her legs. "Why, are you, like, expecting me to faint or something?" Star asked slightly shaking her head. Close up she could see him perfectly but now that she's more that about 9 inches from his face he was blurry in her vision, making her question if she had her glasses on or not. "You look a little dizzy…" he said putting a hand on her shoulder to help her steady herself. "W-What about you? You're not even in focus!" She said right before her legs gave out on her. Jack, being a gentleman, catches her right before she fell, picking her up again. He chuckled putting her on a nearby bunk, the bunk closest to where he would be sitting in the small aircraft.
Something watches two more small boys run down the street to join the feast. "It's got to be black market. You couldn't get all this on coupons." A young boy said marveling at the size of the turkey in front of him. "Ernie, how many times? We are guests in this house. We will not make comments of that kind. Wash up." Nancy says like a mother correcting her child. The other children laugh. "Oh, Nancy." Ernie says with a small smile. Nancy sees a smaller boy, who looks like he hasn't eaten in a while, come in. "Haven't seen you at one of these before." Nancy said going over to him smiling kindly. "He told me about it." The boy said pointing to another boy already sitting at the large table. "Sleeping rough?" Nancy asked with concern for the bags under the boys eyes. "Yes, miss." He said politely.
"Alright, then. One slice each and I want to see everyone chewing properly." She said giving them all a stern look and passes the plate of turkey around the table.
Each child says his thanks to Nancy and passes the plate on, until a rather grown voice says "thanks, miss." That's when every kid in the room bolts upright standing from their chairs and star at The Doctor with shocked eyes.
"It's all right. Everybody stay where you are!" Nancy says, and all the children freeze their tracks. "Good here, in'nit? Who's got the salt?" Doctor asked, with a cheeky smile. "Back in your seats. He shouldn't be here either." Nancy said and they all go back to their seats.
"So, you lot, what's the story?" Doctor asked.
"What do you mean?" Ernie asked curiously.
"You're homeless, right? Living rough?" Doctor clarified pointing his for at all the kids around the table. "Why do you want to know that? Are you a copper?" Asked Jim in a cautious tone. "Of course I'm not a copper. What's a copper going to do with you lot anyway? Arrest you for starving? I make it 1941. You lot shouldn't even be in London. You should've been evacuated to the country by now." Doctor said knowingly. Star had been asked to board a train last time they went to 1941, England, that's how he knew.
"I was evacuated. Sent me to a farm." One boy said.
"So why'd you come back?" he wondered aloud.
"There was a man there." He said. That was the exact same response that Star gave him, except she said 'human' instead of just a 'man'. "Yeah, same with Ernie, two homes ago." Said Jim, from across the table. "Shut up! It's better on the streets anyway. It's better food." Ernie was a lot like Star as well. They both loved food. "Yeah. Nancy always gets the best food for us." Jim said. "So that's what you do, is it, Nancy?" Doctor asked silencing the two boys.
"What is?"
"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! Feeding frenzy for the homeless kids of London Town. Puddings for all, as long as the bombs don't get you"Doctor says with a big smile on his face. "Something wrong with that?" Nancy sounded offended, but Doctor just kept on smiling. "Wrong with it? It's brilliant. I'm not sure if it's Marxism in action or a West End musical." Doctor said taking bites of his turkey. "Why'd you follow me? What do you want?" Nancy asked. "I want to know how a phone that isn't a phone gets a phone call. You seem to be the one to ask." He said taking another bite of turkey. "I did you a favor. I told you not to answer it, that's all I'm telling you." Nancy said, and that's the final answer he knew he would get. Doctor starts to wish Star was with him so she could talk to the motherly figure in front of him. So he decided to ask if anyone has seen his little sister.
"Great, thanks. And I want to find a ginger in a short and cut up Union Jack. I mean a specific one. I didn't just wake up this morning with a craving. Anybody saw a girl like that?" he asked getting a laugh from a few of the kids, only to get his plate taken away by Nancy. "What have I done wrong?" he asked with a look on his face that was slightly hurt. "You took two slices. No blondes, no flags. Anything else before you leave?" Nancy asked in a slightly angered tone. "Yeah, there is actually. Thanks for asking. Something I've been looking for. Would've fallen from the sky about a month ago, but not a bomb. Not the usual kind, anyway. Wouldn't have exploded. Probably would have just buried itself in the ground somewhere, and it would have looked something like this." He took a napkin and drew on it with a pencil. He drew the thing that Star made the TARDIS follow. He wished he had Stars artsy talent, because all he drew was a tube, basically. Then a knock at the door, suddenly made every one jump out of their seats.
