-Wedding Crashers-

That's No Moon

Finding Jenny was easier said than done. Jack didn't see how she could be too far away when she couldn't stray too far from the hotel. He and Mickey weren't helped by the fact they couldn't look panicked around either the guests they ran into or by most of their friends, any of whom could tell Rose what was going on – that was the absolute last thing they wanted. After questioning Jake Simmonds and Pete Tyler about Jenny's whereabouts, neither of whom could pick her out of a line-up because describing her as 'short and blonde' barely narrowed it down, they finally came across a pair of totally different blondes (bleached blondes, if he said so himself, they both had roots showing) who might be able to help.

Sally Sparrow was lingering near the room for the ceremony adjusting a tripod, camera around her neck and some more bags of equipment surrounding her. Esther, typically, was right at her side, because she presumably had nothing else to do while they waited for the wedding to get underway, playing video games on a Nintendo DS. Jack had to admit he was surprised at Sally's professionalism. Maybe Rose's wedding photos would actually turn out to be pretty good when the day was over – provided they weren't all murdered by Sontarans.

"Hey – have the two of you seen Jenny anywhere?" Jack asked, Mickey at his side. Esther looked up from her game and Sally from her tripod.

"Why?" Sally asked him suspiciously. He glared at her.

"So I can steal her away from her new girlfriend – what do you think?" he said sarcastically. She shrugged. "She's got my vortex manipulator and I need it back." He turned to Esther, who he hoped wouldn't give him any attitude.

"Haven't seen her since breakfast, sorry," said Esther, "When we left to get dressed she was still there."

"She was moaning about being hungry," Sally added, "Maybe she went to find some food on the TARDIS, or mooch some from the kitchens."

"If she's got the vortex manipulator, she could've gone anywhere to get food," Mickey added to Jack.

"Have you called her?" Esther asked.

"She's not answering the phone," said Jack.

"Funny, neither are Clara and Oswin," said Sally, "And we haven't seen them since breakfast, either."

"They're probably just too involved with each other to notice their phones," Jack quipped. The Twins could handle themselves; he couldn't say he was too worried about them, even against any marauding Sontarans.

"Well, we saw her with Adam and Nios, so if she's not in the kitchen you should try them," Esther advised. At least she was helpful, even if Sally was being completely uncooperative. He still didn't know why she didn't like him – maybe he'd done something and couldn't remember. Crossing her arms, he frowned at her, perplexed. She was very uncomfortable.

"What…?" she asked, shifting.

"Have we slept together?" She gasped, horrified.

"No we bloody well have not!" she snapped at him, "And I'd thank you to remember if we had!"

"Sorry! I'm just trying to remember what I did to piss you off so much."

"You're an arsehole, and you've just proven my point. Not everybody falls over themselves when you're in a room, you know," Sally shook her head. Esther and Mickey both looked him like they were disappointed in him. "When would we have even had the chance?"

"You used to hang around in Cardiff sometimes with the rift, Spooky Sally," Jack reminded her of her nickname. This only annoyed her even more, because she didn't really like being called 'Spooky Sally.'

"You should probably check the kitchens," said Esther.

"We'll do that," said Jack, awkwardly, Sally muttering something he couldn't quite hear and adjusting her equipment. "You two haven't seen anything weird today, have you?"

"Apart from Esther messing around with the lights?" Sally asked.

"It's not me!" Esther protested, "I'm not doing anything, it'll just be the wiring."

"Hold on, what's going on with the lights?" Mickey asked.

"They just keep flickering, that's all," Esther shrugged, "It's an old building, it'll be nothing."

"It'll be you, every time you get frustrated at your little kids' game," Sally quipped.

"Okay, Dragon Quest IX is not for kids," Esther argued, "It's for everyone. That's why it's rated 'E.'"

"Of course it is," Sally said patronisingly. Esther grimaced. The lights overhead, lit because that particular corridor didn't have any windows, flickered a little. "See!" said Sally triumphantly.

"It's. Not. Me!" Esther protested.

"We don't have time for this," Jack shook his head, not interested in listening to them argue about wiring, "C'mon, Mickey." He turned and left the Spooks to argue with each other, Mickey not hesitating.

"Can't believe you asked her that, mate," Mickey muttered under his breath.

"Well, I can't think of any other reason someone wouldn't like me. Everyone likes me. I'm charismatic," Jack argued.

"Why do you care what she thinks? You don't even know her."

"I just can't stand the idea of somebody not appreciating me."

"I don't think Jenny 'appreciates' you very much."

