-Wedding Crashers-

Gazpacho Soup

In the dining hall, the numbers were dwindling; few remained. Sally and Esther were just at the end of their breakfast, and Sally had roped Esther into leaving them all to help her check and organise camera equipment. Of course, Esther would never pass up the opportunity to organise things, especially Sally's things which were always especially messy, so her company was a lost cause. Only Donna's family and Rose's dad and Jake Simmonds remained, with Jenny and her ilk on a table of their own.

"Urgh," said Jenny, "The buffet's run dry." It was out of milk, bread, and muesli, though Eleven wasn't sure he'd seen anybody eat muesli at all that morning. She stretched out on the table in front of her and stared longingly at the empty plates. "Shouldn't somebody be replenishing those? I've worked buffets before."

"It's just the continental option, and there aren't many guests at this time of year," said Eleven.

"I want some toast. Can I have your car keys so I can go find something to eat?" she turned to ask Adam Mitchell, who was drinking a glass of water he'd had to fill up in the bathroom because the food options had run so low. Donna's family had been waiting for their food for quite a while.

"No," he said, alarmed, "Definitely not."

"Why?"

"Do you have a license?"

"You don't really need a license, Adam. That's just a lie they tell you."

"Who's 'they'?"

"The… the people," she said unsurely.

"The DVLA?"

"Yes."

"They tell you that because you need a license, to drive," he said, "And Oswin told me you got in a car crash literally two days ago."

"Ugh!" she scoffed indignantly, "Why would she tell you that?"

"She tells me everything. Said you got in a sword-fight with a yakuza enforcer."

"You got in a sword-fight with a Yakuza enforcer?" the Doctor asked.

"No," she said, "He was the son of the leader of the Tanabe-kai yakuza family, and they weren't just swords, they were very valuable wakizashis. And I won, so what's the problem?"

"Why were you fighting them to begin with?" the Doctor persisted.

"It was over this rock someone was going to use to make space-meth – it's complicated," she said.

"More drugs? On my TARDIS?"

"Don't worry, dad," she rolled her eyes, "I'm going to destroy them. Eventually."

"Did you get rid of the heroin yet?"

"Um…" she paused to think.

"Jenny," he warned

"Heroin, heroin… let me think about the… did I get rid of the…? Hm…"

"You're not a very good actor," said Nios dryly, still not looking up from her phone.

"It may have escaped my mind to get rid of it. Ooh, I know, what if we give it out as wedding favours?" The Doctor stared at her. "What? It's a great idea. We can give out spoons, too."

"What are the spoons for?" he asked.

"For cooking heroin." He frowned. "Have you never taken hard drugs before?"

"I'm going to talk to Donna's family now," he said, getting up, "And forget you ever asked me that."

"Well if you want to try it sometime I've got loads?" she offered.

"Leaving! Not talking to you anymore!" he said, going over to Donna's family.

"Just, um… to check…" Adam mumbled, leaning over to Jenny, "You are joking, aren't you?"

"About which part?" she asked blankly.

"Have you ever done heroin?"

"No," she laughed, "Just wanted to freak him out. Unless you do think we should give it out as wedding favours? I've got loads. I don't think it expires?"

"You should get rid of it," said Nios.

"Well, I don't want to burn it," she said, "I don't know what the fumes will be like if you burn a hundred kilos of powdered heroin in an enclosed space with no ventilation."

"So throw it into a black hole," said Nios.

"I know, text your girlfriend, ask her what would happen to someone if they breathed in burned stacks of heroin," said Jenny. Nios stared at her. "What? She must know, she's a doctor. I can't ask Martha, do you know how Martha will react if I tell her I'm thinking of setting fire to this much heroin?"

"Didn't Oswin help you make some thermite the other day?" Adam asked her.

"She wrote me an abominable recipe with her ghastly, subhuman handwriting if that's you mean. And I don't think Clara wants me making explosives," she bit her lip, then turned back to Nios, "Go on, ask her."

"She's not my girlfriend."

