-Wedding Crashers-

Pest Control

The Ninth Doctor and River Song stood side by side, arms crossed, studying the smoky, melted remains of the Dalek discovered in Donna Noble's shower. Donna had kept her part of the bargain by managing Ten closely enough to keep him well away from them – to their great relief, because he was being severely annoying – but they were at a loss for how to do their part. They both usually left the chaos before the cleaning began, now it seemed that the chaos wasn't quite over, and they were already having to clean. By now, they had gotten dressed into their fineries – or, he had, River had just shimmered and her clothes had changed, such was life as a hologram – and were preparing to go and find out where people were mingling before the ceremony.

"What do you think?" River asked him. He looked at her and then shrugged. "The TARDIS is masking our location, you know; they've taken a lot of precautions. It seems odd a Dalek would be able to turn up at all without the TARDIS or Rose detecting it somehow." Nine didn't say anything, still thinking. River was right, the TARDIS was hard at work trying to keep their location a secret; of course, with so many of them all gathered in the one place that wasn't on board a highly advanced time-ship was a honeypot for any nefarious aliens looking to make their name.

"We should try and hack it," he said, "We might be able to salvage something – they usually have black boxes to retrieve, to stop other soldiers making the mistakes of these unworthy ones who couldn't complete their missions."

"Good idea," said River. Simultaneously they pulled out their respective sonic screwdrivers, and then both looked at the other as though they should do the decent thing and put theirs away. Of course, neither of them did. "Come on, now. You know mine's better."

"It's not better, it's just got more attachments. Silly toys."

"Nothing wrong with adding a toy every now and then," she said wryly. They both pointed their screwdrivers at the Dalek at the same time, and then abruptly stopped.

"We can't both do it, it won't work. Let me," said Nine.

"Let me."

"Why don't you go into the bathroom and see if you can detect traces of a transmat or other teleport. That's the only way I can think of for it to get into the bath. Maybe it got stuck in there?"

"But they can float," she pointed out, "It floated out when it attacked Donna." He didn't have a good rebuttal for this, because it had done that.

"Suppose it just wanted a wash, then," he grinned at his own joke. River shook her head, annoyed, and then gave up.

"Fine. I'll go look for teleports." While he got to work sonicking the Dalek to find any data it might have stored in its broken shell, River took to the big hole in the wall between their bedroom and Donna's en suite bathroom. It didn't take him long to find that there actually was some data housed inside the Dalek, and with enough tweaking and using some of the sonic's most complex settings he managed to coax a gargled, pre-recorded voice out of the remains of the Dalek shell's voice speakers.

"NAME: DALEK DETH. ELITE SKARAN OPERATIVE CLEARED FOR CROSS-GALACTIC COVERT MISSIONS. CURRENT MISSION: EXTERMINATE ALL DOCTORS IN THE VICINITY," it screeched, the Doctor forced to turn the volume down. River returned to the room, stooping to get through the big, dusty hole.

"Did it say its name is Dalek Death?"

"Probably isn't spelt like that. They're not much for elongated vowel sounds."

"What did you do?"

"Activated the alert it would send out to other Daleks in the vicinity to finish its mission, if there were any. Did you find anything?"

"Short-range teleportation, from about a mile in the sky."

"Strange, that's not even out of the atmosphere. It's barely above the clouds. If there were Daleks up there we'd be able to see them," said the Doctor.

"Does it have a record of where it's been?" she asked. Considering this, he sonicked it again and managed to find what seemed to be a milometer buried somewhere in its programming. The Dalek shouted at them once again that it had travelled a few million lightyears 'independently' from coordinates the Doctor recognised as belonging to Skaro. "It came here on its own?"

"I think it's an assassin," said the Doctor.

"An assassin? An assassin Dalek?

"It said it's an 'elite operative' cleared for 'covert missions.' Maybe that's why the TARDIS didn't detect it, not a short-range teleport like that, and not one Dalek on its own. There are satellites in orbit way bigger than this."

"It flew all the way here? Through space?"

"They can do that. Seems strange they'd send just the one to exterminate all the Doctors. Then again, they are known for being full of themselves. See, the Cult of Skaro was only four of them, they were elite operatives working above the Dalek government on Skaro, but they were destroyed by fractures – so I've heard. First Dalek Sec and eventually Dalek Cahn, both forced to splinter off. Daleks are always forming factions and disagreeing, at least they can't do that with just the one."