"Jenny loves me," he said confidently, "That's why she gets so worked up when I'm around." Mickey was amazed that Jack and Jenny continued to be so persistently unhealthy for each other even when they hadn't been together for months, and when they'd both moved on to other, better people. He didn't think it was the best way for someone to behave around their ex; after all, Rose was his ex, and he was there at her wedding. "Where is the kitchen?"

"You're the chief bridesmaid, shouldn't you know?"

"I haven't had a chance to liaise with the kitchen staff, I was going to come and make sure everything was running smoothly after the ceremony and before people sit down," Jack explained. They found themselves outside the same dining room they'd all eaten breakfast in. "It must be around here somewhere… there's no dumb waiter, so it must be on this floor…"

"Do you smell that?" Mickey asked.

"Small what?"

"Sort of… butternut soup, I think," he said.

"Butternut soup? That's not on the menu," said Jack, but after sniffing he picked it up, too. It did smell like butternut, and it could only be coming from one place: the kitchen. So they followed it down a hallway, past a few storage rooms and other staff-only areas, and stumbled across quite the sight.

It was the kitchen, they'd found it, but the floors and lots of the cupboard fronts were stained a funny, green colour. And there was the fact that there weren't any kitchen staff in there, only four of their friends: Jenny, Adam, Nios and Eleven. Jenny was dishing out orders by the bucket load as the four of them tried to cook what looked like a hundred different things at once.

"What's going on here?" Jack asked loudly, over the sound of pots and pans and ovens and simmering water.

"Oh, hi," said Jenny, barely noticing the pair of them because she was in the middle of trying to season five chickens at once. Nios was stirring a big pot of what must be the butternut soup they could smell, Adam Mitchell was chopping vegetables, the Doctor was working on what looked like a brownie mix. Jack stood indignantly in the doorway, waiting for an answer.

"Well?" he prompted Jenny again. She ignored him. "I said what's going on?"

"Slitheen murdered the kitchen staff," Adam explained, "Jenny murdered the Slitheen."

"…Don't tell me that's what the green on the floor is," said Mickey.

"Slitheen!?" Jack exclaimed, "In here!? Doing what?"

"Lacing the Gazpacho with cyanide," Jenny added, "So it's off the menu. In fact, this is a completely different menu, courtesy of me. I'm stepping in to save the wedding of two people I don't particularly care about, so you could at least drop the attitude."

"I don't have an attitude," Jack argued. Jenny was not happy about having to do all this, though. "What are you making?"

"Butternut soup starter, brownies for pudding, chicken and roasted vegetables for the main course. I'd do something more elaborate, but I don't have a lot of time. We've already had to scrub the kitchen clean of Slitheen gunk," she complained.

"Rose was really looking forward to those profiteroles," said Jack.

"She can teleport anywhere she wants at will! She can get her own profiteroles! They didn't get in any ingredients except for the ones for the poisoned soup, so I didn't have a lot to work with. Look," she glared at him, stopping what she was doing with her array of uncooked chickens, "I'm a fully trained chef, okay? It might not be what Rose has put on her menu, but it will be tasty, and it won't have any poison in it, which, quite frankly, I'm quite happy with."

"Okay, okay," Jack shook his head, done arguing with her about food.

"Did you want something else?" she asked him.

"My vortex manipulator. It's urgent, I need it back."

"Urgent why?" the Doctor asked suspiciously.

"Don't you stop mixing that," Jenny snapped at him when he lapsed. He jumped, apparently now scared of his own daughter. Mickey was a bit scared of her too, now she was being all Gordon Ramsay.

"Well, I suppose since you've all been battling Slitheen already you might as well know. We think there's a Sontaran ship in orbit and the Sontarans have infiltrated the hotel," Jack explained. They all stopped what they were doing.

"They've also cloned Jackie," Mickey added, "But don't worry, we've found the actual Jackie, Martha's with her. But if you see Jackie wandering around being a bit weird, it might be the Sontaran clone."

"This wedding is turning out to be a lot more exciting than I thought," said Eleven after a pause. "Sontarans, Slitheen, what else?"

"So, what are the two of you planning on doing to an entire Sontaran ship?" Jenny questioned. Jack paused for a while, hands on his hips, jaw clenched.

"…We haven't thought of that yet."

"Don't worry," said Eleven, setting down his bowl, "I've got a plan."

"You're not going anywhere," Jenny told him. "You're making pudding."

"It won't take long," he dismissed her, "We can always pick up some profiteroles on the way back."

"Where's the vortex manipulator?" Jack persisted, "He can just tell us his plan and stay here with his brownies."

