The patients are within touching distance when the Doctor thinks of something that might work with the child like mentality they are presenting. He gives them a stern look. "Go to your room." The patients stop moving and just stand very still. Seeing that he got at least a reaction out of them, the Doctor tries again. "Go to your room. I mean it. I'm very, very angry with you. I am very, very cross. Go to your room!" He points with his finger off towards the side and is happy to see them hang their heads in shame and shuffle away. They go back to their beds and lay back down. The Doctor laughs in relief. "I'm really glad that worked. Those would have been terrible last words."
"You tell them, Daddy." Layla gives him a wicked smile and winked at him. Whether she meant it literally or sexually, he won't ever know. I knew he had to have been a father before, no way he had never had a family before with the way he was with that toddler at Jackie's. She laughed as he sputtered.
Rose looked at the patients and scratched her cheek. "Why are they all wearing gas masks?"
Jack had sat down in a nearby chair and put his feet up on a desk. "They're not. Those masks are flesh and bone."
The girls face twist in a mix of disgust and pity. Rose touches her face as if to confirm that she still has it and Layla looks at them sadly. "How awful."
Hearing the sadness in her voice, the Doctor turns towards Jack and looks at him hard. "How was your con supposed to work?"
"Simple enough, really. Find some harmless piece of space junk, let the nearest Time Agent track it to earth, convince him it's value, name a price. When he's put fifty percent up front, oops! A German bomb falls on it, destroys it forever. He never gets to see what he's paid for; never knows he's been had. I buy him a drink with his own money, and we discuss dumb luck. The perfect self-cleaning con." Jack looks around to see if anyone agrees with him about what a great plan it was and is met with different looks. Rose won't look at him, the Doctor is looking at him angrily, and Layla, her look is the look that makes him the most uncomfortable. She looks at him like she knows he can be better, that he is better than this, and he doesn't understand why she would have that view of him after only just meeting him.
To be honest, she doesn't understand it either, but she has always been good at reading people and she always follows her instincts. It has helped her a lot in her life, especially growing up and dealing with the abuse she has had to deal with. It has steered her from the wrong people in life and the wrong choices. Just like she knows she can trust the Doctor, she has a feeling that Jack can be more than what he is presenting to the world, he just has to make the change himself, but she knows that he has the heart for it.
"Yeah. Perfect." The Doctor sneers as he notices Jack looking at Layla again.
Jack looks away from Layla and avoids her this time. "The London Blitz is great for self-cleaners. Pompeii's nice if you want to make a vacation of it though, but you've got to set your alarm for volcano day." He stops taking as he takes in the darkened look on the Doctor's face. He refuses to look at Layla's and isn't concerned about Rose's. "Getting a hint of disapproval."
The Doctor throws his arms out. "Take a look around the room. This is what your harmless piece of space-junk did."
Jack, still not wanting to admit any fault to this, denies this accusation. "It was a burnt-out medical transporter. It was empty."
The Doctor turns on his heal and heads towards the doors. "Layla. Rose."
Layla follows him without question, figuring they are going to do more investigating. She didn't know where, but knowing the Doctor is upset and not wanting to irritate him more with questions.
"Are we getting out of here?" Rose however didn't have that problem.
"We're going upstairs."
Jack reluctantly got up and started to follow after them. "I even programmed the flight computer so it wouldn't land on anything living. I harmed no-one. I don't know what's happening here, but believe me, I have nothing to do with it."
The Doctor looked over the railing of the stairs he was on. "I'll tell you what's happening. You forgot to set your alarm clock. It's volcano day."
A siren sounds off outside and startles Rose. "What's that?"
"The all clear." Jack tells her.
"I wish." the Doctor mutters under his breath.
Xxxxxx
Layla is the only one able to keep up with the long legs of the Doctor as he rushes up the stairs to the room of the first victim. "Mister Spock? Layla?" They hear Jack shout at them from below.
"Doctor?" Rose is also calling for him since they both have lost sight of the Doctor and Layla.
They run past the staircase when the Doctor leans over from the next flight up causing them to back track when they hear him talk to them. "Have you got a blaster?"
Jack, happy to be of use, pulls one out of his holster. "Sure!" They meet the Doctor and Layla outside a secure metal door.
The Doctor is standing there with his arms crossed over his chest. "The night your space-junk landed. Someone was hurt. This was where they were taken."
"What happened?" Rose asked.
"Wait, Jack said that he programed it to land where there would be no one alive, that would mean that if there was a victim there, they would have been dead, so the victim is one of these zombie patients? And something is causing them to a zombie patient?" Layla asked the Doctor.
The Doctor gives her a proud smile at her deduction. "Let's find out. Get it open."
Rose looks at the Doctor with her brows furrowed. "What's wrong with your sonic screwdriver." She whispers.
"Nothing." He says stiffly. Jack aims his blaster at the door and disintegrates the lock in the shape of a square hole. The Doctor takes the blaster from Jack and looks at it from all angles. "Sonic blaster, fifty first century. Weapon Factories of Villengard?" He asks knowingly.
Jack nods his head. "You've been to the factories?"
The Doctor gives him a big cheesy grin. "Once."
"Well, they're gone now, destroyed. The main reactor went critical. Vaporized the lot." Jack said with a heavy sigh.
The Doctor never loses his grin and gives Jack his blaster back. "Like I said. Once. There's a banana grove there, now. I like bananas." He looks towards Layla and snickers at her face. "Bananas are good."
She makes a gagging face. She has the last laugh though. She brushes by him into the room, trailing her fingers along his stomach softly. "Pears are far superior." She smirks as she turns around and sees that he is giving her the stink eye.
"Nice blast pattern." They can hear Rose flirting with Jack.
"Digital." He gives her a charming smile.
"Squareness gun." She bites her lip and twirls her hair. The Doctor and Layla snicker in amusement.
"Yeah." Jack gives her a suave smirk and his 51st century pheromones.
"I like it."
