A/N: Merry Christmas! Or Hanukkah, or whatever tickles your fancy. I had split this into two chapters since it originally was one giant chapter... it was that long. I couldn't post one that long because it would have driven me insane, and since I'm already insane, I couldn't imagine what that would have done to you. Back on topic though, I did my best to get my time in on writing these but I spent most of my time doing this than actually getting the chance to write back to you all. I am more than grateful for all your reviews and PM's and I really am trying to answer back to you, I am not actively ignoring you. I'll... stop rambling and let you read. I love you all, thanks for being so patient.
PS: Wow, haven't done this in a while, kind of self-explanatory though. SON. There, now I can't be sued. Enjoy!
Chapter 24
"My name is Alli Rose." She jittered out, running up to give her a hug. "Are you a companion to the Doctor too?"
Sarah-Jane chuckled at her curious look that lit up her face as she stared up into hers. "Oh no, well I was."
"That's makes sense since you're so pretty."
She shook her head at the compliment. "Huh. No, I got old."
"Doesn't change the fact you're still pretty." She said at the exact moment the Doctor replied.
"Don't say that about yourself."
They both gave each other a knowing grin and gave her a supportive look together, she just shrugged off their words and moved on to the matter at hand.
"What are you doing here?"
"Well, UFO sighting, school gets record results. I- we couldn't resist. What about you?"
"Same." She laughed, trying to fight off the pain from all those years ago, but to no avail. Her voice shook as she spoke. "I thought you'd died. I waited for you and you didn't come back, and I thought you must have died."
She inhaled a deep gulp of breath to restrict her sobs from coming out, but his smile still fell as she talked. The Doctor's hearts just about broke again from the events that happened when he departed, he felt the shame still fresh from before when he left her there after Gallifrey called him.
And like a good little Time Lord I came running. I obeyed like I had no choice. He thought spitefully towards himself
"Everyone died, Sarah." He looked down to see Alli grabbing hold of his hand and giving him a sympathetic smile. The former traveler looked upon the pair with heavy eyes, seeing a future she would never have with… she shook her head, best not to think that way. If he had a child, he most certainly had some other lucky companion that would never be her.
Sarah cleared the somber air that wrapped around them as she took a deep breath. "I still can't believe it's you."
A high-pitched scream bounced down the walls verifying for her that this was the Doctor, with troubled following him wherever he went.
"Okay, now I can!" She raced with the pair still holding hands when they made it to the doorway, just about running into another young blonde, although not as young as Alli Rose.
"Did you hear that?" She asked the Doctor, only then did she notice her. "Who's she?"
Her tone was borderline venomous which alerted the Doctor to jump in for introductions. "Rose, Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane, Rose."
The fact that they were both blonde and both were technically named Rose caused Sarah to prematurely assume that she was Alli Rose's mother, and a rather young one at that. The Doctor seemed to have a type.
She forced herself to try to come off as polite and shook her hand, yet it came out strained and condescending. "Hi, nice to meet you."
Alli grabbed hold of Rose's other hand and tugged it to grab her attention. "Sarah used to be the Doctor's old companion!"
"Can definitely tell she used to be." Rose muttered with envy dripping in her words.
The Doctor saw a red flag and took this as a cue to go back and find where the screaming came from in the first place. He grabbed hold of Rose's hand and pulled her out of the intense atmosphere to investigate, although he couldn't help but wonder what brought this on between the two. By the time they made it to the classroom, they found Mickey surrounded in a sea of yellow, plastic covered rats.
"Sorry! Sorry, it was only me. You told me to investigate so I started looking through some of these cupboards and all of these fell on me." Mickey motioned to the poor creatures that littered the floor.
"Oh, my God. They're rats. Dozens of rats. Vacuum packed rats." Rose breathed out in horror, the sight itself was sickening to most, yet Alli still was having fun playing with them and even attempting to juggle a few.
"And you decided to scream?" The Doctor taunted him, not taking notice to how Alli was now juggling four.
"It took me by surprise!" He defended.
"Like a little girl?"
"It was dark! I was covered in rats!"
"Didn't you scream like a little girl when I ran into you in the TARDIS?" Alli asked in a shrewd manner to throw the Doctor off his game, causing the man in question to look towards her and observe her now juggling five rats.
"Oi, not a word about that. Besides, when'd you learn to juggle?"