"I suppose so."

"And I'm not sure the Daleks are stupid enough to send a whole fleet here after four Doctors. And Rose, she could destroy a whole fleet, and it's much more obvious. It'd be on the news. This one won't get on the news."

"I still don't think it sounds like a good plan."

"If the Daleks ever had good plans, I wouldn't be here anymore," he pointed out. She nodded, acknowledging this. The true enemy of the Daleks was, ultimately, their own hubris. Sending just one souped-up assassin-bot after them was exactly the kind of thing he'd think they'd try. Besides, there were always reasons to send in lone assassins to do dirty jobs rather than send whole armies into the fray. "The question is, how did it know where we are? How did the Daleks know where we are to send an agent at all?"

"And why was it in Donna's room?" River added, "You heard it," it was incredibly loud and impossible not to hear the stupid thinking wailing, "it said its orders were to kill all the Doctors. Unless it got confused about her being the DoctorDonna?"

"Maybe. Maybe its instructions weren't that good. Finding out we're in this hotel is one thing, but it's quite a big hotel." At any rate, they couldn't ask the Dalek, and the black box didn't have any more data in it.

"So how do we get rid of it? What if it sends some sort of distress signal out?"

"Screwdriver would have detected it."

"Can we teleport it away? Reverse its own teleportation secrets?"

"I don't think that's a good idea. It's possible, to reverse the last teleportation it made, but that's only a mile in the sky. It would crash to Earth."

"Maybe we just… leave it here?" she suggested, "If it's not sending out any signals, then… later tonight, after the wedding, we can rope in some other people to help us get rid of it. It's not like we can carry it, just the two of us."

"It's got wheels," he pointed out.

"That won't help us on the stairs, though," she said, "I'm not carrying that thing down the stairs so we can get it to the TARDIS. Clara could carry it, she could lift it with her telekinesis."

"Well, ring her," he said, "We might be able to take it now if she helps us." River clearly didn't think moving the Dalek right now was a good idea at all, but produced her phone and tried to ring Clara Oswald. Unfortunately, she didn't pick up. The Doctor waited impatiently as River tried her number three times at least, but every time it just rang out.

"Strange. She usually answers." River texted something, tried a fourth time, but was ultimately forced to give up. The only other person who could carry the Dalek was Rose, but since she was the bride they absolutely could not tell her. Otherwise, they'd need to gather quite a few people and take it all the way through the hotel, alerting them to the presence of an elite assassin Dalek. "We'll have to leave it here. We'll just put the 'do not disturb' on the door and be done with it."

"Should we cover it with something?"

"Something like what?" River asked incredulously.

"I don't know – a sheet?"

"So it looks like a ghost?"

"No, it-"

"Help me wheel it into the bathroom. We'll leave it there for now."

"And what about the wall?" he nodded at the enormous hole.

"We'll block it with the wardrobe. Should stop anybody from noticing it for a few hours. And if they do notice it, we'll… say Donna did it. You can tell by the plaster that it was broken on the other side."

"We can't just blame Donna."

"It's her Dalek. And besides, she's rich, she won the lottery. She can afford to fix it more than we can, although I'm sure they'll just charge Rose's stolen credit card."

Rearranging the room wasn't what either of them thought they would be spending their morning doing. They knew Rose's wedding was going to be tedious, but wheeling a smouldering Dalek and hiding in a hotel bathroom, then dragging a wardrobe across the carpet to put it in front of the broken wall. The good thing was that the wardrobe was empty, and it wasn't fixed to the wall like they sometimes were in hotels.

"Dealt with!" the Doctor announced proudly, grinning.

"Mm…" said River, unconvinced, though leaving the Dalek behind had been her idea. "Come on, then. Let's go see if anything else strange has happened today." As they left, she picked up the cardboard 'do not disturb' sign from the dressing table and was sure to hang it outside the door, the Doctor locking it with the key card.

Rounding a corner to head towards the stairs, the Doctor walked right into Jackie Tyler, who was approaching from the other direction and apparently not paying attention to her surroundings.

"Jackie! When did you get here?" he smiled. She stared at him blankly.

"A while ago," she said.

"In time to get some breakfast?"

"Some."

"…Have you met River before?" he asked. She was being unusual.

"No, I haven't had the pleasure," said River.