"No, no, you'll need me to make it work. I know my way around a Sontaran ship," he said, removing his apron.

"You can't-" Jenny began.

"Jenny, nobody's going to eat your food if a Sontaran ship blows us all up," said Eleven, which made her shut up. He sighed. "I promise it won't take long. If worse comes to worst, we'll use the TARDIS to cook the brownies in time."

"Are you sure it wouldn't be better to just call the wedding off?" Jenny asked Jack sceptically, giving up with her father. It seemed they were both incapable of listening to each other. "We could just take all the guests somewhere else. They could even get married on the TARDIS."

"I'm the chief bridesmaid, so it's my job to make sure everything goes smoothly. As far as I can see, the Slitheen have been dealt with already, and if you would just give me my vortex manipulator-"

"Fine, fine!" Jenny gave up, fumbling around in the back pocket of her jeans – she'd been much too caught up with the Slitheen to go and get dressed into her wedding attire – and retrieving Jack's battered old wristband, which she tossed across the kitchen to him. He caught it.

"Thank you. Talking to you is like pulling teeth."

"Pulling teeth is like pulling teeth – you'll learn that if you don't leave in the next thirty seconds," she snapped. Mickey was now even more incredulous about Jack's claim that Jenny was still harbouring some sort of feelings for him. At best, she was indifferent to his presence, and at worst she wouldn't hesitate to maim or murder him. Jack didn't get the chance to use his vortex manipulator before the Doctor took it from him and drew out his sonic screwdriver.

"Have you seen your wife recently?" Jack asked him while he did this, Jenny going back to her chickens. "I heard she's not answering her phone."

"How would I know? I don't have a phone to call her with," said Eleven, "She'll just be distracted by Oswin."

"What are you doing?" Mickey asked him.

"Trying to find their ship," said the Doctor, "Keep up. We can't just put in some random, orbital coordinates and hope for the best. Shouldn't be too hard to find them, their ships give off a lot of heat. If there's one thing easy to find in space, it's heat."

"Can't we use the TARDIS?"

"Take the TARDIS onto a Sontaran warship!? I wouldn't dream of it. No, this gizmo should be alright, much as I hate these things. I wonder what they want with us."

"Probably to kill us all," said Jack sarcastically.

"I suppose I did blow up the last ship of theirs that came to Earth. They probably didn't like that very much. I hope they didn't see it as a declaration of war… then again, Sontaran could stub their toe and they'd see it as a declaration of war."

"Do they have toes?" Mickey asked.

"Yes, six of them. Three on each foot, bit like their funny hands. After thousands of years of cloning themselves, they're apparently the 'optimal lifeform.' Who wants to be optimal, though? It's overrated."

"My brownies better be optimal," Jenny grumbled from the other side of her kitchen.

"Yes, yes, you'll get them," he waved her away. The vortex manipulator in his hands lit up and he turned off the sonic. "Ah-ha! I've got a lock. Here's hoping we don't end up at the wrong end of their firing range. Or worse – Sontaran toilets. They're very unusual; not just the smell, but the shape, too." Mickey and Jack frowned at him. "It's a lot of tubes." Whatever these tubes were, Mickey was sure that he didn't want to see them. The Doctor held out the vortex manipulator for Jack and Mickey to take hold of. "Geronimo!" he announced as he pressed the button to teleport them.

They did not appear in a Sontaran firing range, or Sontaran toilets, or even in the icy cold void of outer space: instead they landed safe and well in a dark and shiny corridor. Typical, thought Mickey, alien ships were just mazes of corridors. Jack snatched his vortex manipulator away from the Doctor and strapped it back onto his wrist.

"Alright, so, now what?" he asked the Doctor.

"What do you mean?"

"You said you had a plan."

"Yes, this was my plan."

"Wasn't there a bit after this?"

He paused to think, "It'll come to me."

"Martha said the last time they were here they were trying to turn the planet into a clone world," Mickey said to prompt a deeper explanation from the Doctor.

"Yes, with Atmos," he said, "Put it in all the cars to reduce carbon emissions, then activated it to transform the atmosphere into clone feed. But they were in the Atmos manufacturing plant. Unless they're manufacturing Atmos in this hotel now, I doubt that's what they're here for."

"They're probably just here to try to kill us, like the Slitheen," said Jack, "So can you think of something helpful?"

"Have some patience," said the Doctor, irked, "I suppose it isn't completely out of the realms of possibility that a Sontaran warship would be sent to kill three Doctors. We are one of their greatest enemies." Then he had an epiphany. "Greatest enemies!"

"Yeah, and?" said Jack, "You're their greatest enemy, so what?"