"Future-girlfriend then. You've been texting her all morning, she must be available to answer my serious inquiry about narcotics," Jenny persisted.

"…Fine," said Nios, "But I don't believe you've never had to dispose of contraband before."

"I was in the bayou once, we had all this rum, from Cuba – went down there in a boat from Louisiana and then you take a dinghy in from the open sea back into the swamps to drive it without getting caught by the feds who were patrolling – it was prohibition, see. Anyway, we miscalculated because Mahoney had been drinking, not to stereotype the Irish, and it turned out there was a boat patrol coming right for us, so we had to throw it all into the swamp. Then Viola got a hold of the person who was supposed to be giving us information about the patrols and cut off two of his fingers."

"Throw the heroin in the swamp, then," Nios said.

"No, the alligators got really weird. I'd rather not repeat it. And then when I killed one its meat tasted like rum."

"Fun story," said Nios monotonously.

"I feel like you don't appreciate me, Nios. Why do you always ask Oswin for help texting her and never me? You know I have a girlfriend," said Jenny.

"And an ex-husband whom you have murdered more than once."

"Well, he comes back, it's not a big deal."

"And you're never here," said Nios.

"Because I'm busy. Having a successful relationship with the girlfriend you never ask me about."

"And stealing drugs from the yakuza, apparently," said Adam quietly, "Does she know about that?"

"What? No! Don't tell her. I'll tell her in a few weeks, offhandedly, when she won't panic," said Jenny.

"This is exactly why I don't ask you for help," said Nios, then her phone buzzed with Cohen's much-awaited response. "She says with that much heroin you'd be at major risk of overdose if you burned it and inhaled the fumes and smoke, though smoking heroin apparently isn't quite as dangerous as injecting it. She doesn't know what it would do to a Time Lord, specifically, but a human would likely die." Her phone went again. "Now she says to tell you they have a crematorium at Undercoll you can use if you don't know another way to destroy it."

"But she just said don't burn it," said Jenny.

"Crematoriums burn hotter than fire and they're enclosed," said Adam.

"Great! Heroin sorted! We should have a double date," she said.

"Where we do what? Help you incinerate illegal substances?" Nios asked her sarcastically.

"I could bring sandwiches."

"Again, this is why I don't ask you for advice. Besides, I heard it's Ravenwood who's the savvy one out of the two of you. Something about you not being able to work out she fancied you after sleeping together for months."

"…Oswin's been talking about me, then?" Jenny said coolly, annoyed at Oswin.

"Constantly," said Nios, eyes on her phone again. After only a few seconds of silence that both Adam and Nios – who was trying to compose a text – were enjoying, Jenny groaned loudly.

"I'm so hungry I could die."

"You've eaten so much this morning," Adam said.

"I have a very high metabolism," she said, "I'm an alien. And I was up late, busy."

"Too much information," Adam mumbled. Jenny took her phone out. "What are you doing?"

"Rose sent me the menu the other day, I'm going to remind myself of all the food I'll be able to eat in about five hours. Provided I don't starve to death in the meantime, obviously. Although, you could always just drive me to the Little Chef I know is down the road."

"No offence, but driving you to Little Chef at ten in the morning sounds incredibly depressing," he said, "Can't you walk? There's hours until… hold on, can I see that, please?" He became suddenly urgent and surprised Jenny.

"The menu?"

"Yeah," he said. She showed him the screen and he read the starter. "Gazpacho soup," he stared in awe, "Does that say the starter is gazpacho soup?"

"It's quite a common soup, Adam," Jenny patronised him. He shook his head.

"No, no, you don't understand – the soup – where's Oswin? Shit…" he muttered, realising she wasn't there. His desperation was enough to draw Nios away from the digital spell Dr Cohen's texts had her under. Jenny lowered her voice to try and calm him down without freaking out Donna's family lingering nearby.

"Hey, what's going on?" she asked. He looked at her uselessly.

