Today, we get another more Jack Harkness, another little view into how Marion sees things.

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She tried to only stare at what she assumed was a reasonable amount because completely avoiding looking at him would be obvious.

How much eye contact was reasonable again?

She'd probably done enough so she figured that now was the time to look away. But wait, would it be obvious that she was looking away? You know what? That didn't matter.

Tearing her eyes away was easier said than done, because he was well, Jack Harkness.

He was one of the few people who knew what it was like to be..mortally challenged. Or more accurately, he didn't know, but he would. Jack was still…

Calling him a mortal sounded off.

The phrase "people die when they are killed." still applied to him. That sounded better. Marion wondered if there was a way to keep him that way. Could she keep Jack alive on Satellite Five long enough for Bad Wolf to not have to bring him back to life? But if she did that...no. That wasn't doable. She knew that as soon as she thought it. Nevermind. At least she knew that he wasn't going to live until the heat-death of the universe or anything, doomed to wander even after the stars went dark.

The thought crossed through Marion's head that she didn't know that for sure about herself. She quickly shoved that thought away.

Now was not the time for a crisis. Better shove that back in the box for later. (Read: Never)

Jack confidently stepped forward and firmly shook the Doctor's hand, and then hers.

"Good evening," he said cheerfully, "Hope we're not interrupting. Jack Harkness. I've been hearing all about you on the way over,"

"Only good things I hope," Marion smiled back.

"He knows," Rose said, staring pointedly, more at the Doctor than at Marion. "I had to tell him about us being Time Agents,"

"Did you?" Marion replied, tilting her head to the side before shrugging. "Suppose the cat's out of the bag then. Nice to meet you, Jack,"

"And it's a real pleasure to meet you, Miss Marion and Mister Spock,"

With that, Jack clapped the Doctor the shoulder and then quickly walked to the other side of the wall and into the room that they had just left.

"Mister Spock?" The Doctor asked as soon as Jack was out of earshot.

"What was I supposed to say?" Rose replied defensively, "You don't have a name!"

"'Course he has a name," Marion replied, "He's 'The Doctor',"

"Don't you ever get tired of Doctor? Doctor who?"

"Nine centuries in, I'm coping. Where've you been? We're in the middle of a London Blitz. It's not a good time for a stroll,"

Rose started walking after Jack as she spoke.

"Who's strolling? I went by barrage balloon. Only way to see an air raid,"

"What?!"

The Doctor stopped walking.

"Did you know about this?" the Doctor turned to Marion and so did Rose.

Marion fidgeted with the strap of her bag.

"I mean...yes. I knew. But well, I knew she had to meet Jack. And I knew that this was the easiest way. And," Marion put her hands on the other woman's shoulders. "And this is important. I ALSO knew that you were going to be fine, that Jack was going to catch you, and that you would end up unharmed. If I had suspected otherwise, I would- and I cannot stress this enough, have let you go without. I would've gone myself or found some other way,"

"I believe you, Marion,"

Marion nodded. "Good, good," she took her hands off Rose's shoulder, That's good. And I'm sorry I didn't give you a bigger heads up before,"

"Hey, what's a Chula Warship?" Rose changed the subject.

The Doctor stopped walking again. "Chula?"

When Marion re-entered the room she and the Doctor had come from initially, Jack was already there, examining the patients with whatever that constantly beeping device on his arm was beeping incessantly.

"This just isn't possible," he said under his breath. He turned to face them as they entered the room. "How did this happen?"

"Very-" Marion paused, "not-carefully,"

"What kind of Chula ship landed here?" The Doctor asked, crossing his arms.

Jack stopped pacing and glanced back at the Doctor.

"What?"

"He said it was a warship," Rose piped in, "He stole it, parked it somewhere out there, somewhere a bomb's going to fall on it unless we make him an offer,"

"What kind of warship?" the Doctor repeated.

"Does it matter?" Jack turned around, "It's got nothing to do with this,"

"It absolutely has everything to do with this Harkness,"

"This started at the bomb site," The Doctor shouted, pointing at one of the beds. "It's got everything to do with it. What kind of warship?"