Xxxxxx
The flirting is finally done and they walk into the room and they can see a room that has filing cabinets, electronic equipment, and it is a huge mess. There is an observation window across the room that is broken. Paper and child drawings are all over the floor.
"What do you think?" The Doctor asks, wanting them to use their brains to help solve this problem, especially since he believed that Jack was the cause of it.
Jack took in the destruction of the room and whistled softly. "Something got out of here."
Obviously. "Yeah. And?"
"Something powerful. Angry."
The Doctor nods his head. "Powerful and angry."
Rose and Layla are looking at the drawings that are obviously done by a child, or at least someone with a child's mentality. In the drawings, there is stick figures of an adult woman and a little boy. The woman is never the same, different color skin, hair, clothing, but the boy is always the same. Layla's heart breaks as she realizes why the mother in the pictures is not the same. She connects the reason why the zombies are always asking, 'are you, my mummy?' The child doesn't know who their mum is, and they want to know.
Jack sees the drawings on the floor. "A child? I suppose this explains the mummy."
"How could a child do this?" Rose didn't understand, but Layla figured that aliens were involved.
The Doctor turned on a tape machine and they hear a conversation between a little boy and the doctor of the hospital.
"Do you know where you are?"
"Are you, my mummy?"
"Are you aware of what's around you? Can you see?"
"Are you, my mummy?"
"What do you want? Do you know?"
"I want my mummy. Are you, my mummy? I want my mummy! Are you, my mummy? Are you, my mummy? Mummy? Mummy?"
"Doctor, Layla and I have heard this voice before." Rose told him a little freaked out.
"Yeah, that's how we ended up on the barrage balloon, we were trying to save him thinking he needed help."
"I've heard it too." The Doctor tells them.
"Mummy?"
"Always 'are you, my mummy?' Like he doesn't know." Rose points out.
"If you look at the drawings, all of the mother figures look different, I would say that he doesn't know who his mother is." Layla picked up a couple of the drawings and showed them the differences.
"Mummy?"
"But, why doesn't he know?"
"He could be an orphan and never knew his mother and/or was adopted? Or is being raised by a sibling? He was abandoned? There are many different reasons as to why he wouldn't know his mother." Layla points out, knowing from experience why someone wouldn't know their parent.
"Are you there, mummy? Mummy? Please, mummy? Mummy?"
Rose looks at the Doctor and sees that he is looking around the room like he is looking for something. "Doctor?"
"Can you sense it?"
Jack mimics him and looks around. "Sense what?"
"Coming out of the walls. Can you feel it?"
"Mummy?"
The Doctor huffs. "Funny little human brains. How do you get around in those things?"
Rose looks at Jack amused. "When he's stressed, he likes to insult species."
"Rose, I'm thinking."
"He cuts himself shaving, he does half an hour on life forms he's cleverer than." Jack laughs at this.
"There are these children living rough round the bomb sites. They come out during air-raids looking for food." The Doctor says this and it breaks Layla's heart to hear children are suffering and starving.
"Mummy, please?"
The Doctor is rolling his hands in the air trying to gather his thoughts together. "Suppose they were there when this thing, whatever it was, landed?"
Jack protests. "It was a med-ship. It was harmless."
The Doctor nods his head in agreement. "Yes, you keep saying harmless. Suppose one of them was affected, altered?"
"Altered how?" Rose asked. They were all so focused on the Doctor and what he was saying they didn't notice that the tape ended, but Layla did. She was also the only one to notice when the little boy appeared and her heart broke again that there wasn't anything she could do at that moment to help him.
"I'm here."
Tears are starting to cloud her eyes. She never wants a child to suffer, and she can't help him, she doesn't know how to help him. The Doctor stopped pacing and his mouth drops open. "It's afraid. Terribly afraid and powerful. It doesn't know it yet, but it will do. It's got the power of a god, and I just sent it to its room."
Rose started to look at him in fear at the look on his face. "Doctor?"
"I'm here. Can't you see me?"
"What's that noise?" Rose looks around but passes over the child not seeing him and she doesn't notice Layla not moving and staring right at him.
The Doctor looks at Layla and sees the tears in her eyes and looks towards where she is staring at and his hearts break. "I sent it to its room. This is its room." He slowly walks towards Layla and grabs her hand and gets ready to pull her back towards the door.
"Are you, my mummy? Mummy?" He is looking at Layla because she is the only one looking at him like he believes a mother would look at their child.
Rose finally sees the child and starts to back away from it. "Doctor?"
Jack starts to reach towards his blaster. "Okay, on my signal make for the door."
"Mummy?"
Jack whips out his blaster and aims it at the child. "Now!" Only to realize it is a banana and looks at it in total confusion.
"Mummy?"
The Doctor smirks and pulls out Jack's blaster from his belt and makes a nice, big square hole in the wall. "Go now! Don't drop the banana!"
"Why not?!" Jack asks him hysterically.
The Doctor sends him a cheeky smile. "Good source of potassium."
"No drop the banana, they are gross! Pear's rock!" Layla shouts.
"Oi!"
They all get through the door and Jack snatches his blaster from the Doctor. "Give me that!"
"Mummy. I want my mummy."
Jack messes with his blaster for a second and aims it towards the wall and shoots again and it repairs the hole that the Doctor made. "Digital rewind." He looks towards the Doctor and tosses him the banana. "Nice switch."
Layla reaches for the banana to throw it as far as she can and the Doctor holds it up out of her reach. She still tries to jump and get it, pressing against him to try, but the Doctor isn't complaining. He looks towards Jack. "It's from the groves of Villengard. I thought it was appropriate."
Jack's mouth drops open. "There's really a banana grove in the heart of Villengard and you did that?"
The Doctor shrugs and smirks and looks down at Layla and states it like a fact. "Bananas are good." She gives up trying to get the banana and pouts, and he chuckles at the cuteness of it. But loses his smile as the wall starts to crack.
"Doctor!" Rose shouts, like he doesn't already know about it. They start to run to get away, but they see that they are being closed in all around by the zombie patients from all directions.
"Mummy. Mummy. Mummy."