"No! I said one of their greatest enemies – but that's the trick. I'm going to get them to retreat, a whole Sontaran army. Just need to find their communications hub… Mickey! Can you find it? With your 'powers'? I could do it eventually, but these ships are a logistical nightmare. Nothing's ever where you think it should be."

"Maybe," said Mickey, "If I find a way to connect to the ship's mainframe."

"Ship's mainframe! Brilliant, what would that look like?"

"Anything," he said, "Computer, light switch-"

"What about funny-looking door button?" asked Eleven, pointing to the nearby door that did have an unusual button next to it, shaped like a Sontaran's hand.

"Probably."

"Great! So, Mickey, what you're going to do is get into their computers and find out what their emergency distress frequency is, it'll probably be encrypted."

"I should be able to decrypt it."

"Excellent, you do that, go on. Oh, actually," he took out his sonic screwdriver and walked up to the door, pointing it at the button and zapping it, "Best lock that. Don't want any Sontarans walking in on us. I need a phone, one of you lend me a phone." He glanced between Jack and Mickey.

"Don't look at me," said Jack, "I need mine, for urgent, chief bridesmaid matters." Eleven turned to Mickey and held out his hand expectantly. Annoyed, Mickey sighed and handed over his mobile. Eleven smiled.

"Can't promise you'll get this back," he said as he took it.

"What!?"

"Sorry. Thanks in advance for the decryption." Mickey shook his head and went to place his hand over the button. "You managed that a lot better than Donna did."

"Managed… touching a button?"

"Yes. She found it quite tricky. Because of the fingers."

"So?" Jack prompted as Mickey got to work telepathically hacking a Sontaran spacecraft. The Doctor couldn't pretend he wasn't impressed by the range of Mickey's technopathy. "What's your plan?"

"I'm going to send an emergency recall to get them to leave," he said, "See, Sontarans are the ultimate soldiers. They'd never retreat, never surrender – rather die in battle. What better way to get them to leave us alone than entice them with a different, much more exciting battle? I'm not the greatest enemy of the Sontarans, the Rutan Host is. All I have to do is send a distress signal on their reserved channel saying that the Rutans are invading Sontar and all ships have to return to their homeworld immediately."

"And they'll just believe that?" Jack asked.

"Course they will! The Rutans are always invading Sontar," he said as he fumbled with Mickey's phone, taking off the back and sonicking it inside.

"Your plan is to call the Sontarans and tell them to leave?"

"Simplicity is key," said the Doctor, "If we scramble their communications as well, they won't realise their mistake until they're already there. By that point, we'll all have left the wedding venue, and they'll have missed their chance."

"That's… actually not as ridiculous as I was expecting."

"Have you lost faith in me, Captain?" the Doctor asked, "You people – so obsessed with coming up with creative problems for everything, you never think to ask me for help. What would you have done if I wasn't in the kitchen with Jenny? Stormed the ship yourself? Tried to take down an army of Sontarans alone? No, no, they would have called for reinforcements immediately. You would've gotten us all killed. Think about that the next time you try to go it alone."

"I've been going it alone for years after you left me on Earth."

"Yes, well, if it's only you, I can't say I'm too concerned."

"Charming."

"I reckon you've been avoiding me, though," said Eleven. "Can't imagine why. Is it because you don't want me asking you what you were thinking when you proposed to your resurrected ex-boyfriend in front of my daughter?"

"It was a bit dodgy, doing that," Mickey added from the doorway.

"I… I didn't mean for her to be there," Jack argued.

"Lucky I trust Jenny to fight her own battles," said the Doctor, "But don't think I've forgotten about that. Oh! Mickey! I have a present for you."

"You do?" Mickey was surprised.

"Yes! Not here, on the TARDIS – I have an old cot. My cot, in fact. Gave it to Amy and Rory for Melody, not that that worked out very well for them… but I want you and Martha to have it."

"A cot?"

"Yes, you know, for a baby. For your baby, that you're having. It's going to be a Time Lord, after all. Saves you from having to buy one; Clara said it would be a nice gesture."

"And you'll do anything Clara tells you to do," Jack muttered.

"Excuse me?" asked the Doctor quite seriously, looking at him. Jack realised his stray comment hadn't gone ignored, as he intended.

"…Nothing," he said after a pause.

"I thought so. Do you want the cot, then?" the Doctor turned back to Mickey.

"Um… I'll have to talk to Martha. Thanks, though. It is a nice gesture. I've found the channel, I'm decrypting it now."

"Read out the numbers when you've got them. I should be able to dial them up, now I've done some modifications to your whatsit."