"An ambulance! Look," Jack clicked a button on the side of the device on his watch and its blue light began to blink. With a short 'vwoop' noise and an electronic buzz, a bright blue hologram was projected from its face.

Marion had always thought it was interesting how the second that the possibility that the space junk might be harming people came up, Jack instantly dropped the con. Marion could think of at least a couple of ways Jack could have tried to spin this to try and con them out of even more money. But he hadn't.

"That's what you chased through the Time Vortex," Jack gestured to the floating tube. "It's space junk. I wanted to kid you it was valuable. It's empty. I made sure of it. Nothing but a shell. I threw it at you. Saw your time travel vehicle, love the retro look, by the way, nice panels. Threw you the bait-"

"Bait?" Rose asked.

"I wanted to sell it to you and then destroy it before you found out it was junk," as Jack said this, he turned the hologram off.

"You said it was a warship!"

"They have ambulances in wars," Jack sighed and walked a little bit away from him, "It was a con. I was conning you," He said as if he thought they hadn't fully put the pieces together. "That's what I am, I'm a con man, I thought you were Time Agents," he pointed to them, "You're not, are you,"

Marion shook her head. "Nope. We were wandering about when we got a distress call,"

"Just a couple of freelancers,"

Jack threw his head back and groaned.

"Oh," He laughed, but in less of a "haha" this is funny kind of way and more of a "goddammit, this might as well happen! Should have known. My luck has always been shitty, why did I think that this would be any different, "The way you guys are blending in with the local color. I mean, Flag Girl was bad enough, but U-Boat Captain. What? Did you roll out of bed and into a rock quarry!"

Marion self consciously brushed some dust off her sweater. "It's not my fault I didn't get to change before I got here," Marion murmured under her breath.

"Anyway, whatever's happening here has got nothing to do with that ship,"

"What is happening here," Rose asked, looking around.

"People's DNA is being rewritten by something that doesn't know what it's doing,"

"What do you mean Marion?"

"Exactly what I said,"

"Some kind of virus converting human beings into these things," The Doctor looked closer, "But why? What's the point?"

"They don't seem to be moving," Rose commented, getting very close to one of the beds so she could get a better look, "Maybe whatever it is is trying to incapacitate us you know? So we can't fight back,"

Marion's eye noticed some slight movement in the hands of one of the patients. She grabbed Rose's arm and tugged her backward and away from the bed just as the patient suddenly sat up.

Marion continued to pull her back and away from the patients.

"Mummy. Mummy. Mummy? Mummy?" They all asked. A dozen or so emotionless and eerie voices spoke in unison. Marion was reminded of a school play.

"What's happening?"

"They're awake," Marion said, pulling Rose and the Doctor further away. Marion stepped forward and held out her arms, subtly pushing them behind her.

"Don't let them touch you," the Doctor said, backing up further,

"What happens if we touch him,"

"You end up with a gas mask where your face should be," Marion replied, backing up some more.

The patients continued to groan and walk towards them and they continued to take steps back. Marion heard a soft noise behind her and quickly glanced, Rose and Jack were already against the wall. Marion looked ahead again. They were close. Very, very, very close.

Marion closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and crossed her arms, and at the same time, noticed the Doctor in the corner of her eye leaning forward.

"GO TO YOUR ROOM!" "GO TO YOUR ROOM!"

Marion and the Doctor both ended up shouting at the exact same time.

The patients stopped in their tracks.

"Go to your room! I mean it!"

"I expected much, much better of you. I am very, very disappointed!"

"I'm very, very angry with you. I am very, very cross. Go to your room!"

"Think about what you did!"

It was almost comical the way that they hung their heads in shame and slowly shuffled away like, children that just been told off by their parents. They walked away and sat back down in their beds or on their chairs or wherever they had been before they'd started their slow shuffle towards them.

Once they were finally back in bed and lying down, Marion let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding in.

"I'm really glad that worked," The Doctor said with a manic grin, "Those would have been terrible last words,"

"They would indeed,"

"Marion, any chance of them getting back up again,"

Marion closed her eyes for a second in thought.