"It's keeping us here till it can get at us." The Doctor realizes when he sees that they aren't really coming any closer, but leaving them trapped.
Jack is pointing his blaster all around making sure none of them get too close. "It's controlling them?"
The Doctor shook his head. "It is them. It's every living thing in this hospital."
"That's terrifying." Rose utters.
"Well, a non-frightening zombie is a lame zombie, can't have those, it would be boring." Layla states emphatically.
"Okay. This can function as a sonic blaster, a sonic cannon, and as a triple-enfolded sonic disrupter. Doc, what you got?"
The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and looked at it and realized it was not going to help at all. "I've got a sonic, er. Oh, never mind."
"What?"
"It's sonic, okay? Let's leave it at that."
But Jack wouldn't leave it at that, he wanted to know all of their assets. "Disrupter? Cannon? What?"
The Doctor was panicking a little bit, he has never before been embarrassed by his screwdriver before, he doesn't know why he is now. "It's sonic! Totally sonic! I am soniced up!" The girls are looking at each other and pull a face but can help but snigger in amusement at the ridiculousness of the conversation. They look at each other but have a silent conversation and Rose looks at Jack's blaster and at the ground and Layla's eyes light up and nods.
"A sonic what?" Jack shouts, fed up with his evasion.
The Doctor shoves his sonic in Jack's face. "Screwdriver!"
The child finally manages to break through and Rose grabs Jack's blaster and points it at the floor. "Going down!" They all fall and Jack immediately grabs it from Rose from where he is and repairs the ceiling. "Doctor, Layla are you okay?" Rose asked.
The Doctor rubbed his head. "Could've used a warning."
She grumbled. "Oh, the gratitude."
"Layla, are you alright?" The Doctor asks worried because he hadn't heard her yet and he couldn't see very well.
She groans a little. "I'm okay. I somewhat head-butted Jack, but his body cushioned the fall for mine, so I don't hurt anywhere else." She groans again and she is quickly lifted off of Jack by the Doctor. He pulls her away from him and into his arms. He feels around on her head and checks to see if she is okay, but he was also just wanting her off of Jack.
"Even with a head-butt, I'm not going to complain." They could practically hear the smirk in Jack's voice. However, it turns incredulous when he turns on the Doctor. "Who has a sonic screwdriver?"
"I do!"
"I thought it was a sex toy the first time I seen it." Layla shrugged and she felt the Doctor stiffen against her, but in the dark, she couldn't see his face that well.
"Ah, have much experience with those, do we, Sweetheart?" Jack leers at her, and while she can't see his face that well, she can just imagine the look on his face. Layla laughs but doesn't reply. "Anyways, who looks at a screwdriver and thinks, ooh this could be a little more sonic?"
The Doctor, grateful of the topic change, answers him sarcastically. "What, you've never been bored? Never had a long night? Never had a lot of cabinets to put up?"
During this whole time, Rose had been trying to find the light switch and she had succeeded. Unfortunately, as soon as she turned on the lights, all of the patients in the room sit up in their beds.
"Mummy. Mummy."
"Door." Jack points his blaster and it doesn't work. "Damn it!"
"Mummy."
"It's the special features they really drain the battery."
"The battery?" Rose screeches.
"We need some LEGO's! That will slow them down!" Layla says snickering as the Doctor uses his screwdriver and gets them into the storeroom and locks them inside.
"That's so lame!" Rose says outraged.
Jack sits down in a wheelchair and relaxes. His head rolls back and he looks at her. "I was going to send for another one, but somebody's got to blow up the factory."
Rose smirks. "Oh, I know. First day we met him, he blew up our job. That's practically how he communicates."
"Our first adventure he also took us to the end of the earth where that exploded too, I just think he likes it when things explode." Layla laughs and nudges the Doctor and smiles sheepishly because that does seem to happen… a lot.
"Okay, anyways, that door should hold it for a bit." The Doctor is looking around trying to change the topic.
Jack looks at him like he is crazy. "The door? The wall didn't stop it?"
He shrugs. "Well, it's got to find us first." Ha! "Come on, we're not done yet! Assets, assets!"
"Well, I've got a banana, and in a pinch, you could put up some shelves."
The Doctor walks over towards the only window in the room. "Window."
Jack starts to mess with the tech on his wrist. "Barred. Sheer drop outside. Seven stories."
Rose sits down in a chair and huffs. "And no other exits."
Jack continued to fiddle. "Well, the assets conversation went in a flash, didn't it?"
The Doctor gives him the stink eye and looked towards the girls. "So, where'd you pick this one up, then?"
"Doctor." Rose glared at him, but inwardly she was hoping he would come to accept him so he can be with Layla and then the Doctor will pay more attention to her.
"They were hanging from a barrage balloon; I had an invisible spaceship. I never stood a chance." Jack takes the chance to make it seem like it was more than it was.
"Okay. One, we've got to get out of here. Two, we can't get out of here. Have I missed anything?"
Rose gasped. "Yeah. Jack just disappeared.
Xxxxxx
The Doctor is sitting down on a bench trying to think of a way to get out, Layla is laying on the same bench with her head on his thigh facing his stomach dozing lightly as he plays with her hair, both of them missing the pout that Rose is giving them.
Rose huffs and sits in the wheelchair that Jack was sitting in. "Okay, so he's vanished into thin air. Why is it always the great looking ones who do that?"
The Doctor gives her the stink eye. "I'm making an effort not to be insulted." Not that I care if you find me attractive or not, but no one likes to be called ugly.
"I mean, men."
"Okay, thanks, that really helped."
Layla sleepily pats his lower back to gets his attention and he bends down so he can hear her. Rose looks on suspiciously as she can hear Layla mumble something, but not what she said. Whatever it was, caused the Doctor to stiffen and his face to turn a bright red. Before she can think more on it, a radio nearby crackles into life. "Sweetheart? Rose? Doctor? Can you hear me? I'm back on my ship. Used the emergency teleport. Sorry I couldn't take you. It's security-keyed to my molecular structure. I'm working on it. Hang in there."
