Chapter 8
As the Doctor went into his room, Emma roamed the console, careful not to let her unsupported broken wrist be bumped against anything. The sounds of the Ood sphere buzzed outside the TARDIS doors. Emma hummed to herself, an unnamed tune.
Emma jumped as the TARDIS started to make noise. The sucking sound as it started to take flight. "Oh no." Emma stopped humming.
"What did you do?" The Doctor appeared behind Emma.
"Nothing!" Emma yelled as the Doctor attempted to try to control the TARDIS.
"Sit down, before you hurt yourself." The Doctor motioned to the chair by the console.
The TARDIS landed itself smoothly causing Emma to glare at the Doctor, trying to hold back sarcastic remarks about the Doctors bad piloting.
"Did you push something?" The Doctor caressed the console.
"I didn't touch anything." Emma pushed her hair back over her shoulder.
The Doctor ruffled his own hair. "Get your coat."
Emma stood up, walked back to her room, and opened her wardrobe. Layers of clothes Emma had never seen before. Emma picked up a black loose fitting t-shirt, black flats, and black jeans with red specks.
Emma shrugged off her clothes and put on the new ones she had picked out. An article of clothing that fell below the rest caught her eye. It was a charcoal black hero coat. Emma pulled it off the hanger and put it on. The coat fitted to Emma's curves.
"Emma!" The Doctor shouted from the front room.
Emma put her hair up into a bun and rushed out to the console.
"You look lovely." The Doctor gave Emma a once over and opened the door of the TARDIS.
Outside the streets were filled with humans conversing and laughing.
"London?" Emma asked. "Why London?"
"You did this." The Doctor rocked on the balls of his feet to his heels.
"Did not." Emma denied, Emma pointed to a sign on a building, "What is Adipose Industries?"
"I don't know." The Doctor smiled at Emma. "Want to find out?"
"Sure." Emma grinned and grabbed the arm of a woman passing by, "Excuse me miss could you tell me what Adipose Industry is?"
"Where have you been, under a rock?" she spoke with a heavy British accent. The woman has dyed platinum blonde hair that clashed with her almost orange tan.
"Yes I live under a rock with my family of thirty four children," Emma smiled, "So what was Adipose Industries again?"
"Weight Loss Company." The woman walked away muttering to herself.
"That was harsh." The Doctor crossed his arms.
"The idiom 'under a rock' annoys me." Emma looked down to her black shoes.
The Doctor cleared his throat and grabbed Emma's arm. "Allons-y." He started running down the street with Emma behind him.
"Where are we going?" Emma yelled to the Doctor.
"Adipose Industries!"
They got to the building in minutes. The Doctor led them through the fire exit, using the sonic to bust open the lock.
"John Smith," The Doctor held out his psychic paper to a passing by guard. "Health and safety."
Emma and The Doctor watched Miss Foster, the person in charge of Adipose industries; speak about the diet pills on a stage from the projector room.
"Health and safety." The Doctor flashed the psychic paper to the person running the projector.
"Film department." Emma added smiling to the black haired man working the projector.
Once the presentation was over the Doctor and Emma went to the opposite side of the projector room away from the employee.
"We should go question the workers." The Doctor smiled to Emma as she suggested the idea.
"Good idea." The two split.
Emma sat down at the desk of a person named Charlie. Charlie had spikey black hair with dark brown eyes.
"Hello, I am Emma." Emma held out her hand and smiled widely, "I am with Health and Safety, and I will need a list of your customers."
"Al-all right." Charlie blushed and shook Emma's hand. He let go of her to open a file on his computer and printed it off.
"Where is the printer?" Emma stood up.
"Over there." Charlie pointed to a corner of the room.
Emma walked over to the printer and grabbed the paper. The Doctor stood at a printer across a few feet away from her looking for something.
"Hey, Mister Smith." Emma waved her paper at him.
"Did you get it?" The Doctor walked up to Emma.
"Yeah, first name on this list is Rodger." Emma pointed to the name at the top of the list.
"I've been on the pills two weeks now, I've lost fourteen kilos." Rodger spoke his hand resting on his fireplace as the Doctor questioned him.