"I think it's a secret," he said, "But then… but… Oswin would know what to do, I can't just make decisions like this…" He hastily took out his phone and called Oswin's number (she was on his speed dial), but the number didn't ring once, it went straight to a dial tone. That was odd; her phone was connected to her Sphere, so it not ringing at all was bizarre. He tried again, and the same thing happened. "She usually always answers her phone…"

"Well, what's going on?" Jenny implored, "Just tell us."

"No, I…" he tried Oswin a third time, and still nought, "Um, I…okay. Alright. Fine. Only because I think people are in danger."

"You think people are in danger because the menu has gazpacho soup on it?" Jenny asked incredulously.

"You know your mum?"

Her expression changed completely to one of utter seriousness, "Yes."

"She wrote a letter to me and Oswin before she left."

"What."

"It made us promise never to tell you or Clara about it, ever."

"Mission failed, then," said Nios.

"But everything she wrote in it has already come true, so… and the soup, and Oswin's not here-"

"She wrote you a letter about the future?" Jenny hissed, "And there were things in it about me?"

"She made Oswin promise to make sure you're okay and fix things with your dad," he indicated Eleven, who was amusing Donna's relatives with an anecdote they could hear – going by his mimes he was telling the story about the lizard and the rollercoaster yet again. "She said to make sure you're safe and something about things with him having to get worse before they get better. Which they did, I guess? And then there was a bunch of stuff with a list of famous, gay historical figures we're not supposed to let Clara near, and something about lava-lamps-"

"Was Jane Austen on it?"

"Yes," he said, "But, look, that's not – the point is, she wrote a list of notes to help us navigate future events. She told us to go dancing, which we did, on a 1930s ocean liner and stopped an alien threat." Jenny and Nios were both listening to him very intently now. "Then she said, 'it's the flu,' about when all the Time Lords got sick. Then she said something about stopping you from murdering anyone when 'Jack gives somebody a ring' – but I swear that's all it said, nothing about resurrecting his dead ex or any other details." Jenny scowled. "There was one to tell Martha that everything will be okay, which Oswin worked out was about the baby just the other day. And then there was one more, she said don't let anybody eat the gazpacho soup, don't trust the gazpacho soup, and if we see gazpacho soup assume something is wrong."

"Did she say anything else?" Jenny persisted.

"No," he lied. Thirteen had, in fact, given them the exact date of her disappearance from the future, but he really didn't think he should tell Jenny that part. He told her everything that pertained to things that had already happened and hoped that wouldn't land him in trouble.

"So, what do we do? If the soup is evil?" Nios asked.

"It's not just the soup, though," Jenny said, thinking, "The buffet still hasn't been replenished, and their food still isn't here. I think we need to pay the kitchen a visit and see what's going on. And then later I'm going to interrogate Adam to make sure he's telling me everything about the letter."

"You could just ask Oswin…" he mumbled, "You can't tell Clara about it, though. Clara Oswald. Or the Doctor, seriously."

"Okay, fine," said Jenny, "But just so you know, I have a special pair of pliers I keep just to pull out people's teeth, and that usually gets them to tell me everything."

"I don't think Oswin would like it if you pulled my teeth out with pliers…"

"Yes, I also think maiming Oswin's boyfriend is a bad idea," added Nios.

"Come on, both of you," said Jenny, standing up, "There's no point freaking anybody else out about this. It's probably just her trying to mess with you – maybe someone here has an allergy to tomatoes." Adam and Nios followed her, her father still completely absorbed in now pretending to be the rogue rollercoaster car heading towards the carnivorous lizard, out of the dining room and down the corridor a short way. "This is a very ineffective layout, by the way – very long distance for the food to travel. It'll be cold by the time it gets there."

"Gazpacho soup is served cold," Adam pointed out.

"I know that. I'm a professional chef." She reminded people she was a professional something-or-other a dozen times a day. Soldier, acrobat, chef, thief, smuggler; there wasn't a single job she hadn't done.