"Mummy? Are you in there, mummy?"
The child who called the TARDIS. That was his voice and Doctor knew it. Doctor looked out the window curious to see the boys face and notices he's wearing a gas mask and looking helplessly into the window.
"Mummy?"
"Who was the last one in?" Nancy asks in a hushed voice.
"Him." Ernie said pointing at a boy.
"No, he came 'round the back. Who came in the front?" Nancy asks again looking at the scared faces around the table. "Me." The newer boy said. "Did you close the door?" Nancy asked looking panicked when he doesn't answer straight away so she asks again, but runs into the hall and closes the door on the boy, bolting it shut. "What's this, then? It's never easy being the only child left out in the cold, you know." Doctor said with a slight pained voice remembering his own past. "I suppose you'd know" Nancy said trying to be smart, but failed horribly when she notices the dark serious expression on the man's face. "I do actually, yes."
"It's not exactly a child." Nancy said.
"Mummy?"
"Right, everybody out. Across the back garden and under the fence. Now! Go! Move!" Nancy said back in the dining room and immediately the kids bolt for the back door taking small bits of food with them. There was a little girl, no more than 4, who was having trouble hurrying so Nancy handed the girl her coat from the place she was sitting at. "Come on, baby, we've got to go, all right? It's just like a game. Just like chasing. Take your coat, go on. Go!" Nancy told her and the girl rushed out the back door following the rest.
"Mummy? Mummy? Please let me in, mummy. Please let me in, mummy." The boy sounded so helpless and young. The Doctor got a sad but sympathetic look on his face remembering how he and Star were separated during the war and he was left out. He remembered being as helpless as the boy in front of him. A small hand comes through the letter box and it has a big scar on the back running down from the boys knuckle to his wrist.
"Are you alright?" Doctor asked concerned.
"Please let me in?"
Nancy throws something that breaks, and the hand withdraws quickly. "You mustn't let him touch you!" Nancy warned.
"What happens if he touches me?"
"He'll make you like him."
"And what's he like?"
"I've got to go."
"Nancy, what's he like?" Doctor urged.
"He's empty" she said shakily. They both jump at the sound of the telephone ringing. "It's him. He can make phones ring. He can. Just like with that police box you saw." Doctor picks up the phone before Nancy could stop him and puts it to his ear.
"Are you my mummy?"
Nancy takes the phone, slamming it back on the hook. The radio starts up in the dining room.
"Mummy? Please let me in, mummy" It was on the radio too. Then a clockwork monkey starts up.
"Mummy, mummy, mummy." The monkey seemed to chant.
"You stay if you want to" Nancy said as she left out the back door. The boy puts his hand through the letterbox again. Doctor examines scar on the back of it more closely. It looked like he got it only a few moments ago.
"Mummy? Let me in please, mummy. Please let me in" the boy pleaded.
"Your mummy isn't here." Doctor said softly.
"Are you my mummy?"
"No mummies here. Nobody here but us chickens. Well, this chicken."
"I'm scared." That was all the boy had to say to reach the Doctors dual hearts. The boy sounded like a Star that, not long ago, would admit to being afraid openly, would hug him as if he could make her fears go away. But something still didn't seem right.
"Why are those other children frightened of you?"
"Please let me in, mummy. I'm scared of the bombs."
Doctor gave a sigh of defeat. "Okay. I'm opening the door now." The boy pulls back his hand and the Doctor unbolts the front door. When he opens it, the boy has gone and the street is deserted.
Star stirred in her sleep making a pained groan. She could hear those drums loud and clear now, like every other sleepless night she had to endure. The more she woke the quieter they became until they were a dull thud in the back of her mind. She sits up, still weak in the arms and pressed her black finger nailed hands to her temple to control the head ache she was getting.