"Exactly one kilo per day?" The Doctor asked.
"One kilo exactly. You wake up, and it's disappeared overnight. Well, technically speaking, it's gone by ten past one in the morning." Rodger sat down on the couch.
"What makes you say that?" Emma looked at him suspiciously sitting next to him on the couch as the Doctor leaned against the wall by the fireplace.
"That's when I get woken up. Might as well weigh myself at the same time." Rodger showed them to the door, "It is driving me mad. Ten minutes past one, every night, bang on the dot without fail, the burglar alarm goes off. I've had experts in, I've had it replaced, I've even phoned Watchdog. But no, ten past one in the morning, off it goes."
"Do you have a cat door?" The Doctor asked. Rodger knelt down and pointed to the cat flap. Emma and the Doctor knelt beside him.
"It was there when I bought the house. Never bothered with it. I'm not a cat person." Rodger explained.
"No, I've seen cat people you hold no resemblance." The Doctor tilted the flap in and out, "The thing about cat flaps is that they let things in and out."
"Like what?" Emma asked the Doctor.
"The fat just walks away."
The Doctor looks at a device that he got from the TARDIS, as it started to beep, "Got to go."
"Thanks for your help, Rodger." Emma yelled over her shoulders as she followed the Doctor down the driveway. They followed the signal down the street, running towards it.
The device slowly stopped beeping and the Doctor and Emma headed back down the street.
The Doctor and Emma reentered the building the next morning.
"Emma, I am so sorry for what were are about to do." The Doctor opened the door to a janitor's closet.
"We are not waiting in there all day." Emma crossed her arms, "Why don't you just land the TARDIS in this hallway when the building closes?"
"That's very hard to do." The Doctor explained.
"Sure." Emma walked into the closet.
After a few hours, Emma and the Doctor made their way to the roof and onto a cradle. They lowered themselves of the office of Mrs. Foster. As Mrs. Foster came into her office the Doctor and Emma hid bellow the window, he pulled out a stethoscope to listen in on the conversation.
The Doctor peaked above the window and looked into the eyes of a red headed woman.
"Donna?" The doctor mimed.
"Doctor?" Donna mimed back.
The Doctor and Donna carried on their conversation as Emma watched in amusement. Until Donna motioned to Mrs. Foster.
"Are we interrupting you?" Mrs. Foster asked, "Get them."
The Doctor sonic'd the office door to make it lock and the cradle to make it go quickly up to the roof.
"Who was that?" Emma asked when they got to the roof.
"No time to explain, come on." The Doctor ran to the roof entrance and started down the stairs to the main levels. A few floors down from the roof Donna and the Doctor meet up with each other.
"Oh my god! I don't believe it! You've got the same suit!" Donna gave the Doctor a confused look, "Do you ever change?"
"Yeah thanks Donna, not right now." The Doctor leaned over the railing to see guards coming towards them, "Just like old times!" They rush back up to the roof.
"My name is Emma by the way. Emma Petrova." Emma spoke to Donna who was running behind her.
"Donna Noble." They got to the roof. "Best temp in Chiswick." Donna extended her hand to Emma.
The Doctor started to fiddle with the controls to the cradle, "Get in." Donna, Emma, and the Doctor got into the cradle.
"Cos I thought, how do I find the Doctor? And then I just thought, look for trouble and then he'll turn up! So I looked everywhere, you name it - UFOs, sightings, crop circles, sea monsters. I looked, I found them all. Now there's something about the bees disappearing, I thought, he's connected. Cos the thing is, Doctor, I believe it all now. You opened my eyes. All those amazing things out there, I believe them all. Well, apart from that replica of the Titanic flying over Buckingham Palace on Christmas Day, I mean that's gotta be a hoax!" Donna started to babble randomly to the Doctor.
"What do you mean the bees are disappearing?" Emma asked.
"I don't know. That's just what the internet says." The Doctor rolled his eyes at Donna.
The cradle started to go down as Mrs. Foster looked over the edge, "Oh I don't think so." She sonic'd the cradle to make it fall faster.
