A/N: Sorry about the wait. Midterms and a stressful event happening IRL have drained my brainpower until now. Anywho, here's another chapter! Hope the next won't take so long. .

Thank you to all the reveiwers and faves! Especially those who I look forward to hearing from each chapter. :) You can't immagine how seeing reviews from the same people makes me feel! :D All warm and fuzzy! Keep em coming!

World War Three

Part 2

Beep, beep!

All of us save the Doctor nearly jumped out of our skins. I couldn't see what had made that noise.

Harriet did. "But we're sealed off. How did you get a signal?"

Signal?

Rose held up her cell phone and waggled it triumphantly. "He zapped it. Super phone."

I frowned, an idea working its way from the back of my mind while I tried not to feel too jealous. Of course the Doctor would give her some upgrades and cool gadjets. They'd been traveling together for a while. He'd actually come back to ask her to go with him. Whereas I ... well, I was just the poor girl who got dragged along with them.

Technically, I'd volunteered, but I decided to ignore that little detail.

"It's Mickey."

The Doctor made a face. "Oh tell your stupid boyfriend we're busy."

My thoughts exactly.

"He's not so stupid after all," Rose countered, holding up her phone to reveal yet another Slitheen.

"See? This is what happens when you bring family into the mix."

I snorted. "Or an American." Hopefully I'd said that quietly enough that no one heard me. I gnawed on my lip as I finally realized what the idea was.

Jack.

Jack said he could travel in time. That could mean he could help with aliens. If he knew about aliens. He could be one for all I knew. Still. Anything to help, right?

Stuffing my hands in my pockets and digging up my phone, I cornered the Doctor on the other side of the room. Thank goodness he liked to pace. "Look, Doctor. I know you're not too happy to have me here, but I am."

"Not now, Jessica," he grouched. Well, at least he remembered my name.

"Doctor, I might know a guy who can help us."

That got his attention. Irritation transformed his whole posture. "Why didn't you say so earlier? Useless, that's what you are ... ah! Again, with the bloody hand!" He rubbed the back of his head with a glare.

I glared back. "We were a little busy trying not to get killed and you were caught up with your 'triplicate the flammability' stunt." I inhaled slowly, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Sorry. I know a guy who can travel in time, too and no, I won't tell you who it is," I added as his mouth opened. "If you'd met him already, you'd know who I'm talking about. Please, Doctor. Let me try and do something."

The Doctor stared at me. For what felt like the longest time, he just ... stared. Didn't say anything. Didn't even hint at what could be going through his mind. It made me very uncomfortable, but I kept my eyes glued to his. Finally, his head bobbed in a stiff nod and he took my phone, using that device of his.

"There," he sighed, tossing it back. "It better not be your boyfriend. I already have to deal with one that won't take a hint. One condition, though ..."

I swallowed, but nodded. "Fair enough. What is it?"

"You tell me who this man is the instant I see him. I hate having someone popping in and out of time without telling me."

That I could do. It would be interesting, to say the least. "Deal. Just don't beat him up, kay?" I briefly rested my hand on his arm. I remembered his reaction to being touched, but I couldn't help myself. "Thanks. I'll be quick, no worries."

As soon as I was by myself, I entered Jack's number with trembling fingers. I'd never thought I'd actually be calling him. He seemed more the type to call me instead of the other way around. Would he even pick up? As the ringing went on and on, I began to doubt that I'd come up with such a good idea after all.

"This really isn't the time, Jess!" Jack belted out, nearly deafening one ear. "I'm kinda in the middle of something!"

"Ow! Jeez-Louise, Jack!" I yelped, drawing everyone's attention my way. Blushing, I waved them off. "No need to blast my ear off. Where've you been, anyway? I thought you'd have called me by now."

A sudden explosion of noise on the other end made me wince and hold the phone away from my ear. Then nothing but what sounded like Jack panting for breath. "Wait, what? We just talked last ... Oh." He trailed off, annoyance and what sounded like dissapointment bleeding through the speaker. "Time check?"

"Uh ..." Right. I could've beat my head into the wall. He'd recommended we check ourselves before talking much. Stupid me. "I ... uh ... killed you with my car? Though, you were the one who popped right in the middle of the road, so technically, that wasn't my fault."

I was babbling again.

"Wait, does this thing call through time?"

"Ah, Doc forgot to mention that bit, didn't he?" Jack huffed, but a smile had come into his words. "So he's just soniced it. Great, that actually helps. Sorry it took me a while to answer. This Vortex Manipulater is supposed to tell me what time period you're calling from, but I think it's broken. Again."

I rolled my eyes. "You should get your money back for that thing, as often as it's useless. Wait, you're sidetracking me, stop it." Glancing at a still-pacing Doctor and the others, I decided to try my idea. "Look, I'm with the Doctor, Rose, and this woman named Harriet ..."