"Better now?" a voice came from the darkness and she thought it too much work at the moment to visualize a face to the attractive voice. "You got lights in here?" she asked, immediately regretting it when the light turns on she got a sharp pain in the head, but the angelic face she saw made it all worth it. They were in a small, cramped, spaceship with bundles of wires hanging from the ceiling.
"Hello" He said.
"H-Hello" she said shakily, a tint of pink shading her cheeks and emphasizing her freckles.
"Hello." He said again, an amused smile growing across his face now. "Let's not start that again, 'kay? My heads pounding." She said holding it with a pained smile at how ironic the phrase was. "Okay." He responded, leaning forward from where he was watching her like a hawk. "S-So who are you supposed to be, then?" She asked, sitting on a ledge in front of him.
"Captain Jack Harkness, One Three Three Squadron, Royal Air Force. American volunteer." He said handing her an ID card. She smiles at the trick he was trying to pull. She knew it all too well, because she used it herself.
"Liar! This is psychic paper. It tells me whatever you want it to tell me." She said looking at it. She just laughed at the message on it. "How do you know?" he asked genuinely interested. "Two things. One, I have a brother who uses mine all the time" she said as he nodded and made a sound of realization "And two, you just handed me a piece of paper telling me you're single and you work out."
"Tricky thing, psychic paper." He said with a defeated smirk. "Yeah, remember to not let your mind wander when you're handing it over to the next girl!" Star said with a kind smile. Star handed it back laughing. "Oh, you sort of consider yourself to be a soldier of stardust and a protector to your brother while you travel." Jack said with an amused grin.
"What?" she said with a smile.
"Actually, the word you use is available."
"No way."
"And another one, very."
"Heh… You have to try harder than that playboy… Shall we try and get along without the psychic paper?" she asked with her own smirk. "That would be better, wouldn't it?" Jack said putting it in his wool jacket pocket and watches her wander around playing with the little trinkets in the hull of the ship.
"Nice spaceship." She said with a small smile.
"Gets me around." Jack shrugged modestly.
"Very Spock-y" Star said hoping he would understand that reference.
"Who?"
Star gaped at him. It was one thin to her, being human, but to not know Spock! That was a slap in the face to her. But she quickly shrugged it off.
"Guessing you're not a local boy, then." She said bluntly.
"An astrolabe, glasses that aren't round, and fabrics that won't be around for at least another two decades. Guessing you're not a local girl." He said not hearing her mutter 'you have no idea' under her breath. "Huh?" he asked not sure if she said something to him.
"Guessing right." She said with a sheepish grin on her face. He comes closer to her nearly two feet taller and picks up one of her hands as she's looking out of the windows of the ship. He's amazed she's not crying. Her hands were rubbed raw and he saw down on her legs beneath her shorts, so were her legs. She was acting as if they didn't hurt and Jack could see it in how she walked. She walked quickly, almost bouncing, to keep off of her legs. And she wasn't touching anything with the palms of her hands, which were visibly scarlet.
"Burn your limbs on the rope?" he asked with a concerned tone. She jumps when a bomb whistles past her face. "Yeah. We're parked in midair! Can't anyone down there see us?" She sounded so unconcerned about it, like she was ignoring them. "No. Can I have a look at your hands for a moment?" he asked politely. She jerked back from him and looked at him like she was amazed he even cared. "Why?" she asked. She never let any one touch her except for the Doctor.
"Please? You can stop acting now. I know exactly who you are. I can spot a Time Agent a mile away." Jack said taking a look at her hands and setting her down so he could see her lower legs, not trying to scare her off, or making her think he's a pervert. Even if he is. "Time Agent?" Star repeated confused.
"I've been expecting one of you guys to show up. Though not, I must say, by barrage balloon. Do you often travel that way?" Jack asked amused. Star could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks and heard Jack's amused chuckles.
"S-Sometimes I get swept off my feet... By… Balloons—what are you doing?!" She asked shocked that he was wrapping her wrists and ankles in one of his own scarves. She tried to pull away but he kept his hold on her wrists and ankles.
"Try to keep still! I'm not going to hurt you…" he said in a calm tone, and she instantly calmed herself, as he pressed a button. Suddenly a golden glowing bundle swarms around her burn marks and she squeaks but tries not to jump.
"Nanogenes. Sub-atomic robots. The air in here is full of them. They just repaired three layers of your skin." Jack said, with an arrogant tone.