Emma and Donna fall to the floor as the Doctor uses the screwdriver to stop the cradle. As the cradle stopped moving, the Doctor used the screwdriver to open up the nearest window.
"I can't open it!" The Doctor tries to lift the window open.
"Smash it!" Donna yelled back at him. She picks up a spanner from the cradle trying to break the safety glass but proves ineffective.
One of the cables holding the cradle up on the top of the roof breaks sending Donna flying out of the TARDIS. She almost to the ground but she catches the broken cable hanging high above any safe ground.
"Donna!" Emma yelled.
"Doctor! Help!" Donna clings to the cable.
"Hold on!" the Doctor yelled back at her trying to pull her up by the cable.
"Doctor, she is trying to cut the other cable." Emma warned.
"I AM!" Donna yelled at the Doctor.
The Doctor stops trying to pull Donna up and aims the sonic screwdriver at Mrs. Foster's hand. Her sonic sparks making her drop it.
Emma climbs up on the edge of the cradle and extends her hand out to catch it. Emma aims the sonic pen at the window in front of her and opens it.
"I am going to go the Mrs. Foster's office and grab Donna." Emma slid into the window.
"Emma!" The Doctor tries to go with her but he is too tall to fit into the small window.
Emma rushed down the stairs and into Mrs. Foster's office and flings open the window. Emma grabs Donna's feet.
"Get off of me Foster!" Donna screams.
"Donna! It is Emma, stop kicking." Emma pulls Donna inside.
"Well then." Mrs. Foster took off her glasses and held them in front of her with both hands, "We meet at last."
"Hello." Donna spoke first.
"Partners in crime? Other-worldly judging from your sonic technology." She held out her hand. "May I have my pen back?"
"Not today, honey." Emma folded her arms across her chest.
"You don't even know who you are." Foster smiled.
"Emma Petrova. And you?" Emma narrowed her eyes.
"Matron Cofelia of the Five-Straighten Classabindi Nursery Fleet. Intergalactic Class." Foster pursed her lips.
"You are using people's fat to make a crew?" Emma spoke in confusion.
"I've been employed by the Adiposian First Family to foster a new generation after their breeding planet was lost."
"How do you lose a planet?" Emma asked.
"Oh, politics are none of my concern. I'm just here to take care of the children on behalf of the parents." Foster put her hands on her lips.
" What, like an outer space super-nanny?" Donna narrowed her eyes.
"Yes, if you like."
"So... so those little things they're, they're made out of fat yeah, but that woman, Stacy Campbell, there was nothing left of her." Donna thought back to Stacy.
"Oh, in a crisis the Adipose can convert bone and hair and internal organs. Makes them a little bit sick, poor things."
Emma put her fingers on the sonic pen. "What else can this thing do?"
Emma pointed the pen at Foster.
"Put that down." Foster warned.
The pen shot out a bolt of electricity shocking Foster and her guards.
"Come on!" Emma grabbed Donnas hand and they both ran to the roof. "Doctor!" Emma yelled to the Doctor who sat on the floor of the cradle waiting.
"Use the pen!" He yelled up to her. Emma sonic'd the cradle's controls, making it come back up to the roof, "We need to get to the storage cupboard."
The Doctor led them to the Janitors closet and opened the door.
"I am not hiding in here again." Emma narrowed her eyes at the Doctor.
"Hacking in to this thing, because the computer core is running through the center of the building." He opened a secret panel in the back of the closet. And sonic'd a green glowing machine that was hidden behind the panel, "Triple deadlocked." He sighed.
"Here" Emma sonic'd the machine with the pen she got from Foster.
"Give me that." The Doctor took the pen from Emma. The Doctor started to mess with the cables.
"You look older." Donna remarked.
"Thanks." The Doctor put on his glasses.
"Found another girl to keep you company." Donna smiled at Emma.
"Took." Emma corrected.
"I thought you were going to travel the world?" The Doctor asked Donna.
"Easier said than done. It's like I had that one day with you and I was gonna change. I was gonna do so much. Then I woke up next morning, same old life. It's like you were never there. And I tried. I did try, I went to Egypt. I was gonna go barefoot and everything. And then it's all bus trips and guidebooks and don't drink the water and two weeks later you're back home. It's nothing like being with you. I must have been mad turning down that offer." Donna carried on.