"Jess ..."

" ... and we're kind of stuck in Downing street with Slitheen ..."

"Jess, no."

"What?" I tried to ignore the plumeting of my heart. This time, I did lean my head against the wall. "Why?"

Jack's sigh carried all the frustration I held and then some. "It's just not the time, Jess. You guys need to get out of this on your own. Let the Doctor get to know you. As much as I hate to say it: right now, you need the Doctor more than you need me."

"But ..."

"No 'buts,' Jess. This has to happen. Besides," he added with a kind of false cheer. "If it helps you to blame something other than me, there's way too many timelines crossing. Makes it almost impossible to use the Manipulator to get there, if it wanted me to, anyway."

"You're ... you're just making excuses now." The tightening in my chest became very painful. Why couldn't I do anything right when it came to the Doctor? It almost hurt to breathe, the dissapointment almost became too much.

"I wish I was." Jack chuckled weakly. A loud bang made me jump. "Look, if it helps, give me a call in say ... a couple of days. We'll be able to talk then, I promise."

I couldn't keep a grin off my face. "You're sure about it this time?"

"Oi! I said no calling your boyfriend!"

"Oh for crying out loud, Doctor, he's not my boyfriend, so just chill!" I hollered back with more than a little bit of annoyance. "Sorry," I muttered, rubbing a hand over my forehead. "It's a bit of a mess and I'm feeling quite useless."

"Hey, don't start thinking like that. The fact that he's giving you a hard time prooves that you're helping him just by being there. He's way too dense to admit it though. Especially that Doctor."

"Jack! Quit your flirting and help us with this bloody thing!"

"In a minute!" Jack retorted with almost the same tone as I'd used. "Sorry. it's a bit of a mess here, too. See you later, okay?" With that, the line went dead.

"No luck with the boyfriend?" The Doctor snorted. He practically radidated smugness. Especially when I jumped at the sound of his voice.

I reacted without thinking. Spinning around, I punched him in the shoulder. Hard. "One: don't ever sneak up on me like that again. Two: he's not my bloody boyfriend, he's a time traveler like you, so relax. Three ..." I actually stumbled on that, not quite thinking my list through that far. "Well, let's just say there's a rain check for Three, cause I'm sure you'll be giving me even more excuses to hit you in the future."

The Doctor practically shot upright like a Jack-in-the-Box, a manical grin blossoming on his face. "Great. Just making sure. Now you can shut up and let me think of a way to get us out of here in one piece!"

"Oi! I'm talking to you, space-man!" Came Jackie's voice blasted from the phone. "I've got a question, if you don't mind. Since that man walked into our lives, I have been attacked in the streets. I have had creatures from the pits of hell in my own living room, and my daughter disappear off the face of the Earth."

Rose gaped a little before recovering. "I wanted to go, mum."

As if that would stop Jackie Tyler. "I've seen this life of yours, Doctor. And maybe you get off on it, and maybe you think it's all clever and smart, but you tell me. Just answer me this. Is my daughter safe?"

I sucked in my breath at that. During Jackie's rant, I'd trailed behind the Doctor closer to the table. Being in such close proximity to him, I was gobsmacked by the ammount of dread and unhapiness that the woman's words caused to radiate from him. The different type of tension in his shoulders as he leaned against the table screamed of things he wanted to forget but couldn't. I could almost taste what could've happened over those nine-hundred years of his.

Couldn't hold back the tears that stung my eyes.

"Is she safe? Will she always be safe? Can you promise me that? Well, what's the answer?"

The Doctor seemed frozen by guild that threatened to consume him. Even with my barriers up, the strength of his emotions was enough to make me wonder why no one else could feel them. Moved more by instinct than common sense, I reached up and squeezed his shoulder. Just a little touch that lasted no longer than a few seconds.

It caused his eyes to snap in my direction. For a few brief moments, his eyes were so old and world-weary, I almost did cry. Old and haunted by things he'd seen. So lonely yet he didn't want to trust anyone. Didn't dare to.

"Well? What's the answer?"

If that woman spoke one more time ...

"We're in."

Oh, I could've kissed Mickey. If he wasn't taken and completely not my type.

And if I was dead first.

The Doctor perked up as well, probably as glad for the distraction as I was. Anything to keep him from thinking about an unpleasant subject. "Now then, on the left at the top, there's a tab, an icon. Little concentric circles. Click on that."

A strange sound worked its way through the speakers.

"What is it?"

"The Slitheen have got a spaceship in the North Sea and it's transmitting that signal. Now hush, let me work out what it's saying." The frown on the Doctor's face didn't bode well for a minute. Did he even recognize the language? "It's some sort of message."

"No duh, Sherlock."

"Oi ..."