When the radio came to life Layla had reluctantly gotten up and they all walked over. The Doctor looked behind the radio and seen that the wires had been cut and it would not be useable anymore the normal way. "How are you speaking to us?" He questions Jack.
"Om-Com. I can call anything with a speaker grill."
The Doctor hums in thought. "Now there's a coincidence."
Jack stops what he is doing. "What is?"
"The child can Om-Com, too."
Rose, not having been there when the child called the Tardis or when the Doctor was with Nancy, was unaware of this. "He can?"
"Anything with a speaker grill. Even the Tardis phone."
"What, you mean the child can phone us?" That would be super creepy.
"And I can hear you. Coming to find you. Coming to find you."
"Doctor, can you hear that?" Jack could, but he wasn't sure if they could.
"Loud and clear."
"I'll try to block out the signal. Least I can do."
"Coming to find you, mummy."
"Remember this Sweetheart?" He puts on Moonlight Serenade and Layla groans.
The Doctor looks at her questioningly and Rose gleefully informs him. "This is their song. They danced together on his spaceship." They both see the Doctor throw the radio a harsh glare and his lips thin out. Rose becomes disappointed because she was hoping that he wouldn't care that she danced with Jack. Layla's heart beat faster at the jealously he expressed.
She gave Rose the stink eye. "I only had to dance with him because you were saying you needed air from drinking too much and were woozy, it was the only way to speed up the who thing. Besides I suffered too, this music is terrible. My poor ears." The Doctor snorts and his bad mood turns around. He is amused at her disgruntled expression at her having to listen, in her books, to terrible music.
Xxxxxx
The Doctor, bored of just doing nothing, started to work on the bars on the window to give him something to do besides twiddle his thumbs, Layla is dozing again and Rose is playing with the wheelchair.
"What are you doing?" Rose takes her chance to try to get some attention seeing as Layla is sleeping.
"Trying to set up resonation pattern in the concrete, loosen the bars."
"You don't think he's coming back, do you?" She tilts her head to the side and she takes in his expression.
He snorts. "Wouldn't bet my life."
"Why don't you trust him?"
"Why do you?"
"He saved our life. Bloke-wise, that's up there with flossing. I trust him because he's like you. Except with dating and dancing. What?"
"You just assume I'm…"
Rose smirks at him. "What?"
"You just assume that I don't dance." Oh no, what if Layla assumes that?
"What, are you telling me you do dance?"
The Doctor scoffs. "Nine hundred years old, me. I've been around a bit. I think you can assume at some point I've danced."
"You?"
The Doctor was getting a little uncomfortable, but he walked right into it and if he backs out of it, she will tease him mercilessly. "Problem?"
"Doesn't the universe implode or something if you dance?"
"Well, I've got the moves but I wouldn't want to boast."
Rose goes over to the radio and turns it up slightly, not too loud though to where it wakes up Layla. She holds her hand out towards the Doctor. "You've got the moves? Show me your moves."
Now the Doctor is definitely uncomfortable. He doesn't want to upset Rose by physically flinching where she would definitely notice it by her touch, and he doesn't want to dance with her. "Rose, I'm trying to resonate concrete."
"Jack will be back. He'll get us out. So, come on. The world doesn't end because the Doctor dances."
Rose continues to hold out her hands with her palms up and something in the Doctor's mind clicks and he takes a closer look at them. He steps closer to them and he takes one in hand and he only flinches slightly, and it able to keep it small because he is trying to solve a problem, and it is not a romantic touch. "Barrage balloon?"
Rose frowns. "What?"
"You were hanging from a barrage balloon."
"Oh, yeah. About two minutes after you left us. Thousands of feet above London, middle of a German air-raid, Union Jack all over my chest." She slightly sticks out her chest trying to get him enticed, but he totally ignores her hint to look.
"I've travelled with a lot of people, but you two are setting new records for jeopardy friendly."
Rose tries to get him back on the topic of dancing and starts to sway. "Is this you dancing, because I've got notes."
He isn't even moving. "Hanging from a rope thousand feet above London. Not a cut, not a bruise."
"Yeah, I know. Captain Jack fixed us up."
Layla too? He frowns. "Oh, we're calling him Captain Jack now, are we?"
"Well, his name's Jack and he is a Captain."
The Doctor objected. "He's not really a Captain, Rose."
"Do you know what I think? I think you're experiencing Captain envy. You'll find your feet at the end of your legs. You may care to move them." She was getting frustrated that he wasn't cooperating with her at all. She had been hopeful when he walked to her that he was thawing out from being upset with her, but ends up being disappointed.
The Doctor let go of her hand having looked them over all the way and seen no flaws from the healing that was done to them. "If ever he was a Captain, he's been defrocked."
Rose pouted. "Yeah? Shame I missed that."
"Actually, I quit. Nobody takes my frock. Most people notice when they've been teleported. You guys are so sweet. Sorry about the delay. I had to take the nav-com offline to override the teleport security."
The Doctor and Rose looked over at Jack and both felt different emotions. Rose was giddy. The Doctor was furious, a storm brewing in his eyes. Because of where Layla was in the storage room, and that she was sleeping, when Jack teleported them onto his ship, she was teleported directly onto his lap, where she was, still sleeping away as he held her in his arms with a smug smirk on his face.
The Doctor stormed over to him and gave him a hard look. He looked at Jack intensely, and whatever Jack had seen in his eyes, he understood that Layla meant something to him. Meant a lot. He willingly gave her up with the Doctor gently picked her up out of his arms and went towards the back where Jack's bed was and sat down with Layla still in his arms, never releasing her, willing his hearts and the bond to calm down. Luckily for him, Jack distracts Rose so she doesn't notice that he didn't lay her down right away. It is only a few minutes before the Doctor calms down and he gently lays Layla down on the bed and goes back up towards the front like nothing had happened. "You can spend ten minutes overriding your own protocols? Maybe you should remember who ship it is."
Jack smirked at him. "Oh, I do. She was gorgeous. Like I told her, be back in five minutes."