'Heh, he thinks' he's smart' Star thought. The glow fades and he unties her wrists.
"Well, tell them thanks" she said with a smile. Jack unties her ankles too, but not without a glance up her shirt while she wasn't looking.
"So then, shall we get down to business?" Jack said after a few moments of her getting up and bouncing from leg to leg.
"Business?"
"Shall we have a drink on the balcony? Bring up the glasses?"
Jack opens a hatch to the top of his spaceship, and she grabs the glasses like he said and followed up to see the fires of London are burning below, and searchlights pass through where the spaceship is. Her legs suddenly got weak and wobbled beneath her, but she didn't show it.
"I-I know I-I'm standing o-on s-something." She said. But with the click of a remote, Jack makes the ship appear beneath her and her legs are once again iron beneath her. "Okay, you have an invisible space ship!"
"Yeah"
"Tethered up to Big Ben for some reason."
"First rule of active camouflage. Park somewhere you'll remember." Jack opens the bottle of champagne and fills the glasses Star brought with her, and she laughs at his joke.
Nancy goes to a shack in some railway sidings and hides the food she took from the Lloyd's kitchen. She stands and jumps seeing the Doctor, smiling. "How'd you follow me here?" she asked startled. "I'm good at following, me. Got the nose for it." He said tapping his nose. "People can't usually follow me if I don't want them to." Nancy said trying to sound threatening. "My nose has special powers." He said in a cheeky tone, a little like Star.
"Yeah? That's why it's…" she trailed off.
"What?"
"Nothing!" she said a little too quickly.
"What?"
"Nothing… Do your ears have special powers too?" she said with a cheeky tone.
"What are you trying to say?"
"Goodnight, Mister." She said starting to walk out.
"Nancy, there's something chasing you and the other kids. Looks like a boy and it isn't a boy, and it started about a month ago, right? The thing I'm looking for, the thing that fell from the sky, that's when it landed. And you know what I'm talking about, don't you?" She freezes in her tracks, and stands there for a few seconds.
"There was a bomb. A bomb that wasn't a bomb. Fell the other end of Lime house Green Station." Nancy said quietly.
"Take me there." He said more as a demand than a request.
"There are soldiers guarding it, barbed wire. You'll never get through." Nancy says trying to persuade him to not go. But what she didn't know was, Doctor and Star have seen more than their fair share of war and that, being a soldier, Star taught him a few things.
"Try me."
"You sure you want to know what's going on in there." she asked with a questioning tone.
"I really want to know…"
"Then there's someone you need to talk to first." She said lowering her voice.
"And who might that be?"
"The Doctor."
Back on Jack's ship, Star and Jack are dancing in front of Big Ben to some oldies music coming from an old radio that was hooked up to the space ship. But when Star starts to feel a little light headed and feels Jacks hands wandering lower and lower, she finally push him away. "You know, it's getting a bit late. I should really be getting back." Star said getting a little tipsy. "We're discussing business." Jack said in protest. "This isn't business," she points at the cups they placed out of the way "This is champagne." She smiles, seeing the cogs in his head turning for a smart come back.
"I try never to discuss business with a clear head. Are you travelling alone? Are you authorized to negotiate with me?" Jack asked with a serious face. "What would we be negotiating?" Star asked with a now more serious face although she was more confused than ever. "I have something for the Time Agency. Something they'd like to buy. Are you in power to make payment?" Jack asked, speaking clearly because of the champagne, although there was no need.
"Well I… I should get back to my companion."
"Companion?"
"I should really be getting back to him."
"Him?" Jack asked and you could hear the worry in his voice.
"Do you have the time?"
Jack gives her a mischievous smirk and pulls out a small remote from his jacket pocket. He uses his remote, and
BONG!
The face of Big Ben lights up right next to them and strikes nine thirty. Star laughs and put a hand over her mouth and looks at Jack who was smiling down at her. "Okay that was flash. That was on the flash side." Star muttered more to herself than Jack. "So when you say your companion, just how disappointed should I be?" he asked with a smirk. Star looked at him with slight amusement in her emerald eyes.
"Okay, we're standing in midair."
Jack nodded and hummed an agreement, smiling shamelessly.