The door into the hotel kitchen was ajar, but there were no sounds coming from within. No smells, either. Jenny approached first of all and pushed it open with the fingers of her broken, encased hand. The kitchen was empty, void of life and food, except for one enormous pot. Holding the door open with her good hand for Adam and Nios, Jenny peered around the room, looking for clues. The only traces of cooking were a few chopping boards with bits of veg on them; cucumber, tomato, some pepper seeds, traces of onions. It was the ingredients for gazpacho soup alright. She went to examine the pot, lifting the lid and finding a very lumpy, red concoction. Dipping her finger into it she tasted some.

"Well?" Adam asked.

She shrugged, "It's soup. Needs to be blended more. And…" Her eyes widened and she spat what little of the soup she had consumed out onto the floor, coughing, eyes watering.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Nios asked. Jenny dashed over to the sink and drank a burst of cold water directly from the faucet, before spitting that back out down the drain too.

"There's cyanide in there," she said, "Tastes how burning rubber smells. Eurgh."

"Are you gonna be alright!?" Adam exclaimed.

"I didn't swallow any, I'll be fine. I wouldn't say the same about anybody who gets served that soup, though, especially not a few dozen humans." She rinsed her mouth one more time.

"Why are the kitchen staff trying to kill everyone at Rose's wedding?" Nios asked.

"Well, considering the breakfast menu didn't contain any cyanide that I'm aware of, I'd say it's probably not the kitchen staff. There must be something else going on."

"There's no other food, though," Nios pointed out.

"They wouldn't need to make any more if everybody died after eating the starter," Adam said. Jenny nodded.

"People die from cyanide very quickly."

"Well, I'd be fine," said Nios.

"Oh, well, I suppose as long as you're fine we don't have an issue," Jenny said sarcastically.

"That's not what I mean," she said.

"Can you smell that?" Jenny asked, sniffing.

"No," said Nios.

Adam shrugged, "I don't have a very good sense of smell."

"Smells like meat."

"We're in a kitchen," said Adam. Jenny approached another doorway at the back of the kitchen. She couldn't quite open it on her own with her mauled hand and had to get Nios's help, forcing it until they breached quite a horrific scene: bodies. Human bodies, skinned, red and raw and seeping blood onto the floor of the walk-in freezer. Four of them. The stench hit her hard and she covered her nose with her bandaged cast.

"Well, I think we've found where the staff went," said Nios.

"They-!? They don't have any skin! Where's the skin!?" Adam exclaimed. Jenny peered inside and spotted something even worse, pale and fleshy, hanging from a meat hook. She tugged on its arm and pulled it out into Adam's line of sight: an empty suit made of human skin, a zip in the forehead.

"Slitheen," she said.

"Someone's coming," said Nios abruptly, listening, "People, a few, talking about… the taste and smell of human meat…"

"Get in the freezer, now," Jenny hissed, "They're coming back."

"In there!? With the bodies!?" asked Adam.

"Yes, with the bodies!" Jenny ordered. Nios grabbed him sharply by his elbow and dragged him over, Jenny kicking the slimy carcasses out of the way with her foot. She was hoping Adam didn't begin to cry. Surely he'd seen worse? It was a tight squeeze with the three of them and half a dozen corpses, but they managed it, Jenny shutting the door just as the malign kitchen staff returned. She knew Slitheen had a good sense of smell, but hopefully, the stink of the bodies and the soup would mask them, at least give her time to come up with a plan. Then again, if they were wearing their skin suits – which she assumed they must be since otherwise they would have been spotted by somebody.

Jenny pressed her ear to the door to listen, picking up a few phrases about them getting a big payday if they pulled this off successfully. Who would pay a gang of Slitheen to kill everybody at the Doctor's wedding? When she thought of it for more than a few seconds she managed to conjure up a very long list of people who might do that, including the Slitheen themselves.

"What do we do?" Adam whispered, "Do you have a gun?"

"No," she breathed.

"No? Is this the one time you don't have a gun on you?"

"It might be. I don't normally take them to weddings. No pockets."

"Text Jack," Adam implored.

"No."

"No? Why not?"

"I'm not texting him."

"Oh my god."

"What?"