The Doctor was looking around the cramped ship. "This is a Chula ship."
"Yeah, just like that medical transporter. Only this one is dangerous."
The Doctor snaps his fingers and the golden glow envelops his hands, Rose points at them. "They're what fixed our hands up, Jack called them, er…"
"Nanobots? Nanogenes?"
"Nanogenes, yeah."
The Doctor nodded his head. "Sub-atomic robots. There're millions of them in here, see? Burned my hand on the console when we landed. All better now. They activate when the bulk head is sealed. Check you out for damage, fix any physical flaws. Take us to the crash site I need to see your space junk."
"As soon as I get the nav-com back online. Make yourself comfortable. Carry on with whatever it was you were doing."
"I was looking at her healed hands from the rope burn." The Doctor wasn't even going to try to pretend that he was dancing with Rose like she wanted to do.
Xxxxxx
It is about five minutes later when Jack accidentally drops something making a loud thud causing Layla to jump up. "What is it? What's wrong?" She is looking around looking for the problem.
"Sorry Sweetheart, just dropped something, loving the sex hair though." He winks at her and gets back to work.
She reaches up and feels her hair and realizes it is a mess and remembers that the Doctor was playing with it earlier. She looks at the Doctor and leers. "That would be your fault, you are the one that gave it to me." She had said it low enough to where only the Doctor had heard her. Rose and Jack were quietly talking at the front of the ship and didn't notice anything.
The Doctor looks at her hair, her sleep laden eyes, rumpled dress hitched up high on her thighs, and her sitting on a bed, and feels his blood heat up. His pupils dilate and his cock twitches and starts to harden at the image she is presenting. He is staring at her intensely, focused solely on her. He takes a step in her direction, to do what? He doesn't know, but he takes that first step and then the next.
"Fuck!" Jack gets shocked by getting too close to an exposed wire due to it being such a tiny ship.
As if coming out of a trance, the Doctor stops walking and blinks rapidly. He realizes that he was letting his hormones take over. Luckily, Layla hadn't realized that he was even headed over towards her, that at some point when he was staring at her, she had turned to the mirror on the wall next to Jack's bed and was trying to fix her hair. The Doctor huffs and decides to eavesdrop on Jack and Rose's conversation so he doesn't jump Layla, especially since she is done with her hair and has walked over and in front of him and bending over to look at what Jack is doing, giving him a great view.
"So, you used to be a Time Agent, now you're trying to con them?" Rose asked him.
"If it makes me sound any better, it's not for the money." He tells her softly, but he is looking at Layla out of the corner of his eye.
"For what?"
He looked at Rose. "Woke up one day when I was still working for them, found they'd stolen two years of my memories. I'd like them back."
Rose's mouth dropped open. "They stole your memories?"
Jack nodded his head jerkily. "Two years of my life. No idea what I did. Your friend over there doesn't trust me, and for all I know, he's right not to."
"It doesn't matter what you did in those two years though Jack, it matters what you do now, in the present. You saved me and Rose when you didn't have to. You teleported us here, when you didn't have to. You are helping us with this problem, when you don't have to. You're a good man. Even if you did terrible things in those two years, doing good things now can make up for them. At least, that is what I believe."
There she goes again. Looking at me with those kind eyes that make me want to do and be better. He clears his throat and looks at the Doctor who is giving him an unreadable look. "Okay, we're good to go. Crash site?"
Xxxxxx
Jack takes them to the crash site and they are all crouched down looking at the guard detail. "There it is." Jack's face lights up in recognition. "Hey, they've got Algy on duty. It must be important."
The Doctor is looking through is binoculars. "We've got to get past him."
Rose fluffs her hair and straightens her shirt. "Are the words distract the guard heading in my general direction?" The Doctor is glad that Rose is the one to volunteer to do it and not Layla, he doesn't think his hearts could take seeing Layla distracting the guards.
Jack shook his head though. "I don't think that'd be such a good idea."
"Don't worry I can handle it."
He gives Rose a smirk. "I've got to know Algy quite well since I've been in town. Trust me, you're not his type. I'll distract him. Don't wait up." He walks off with a swagger in his step.
The Doctor looks at Rose's face and smirks. "Relax, he's a fifty first century guy. He's just a bit more flexible when it comes to dancing."
Rose looks at him interested. "How flexible?"
The Doctor tries to think of a way to put it. "Well, by his time, you lot have spread out across half the galaxy."
"Meaning?"
The Doctor looks at Layla as she sniggers and he sees that she understands where he is going with this and he turns back to Rose and laughs. "So many species, so little time."
Rose looks at him aghast. "What, that's what we do when we get out there? That's out mission? We seek new life and, and…"
He just gives her a grin. "Dance."
xxxxxx
Jack walked up behind Algy. "Hey, tiger. How's it hanging?"
Algy turned around and looks at Jack confused. "Mummy?"
"Algy, old sport, it's me."
Algy's face is pallid and feverish. "Mummy?"
Jack is looking at him concerned. "It's me, Jack."
There is some recognition in Algy's face for a second before it's gone. "Jack? Are you, my mummy?" He starts to retch and falls to his knees before his face turns into a gas mask. The Doctor, Layla, and Rose are running forwards from where they were hiding.
"Stay back!" The Doctor reaches them first and starts giving out instructions.
Jack comes out of his state of shock and starts pushing others back. "You men, stay away!"
The Doctor looked around. "The effect's become air-borne, accelerating." His hearts were pounding. He didn't know what he could do to protect Layla and Rose. It didn't help that the air raid sirens started to go off as well.
"What's keeping us safe?" Rose asked him hoping that he could give them some hope.
"Nothing." Was his grim reply. Rose and Layla's hearts drop in worry.
Jack was looking in the sky. "Ah, here they come again."
"All we need. Didn't you say a bomb was going to land here?"
"Yeah, that would be fantastic to get rid of the alien junk, if we didn't have this problem to deal with right now, and we weren't standing right next to it of course." Layla just had to point out unhelpfully.