Somehow, she shrugged while still managing the impressive act. "Plenty of books on juggling." She then tossed a line of the rats straight towards Mickey who cowered and released an unmanly yelp as they smacked against him.
"Wow, seriously?"
"Nine, maybe ten years old. I'm seeing pigtails, filly skirt."
"Carrying around a little blankie and sucking his thumb!" She laughed out, joining him in his taunting.
"Hello, can we focus?" Rose interrupted, unaware of coming to Mickey's rescue. "Does anyone notice anything strange about this? Rats in school?"
"Well, obviously they use them in Biology lessons. They dissect them." Sarah replied, proud she was able to know this when the Doctor's new companion couldn't. "Or maybe you haven't reached that bit yet. How old are you?"
"Excuse me, no one dissects rats in school anymore. They haven't done that for years. Where are you from, the dark ages?" Rose snapped back with the same contempt attitude towards her.
Alli looked back and forth in shock at how the usually kind women were now at each other's throats.
"Anyway, moving on." The Doctor interrupted to stop anything from starting, partly because he didn't want Alli or Luna to pick up on anything, he was a bad enough influence as it is. Why were they acting like this? "Everything started when Mister Finch arrived. We should go and check his office."
They led their way through the halls and found that the previous argument carried with them.
"I don't mean to be rude or anything, but did you really used to travel with the Doctor? Cos he's never mentioned ya." Rose asked, being just as rude as she claimed not to be. She still couldn't shake off the feeling of knowing the Doctor had plenty of other relationships before her, perhaps even deeper relationships that she and him had.
The hurt look on Sarah's face made the Doctor try his best to make up for it. "Oh, I must've done. Sarah Jane. Mention her all the time."
"Hold on… nope, sorry. Never." She replied, seeming very unapologetic to say the least.
"What, not even once? He didn't mention me once?" Sarah's tone had began morphing through hurt, to bewilderment, to something the Doctor was terrified of, anger.
"You never know, Rose could just have terrible listening skills." Alli laughed out, not seeming to pick up on the general tone of the group.
Mickey just clapped a hand on the Doctor's shoulder and enjoying how everything was playing out. "Ho, ho, mate. The missus and the ex. Welcome to every man's worst nightmare."
The Doctor suddenly became aware of why Rose and Sarah Jane were acting this way, they were jealous of each other. But what about? It couldn't genuinely be him could it? Did Rose... want to be with him too? He shook his head at the thought. Don't be ridiculous, why would she ever want to be with some dusty old alien like you? He thought harshly to himself, it was best to just imagine it could be possible, seeing as it might... no, would never happen.
By the time they made it to the Headmaster's office in the uncomfortable silence, the Doctor got his thoughts back in order.
"Maybe those rats were food."
"Food for what?" Rose asked, knowing there wasn't any school pets here.
"Snakes?" Alli supplied, receiving further enjoyment from Mickey's shudder at the thought. "If it is, can I have one?"
The Doctor turned back, looking disturbingly contemplative before he stuttered out his reply from Rose's sharp glare.
"We-ell, I mean, um, maybe when you're older? Yeah, yup. When you're older." He managed to breathe out, a relieved Rose comforted the crestfallen child while earning more observant looks from Sarah Jane.
When the group all leaned in the office to observe the giant bats hanging from the ceiling, the Doctor closed the door in a calm manner and had everyone stampede down the halls and out the doors to the front school parking lot in the course of a few seconds.
"I am not going back in there. No way." Mickey panted from the quick burst of running, he doubled over with his hands on his knees in a desperate attempt to calm his ragged breathing.
"Those were teachers!" Rose shouted astonished.
"Those were bats!" Alli breathlessly corrected and chuckled, this school got more interesting as the day progressed.
"When Finch arrived, he brought with him seven new teachers, four dinner ladies and a nurse. Thirteen. Thirteen big bat people." He corrected with little surprise showing on his face. "Come on."
Mickey nearly lost it at the statement the Doctor made of going back in there.
"Come on? You've got to be kidding!" He began considering that the Doctor had come to the point where he's gone insane.
"I need the TARDIS. I've got to analyse that oil from the kitchen."
Sarah Jane's eyes shone with excitement from who she remembered she could reunite him with. "I might be able to help you there. I've got something to show you."
She sped over to her car with the others right behind her and lifted the trunk to show another old companion.