"Not for a while at least," she replied. Marion was pretty sure that that was right. "We won't be here when they do, so it's a moot point. We have some time to sit and rest," Yeah, that was right.

With that said, Marion sat down on a nearby empty chair backward with her legs straddling the back and her chin resting on her hands, resting on the back of the backrest. After a few moments, Rose hesitantly moved away from the wall she had been by, and then back to the patient she'd been looking at before they'd shot up.

"Why are they all wearing gas masks?" Rose asked.

Marion breathed sharply through her teeth. "Those aren't masks. It's their face. If you look close to them, I bet you'll be able to see the point where skin slowly merges into rubber," 'I'm not going to look,' Marion thought, looking at the ground. 'Because that honestly sounds very unpleasant,' Just saying the phrase "where skin slowly merges into rubber" felt wrong on her tongue. She shivered.

Marion wondered what would happen if she were to touch one of them and get those nanogenes all over her. Would it affect her? Did it count as a death or at least a near-death? Would her body count it as being injured and bring her back to normal, or would the fact that the reason they were the way that they were was a well-meaning attempt made to heal them mean that her body would accept the way that it was. Would she be stuck in a loop of her body trying to keep her from changing while the nanogenes tried to change her and end up stuck long term in the clock zone able to see nothing but the dark and hear nothing except for the sound of-

Actually, you know what? Marion was done wondering things. She didn't know what would happen, didn't WANT to know what would happen, and did not intend to in any way find out what would happen. So there was no point in thinking about it.

"How was your con supposed to work?" the Doctor asked Jack.

Yes. This was great. A new conversation that she could listen in on. Instead of thinking about...instead of thinking.

"Simple enough, really," Jack sighed, "Find some harmless piece of space junk, let the nearest Time Agent track it back to Earth, convince him it's valuable, name a price. When he's put fifty percent upfront, 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,"

"Yeah, perfect," the Doctor said sarcastically.

"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,"

Jack laughed for a bit until he saw their faces and realized that no one else was laughing with him.

"Getting a hint of disapproval,"

"It's more than a hint, Jack,"

"Take a look around the room," The Doctor's voice had had a hint of cheerfulness earlier. It was gone now and so was the warmth. "This is what your harmless piece of space-junk did,"

The Doctor gestured out of the window and started pointedly walking out of the room.

"It was a burnt-out medical transporter," Jack insisted "It was empty,"

Marion sighed and got up out of the chair and moved to follow the Doctor.

"You might've thought it was empty. I absolutely do believe that you did," Marion replied. "But that doesn't mean that you were right, c'mon Rose,"

"Are we getting out of here?" Rose asked.

"We're going up the stairs," the Doctor replied, pointing upwards.

"I even programmed the flight computer so it wouldn't land on anything living," Jack shouted defensively, "I harmed no one. I don't know what's happening here, but believe me, I had nothing to do with it!"

"I'll tell you what's happening," the Doctor shot back, "You forgot to set your alarm clock. It's volcano day,"

And then another siren went off. The Doctor left the room and Marion quickly chased after him.

The Doctor wasn't running exactly, but he was moving at a pace that Marion would've found very difficult to keep up if she wasn't already used to having to keep up with people with much longer legs than her.

Especially when he ran up two flights of stairs two or three steps at a time.

Marion wasn't sure if that last bit was a Time Lord thing or a being 6 feet tall and having long legs.

Close to the top of the stairs against the wall was a thick grey metal door. The Doctor tried the knob and found the door locked.

"I've decided that I don't," The Doctor commented, taking out his sonic screwdriver and frowning.

"What?"

Before Marion could ask what he meant, she heard yelling from below.

"Mister Spock!"

"Marion!"

Marion stepped away from the door and leaned down over the side of the banister. "WE'RE UP HERE!" She called.

She saw a flash as the two of them ran past, slowed down, and then walked back to the base of the stairs.

She heard the Doctor stop walking down the stairs and lean over the side of the banister behind her.

"Have you got a blaster?" he asked, looking down at Jack.