"Never mind about that. If the contaminants airborne now, there's hours left." The Doctor was thinking hard of what this could be and how to fix it. He felt he had all the pieces to the puzzle, he just needed to fit it together.
"For what?" Jack asked somewhat dumbly.
"Till nothing, forever. For the entire human race." He pauses for a second and tilts his head to the side. "And can anyone else hear singing?"
"Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree tops."
They walk towards the bomb site headquarters and the Doctor opens the door. They see Nancy handcuffed to the chair and a soldier, fully transformed with a gasmask, asleep as she sings to him.
"When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. Down will come baby, cradle and all."
The Doctor creeps in and gestures for Nancy to keep singing. Layla watches from the door and is impressed that for such an enthusiastic and loud man, he sure can be quiet when there is a need.
"Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree tops. When the wind blows the cradle will rock."
The Doctor frees Nancy from her cuffs and as she finishes her verse of the song, they gently close the door leaving the soldier asleep and alone. They walk back towards the bomb site and get to work getting a light set up and uncovering the spacecraft. "You see? Just an ambulance." Jack asks them while pointing towards it like they needed help to see the giant vehicle.
Nancy looks at it skeptically. "That's an ambulance?"
"It's hard to explain. It's from another world." Rose tried.
"It's from outer space. There are other planets with life beside earth." Layla flat out said. Since she sung the soldier to sleep she believed that Nancy was a smart woman and could handle the truth bluntly.
Jack looked at the doors and he could see that it looked like crowbar marks and other tools had been used on it. "They've been trying to get in."
The Doctor looked at him with a 'duh' look. "Of course they have. They think they've got their hands on Hitler's latest secret weapon. What're you doing?"
Jack was keying in the access codes to enter the ambulance. He was going to prove that whatever was happening here wasn't his fault. "The sooner you see this thing is empty, the sooner you'll know I had nothing to do with it."
However, his attempt doesn't go so well. A loud bang is heard, it sparks at him and an alarm goes off causing the access panel to start flashing a red light. Jack looks at it dumbly. "Didn't happen last time."
The Doctor looked at him exasperated. Humans! "It hadn't crashed last time. There will be emergency protocols."
The Doctor starts to work on the ambulance to try to work on getting it open and turns towards Jack. "Captain, secure those gates!" Anything to slow down the zombies while he puts the puzzle together that would benefit them all.
"Why?"
"Just do it!" The Doctor snapped. He turns to Nancy and his face and voice softens. "Nancy, how'd you get in here?"
"I cut the wire." She points towards the area where she came in from.
"Show Layla and Rose." He hands his sonic to Layla. "Setting 2428-D."
"What?" Rose asked, but the Doctor had turned back to the ambulance and didn't answer her.
"I'm assuming it will fix where Nancy cut on the fence." Layla shrugged and she was right, it easily fixed the cut barbed wire. Nancy and Rose are looking around in fear and worry as bombs are starting to fall on London.
Nancy is looking between Layla and Rose, taking in their clothing and how they carrying themselves. "Who are you? Who are any of you?"
"You'd never believe us if we told you." She doesn't mean to sound dismissive, but she knows that in the past, people aren't as accepting. Hell in her own era, people aren't very accepting of what's different.
"You two just told me that was an ambulance from another world. There are people running around with gas mask heads calling for their mummies, and the sky's full of Germans dropping bombs on me. Tell me, do you think there's anything left I couldn't believe?"
Layla had to laugh at that. "She has a point, Rose! I like you, Nancy."
Rose laughs in agreement. "We're time travelers from the future."
"Mad, you are." Nancy accused them.
"We have a time travel machine, seriously!"
Nancy is looking back and for between the girls trying to see if they are jesting with her, but they are looking at her seriously. She shakes her head at them. "It's not that. Alright, you've got a time travel machine. I believe you. Believe anything me." She bites her lip and looks at them hesitantly. "But what future?"
Understanding floods Layla and Rose's faces. Rose put her hand on Nancy's shoulder. "Nancy, this isn't the end. I know how it looks, but it's not the end of the world or anything."
Nancy looks at her hopelessly. "How can you say that? Look at it."
"Listen to me. We were born in this city. We are from here, in like, fifty years' time." Layla nods her head in agreement to what Rose is saying as she continues to fix the fence and let's Rose comfort Nancy.
"From here?" Nancy was confused.
"We are Londoners. From your future."
"But, but you're not…" She trailed off in a whisper.
"What?"
"German." She whispered it like it was taboo.
Layla looked back at Rose. "I think we should give her some good news Rose, something to look forward to, don't you think?"
"I agree, my dear friend." Rose turns towards Nancy. "Nancy, the Germans don't come here. They don't win. Don't tell anyone we told you so, but you know what? You win."
Nancy's eyes widen and she gasps softy. "We win?"
Layla finally finishes the fence and grabs their hands, pulling them back towards the Doctor. "Come on!"
Xxxxxx
With the help from the Doctor, Jack was finally able to get the ambulance open. "It's empty. Look at it."
"What do you expect in a Chula medical transporter? Bandages? Cough drops? Layla? Rose?" The Doctor asks them, already figuring out what happened to the people here.
Rose looks at him confused on why he was asking her, she is still new to this whole alien thing and she doesn't know anything about Chula's. "I don't know."
"Yes, you do."
"Oh my god. Millions of nanogenes in the air of the Chula ships waiting to heal." Layla looked at him in horror.
The Doctor nodded at her and turned towards Jack. "It wasn't empty, Captain. There was enough nanogenes in there to rebuild a species."
Jacks face was mirroring Layla's. "Oh, god."
The Doctor's bared his teeth and looked at Jack with hard eyes. "Getting it now, are we? When the ship crashes, the nanogenes escape. Billions up billions of them, ready to fix all the cuts and bruises in the whole world. But what they find first is a dead child, probably killed earlier that night, and wearing a gasmask."
"And they brought him back to life? They can do that?" Rose asked shocked.
"But he isn't alive, not really, more like reanimated." Layla pointed out.