"K-9!" The Doctor shouted in excitement at the sight of his faithful pet. "Rose Tyler, Alli Rose, Mickey Smith, allow me to introduce K-9. Well, K-9 Mark Three to be precise."
Alli jumped in the back of the car and began petting his colorful buttons while Rose looked curiously at the bright blue dog. "Why does he look so... disco?"
"Oi! Listen, in the year five thousand this was cutting edge." He defended, he leaned in closer to observe the opened panel with twisted and eroded wires inside, rusting edges had aged his poor dog as well. Nothing ever seems to last.
"What's happened to him?"
"One day he just... " She shrugged her shoulders, "Nothing."
"Well, didn't you try and get him repaired?"
Crack
Luna first gave him an incredulous look before speaking, "You just said he was from the year five thousand, did you really think it could just be fixed by some random person in only the twenty-first century?"
The Doctor was humble enough to at least appear sheepish while both Sarah and Mickey looked in interest at her.
"She's right though, the technology inside him could rewrite human science. I couldn't show him to anyone."
"Ooh, what's the nasty lady done to you, eh? Aww." The Doctor cooed to him in a baby voice, he scratched behind his satellite ears and treated him like a real dog, much to Luna's amusement. She joined him coddling the robot pup and patting the metal sides, both making light hearted sounds of cuteness at the defunct K-9. Sarah gave only a disheartened smile from the sidelines.
"Look, no offence, but could you two stop petting for a minute? Never mind the tin dog, we're busy." Rose testily shouted back to them, she had her arms crossed across her chest with an irritated look about her.
Luna stayed seated where she was when the Doctor held his hand out to pull her up.
"Come on then." He shook his hand to urge her out but she still sat in defiance.
"I want to stay back here with K-9." She crossed her arms as if that resolved the matter. Sarah observed the stubborn girl and watched the Doctor grow flustered.
"You need to have a seat belt on so you're sitting up there."
"If we sit back here without a seatbelt, that will only guarantee that you will drive with absolute caution to keep us safe. If we have to sit up front and wear a seatbelt, how do you suggest us to feel safe and know for certain you won't drive recklessly?" She raised her brow, daring him to challenge her.
Luna got to stay in the back with K-9 during the ride while everyone else piled in the front of the car. She thought how strange the night started out with Rose and Sarah showing a mutual dislike of each other, they were such sympathetic people yet they were on the verge of a catfight. More importantly, why does Mickey seem so happy about it?
They all rested and filled up in the chippy shop while both the Doctor and Sarah Jane set about working on their old pet, laughing and smiling while they caught up with each other. Alli tethered herself to Rose, keeping close and attentive.
Mickey broke the silence while still holding his smug grin from when he first met Sarah Jane, "You see, what's impressive is that it's nearly been an hour since we met her and I still haven't said I told you so."
"I'm not listening to this." Rose muttered, clearly ticked off at him for rubbing it in her face. Luna caught on to her discomfort and decided that maybe Mickey needed to be put back in his place.
"No, you know what is impressive? The fact that your face hasn't split in half from that stupid grin you're wearing."
Mickey held his jaw poorly as it hung agape, shocked at the offensive tone that the little girl just threw at him. Rose however, held a proud smile and happily paid the woman at the counter for the chips she got for both of them.
Quick to regain his senses, he stalked off to the table the two had sat at, both sitting on the same side of the table, leaving him no room on their side.
Sitting across from them, "No, you need to face it, Rose. All this time you've been going on saying he's different, when the truth is, he's just like any other bloke."
"You don't know what you're talking about." She scoffed, digging into her beloved food.
"Maybe not. But if I were you, I'd go easy on the chips." He said spitefully, causing a hurt Rose to freeze with a chip still hanging from her mouth. She continued eating when she heard a swift kick to his shins and a painful howl from his lips.
Luna peeked up towards her with a vicious grin, earning a smug one in return while Rose smoothed her long hair across her shoulder with affection.
Sarah Jane looked back at the two girls smiling and eating chips while Mickey looked a bit disgruntled and in pain, she turned back to the Doctor, still absorbed in his work of mending the corroded wires.
"I thought of you on Christmas Day. This Christmas just gone? I thought, 'Oh yeah, bet he's up there.'" She reminisced, thinking of their ridiculous situations they got into, like parallel worlds with their criminal doppelgangers to when dinosaurs were brought to the future.