"You're just-"

"I don't need his help! I'm perfectly equipped to deal with the-" But their argument had gotten a bit too loud, and the freezer wasn't soundproof. Or smell-proof. There they were, trapped in a room full of dead bodies, facing down three enormous Slitheen dressed in chef whites. Jenny forced a smile. "I take it this isn't the bathroom?"

"No. It's not," said the closest Slitheen, a man wearing a smudged, filthy pair of glasses. They were all disguised.

"Oh. Sorry. Could you just point us in the right direction, and we'll be on our way?" she tried to side-step him but was stopped by a second barring the way.

"I know a Time Lord when I smell one," the one with the glasses threatened, "I don't know what they are, but you are delicious."

"Thanks. I have a girlfriend, though, so," she shrugged, "Not that I don't appreciate the compliment."

"She smells like the Doctor," said the third and finally Slitheen, a woman.

"What do you expect? She's one of them."

"What are you, girl?" the woman persisted.

"Alright, fine," said Jenny, "You've got me. The Doctor's my dad. Can I go to the toilet now?"

"You're not going anywhere. Not until you have some soup."

"Funny thing, actually, I'm allergic to tomatoes, so, can't really eat that soup. But thanks for the offer. So, if my friends and I could just-" She made to step to the left, causing the Slitheen to lunge and grab at her, but it was a trick and she managed to slip beneath his arms and go to the right, back towards the soup, instead. Then it was all hands on deck. Nios and Adam froze while Jenny started searching the cupboards which were, to her relief, still stocked with a decent amount of food. One of them grabbed a pan and swung it at her though, which she had to dodge, and as the trio advanced she managed to pull the pot of poisoned gazpacho soup and knock it onto the ground, sending slippery soup across the kitchen floor. One of the Slitheen fell right over while the other two grabbed the cupboards to steady themselves.

"Do something!" the one with glasses shouted.

"I'm trying!"

Even Jenny slid around in the soup while the one on the floor couldn't get back to his feet. There were whole cucumbers and peppers in the mix, too.

"You know, you're supposed to chop the vegetables up before you put them in the gazpacho," she advised, turning searching the cupboards with the Slitheen came lumbering towards her. And then she found it, their saving grace: a bottle of balsamic vinegar. She turned and aimed it at them and they froze. Then the woman moved a bit funny and also went crashing to the floor, her chef whites stained red with soup, clinging onto the units. "Stay where you are. This has been ageing for twenty years, one drop of it could turn any of you into goo. Don't make me squirt."

"I can't believe Oswin missed you saying, 'don't make me squirt' to a bunch of aliens," said Nios. Jenny glared at her.

"Fat lot of good you've done, standing in that freezer, cowering," she snapped.

"What were we-" Nios began to argue, and Jenny shushed her, still brandishing the bottle of vinegar at the Slitheen. Luckily, Slitheen were pragmatic. They might do anything for money, but they'd do even more to save themselves.

"Who paid you to kill everyone at this wedding?" Jenny demanded.

"It's an anonymous contract," said the one with glasses, the only one still managing to stay standing up. The floor was absolutely covered in soup now, Adam and Nios trying to avoid stepping in it. Soon enough it would start to mix with the congealed blood dripping from the bodies in the freezer.

"How much are you getting paid?"

"A trillion credits. Each."

"A-? Someone's paying you a trillion credits? To make some bad soup? That's ridiculous."

"To kill the Doctor," the woman reiterated, "And his womenfolk. His friends. Fifty assassinations at once."

"And who would hire you? A job like this, they'd want a professional," said Jenny.

"We were approached, because of our impeccable powers of disguise," said the man with glasses.

"You don't have impeccable powers of disguise, you've left the evidence of your disguises oozing fluids in the pantry. Why not use a glamour? Or a shimmer? A filter?"

"Relying on technology is a mistake."

"And those ridiculous skin suits don't count as technology? What are you planning on doing with the bodies, anyway?"

"They're a disguise and a snack."