"Yes, yes, I know. Shut up." I made a face, plopping down on a chair. I didn't hold it against him, however. There was just something about him that begged me to be a pain in his backside. I just couldn't help it. It happened as impulsively as the need to touch his shoulder a little bit ago.

Rose leaned over the speaker, locking her eyes on the Doctor. "What's it say?"

Lucky girl was oblivious to the turmoil inside the doctor brought on by her mother.

"Don't know," he murmured, such a frown on his face. The fact that his voice had lost all of the zing gave away how hard he was thinking. "It's on a loop, keeps repeating. Hush." The last was tossed dismissively as a doorbell rang.

"That's not me."

I sat on the edge of the chair, heart pounding. My phone had said it was three in the morning. Who would be ringing the bell that early?

"It's him! It's the thing, it's the Slipeen!" Jackie shouted, panic raising her voice to an all new level of shriek.

"They've found us."

The Doctor made a noise. "Mickey, I need that signal."

"Never mind the signal, get out! Mum, just get out! Get out!" Rose's fear for her mom was thick in my mouth, blocking out almost everything until Harriet's loud voice drove me from it

"There's got to be some way of stopping them! Doctor, you're supposed to be the expert, think of something!"

The Doctor paced away from the table, running his hands over his head almost violently. "I'm trying!" By all rights, steam should be coming out of his ears from how hard the wheels in his head must have been turning.

The silence grew until I found myself clenching my jaw. Rose straightened and pinned the Doctor in her fiercest stare yet. "That's my mother."

I could feel his indecision as if it was constantly slapping me across the face. Right, empaths were supposed to help, right? Well, time to start helping. I smiled in a way I hoped was encouraging. "Come on, Doctor, you've got this. How many planets are in traveling range, anyway?"

For the first time since finding him again, the Doctor smiled at me. Actually, properly smiled with no sarcasm whatsoever. "Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Which planet though?" He rested his hands on a chair, eyes focused somewhere else. "So, Judging by their basic shape, that narrows it down to five thousand planets within travelling distance. What else do we know about them? Information!"

Rose perked up and snapped her fingers. "They're green."

Okay, that was obvious.

"Yep, narrows it down."

I recalled what had happened not long ago. "Good sense of smell."

"Yep, narrows it down."

"They can smell adrenalin."

"Narrows it down."

Harriet's excitement added fuel to the fire. "The pig technology."

A grin of pure giddiness had overtaken the Doctor's face. Good. Better than panicking. "Narrows it down."

"The spaceship in the Thames, you said slipstream engine?" Great, now Rose was grinning.

"Narrows it down."

I snapped absently a few times. "Ritual hunting!"

"Narrows it down."

A lightbulb went off and Harriet straightened. "Wait a minute. Did you notice? When they fart, if you'll pardon the word, it doesn't just smell like a fart, if you'll pardon the word, it's something else. What is it? It's more like, uh..."

"For goodness sake, just say fart," I muttered. No one would care if someone said it during a crisis or not.

"Bad breath!" Rose exclaimed, almost jumping up and down with the realization.

"Ha!" The Doctor fairly crowed. "Calcium decay! Now, that narrows it down!"

"We're getting there, mum!"

"Too late!" Mickey yelped as there came a loud crashing sound from the other end.

Now when the Doctor paced, he fairly bounced on the balls of his feet. "Calcium phosphate. Organic calcium. Living calcium. Creatures made out of living calcium. What else? What else? Hyphenated surname. Yes! That narrows it down to one planet. Raxacoricofallapatorius!" His little ... laugh ... thing brought a face-splitting grin onto my face.

"I'm not even going to try and say that Raxa-whatsit again," I quipped, again, hardly able to help myself.

"It's Raxacoricofallapatorius. Again, try and keep up." Well, there went his pure good emotions towards me. "Get to the kitchen! Calcium, weakened by the compression field. Acetic acid. Vinegar!"

"Just like Hannibal!" Harriet exclaimed.

The Doctor's grin grew even wider if that were possible. "Just like Hannibal. Mickey, have you got any vinegar?"

"How should I know?"

"It's your kitchen."

Rose scooted the Doctor out of the way. "Cupboard by the sink, middle shelf."

"Oh give it here. What do you need?" Jackie took control of the phone. Just great.

"Anything with vinegar!" The Doctor repeated, shooting me a look that almost made me giggle. At least I wasn't the only one who could be difficult.

"Gherkins. Yeah, pickled onions. Pickled eggs."

I mimed gagging, but not the shuddering part.

"You kiss this man?" The Doctor made a face like the one I made.

We waited anxiously until a very audible fart and a disgusting squelch carried over the speakers. Our sighs of relief had me light-headed.

Rose glanced over at Harriet. "Hannibal?"

"Hannibal crossed the Alps by dissolving boulders with vinegar."

"Oh, well there you go then."

I just plopped onto the chair.