"You're just gonna talk to them?" asked Jack.

"Yes."

"But you don't sound like a Sontaran."

"I do a mean impression of Strax."

"I take it back. This plan is ridiculous. The only thing standing between a Sontaran army and this wedding is your ability to do a convincing impression of a Sontaran?"

"I'll be alright on the night."

"This is the night!" Jack protested.

"It will be fine. Probably."

"Probably!?"

"Definitely! Completely, absolutely fine. It's really a very good impression, Strax hates it."

"I've got the numbers," said Mickey. He carefully read out the long and highly specific frequency for the Sontaran emergency communication channel, the Doctor typing it into the mobile phone and double-checking when he was done. Clearing his throat, he pressed 'call'.

"…It's ringing," he said after a moment.

"Put it on speaker," Jack said.

"Which symbol is that?"

"It's the one that looks like a speaker." The Doctor held out the phone and frowned at it.

"Speakers can look very different in my experience."

"It's the-"

"Flagship 827-2B9 of the Merkot Fleet reporting," a Sontaran said curtly over the phone. The Doctor froze, Jack and Mickey looking at him expectantly. The Sontaran muttered something, then repeated his message. "This is Flagship 827-2B9, reporting."

"Yes," said the Doctor awkwardly in his best Strax voice, "This is the Imperial Flagship recalling all forces to Sontar."

"What is your authorisation code?"

"My authorisation code?" the Doctor looked up at Mickey, who quickly returned to hacking the door button to try and find out. "It's, erm… hang on a minute, I'm new. A fresh clone, just popped out of the vats this morning. I've got it around here somewhere, I wrote it down."

"Orange," Mickey whispered at him.

"Orange?" he asked.

"Excuse me?" the Sontaran on the phone asked as Mickey nodded.

"Orange!" the Doctor announced, "My authorisation code. It's 'orange.'"

"Code accepted."

"Bit of a rubbish code, now that I think about it – why 'orange'?"

"Orange is Commander Tork the Infamous's favourite colour.

"No wonder he's so infamous…"

"Why has a retreat been ordered?"

"Not a retreat, the Rutans are invading Sontar, all forces need to be recalled to protect the homeworld," said the Doctor, still doing a very stupid voice to try and sound like Strax.

"Our mission on Earth nears completion. A delay of some hours would not weaken Sontar."

"Well, it would, actually, because the Rutans have… a new weapon. A super-weapon."

"What sort of weapon?"

"A big laser. The size of a moon. They could use it to destroy Sontar in one blast. It's called the Death Star." Mickey and Jack glared at him.

"A star of death?"

"Yes! The battle against the star of death will be exhilarating, I'm sure. Much more exhilarating than your mission on Earth. You wouldn't want to miss that."

"The Doctor and his ilk are soon to be eliminated."

"But imagine if we can get our hands on the Death Star, we can just destroy Earth and the Doctor. Even his TARDIS, probably. And, besides, it's a direct order, straight from Commander Tork the Infamous. All forces to be summoned to defend against the Rutans."

"Very well. We will withdraw with immediate effect. Sontar-ha!"

"Sontar-ha," said the Doctor quickly. The line cut off. He dropped Mickey's phone to the floor and then stamped on it.

"What are you doing!?" Mickey was horrified.

"We can't have them trace that back and realise it came from an Earth phone," said the Doctor. There was a crackling sound overhead and a voice began to talk from some hidden speakers.

"All units: the Rutan Host is attempting an invasion of Sontar, and we have been recalled to protect our homeworld and die in glorious battle against the Rutans. The current mission is abandoned. Sontar-ha!" They could hear the echoing response of 'Sontar-ha' through the walls as every Sontaran on board said it in unison.

"There, you see?" said the Doctor, "I told you they can't resist the Rutans. Problem solved."

"Yeah, let's just hope they don't try to build their own Sontaran Death Star," said Jack dryly.

"We'll deal with that later," said the Doctor, then he indicated Jack's vortex manipulator, "Don't we have a wedding to get back to?"

AN: The reason this one took me so long is because I've spent most of my free time in the last two months making a video essay, which I have now completed! So I have a YouTube channel now, and it would be cool if the two people who still read this would check it out, since I'm hopefully going to make more. The channel is called Redical, the video is called "Years and Years is the Worst Thing on TV", and I made it because I've never hated anything as deeply as Years and Years, the new RTD show. If you want to know why I hate it, you should watch the video. The second thing I want to say is that last Saturday, on July 20th, I graduated and officially now have a degree in English Literature!