"On a spaceship, during a German air raid. Do you really think now's a good time to be coming on to me?" Jack stopped and thought about it for a moment before continuing to smile shamelessly. He chuckled and stepped away from her, much to her disappointment.
"It was just a suggestion!" she said quickly, wanting him to hold her again. "Do you like Glenn Miller?" Jack asked all of a sudden, pulling out his remote again. This time it turns the radio back on and 'Moonlight Serenade' begins to drift to Star's ears. She smiles happily when Jack puts a hand around her waist and takes her other hand in his, pulling her closer to dance again.
"It's 1941; the height of the London Blitz, the height of the German bombing campaign, and something else has fallen on London. A fully equipped Chula warship, the last one in existence, armed to the teeth. And I know where it is, because I parked it. If the Agency can name the right price, I can get it for you. But in two hours, a German bomb is going to fall on it and destroy it forever. That's your deadline. That's the deal. Now, shall we discuss payment?" Jack said in a lower voice near her ear. Star shivers from the feeling of being so close to a being that wasn't her brother. Then she gets a cheeky smile and giggles, sipping more of the champagne. "Do you know what I think?" she asked. "What?" He pulls back a little to see her face and the light blush from the drink around her freckled cheeks. "I think you were talking just then." She said giggling again. Jack looks at her seriously again. "Two hours, the bomb falls. There'll be nothing left but dust and a crater." He said with a threatening voice.
"Promises, promises," Star said, brushing off the threat as unimportant. "Are you listening to any of this?" Jack said, slightly annoyed.
"You used to be a Time Agent, now you're some kind of freelancer." She said with a smile. "Well, that's a little harsh. I like to think of myself as a criminal." Jack said with the same cheeky tone as she had, a smile coming to his face. "I bet you do!" she laughed.
"So, this companion of yours, does he handle the business?"
"Well, I delegate a lot of that, yeah."
"Well, maybe we should go find him"
"And how're you going to do that?" She asked seriously doubting that they'd find the Doctor again that night.
"Easy. I'll do a scan for alien tech." he said with a cheeky little smile that was contagious to Star, making her smile as well.
"Finally! A professional!"
The Doctor uses big super-binoculars to scan the lit up militarized area, surrounded by a fence laced in barbed wire with armed guards at every few feet surrounding a thing in the middle of the fence that was covered in a blue blanket. "The bomb's under that tarpaulin." Nancy said, pointing out a blue tarp in the middle of the barbed wired fence. "They put the fence up over night. See that building? The hospital." She said pointing it out across the field. "What about it?" he asked. "That's where the doctor is. You should talk to him." Nancy told him. He felt slow for a moment, because well you would normally find a doctor in a hospital. But he was on a mission and couldn't be bothered with a doctor that was probably already busy with his patients. "For now, I'm more interested in getting in there." He said pointing to the fence with the blue blanket. "Talk to the doctor first." Nancy said.
"Why?"
"Because then maybe you won't want to get inside!" she said finally starting to leave. "Where're you going?" Doctor asked glancing again at the blue in the corner of his eye. "There was a lot of food in that house. I've got mouths to feed. Should be safe enough now." She said in a matter-of-fact tone. Doctor stared at her for a moment a question pulling on his mind like Star's annoying music in the TARDIS. "Can I ask you a question? Who did you lose?"
"What?" Nancy asked turning back to him.
"The way you look after all those kids. It's because you lost somebody, isn't it? You're doing all this to make up for it." He stated, because he knows the feeling, all too well. She just stared at him for a moment thinking, when Doctor saw the sad expression he knew he was right.
"My little brother. Jamie." She said quietly. "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. He just didn't like being on his own."
Doctor's mind suddenly went to the day he left Star. She had always hated to be without him when they were children, so much so that she was practically his shadow. Where he went, she was always there following him. He gripped the binoculars slightly bracing himself for the next question.
"What happened?"
Nancy looked at him, because it was a painfully obvious answer. "In the middle of an air raid? What do you think happened?" He looked down at his shoes then up to the stars his sister was named for, thinking to himself.
"Amazing."
"What is?"