"Sure!"

Jack and Rose quickly ran up the stairs and joined them.

The Doctor gestured to the door that they had found.

"The night your space junk landed, someone was hurt. This was where they were taken,"

"What happened?" Rose asked.

"That's what we're trying to find out. Get it open,"

The Doctor stepped off to the side as Jack took the gun out of a side pocket of his coat.

"What's wrong with your sonic screwdriver?" Rose asked.

"Nothing,"

Marion watched as the squareness gun disintegrated the lock. It was an interesting sight to see. Square bands moved over the lock and the area that surrounded it glowed a soft blue. Then the lit area started to wiggle and wave like the air above a hot grill and then it disappeared.

The door opened outward with the piercing sound of metal grinding against metal. Marion winced. Jack caught the door as it opened and gestured inside.

"Sonic blaster, fifty-first century. Weapon Factories of Villengard?"

"You've been to the factories?" Jack asked.

"Once," The Doctor took the blaster from Jack and examined it. "Marion was still asleep and I got bored,"

"Well, they are gone now, destroyed. The main reactor went critical. Vaporized the lot,"

"Like I said. Once. There's a banana grove there now. I like bananas. Bananas are good," The Doctor then walked into the room.

"Oh, fun fact:" Marion said snapping her fingers, "If you eat ten million of 'em in one sitting, you'll die of radiation poisoning!"

Marion flipped a switch as she walked into the room. The light flickered on and she could vaguely hear Jack and Rose talking behind her.

The room itself was about half the size of the room that they had just left. It was mostly neat and orderly, except for a wall of what used to be one-way glass that had since been shattered. In front of the window on a table was a bunch of equipment. Speakers, radios, telephones, record players, all placed haphazardly on the table, as if someone had been told to collect them from all over the hospital and didn't have the time or the energy to do much more than drop an item on the table, and then sprint out of the room to get more stuff.

The observation glass however brought up the question of what this room was originally for before it was used to observe Jamie. It didn't look big enough to be the infant ward. So that wasn't it. There probably was an obvious answer to the question that Marion didn't know enough about hospitals to have.

"What do you think?" the Doctor gestured to the room.

"Something got out of here," Jack replied, noticing the glass all over the floor.

"Yeah. And?" The Doctor prompted me.

"Something powerful," Jack stepped further into the room, "Angry,"

"I don't know if I think I'd say 'angry'" Marion said absentmindedly walking towards the open door to the room on the other side of the glass. The walls and floor were littered with children's drawings done in technicolor crayon and then pinned to the wall. Marion crouched down and picked up one of the drawings and looked it over. "A child, alone, not knowing where they are and looking for their mummy, they could very well just be scared,"

"How do you know that it's a child,"

"Come look in here," Marion tilted her head to the inside of the room. "This is where they put the kid who was in range when your 'harmless' hunk of space junk hit him,"

Jack and Rose entered the room. Jack crouched down and picked up a small stuffed bear.

"I suppose that explains 'Mummy',"

"How could a child do this?" Rose asked gesturing around the room.

"What?" Marion asked. "Destroy the place? Didn't you use to work in retail? Kids can cause a lot of destruction when they put their mind to it,"

"No, I mean-,"

On the other side of what was once a window, the Doctor flicked on a tape recorder.

"Do you know where you are?" said the elderly doctor's voice.

"Are you my mummy?" the child's voice replied. The same voice they'd heard several times before.

"Are you aware of what's around you? Can you see?"

"Are you my mummy?" the child asked again, completely ignoring what he'd been asked.

"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," Rose said quietly, "I've heard this voice before,"

"Us too,"

"Mummy?"

"Always are you my mummy?. Like he doesn't know,"

"Mummy?"

"Why doesn't he know?"

"We met a girl who said that she was his brother Jamie, and she sounded like she'd been taking care of him for a while. Doesn't make a lot of sense for a child to be traveling around London during the Blitz with his sister if there's a mother in the picture. But that doesn't mean he's not looking for her. He's a child after all,"

"Are you there, mummy? Mummy?"