"Hello," said Jackie. There was a long and very uneasy pause where she merely stood and stared at them, squinting like she was trying to understand who they were.

"Are you… looking for Rose?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes," she said, though she sounded uncertain.

"Her room isn't on this floor, she's on the top floor, in the bridal suite," said River.

"The bridal suite…" she repeated vacantly.

"Are you alright?" the Doctor asked.

"Fine," she turned cold and snapped at him, "It's nothing to do with you how I am."

"We'll leave you to it, then," said River, tugging on the Ninth Doctor's elbow to get him to move out of Jackie's way. "Don't want to keep the bride waiting." Jackie stared at them until they were around the corner and away, River glancing over her shoulder. There was something very unsettling about the whole encounter, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. Going by the Doctor's reaction, she gathered that Jackie wasn't usually so aloof.

"I'm not sure we should have left her," said the Doctor quietly. Could she hear them?

"Do you think something's wrong? Maybe she's just had too much to drink."

"At this time of day?"

"Could have had a late one."

"I don't know. I don't like it, not with that Dalek hanging around," he said as they descended the stairs.

"I'm sure Rose can handle it. Jack's with her, after all."

"Might be an idea to warn him." River didn't answer to that; she didn't think they were going to get anywhere. And secretly, she hoped that if something was afoot and Rose realised, she might be able to get a handle of it quicker than anybody else could. She controlled the universe, after all.

As soon as the lobby was in sight at the foot of a rather grand staircase they were greeted by people. Mickey and Martha were standing near the reception talking to new guests. None of them looked like they'd seen any Daleks, so River continued to assume their Dalek really was a one-off incident.

"A baby!" Gwen Cooper exclaimed loudly just as River and Nine reached the floor of the stairs, grabbing Martha and hugging her without warning. Martha was clearly surprised at the gesture.

"Good on you," Rhys congratulated Mickey.

"Not sure I did much, to be honest," said Mickey.

"I think my mum will disagree. She's coming to the wedding soon, don't tell her, alright?" Martha entreated Gwen and Rhys when Gwen let her go, still beaming at the news, "I'm telling her myself later today."

"Of course!" said Gwen, then she turned serious, "Now, have you thought about who the godmother will be?"

"Bloody hell, give her a chance, Gwen; she's barely a month gone," said Rhys, and Gwen shushed him, looking at Martha hopefully. River and Nine were both aware that Rose was the front-runner for being the new baby's godmother, though. Personally, she didn't understand why everybody was suddenly so bothered about who was going to be its godmother.

"We haven't decided yet," said Martha.

"Decided between who and who?"

"Rose has sort of, got her heart set on it," Mickey admitted.

"Urgh," Gwen scoffed, "Of course she has."

"Speaking of Rose, have either of you seen her mother?" Martha turned to River and Nine. "She was supposed to go find Rose ages ago, but still hasn't been."

"We just saw her upstairs," said River.

"Oh, right."

"She was being a bit weird, though," Nine added, "Looked right through me, like she barely knew me. I don't think she could find the bridal suite. Has she been drinking?"

"Not that we saw," said Mickey, perplexed, "She's not very happy about this wedding, though."

"It's getting hard to find somebody who is happy about it, quite honestly," said River.

"I'm happy," said Rhys, "Free food."

"Oh, true," nodded Mickey. As a hologram, River couldn't be more ambivalent towards the free food; she had nothing like that to get her through the tedium of Rose's second wedding day.

"Have you two seen anything strange today?" Nine asked Mickey and Martha, crossing his arms and thinking.

"Strange how?" Martha asked.

"Strange like… anything." Like any Daleks, he meant.

"Not really. There was that weird goo in the hall outside the bridal suite, but Mickey said it was probably just spilt shampoo." Mickey nodded along with this. Compared to the Dalek, anomalous liquid on the floor was nothing. And it probably was shampoo.

"Well," said the Doctor, "Let's say we all keep our eyes open for anything out of the ordinary today. Now – where are we gathering while we wait for the ceremony?"

AN: Again, sorry about long chapter delays! For what it's worth, the next chapter is almost finished because it's a lot more interesting than this one so I wrote it first, so there shouldn't be a big lapse. Also, I've been very involved in research for the fifth "Retrograde" storyline set during the French Revolution. And for those not reading it, the fourth and currently-being-uploaded storyline there is the crossover where they meet the canon Thirteen and Yaz, Ryan and Graham.