"Right on top of it, yeah." He smiled, still preoccupied with the task at hand.
"And, Rose?" She asked tentatively. Fearing she already knew the answer.
"She was there too."
"Did you bring Alli as well then?" She began to have a bitter tone in her voice despite her best efforts to appear neutral, but quite honestly this was beginning to be outrageous. She saw the spaceship disintegrate afterwards, with who knows how many lives still on board, and for a child to see that?
His face looked up in concern at her tone, and quite frankly, her line of questioning.
"No we didn't have her when that happened. I'm not even sure how I feel with her coming on these... adventures with us. She seems determined to come with us though and she's been confined in the TARDIS for far too long, according to her."
"How old is she?"
"About, oh I dunno, ten? It's a bit difficult to tell on the TARDIS but she is certainly just around that age. Very smart too, brilliant!" The Doctor was cheerful in his answer for this line of questioning since it avoided the elephant in the room, well, at least one of them. It had to be pointed out sometime though, and regrettably, it was now.
Sarah was picking at her nails to avoid eye contact before she spoke again in a timid voice. "Did I do something wrong? Because you never came back for me, you just dumped me."
"I told you. I was called back home and in those days, humans weren't allowed." He spoke as if that was enough reasoning.
"I waited for you. I missed you."
"Oh, you didn't need me! You were getting on with your life." His voice pushed pride into his words to soothe the sorrow soaking her own.
"You were my life." She retorted, sobering the Doctor's faux cheer. "You know what the most difficult thing was? Coping with what happens next, or what doesn't happen next. You took me to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, you showed me supernovas, intergalactic battles and then you dropped me back on Earth. How could anything compare to that?"
The Doctor was hiding behind his work while she ranted until he was pulled back out from her last few statements with confusion.
"All those things you saw, do you want me to apologize for that?"
"No. But we get a taste of that splendor and then we have to go back."
"Look at you, you're investigating. You found that school. You're doing what we always did." He reasoned, although it began to sound more and more like he was trying to convince himself than her.
"You could have come back."
"I couldn't." He deadpanned, not elaborating anymore on the subject.
"Why not?"
Sarah Jane was now desperate, trying his best to break through to him but he once again submerged back into the repair work for K-9. She huffed and rolled her eyes, sitting back in her seat as she sought another topic to discuss.
"It wasn't Croydon," she muttered, raising her voice. "Where you dropped me off, that wasn't Croydon."
"Where was it?" He asked, genuinely interested.
"Aberdeen." She responded tersely.
"Right. That's… next to Croydon, isn't it?" He asked, knowing full well that he landed an entire five hundred seventy-one point three miles off course.
Miraculously, his faithful friend chose that precise moment to hum back to life.
"Oh, hey! Now we're in business." He called out, everyone rushing up to his side to see if he was working.
Then metal canine, K-9, jerkily raised his head as he spoke. "Master."
"He recognizes me!" The Doctor shouted out in short of absolute giddy ecstasy.
"Affirmative." He punctuated with a slight nod. Alli was on the verge of melting from how cute he was.
Crack
"Aw! You are the cutest little thing in the whole world!" She scratched under his chin and was rewarded with him wagging his tail and wiggling his ears.
"Affirmative!" He repeated, although one might perceive to have heard a hint of flattery in his voice.
"Rose, give us the oil." The Doctor, still smiling, stuck his hand out behind him for the jar while Rose raced back with it and stuffed it in his hands.
"I wouldn't touch it, though." She warned as he moved to unscrew the lid and scoop his fingers in the golden, gelatinous oil. "That dinner lady got all scorched."
The Doctor quirked his eyebrow up as she motioned with a nasty expression to a spot on her neck.
"I'm no dinner lady. And I don't often say that."
"One would hope so." Alli giggled under her breath.
The Doctor chose to ignore her words and stuck his finger into the jar without a single singe to follow. K-9 obediently reached out his tiny, plunger-like probe for him to smear the sample across and retracted to begin the scan.
In perfect synchrony, both Alli and the Doctor stepped back and crossed their arms pensively, shifting back and forth on their feet as they awaited the results. Like father like daughter. Sarah thought to herself in feeble amusement.
"Here we go. Come on, boy. Here we go."
"You can do it puppy!"
K-9's struggled stuttering broke through, "Oil ex-ex-ex-extract. Ana-ana-analyzing."