The Doctor left the tape running and started pointedly walking through the room like he was searching for a loose floorboard or a place where the wood was sunken down from a heavy safe on the other side of a fake wall. He looked serious.

"Doctor?" Rose asked.

"Can you sense it?"

"Sense what?"

"Coming out of the walls. Can you feel it?" the Doctor was shouting now.

"Mummy?"

"Funny little human brains," the Doctor's voice grew higher in pitch with stress, "How do you get around in those things?"

"Very carefully,"

"When he's stressed, he likes to insult species," Rose asked glancing apologetically at Jack.

"Rose, I'm thinking"

"He cuts himself shaving, he does half an hour on life forms he's cleverer than,"

"Marion," the Doctor spun around on his heels and faced Marion. He leaned down and put his hand on her shoulders more or less forcing her to look him straight in the eyes, "tell me if I'm on the right track. Can you do that?"

"Okay," Marion said with a slow nod.

The Doctor let go of her and continued pacing. "There are these children living rough round the bomb sites. They come out during air-raids looking for food,"

"And...," Marion led.

"Mummy, please?"

The radio on the table started making a clicking noise as the tape unspooled. It had come to its end already.

"Suppose they were there when this thing, whatever it was, landed?"

"So what would that mean exactly,"

It wasn't a direct spoiler if it was a leading question that just continued a person down the same train of thought they would've gone on otherwise. It's just keeping the snow off the tracks.

"It was a med-ship," Jack insisted for the hundredth time, "It was harmless,"

"Just because it wasn't full of gunpowder and explosive charges doesn't mean that there wasn't something in there that could do something,"

"Suppose one of them was affected, altered?"

Marion nodded.

"Altered how?" Rose asked.

"I'm here!"

"It's afraid. Terribly afraid and powerful. It doesn't know it yet, but it will do," The Doctor froze for a moment, a thought suddenly hit him. He laughed. "It's got the power of a god, and we just sent it to its room,"

"Marion?" Rose asked.

"I'm here. Can't you see me?"

"What's that noise?"

"The clicking sound?" Marion asked, "That would be the sound of the tape. The recording stopped about half a minute ago, give or take,"

"I'm here now. Can't you see me?"

"We sent it to its room." The Doctor blinked, "This is its room,"

"Are you my mummy? Mummy?"

Marion jumped. The child was standing right there right in front of the ever-running tape recorder.

"Christ," Marion said under her breath, "The kid really did sneak up on us,"

Marion wasn't positive what was so jarring about the child randomly appearing. But she knew that there certainly was something.

The child tilted his head sharply to the side and looked at them. Marion could see her warped reflection in the black lenses of the gas mask.

"Are you my mummy? Mummy?"

"Sorry, no," Marion said backing up.

"Doctor?" Rose asked in a way that clearly meant. "Please tell me you have some kind of plan,"

The Doctor silently brushed past Jack as Jack not knowing that, reached into his pocket.

"Okay, on my signal make for the door,"

"Mummy?"

"NOW!" Jack shouted, holding not a gun, but a banana.

The Doctor pulled the actual blaster out of the side of his coat and fired at a nearby wall making a huge square hole leading into the hall.

"Go now!" the Doctor shouted, "Don't drop the banana!"

"Why not?!" Jack shouted back in alarm as he, Rose, and Marion quickly climbed through the hole.

"Good source of potassium!" The Doctor jumped in after them.

"Give me that!"

Jack snatched the blaster back from the Doctor and pressed a switch on the side of the gun, closing the hole behind them just as the child approached it.

"Mummy. I want my mummy," The last part of what he'd said was muffled by the replaced wall.

"Digital rewind," Jack took a breath, "Nice switch," He tossed the banana back at the Doctor.

'If he hadn't done that you would've what!' Marion thought, 'Put a square hole in a scared child? What the fuck!'

Marion knew she couldn't judge him too much. He had no way of knowing that what was going on was reversible, and for all he knew, it was some kind of monster in a kid suit. But still.

"It's from the groves of Villengard. I thought it was appropriate," the Doctor smiled.

"There's really a banana grove in the heart of Villengard and you did that?"