"What offer?" The Doctor looked at Donna.
"To come with you." Donna smiled widely.
"You'd come with me?" The Doctor spoke to Donna but looked at Emma.
"Oh yes, please!" Donna said excitedly.
"Right." The Doctor continued to work. "She has started the program."
"So far they're just losing weight, but the Matron has gone up to emergency pathogenesis." Emma added to the conversation.
"You know what pathogenesis is?" The Doctor asked.
"Yes, and if you don't do something a million people are going to die!" Emma yelled at him.
"Right! I have to cancel the signal!" The Doctor pulled out a golden capsule, "This contains the primary signal. If I can switch it off the fat goes back to being just fat." He hooks up the golden capsule to the machine, "No no no no no, she's doubled it, I need... Don't have time! It's too far, I can't override it! They're all going to die!"
"Is there anything I can do?" Donna asked.
"Sorry, Donna, this is way beyond you! Gotta double the base pulse, I can't..." The Doctor panicked.
"Doctor, tell me what do you need?" Donna spoke sternly.
"I need a second capsule to boost the override, but I've only got the one. I can't save them!" The Doctor messes with more switches as Donna pulls out her golden capsule. Both of them start to laugh as he takes the capsule and plugs it into the machine.
A loud horn sounded from above the building.
"What the hell was that?" Emma asked.
The Doctor, Emma, and Donna ran up to the roof of the building to see what was making the noise. A giant circular space ship flew in the London sky. Lights shining out of it to bring up its crew.
"Aw." Emma cooed to the Adipose, "They are so cute."
"Are you going to blow them up?" Donna asked.
"They are just children, they can't help were they come from." An Adipose waved to them.
Emma waved back to the Adipose, "I'm waving at fat." Emma remarked.
"Actually, as a diet plan, it sort of works." The Doctor saw Foster being lifted up into the space ship. Suddenly the light holding Foster disappeared sending her crashing to the ground. They ran to the edge to look at her body.
"Oh god." Emma turned away.
"They knew breading on Earth was illegal. They killed her so they could claim that she was the only one who orchestrated it." The Doctor looked at her. "I am so sorry."
"Come on, Doctor." Donna pulled him away from the edge, "Back to the TARDIS."
The Three made their way to the TARDIS.
"That is my car!" Donna said in astonishment. "That is like destiny, I have been ready for this." Donna opened up the trunk of her car. "I packed ages ago, just in case. I thought hot, cold, or no weather," She threw her luggage into the arms of the Doctor and Emma. "Might as well pack for everything."
"You've got a… a… hatbox?" The Doctor asked as Donna threw a striped hatbox into his arms.
"Planet of Hats, I am ready!" Donna smiled and babbled on walking into the TARDIS, "Do I need injections though, do I? Like when you go to Cambodia, is there any of that? Cos my friend Vienna went to Bahrain, and..."
"You are not saying much." Donna spoke to the Doctor.
"No, it's just… It is a funny old life, in the TARDIS." The Doctor spoke seriously.
"You don't want me?" Donna spoke softly.
"I am not saying that."
"But you asked me." Donna grew sad and Emma looked down to the ground.
"I just want a mate." The Doctor blurted out throwing down the boxes.
"You just want to mate!?" Donna yelled.
"I just want A mate!" the Doctor corrected making Emma giggle.
"You're not mating with me, sunshine!" Donna hid behind the TARDIS door.
"A mate, I want A mate." The Doctor blushed.
"Well just as well, because I'm not having any of that nonsense. I mean you're just a long streak of... nothing. You know, alien nothing."
"There we are, then. OK." The Doctor blushed harder.
"So I can come?" Donna asked.
"Of Course you can." The Doctor smiled. "I would love it."
Donna hugs him. "I have to return my car to my mum first." She walked away pulling out her phone.
The Doctor ushered Emma in the TARDIS. Soon after Donna joined them and they started off.
Writers note: This chapter is longer than the others are but hopefully no one minds. Also a guest reviewer asked when Emma's real past would be revealed and it will soon. Like real soon.