"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." He looks over to Nancy with a small proud smile. "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. Off you go then do what you've got to do. Save the world." He waved her off and started to walk to the hospital. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to open the padlock on the ornate metal gates to the hospital grounds, shaking off any thought of how Star complains on not letting her just pick the lock. When he got inside the long, dark wards, he entered a room where every bed has a very still patient in it, and they are all wearing gasmasks, like the little boy he saw. An elderly, grumpy man with a doctor's coat comes from another door, leaning on a walking stick. "You'll find them everywhere. In every bed, in every ward. Hundreds of them." The old man said, knowing the first question in Doctors mind already. "Yes, I saw. Why are they still wearing gas masks?" he asked. "They're not. Who are you?" the old man asked with a look that said they didn't get too many visitors. "I'm, err. Are you the doctor?" Doctor asked, not wanting to say his name was 'the doctor', which would confuse the man.
"Doctor Constantine. And you are?"
"Nancy sent me."
"Nancy? That means you must've been asking about the bomb."
"Yes."
"What do you know about it?" asked Constantine, thinking he actually knew something of it. "Nothing, that's why I was asking. What do you know?" Doctor asks looking at the people in the beds. "Only what it's done." The elderly doctor stated. "These people, they were all caught up in the blast?" he wondered aloud. "None of them were." The human doctor chuckles then coughs. He sits in a chair by the desk where the ward sister would usually be. Doctor looks a tad worried for a moment. "Your very sick."
"Dying, I should think. I just haven't been able to find the time. Are you a doctor?" Constantine asked sparing Doctor a glance. "I have my moments, but my sister is better." Doctor says honestly. "Have you examined any of them yet?" Constantine asked.
"No."
"Don't touch the flesh." Constantine warned.
"Which one?" Doctor asked, getting closer for a better look.
"Any one."
Doctor gives Constantine a glance before pulling out his sonic and using it on the nearest patient. "Conclusions?" Constantine asked expectantly. "Massive head trauma, mostly to the left side. 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." He stated from the basics of what he saw.
"Examine another one." Constantine said, more like an instruction than a request. So Doctor goes to another patient. They were exactly the same.
"This isn't possible!"
"Examine another." The same results even on another. All three patients with the same exact injuries and gasmasks. "T-This isn't possible!" he exclaimed again.
"No."
"They've all got the same injuries."
"Yes."
"Identical, all of them, right down to the scar on the back of the hand." He said. Doctor glances at the back of Constantine's hand, noticing the same scar. "How did this happen? How did it start?" Doctor asked quickly, not knowing when the elder human would change.
"When that bomb dropped, there was just one victim."
"Dead?"
"At first. 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. Can you explain that? What would you say was the cause of death?" Constantine inquired.
"The head trauma?"
"No."
"Asphyxiation."
"No."
"The collapse of the chest cavity?"
"No."
"All right. What was the cause of death?" Doctor was quite confused now.
"There wasn't one. They're not dead." Constantine said before hitting a nearby waste basket with his walking stick. With a BANG the patients sit up in their beds suddenly. This shocked Doctor to no end.
"It's all right. They're harmless. They just sort of sit there. No heartbeat, no life signs of any kind. They just don't die." Constantine said seeing the other man's worried expression. "And they've just been left here? Nobody's doing anything?" Doctor asked as the patients lay down again. "I try and make them comfortable. What else is there?" The elder human said looking at the patients with a sad expression. "Just you? You're the only one here?" Doctor asks. "Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I am neither. But I'm still a doctor." Constantine said with a broken look. Doctor thought about his own past and how he always tries to make Star as happy as possible. "Yeah I know the feeling." Is all he could say.
"I suspect the plan is to blow up the hospital and blame it on a German bomb." Constantine summed.
"Probably too late."
"No. There are isolated cases. Isolated cases breaking out all over London. Stay back, stay back. Listen to me. Top floor. Room eight oh two. That's where they took the first victim, the one from the crash site. And you must find Nancy again." Constantine said starting to cough again.
"Nancy?"
"It was her brother. She knows more than she's saying. She won't tell me, but she might- Mummy. Are you my mummy?" The Doctor stared in shock and slight disgust at how Constantine's mouth opened wide only for a gasmask to pop out and his eyes bulged into the glass openings and his whole face turned the same green as the others.
