-Wedding Crashers-

Body Snatched

Upon Gwen and Rhys's arrival, Mickey and Martha tagged along with them to return to Rose's room so they could see Jack and Ianto. Since there were no more guests destined to come up to the bridal suite there was no need for anybody else to serve as an envoy to and from the lobby, meaning Mickey and Martha had nothing to do until the actual wedding finally began. And it was better to hide with Rose, who'd improved significantly after her brief teleporting escapade and had stopped throwing up, than listen to the Doctor whine on about his vows. What Martha hadn't counted on was getting interrogated by Gwen and Rose simultaneously.

"So you really haven't decided on who you want to be the godmother?" Gwen asked her for the umpteenth time.

"Leave her alone, will you?" Rhys said, "She's not gonna choose you if you keep bothering her. Now, Mickey, what about the godfather? Are you a hundred percent sure you want Jack to do it?"

"Hey!" Jack called from across the room; he was going over the seating plan with Ianto. "You're crossing a line there, Williams."

"You could wait until it's born and see who it likes more," said Ianto.

"Why do you even care so much? If it was down to me we wouldn't have any godparents. It's only because my mum will insist," said Martha. "Do we have to talk about this today? It's Rose's wedding."

"I don't mind," said Rose, who was doing her own makeup rather than have somebody else come and do it for her, for whatever reason. To save money on her stolen credit card?

"Well I mind," said Martha, "Talking about it isn't going to make it grow any quicker."

"We were in the middle of an alien invasion when I found out I was pregnant," said Gwen, "You remember the 456?" They nodded. "Same day."

"Blimey," said Mickey. "Puts things into perspective."

"What perspective? You know I was kidnapped by pirates yesterday?" Martha reminded him.

"Pirates?" asked Gwen and Rhys.

"Somebody got drunk and forced us all to go to Nassau-"

"I don't remember forcing anybody," said Rose defensively.

"I doubt you remember anything at all."

"Is this definitely the final seating plan?" Ianto interjected.

"I think so," said Rose, "It's the one that accounts for the plus ones."

"Are there a lot of plus ones?"

"Um… no," she said after thinking, "Just whatshisname. The bloke Christina wanted to bring."

"James Elliott," said Jack, perusing the seating plan.

"What? That detective?" Gwen frowned, "I haven't seen him in years."

"The hot one, yeah," said Jack, "He's coming with Christina?"

"They work for New Torchwood or whatever, don't they," said Rose, "Christina asked specifically, it's something to do with Sally Sparrow, I don't know. He made the numbers even, now there are six people on every table."

"You invited Christina?" Jack frowned.

"The Doctor did."

"Great. I can't wait for that."

"Who's Christina?" Gwen asked.

"Jack slept with her," said Rose, "In fact, he actually cheated on Jenny, with Christina, and then she walked in on them and dumped him."

"Really, Jack?" Gwen asked him judgementally.

"Like she wasn't having an affair with Other Clara the entire time," Jack argued, "Do we have to talk about this? It's fine now."

"What if Jenny and Christina have a fight?" Rose wondered.

"Ravenwood will probably stop it," said Martha. She didn't think it would get that far, though.

"Do you know," Gwen changed the subject away from people Jack had had dalliances with, "I got impregnated by an alien when we got married."

"God, I remember that," said Ianto, "That Nostrovite was a piece of work."

"Hopefully this wedding won't be as chaotic."

When she said that, a newcomer came barging right into the bridal suite. Jack made a start to force the Tenth Doctor to leave, but luckily, it wasn't him, it was Jackie, who they'd all been waiting for.

"Hey!" Rose beamed and dropped the concealer she was halfway through applying, teleporting across the room to hug her mother. Jackie hardly responded, however. She was blatantly surprised to see the golden teleport but remained rigidly still and did not return the jovial greeting to her daughter. "Mum?" Rose prompted, releasing her.

"Yes," she said.

"You alright?"

"I'm fine."

"Are you wearing new perfume? It's a bit rife. No offence."

"Yeah," she said, then laughed forcibly, "Failed experiment."

"Where's dad?"

"Excuse me?"

"Dad, my dad. Where is he?"

"He… he died when you were a baby." Now everybody was listening.

"…What? No, you…" Rose frowned and stepped away, Jackie also squinting, thinking.

"Oh, right!" she laughed again, "He's… downstairs. Eating breakfast. Have you had breakfast?"

"No, I haven't been very hungry," she said, "Bit hungover, to be honest – don't start, though. I'm not having second thoughts."

"And we wouldn't want that, would we?" she said, still laughing awkwardly.

"We were just talking about how Gwen's wedding was almost ruined by alien invaders," said Jack, "Or, alien breeders, they weren't really trying to invade."

"Easy for you to say, you weren't the one who was pregnant," Gwen quipped.

"Gosh, that sounds awful," said Jackie, "Hopefully there won't be any aliens today."

"Other than the groom," said Mickey. A smattering of laughter.