"Bananas are good," the Doctor replied.

"This banter is great and all don't get me wrong, but also," Marion pointed at the wall, "that kid's currently trying and succeeding in punching through that wall,"

As if trying to prove per point, the child slammed against the wall again and the cracks in the paint turned into cracks in the wall.

"Come on!"

The four of them scrambled around the corner and down the hall and away from the compromised wall.

They raced down one hall only to come face to face with a bunch of the gas-masked patients. They raced back the way they came and around another corner and down the hall, but then, there was another group of patients.

And then, they were back the way that they came with the wall with its slowly growing crack and the constantly growing sound of a fist against a wall.

Jack took out his blaster and pointed it at the approaching groups as they grew close and closer.

"It's keeping us here till it can get at us," The Doctor said, his sentence punctuated by a sound that had to be the child slamming his shoulder against the wall.

"It's controlling them?"

"They're a hivemind, Jack. They are them,"

"It's every living thing in this hospital,"

"Except for us,"

Jack sighed and continued waving his gun between the crowds as if preparing for the moment when he would have to fire his way to a crowd so they could make a break for it. "Okay. This can function as a sonic blaster, a sonic cannon, and as a triple-enfolded sonic disrupter. What you got?"

"I've got a sonic..," The Doctor whipped out the Sonic Screwdriver from his pant's pocket. He then looked at it, and frowned, "Er. Oh, never mind,"

"What?"

"It's sonic, okay? Let's leave it at that,"

"Disrupter? Cannon? What?"

Marion sighed. "A screwdriver. He's got a sonic screwdriver. It's no blaster, but it's normally very useful. Just not right now. Honestly, you're making too much of a deal out of this,"

As she said this, the child finally managed to break through the wall with a final thud.

Rose grabbed Jack's hands and pointed the blaster at the floor beneath their feet "GOING DOWN" and pulled the trigger. The floor disappeared from under their feet and they fell through the floor.

When falling from non-lethal heights, it's a good idea to bend your arms to protect your head from the impact. A BAD idea is to hold out your arm in an attempt to brace yourself.

Marion knew this, but she still held out her arms as she fell through the floor. Like an idiot.

Marion figured that she might've made a mistake when she's heard a snapping noise as she'd collided with the ground, and knew for sure that she'd made a mistake when she'd tried to pull herself up and instead experienced a sharp pain and the sensation of it moving in a way that it ought not to. She hissed and pulled up her sleeve with her good hand and hissed again as her fingertips lightly brushed against the inflamed skin.

The bad news was that her arm was clearly broken.

The good news was that she could feel it repairing itself.

The bad news was that she could FEEL it repairing itself.

Jack repaired, patched back the hole in the ceiling just as the patients and the child looked down into it as if to jump after them.

"Is everyone okay?" Rose asked.

"I'll be fine,"

"I heard something snap," Jack said, "Woah, what happened?"

"That was me. I landed weirdly on my arm,"

Marion held up her arm, which was still bruised and bent at the wrist. She then wished she hadn't. The sight of her arm unbreaking (because now that she was looking at it, calling what her arm was doing "healing" didn't properly convey the unsettling way that it shifted back into place with a disgusting clicking noise as the red turned into molted black and blue turned into purple turned into green turned into yellow turned into tan unblemished skin) made her wish she hadn't held her arm out in view.

"Sorry," Marion said, putting her now unbroken arm behind her back. "Hadn't uh...visibly broken an arm before. Didn't realize that it'd look that gross. I'm fine now,"

Jack looked confused for a moment and then shrugged.

Marion figured that it probably wasn't the weirdest thing he'd seen.

"Might've been nice to have a bit of a warning! Rose!" the Doctor didn't shout.

"It's fine, I knew we were gonna drop anyway, and I still managed to break my wrist. And it's healed now. So let's not worry about it. Instead, I think we should worry about the fact that this room is you know, full of gas mask-wearing patients who could sit up and chase after us at any time,"

As Marion said this, Rose flicked on the lights of the room.

"Wait, Rose!"