"Hello?" Doctor immediately runs to find the source, out the large metal double doors and into the corridors of the old hospital. "Hello?" that sounded like Star, and he hurried his pace and with one more call from the unfamiliar voice he found them. He nearly tackled Star in a hug, and held her until she forced herself out of his grip. "I missed you too, Doctor…" She said taking deep breaths and stretching her neck from his tight grip.
"Good evening. Hope we're not interrupting. Jack Harkness. I've been hearing all about you on the way over." Jack said with his trade mark smile.
"He knows. I had to tell him about us being TIME AGENTS." Star said emphasizing their temporary fake title. "And it's a real pleasure to meet you, Mister Spock." Jack said walking forward into the ward. Star just couldn't cover her snicker quick enough to not get a glare from her older sibling, who was watching her continue inching towards laughing in his face.
"Mister Spock? Really Star?"
"What was I supposed to say? I'm not allowed to say your name. I mean don't you ever get tired of Doctor? Doctor who? That's what EVERY ONE asks…why not just tell someone—No, NO! Never mind I didn't say anything!" she said quickly, getting another glare. "Nine centuries in, I'm coping. And where've you been little Miss-Don't-Get-Lost? We're in the middle of a bloody London Blitz. It's not a good time for a stroll, Star." Doctor lectured; unfortunately he lost the girls total patients and she started to blush pink.
"Who's strolling? I went by barrage balloon, only and most exciting way to see an air raid. But its bloody hell on the muscles… You should really try it, you're getting a little round in the middle!" she laughs when she gets an un-amused face. She smiles and pats his stomach playfully. "What?! Barrage Balloon?!"
"So what do you know about Chula Warships?" she asked quickly changing the subject. "Chula?" They both walk into the ward to find Jack scanning one of the patients with a wristband of his and Star shoots a smirk at Doctor. "This just isn't possible! How did this happen?" he asked looking to Doctor for an answer. But Doctor had his own questions to ask the new being in front of him.
"What kind of Chula Ship landed here?"
"What?" Jack stood dumbfounded, because that's not what he was expecting to hear. "He said it was a warship. He stole it, parked it somewhere out there, somewhere a bomb's going to fall on it unless we make him an offer." Star said in absence of Jacks explanation. "What kind of warship?" Doctor asked again. "Does it matter? It's got nothing to do with this." Jack argued, wearing out Doctors patients. "THIS started at the bomb site! It's got everything to do with it! What kind of warship?" Doctor all but shouted.
"An ambulance! Look!" Jack tapped a few buttons on his wrist band and a hologram of the ship the siblings tailed. Star gives Doctor a knowing glance. "That's what you chased through the Time Vortex. Its 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!" Star feels Doctor's hand on her shoulder, realizing she was seething with anger. "Saw your time travel vehicle; love the retro look, by the way, nice panels. Threw you the bait—"
"Bait?" Star asked trying to channel the anger into her fists.
"I wanted to sell it to you and then destroy it before you found out it was junk." Jack said shamelessly.
"You said it was a war ship!" Star exclaimed.
"They have ambulances in wars! 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?" Jack said giving Star a less than friendly glare. "Just a couple more 'freelancers'!" Star said hostility lacing her voice.
"Oh, Should have known. The way you guys are blending in with the local colour. I mean, Flag Girl was bad enough," Star gave a small sound of insult "but U-Boat Captain?" Doctor just stood there while Star punched Jacks arm. HARD. "OW! Jeez girls got an arm…Anyway, whatever's happening here has got nothing to do with that ship."Jack said self assured. "What is happening here Doctor?" Star asked.
"Human DNA is being rewritten by an idiot." Doctor said throwing a pointed glance at Jack. "What do you mean? I kind of need you to clarify so I can help." Star said. "I don't know. Some kind of virus converting human beings into these things. But why? What's the point?" Doctor asked himself aloud.
Suddenly the patients started to sit up making Star and Doctor Jump. Jack on the other hand nearly jumped into Stars arms. "Wh-Whats happening?!" Star asked backing up to the metal door. "I don't know…" Doctor said. "Don't let them touch you, Star!" he pulls her back from examining one of the patients. "What happens if they touch us?!" she asked startled. "You're looking at it!" Star just looked at the closing in patients in horror.
"Mummy Mummy Mummy Mummy Mummy Mummy."
TO BE CONTINUED...