"Right, well, Jack's been giving me an earful about it, but we're going with a non-traditional seating plan," Rose said, returning to the vanity mirror, "So you're next to me, then dad next to you. Jack and Donna are both on the other side."

"I don't know how I can carry out my chief bridesmaid duties when I'm so far away," Jack argued.

"That's final!" Rose snapped.

"Bridezilla's coming out," muttered Jack. Rose glared at him in the mirror.

"Shut up. I'm actually quite low-maintenance, as a bride."

Martha snorted, "Tell that to those of us who had to babysit you yesterday."

"Yeah, alright," she hissed. She didn't want Jackie to find out about her escapade.

"What happened to the one you dumped, then?" Jackie asked abruptly, lingering by the door. She stared fixedly at Rose.

"Um… he's… I think he's alright…" she mumbled.

"It doesn't look great, though. Marrying this other one now."

"You said you wouldn't bring this up today," said Rose, "I've had enough of it over the phone for the last few weeks."

"But what will people think?" Jackie implored.

"I don't care what they think," said Rose firmly, "And – you can hardly talk. You did remarry a parallel universe version of my dad. It's not that different." Martha was struck by how she'd never even realised that – here they all were judging Rose for something that could very well run in the family. Then again, their world's Pete Tyler was dead, Tentoo was not, Rose had just kicked him out because they'd been fighting.

"This room is hideous," Jackie snapped, not entertaining the fact that Rose sort of had a point about her dad. Martha had to agree about the décor though, it was quite bad – very pink, with garish, puce trimmings. "Are you going to spend your wedding night in here?"

"Mum, I'll probably be drunk, so it won't matter," said Rose. Martha rolled her eyes – more drinking? She wasn't going to be happy if she got stuck with the other non-drinkers for the rest of the evening, since that just left Oswin, Esther, Nios and River. She hadn't a clue about the Doctors; sometimes they retched at the mere thought of alcohol, and other times they were more than happy to knock it back and get themselves into trouble (eloping, for instance.)

"It's disgusting. You'd start off married life like this?"

"That's a bit uncalled for," said Mickey, "Are you alright, Jackie?"

"I can't even stand to be here. I can't pretend to support this." And she turned on her heel and left.

"Mum? What are you talking about? Where are you – mum!?" Rose shouted after her, but the door slammed closed. They were all in so much shock from the brief but phenomenally bizarre encounter that it took a few moments for anyone to say anything, realising that Rose was notably upset by what had happened.

"She probably just had a late one, or something," said Rhys quickly.

"Why would she say that?" asked Rose, staring at the door, "And she likes pink. I don't think the room is that bad."

"It's not great," said Ianto, "But that is an over-reaction, in my opinion."

"I'll go see if she's alright," Jack announced, indicating for Mickey to come too – probably because he knew Jackie the best after Rose, and it was too much hassle to go all the way back downstairs to find Pete. Martha was also curious and tagged along with them, but once again found herself slipping in gunk on the floor, this time pooling right where Jackie had been standing.

"What is this?" Martha looked down at her shoes.

"Shampoo," said Mickey quickly, "Come on," he grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the room and away from it. But there was more goop, pale green, leading away down the corridor like footprints. Mickey closed the door behind them, Jack already crouched in the floor and examining the slime.

"Don't tell me Rose has accidentally booked her wedding in the same hotel as Ghostbusters…" Martha complained.

"Hm…" said Jack, dipping his fingers into it. Martha frowned.

"I swear I've seen this stuff before. It's definitely not shampoo." She kept her voice down, not wanting the people in the suite to overhear.

"I guess we should follow it," Jack straightened up, "She's definitely acting funny."

"Yeah," said Mickey, "I know she wasn't excited about the wedding this morning, but she's being weird. Didn't River and the Ninth Doctor say the same thing? They saw her wandering around?"

"Not to mention that she should have shown up ages ago," Martha added. Jack began walking, following the goo on the carpet, while Martha strained her memory to try and work out what it was. Something about it was sickeningly familiar, but she just couldn't put her finger on it, or why Jackie Tyler appeared to be oozing. And what was that Rose had said about her smelling funny?

The goo trail didn't go very far, it stopped on the floor outside of a different hotel room.

"Who's staying in there?" Martha whispered to Jack.

"I don't know, it's not one of the wedding party rooms," he paused and then reached around and pulled out a gun he must have had hidden… well, Martha wasn't sure she wanted to know where Jack had had his handgun hidden.

"You brought a gun to a wedding!?" she hissed.

"To the Doctor's wedding? Yeah, you bet – we can't all shoot fire out of our hands, Martha Jones," he said, cocking it. Gung-ho as usual, he proceeded to kick down the door. Initially, Martha would have disagreed with this tactic, and with him having the gun at all, but not when she saw what was lurking inside. The bed had been pushed up against the far wall and was blocking out the windows save for a thin strip of sunlight down one side, making room in the centre for an enormous, metal structure. Mickey and Jack were both perplexed, but Martha recognised it immediately.