The Doctor nods his head towards her showing she made a good point. "What's life? Life is easy. A quirk of matter. Nature's way of keeping meat fresh. Nothing to a nanogene. One problem, though. These nanogenes, they're not like the ones on your ship. This lot have never seen a human being before. Don't know what a human beings supposed to look like. All they've got to go on is one little body, and there's not a lot left. But they carry right on. They do what they're programmed to do. They patch it up. Can't tell what's gasmask and what's skull, but they do their best. Then they fly, off they go, work to be done. Because, you see, now they think they know what people should look like, and it's time to fix all the rest. And they won't ever stop. They won't ever, ever stop. They entire human race is going to be torn down and rebuilt in the form of one terrified child looking for its mother, and nothing in the world can stop it!"
Jack feels a tightness in his chest and his stomach is upset. His mind is replaying what the Doctor said over and over. "I didn't know." He says softly.
"Mummy. Mummy."
"Rose! Layla!" Nancy calls for them panicking.
Rose looks towards the Doctor. "It's bringing the gas mask people here, isn't it?"
He nodded. "The ship thinks it's under attack. It's calling up the troops. Standard protocol."
"But the gas mask people aren't troops."
"But they are, like Jack said, they have ambulances in wars, and nanogenes heal, they would be there to heal the soldiers and would be considered soldiers themselves." Layla told her.
"Yeah, this is a battle-field ambulance. The nanogenes don't just fix you up, they get you ready for the front lines. Equip you, program you." The Doctor confirmed what Layla said.
"That's why the child is so strong. Why it could do that phoning thing." Rose said connecting the dots.
"Should have really made the connection a long time along when Jack told us about the Om-Com thing and that the child could do it." Layla shrugged, oh well, that's what panic of being turned into zombies does to someone.
"It's a fully equipped Chula warrior, yes. All that weapons tech in the hands of a hysterical four-year-old looking for his mummy. And now there's an army of them." The Doctor is looking towards the fence where they see all of the patients from the hospital standing, waiting.
"Why don't they attack?" Jack wonders aloud.
"Good little soldiers, waiting for their commander." The Doctor was starting to resign himself to not being able to fix this problem.
"The child?" Jack assumes that he was the one that the Doctor was talking about.
"Jamie." Nancy corrects.
Jack looks at her. "What?"
She looks at him. "Not the child." She looks away, looking and sounding so heartbroken. "Jamie." Hearing her tone Layla snaps her head towards her and looks at her thoughtfully.
Rose is looking at the sky. "So, how long until the bomb falls?"
"Any second." Jack says nervously.
"What's the matter, Captain? A bit close to the volcano for you?" The Doctor goads him.
"He's just a little boy." Nancy chokes out softy.
Layla puts her hand across her shoulders. "We know."
"He's just a little boy who wants his mummy." Nancy was looking towards the zombies, lost in memories.
"I know. There isn't a little boy born who wouldn't tear the world apart to save him mummy. And this little boy can." The Doctor tells her, not making the connection that Layla made, yet.
"So, what are we going to do?" Rose was starting to worry, this was becoming Downing Street again, but there wasn't a cabinet they could hide in.
The Doctor's shoulders slumped. "I don't know."
"It's my fault." Nancy sobs.
"Shh, it's okay Nancy." Layla rubs her back gently. "There is still time to tell him before it is too late. He wants to know, it wouldn't matter to him, he just wants to know."
The Doctor looked at Nancy still oblivious to what was being implied with their conversation. "How can it be your…"
"Mummy. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy."
The Doctor finally realized what wasn't being outright said. "Nancy, what age are you? Twenty? Twenty-one? Older than you look, yes?"
"Doctor, that bomb. We've got seconds." Jack cuts in panicky.
Rose looks at him hopefully. "You can teleport us out."
He looks at her sadly. "Not you guys. The nav-coms back online. Going to take too long to override the protocols."
The Doctor doesn't even look at him, doesn't take his gaze away from Nancy. "So, it's volcano day. Do what you've got to do."
"Jack?" Rose looks at him in betrayal. Jack looks at Layla pleadingly and Layla looks at him softly with no judgement, not blaming him no matter what choice he makes. He teleports out with his heart feeling light.
"How old were you five years ago? Fifteen? Sixteen? Old enough to give birth, anyway? He's not your brother, is he? A teenage single mother in 1941. So, you hid. You lied. You even lied to him." The Doctor grabbed Nancy's hands comfortingly.
The bomb site gate opens and Jamie is standing there. "Are you, my mummy?"
"He's going to keep asking, Nancy. He's never going to stop." The Doctor is pleading with her to tell him. Without her, the world is going to end.
"He won't be upset or disappointed Nancy. He just wants to know. He just wants a mother." Layla gently encourages her.
"Mummy?"
The Doctor adds on seeing Nancy wavering. "Tell him. Nancy, the future of the human race is in your hands. Trust us and tell him."
Nancy and Jamie walk towards each other and are inches from touching. "Are you, my mummy? Are you, my mummy? Are you, my mummy?"
"Yes. Yes, I am your mummy."
"Mummy?"
"I'm here."
"Are you, my mummy?"
"I'm here."
"Are you, my mummy?"
"Yes."
"Are you, my mummy?"
The Doctor rubs his forehead in despair. "He doesn't understand. There's not enough of him left."
"I am your mummy. I will always be your mummy. I'm so sorry. I am so, so sorry." Nancy hugs Jamie and a cloud of nanogenes surround them. Layla grabs the Doctors hand in excitement squeezing tightly in hope.
"What's happening? Doctor, it's changing her, we should…" Rose was worried about Nancy but the Doctor cut her off.
"Shush! Come on, please. Come on, you clever little nanogenes. Figure it out! The mother, she's the mother. It's got to be enough information. Figure it out." The Doctor is practically bouncing in hope and contained excitement.
"What's happening?" Rose didn't understand why he would be excited that she might be changing.