The Doctor's hearts ached from how beaten up his poor dog became over time, it certainly didn't ease the pain when he heard none other than Mickey the Idiot laughing at it.
"Listen to him, man. That's a voice."
"Careful." Sarah Jane snapped, "That's my dog."
It more than sobered his expression at the offended voice she struck him with.
"Confirmation of analysis. Substance is Krillitane Oil." K-9 produced. While the interruption helped to clear the tense air between Sarah and Mickey, it was only replaced by the Doctor's horrifyingly dreaded attitude towards it.
"They're Krillitanes." He moaned in realization.
"Is that bad?" Rose questioned.
"Very. Think of how bad things could possibly be and add another suitcase full of bad."
"And what are Krillitanes?"
The Doctor turned towards not only a baffled Sarah Jane, but Rose and Mickey as well came across a little lost. Only Alli stood with a vacant expression, her eyes were flitting back and forth at a rapid speed and he couldn't hear her breathing like he heard from the others.
"Alli?" He whispered, he rushed over and knelt in front of her, gripping the small frame of her shoulders. Rose kneeled down as well to check what was wrong and felt her heart rate pick up in fear for what was wrong. Her eyes closed and opened to show she was just fine now, the darting had stopped and her breathing returned in a gasp, she looked in confusion at the two's panicked look.
"What?" She asked innocently.
"What do you mean 'What?' You're eyes looked like you were possessed! Are you okay?" Rose near shouted, she was picking over her and looking for any other signs of something wrong.
Alli giggled at the prodding and explained to her as calm as she could, "I was just looking up what the Krillitanes were. Strange though, that usually takes a lot longer, plus my head hurts a little." She rubbed her temples in a sore manner before motioning with her hand at the Doctor to continue.
"Keep going, unless you want me to explain."
To be honest, the Doctor was intrigued to how her mind actually worked now. A human brain exposed for an entire year to Time Vortex energy, a mind literally re-written by Time itself, he'll worry about the headache problem later.
"No-no, I want to see what you know."
She let her hands drop from clutching her head and shrugged. Her voice was monotonous as if reading from a book, "Krillitanes, a composition race consisting of the individual species they conquer. Physical aspects of the creatures they defeat are dissected and chosen for their own physical appearance. Most recent attack of the Krillitanes during this time line was of the planet of Bessan, more than a million native species were destroyed."
"How do you know that? What did you mean when you said you were looking it up?" Sarah Jane questioned, she was letting her journalistic nature get the best of her and dig for the facts.
"We-ell, I'll uh, explain later." The Doctor stammered, trying to move past the awkward explanation. "But, basically, you're right. Just like your culture is a mixture of traditions from all sorts of countries, people you've been invaded by. You've got bits of Viking, bits of France, bits of whatever. The Krillitanes are the same. An amalgam of the races they've conquered. But they take the physical aspects as well. They cherry pick the best bits from the people they destroy. That's why I didn't recognize them. The last time I saw Krillitanes they looked just like us except they had really long necks."
"What're they doing here?" Rose asked, once he finished his lecture mode.
His eyes reflected the horror of what we finally registered as part of their plan.
"It's the children." He breathed out. "They're doing something to the children." Everyone turned together and looked in concern at Alli Rose, who was slowly dangling her arms around her in a circle, looking all but unconcerned.
"Alli, what can you tell me about that top class they placed you in? What are they teaching you in there?"
"I don't know." She sighed, now twirling her hair around her finger.
He gently grabbed her hands and had her look up at him. "Please, this is important, you have to remember what they were doing. Anything at all."
"I can't. Luna told me not to look at that memory. She had to hide it."
"What do you mean? Who's Luna?" Sarah asked, although Mickey was interested to know as well. The Doctor inwardly groaned for what was coming.
Crack
"My apologies, we've never been properly introduced. I'm Luna. Luna Erythro." She replied in a silky voice, shaking the hands of the shocked duo.
"What?" Mickey deadpanned.
A/N: Didn't have many requests on what you wanted me to add in or work on. I haven't seen much of the Doctor and Sarah Jane episodes so the references to back then are probably a little off, my bad. :p Also my bad for constantly posting these near midnight, I'm slightly nocturnal. Maybe Santa will read this though when he's delivering everyone's presents, I really hope so, I'm his number one fan. ^-^ Anything else you want your opinion on, just throw it my way and I'll get right on it.