"Oh, that's nice. The thing is, I don't believe that anybody remotely serious about killing the Doctor would send three Slitheen to do their dirty work," said Jenny, "I could maybe see getting the Blathereen to do it, they're a lot better at subterfuge-"

"We spit on the Blathereen," said the man rolling around on the floor.

"Is that what they're into?" Jenny asked.

"Probably. Perverts."

"Alright then… look, this is your last chance to tell me who paid you, alright? You're not going to finish your little job, so either you leave now, or I'll just kill you. I've already made quite a big mess with the soup, so I'm sure you won't make much difference."

"We told you, it was anonymous. They didn't want to leave a paper trail."

"So they were clever enough to do that, but not clever enough to hire someone competent in the first place? Interesting…"

"Your dad's coming," Nios said abruptly.

"What!?" Jenny exclaimed.

"I can hear him, he's talking to himself, about bananas."

"That does sound like him…"

"The Doctor! We're bound to get something even if we do only manage to eliminate him," the one on the floor hissed, then he reached up to unzip his forehead. The other two followed suit, and Jenny didn't know what to do. She didn't like to kill, and Slitheen were still conscious, autonomous creatures, despite their inherent evilness, and being blown up with acid was no way to go. But their green shapes began to crawl out of the glowing, blue zippers, the skin suits shed just as the Eleventh Doctor passed by the kitchen and happened to stick his head in.

"Jenny?" he asked, "What's going on? Why are you hanging around with Slitheen?"

"I'm not hanging around with them, obviously," she said.

A Slitheen hissed, pulled its claw out of the flesh suit and slashed for the Doctor. Jenny squeezed the vinegar bottle an arc of black balsamic vinegar flew through the air. She'd been right about its potency. Just one drop was more than enough to reduce a Slitheen to dust. They wailed and writhed and then, all three simultaneously, exploded. She had underestimated the amount of mess three dead Slitheen would make. The walls, floor, ceiling, surfaces, and all four of them ended up caked in thick, green slime. Jenny was mortified and dropped the vinegar bottle on the floor. The skin suits remained, sliding about in soup and gunk.

"…What have I missed?" the Doctor asked, wiping sludge out of his eyes. Adam's glasses were completely covered, and Jenny hoped her hair wasn't stained green.

"They killed the kitchen staff and filled the gazpacho with cyanide," Jenny explained, "Apparently they were hired to kill everybody here, but they wouldn't tell me who by. Someone who didn't want to be tracked down."

"Slitheen assassins? Gazpacho soup? Now I've seen it all," said the Doctor, "And thank you, by the way. For saving me. From the assassins."

"I feel like we have bigger problems now," said Adam eventually. "We're all covered in green crap, and there isn't any food for the wedding in just over two hours."

"Good thing none of us was dressed up in our finery yet," said the Doctor.

"That's a good point," said Jenny, thinking.

"Should we tell Rose?" Nios asked, "Cancel the whole thing? At least… we could get a food truck?"

"No, she can't know about this," said Jenny.

"She's right," said Eleven, "We can't tell Rose."

"We'll have to cook," said Jenny.

"We can't cook in here," said Adam, "Unless we want to eat liquefied Slitheen and the dead people in the meat locker? What are we going to do about the dead people?"

"Undercoll could probably deal with that. They do cover up mysterious deaths," said Nios, "So Cohen tells me."

"Great," said Jenny, "So what we need to do is lock down this kitchen to stop anybody else coming in, get the TARDIS, clean ourselves up, and then cook enough food to feed fifty people."

"Excellent," said the Doctor, "So you do that, and then-"

"Oh, no. I only have one good hand; you're helping me. All three of you. And you're going to do exactly as I say. I've already baked the cake, I'm sure I can do everything else as well." They all stared at her. "What are you waiting for? Chop, chop!"

AN: Fun story, I decided to end this fic so I'd have time to focus on my degree, and I just finished my degree this week so what's up with that, literally no more education for me. Makes me about as educated in literature as Clara is. Also, the note about the soup in Thirteen's letter was ALWAYS intended to warn them about this exact incident at the wedding, that's how long it's taken me to get around to this, literally almost three years.