"Rose, he is hoping that the nanogenes would recognize that Nancy is Jamie's mother, and that Jamie is supposed to look like Nancy, not how they have been making other people look like the gas masked zombies." Layla tells her since the Doctor was so focused on looking at Nancy and Jamie.
Jamie lets go and Nancy falls on the ground, the Doctor walks over towards them. "See? Recognizing the same DNA. Oh, come on. Give me a day like this. Give me this one. He pulls on the mask from Jamie's face and it comes off easily. He jumps in the air. "Ha-ha! Welcome back! Twenty years till pop music – you're going to love it."
Nancy sits up groggily. "What happened?"
The Doctor helps her stand up, but letting go as soon as he can, because her touch feels wrong. "The nanogenes recognized the superior information, the parent DNA. They didn't change you because you changed them! Ha-ha! Mother knows best!
Nancy looks at Jamie's face for the first time in what feels like forever. "Oh, Jamie."
Over the excitement of saving Jamie, something slipped Rose's mind, but then it comes back when everything calms down. "Doctor, that bomb."
The Doctor waves carelessly. "Taken care of it."
She looks between the Doctor and Layla. "How?"
Layla looks at her sadly and the Doctor doesn't look at her at all. "Psychology."
They look up and see the bomb hurtling towards them and they get caught in Jack's light beam just before impact with Jack sitting astride the bomb. "Doctor!"
The Doctor gives him a grin, the first one since meeting him. "Good lad!"
"The bomb's already commenced detonation. I've put it in stasis, but it won't last long."
"Change of plan, don't need the bomb. Can you get rid of it, safely as you can?"
Jack hesitates, and doesn't answer him. He looks towards Rose. "Goodbye." He turns towards Layla. "Bye Sweetheart." He then vanishes. Within seconds he is back again. "By the way, love the t-shirt and definitely love the dress." He gives them a wink and Layla a sad smile before vanishing again.
The girls see the Doctor fiddling with something in his hands and then they see a golden glow, Rose walks over and gets close to him. "What are you doing?"
He shifts away from her and walks towards the zombie patients who had just been standing there doing nothing. "Software patch. Going to email the upgrade. You want moves, Rose? I'll give you moves." He throws the nanogenes to the waiting patients who all fall to the ground. "Everybody lives. Just this one, everybody lives!" He is cheering and jumping around excitedly. Yes Doctor, everyone does live, Layla looks at him calculatingly.
The Doctor walks up to Doctor Constantine. "The Doctor who never left his patients. Back on your feet, constant doctor. The world doesn't want to get by without you just yet, and I don't blame it one bit. These are your patients all better now."
Doctor Constantine looks around confused. "Yes, yes, so it seems. They also seem to be standing around in a disused railway station. Is there any particular reason for that?"
"Yeah, well, you know, cutbacks. Listen, whatever was wrong with them in the past, you're probably going to find that they're cured. Just tell them what a great doctor you are. Don't make a big deal of it. Okay?" The Doctor walks away and heads back towards the girls with a skip in his step and a big grin on his face.
He turns to face the patients. "Right, you lot. Lots to do. Beat the Germans, save the world. Don't forget the welfare state! Setting this to self-destruct, soon as everybody's clear." He turns and starts working on the ambulance. "History says there was an explosion here. Who am I to argue with history?"
The girls laugh at him and Rose pokes him in the side. "Usually the first in line."
"I think he just uses it as an excuse to blow things up. Every adventure we have been on with him has had an explosion in it so far." Layla gives him a cheeky smirk when he gives her the stink eye.
Xxxxxx
They go back to the Tardis in companionable silence still reeling in the good feeling of saving the day. They walk in and the Doctor heads towards the console. "The nanogenes will clean up the mess and switch themselves off, because I just told them to. Nancy and Jamie will go to Doctor Constantine for help, ditto. All in all, all things considered, fantastic."
"Look at you, beaming away like you're Father Christmas." Rose gives him a tongue in teeth smile.
The Doctor points at her. "Who says I'm not, red bicycle when you were twelve?" He looks towards Layla and furrows his brows. "You never asked for anything?" He murmurs softly. "That will change." He said it so low that she didn't hear.
"What?" Rose asked, how the hell did he know that?
The Doctor ignored her. "And everybody lives, Layla, Rose! Everybody lives! I need more days like this!"
"Doctor?" Rose got his attention.
"Go on, ask me anything. I'm on fire."
"What about Jack? Why did he say goodbye?" Rose wanted to travel with him some, she thought he was fun to be around.
The Doctor went quiet. He looks towards Layla and sees her looking at him with her head tilted to the side looking at him thoughtfully. "Everyone?" She asks him softly.
Xxxxxx
The Doctor pilots the Tardis and puts on Moonlight Serenade making Layla grimace. He grabs Layla and pulls her into a dance. If Jack danced with her to this song, he wants to rewrite that memory with one of him and her with this song. Rose goes to the doors and opens in, she sees Jack sitting in his chair drinking a martini. "Well, hurry up then!" Jack looks up surprised before dropping his glass and comes running in.
He sees Layla and the Doctor dancing… well trying to dance. "Okay. And right and turn. Okay, okay, try and spin me again, but this time don't get my arm up my back."
"I'm sure I used to know this stuff." He looks at Jack. "Close the door, will you? Your ship's about to blow up. There's going to be a draft."
The Doctor stops dancing with Layla and starts to pilot the Tardis away into the vortex. "Welcome to the Tardis."
Jack is looking around in amazement. "Much bigger on the inside."
The Doctor looks at him sternly. "You'd better be."
Layla looks at him slyly. "I think what the Doctor's trying to say it, you may cut in."
The Doctor panics and changes the music. "Layla! I've just remembered!"
She looks at him. "What?"
He grabs her hand and pulls her away from Jack who was just about to start dancing with her. "I can dance! I can dance!"
"Doctor! You had your turn; it was Jack's next."
"I'm sure it was, Layla, I'm sure it was, but with who?" They continue to dance and Jack pulls Rose into a dance and they all dance for hours, but the Doctor refuses to switch partners.