"That's a Sontaran cloning vat," she said, "They used one to clone me before. And – the Doctor said the clone smelled funny! And Jackie smells a bit weird!"

"Did your clone drip with goo?" Jack asked.

"Well, no, it had a wash. But the vat is full of this stuff that's on the floor. See," she said pointedly to Mickey, "I told you it wasn't shampoo and it's something weird. You should've listened to me." Mickey looked sheepish. Jack approached the vat and craned his neck to look inside.

"And what were they doing when they cloned you? What did they want?" he asked.

"To turn Earth into a new clone world, with Atmos."

"Is that what that was about? We did wonder. We locked down the base and stayed inside for a few hours until the sky cleared," Jack said.

"Their ship was blown up, though," said Martha, "Why would they come back and try to do it again? They're not that stupid."

"Unless they're just here for the wedding," said Jack.

"What? As guests?" Mickey asked sarcastically.

"No, as – look out!" Jack had turned away from the tank to face them again but immediately aimed his gun in their direction. Alarmed, they did just as he asked, wheeling around to see two short soldiers behind them. Sontarans, undoubtedly, fully-armoured and well-armed. Jack pulled the trigger immediately, but his gun just clicked. "Dammit! Cordolaine signal!" It looked like it was all down to Martha and her pyrokinesis – the Sontarans wouldn't be able to jam that – but she didn't get the chance.

"We have been compromised – emergency extraction initiated," one of them announced, and in an instant, they were gone in a glimmering, blue transmat. Why bring guns if they weren't going to use them when their cloning vat was discovered?

"Not like them to run away," said Jack. They didn't even have time to discuss the Sontarans and what they were doing, however, because there was a loud bang from the en suite bathroom like something had fallen over. Jack's gun now useless, it was apparently down to Martha to take point.

"Wait, maybe I should go first," said Mickey quietly. Maybe there was another Sontaran in there just waiting to shoot them.

"I'll be fine," she dismissed him, approaching the door. He was agitated, but he didn't protest, staying right at her shoulder with Jack at the rear. She tentatively turned the handle and pushed it open, switching on the light. "Oh my god! Jackie!" Jackie Tyler was bound and gagged with tape in the bath; the bang had been her kicking down the showerhead so that it fell and alerted them to her presence. She had an electronic device a bit like a halo resting on her head, which Martha also recognised as the device that maintained her connection to the clone. She rushed to Jackie's aid to pull off the tape, warning her to brace herself for the pain when she did.

"They kidnapped me! Those little potato men!" Jackie shouted, "They hit me with something, and I woke up in here! Get this off my head!"

"No," said Martha quickly.

"What? What is it?" Mickey asked.

"It's keeping her connected to the other Jackie, I remember from when they did this to me," she explained, "If we take it off, the clone will die, and what if someone sees?"

"That's a good point," said Jack, "Will it hurt her?"

"No, it just makes you a bit sleepy," said Martha, "They need to keep the host alive so that the clone doesn't raise suspicion. It provides the clone with the memories it needs to blend in."

"Clone!? What clone!?" Jackie demanded.

"The potato-men, they're called Sontarans, they've cloned you," Martha said, "Clone's wandering around doing… what is it doing?"

"Being rude, mostly," said Jack, "I don't know how that serves their purpose. I wonder where it went."

"Maybe we followed the goo in the wrong direction; maybe it came from here originally and has gone downstairs now, or something?" Mickey suggested. Jack nodded, thinking about this. It did make sense, considering the doppelganger Jackie didn't seem to be there.

"There can't be two of me! You'll have to find it," Jackie pleaded. Martha couldn't blame her for being freaked out, she'd found it quite disturbing to come face-to-face with herself. She didn't know how Clara managed to be so unfazed by having her own face talk back to her constantly (probably because she was a narcissist.)

"We will, don't worry," said Jack, trying to calm her down now she'd been rescued.

"Those things are going to ruin my daughter's wedding day! And maybe it is her second wedding, to the same man, but that doesn't give them the right," Jackie continued as Martha melted through the tape on her wrists and ankles. "It doesn't make it much less exciting to marry the same man for the second time in a different universe… even though she was wrong to chuck the other one out like that."

"Alright, here's the plan," Jack announced, "Martha, you stay here with Jackie and make sure she's alright and keeps that thing on her head until we can find out who the clone is. We'll go see if we can't find a way onto this Sontaran ship. To transmat that quickly, they've got to have one in orbit."

"How are you gonna do that?" Martha asked incredulously.

"Well, I'll just," he lifted up his wrist and made to use his vortex manipulator, but it wasn't there, "Urgh. I let Jenny borrow the thing yesterday and then forgot to get it back from her."

"You 'forgot' your vortex manipulator?" Mickey asked.

"I got distracted. Ianto said he'd do this thing where-"

"You don't need to explain," Mickey cut him off abruptly, "Let's just go find Jenny and get the wrist-strap back. Then we'll think of a way to deal with the Sontarans."