The moment she did that, the patients on the bed suddenly sat up and kicked their covers off.

"Mummy, Mummy,"

Jack looked around the room quickly.

"Door," he said. He quickly ran to a nearby door and aimed his blaster at it.

He banged the gun against his palm and tried again.

"Dammit!"

"Your gun's dead," Marion stated. She glanced back at the slowly approaching patients. It was a good thing that they didn't do much other than hobble slowly. An army moving at a normal pace would've already overtaken them easily.

"It's the special features," Jack explained "They really drain the battery,"

"Battery?"

The Doctor quickly soniced the door open and the four of them ran into a large storage closet. And the Doctor shut the door back behind them sonicking it shut.

The room wasn't small, but it wasn't big.

"That's so lame!" Rose shouted at Jack who ran to the large barred-up window and looked out through it.

"I was going to send for another one, but somebody's" Jack turned to glare pointedly at the Doctor, "got to blow up the factory,"

"Oh, I know. First day I met him, he blew my job up. That's practically how he communicates,"

"First day I met the Doctor, we blew up a science lab together," Marion said. She gestured for the Doctor to move out of the way and grabbed a broom from the floor and shoved the handle through the door handles.

"Ok!" Marion brushed the dust off her hands. "That should do for now. The door's mostly secure,"

"The door?" Jack shouted, "The wall didn't stop it!"

"That's why I said 'mostly' and not just 'secure',"

"Right!" the Doctor said, his voice rising significantly, "Come on, we're not done yet! Assets, assets!"

"Well, I've got a banana," Jack said snarkily, "and you've got a screwdriver that's just a little bit more sonic,"

"And I have a non-sonic screwdriver, a pen that automatically takes notes, some duct tape, a crowbar, half a spear, a robotic arm-,"

"A what?"

"And some rope,"

"A rope!" the Doctor said running to the other side of the room, "That's something, that's something, we could go through the window!"

"Barred. Sheer drop outside. Seven stories,"

"We could repel down,"

"And I don't think that my rope is that long. Even if was, the last thing that we need is one of them breaking in into the room and grabbing the rope while we're trying to escape,"

"And no other exits,"

"Well, the assets conversation went in a flash didn't it?" Jack sat down on a crate nearby crate and leaned against a box.

"Have you considered being helpful Jack?"

"So, where'd you pick this one up, then?" the Doctor asked, looking away from the window.

"Doctor..."

"She was hanging from a barrage balloon, I had an invisible spaceship. I never stood a chance,"

The Doctor stared in silence for a moment before turning back to the window. "Okay. One, we've got to get out of here. Two, we don't know how to get out of here. Have I missed anything Marion?"

"Yeah. Jack just disappeared," Marion looked at where Jack had once been and he was in fact gone. Marion somehow hadn't noticed he left. She has been expecting a noise or something, but nothing.

"He's vanished into thin air. Why is it always the great-looking ones who do that?"

"It's a gift," Marion said with a stretch, "And anyway, Jack's not gone exactly, he-,"

The wooden radio on its side on the shield interrupted her with a high-pitched whirring noise. The Doctor grabbed the radio and sat it upright.

"Rose? Doctor? Marion? Can you hear me? I'm back on my ship. Used the emergency teleport. Sorry I couldn't take you," The Doctor went to pull the radio away from the wall and looked down at the frayed and broken wires that should've been connecting the radio to the wall in confusion. "It's security-keyed to my molecular structure,"

"How're you speaking to us," The Doctor removed the radio from the shelf and looked down at it.

"Om-Com. I can call anything with a speaker grill,"

"Now there's a coincidence,"

"What is?"

"The child can Om-Com, too,"

"He can?" Rose asked.

"Yup," Marion replied, "He managed to call the TARDIS phone. It's not hooked up to anything, it's just for show. The actual phone for the TARDIS is on the console,"

"What, you mean the child can phone us?"

"And I can hear you," the sing-songy voice of the child suddenly spoke through the radio,

"Coming to find you. Coming to find you,"

"Why does that child feel the need to be so creepy about it?" Marion groaned, "Why is that necessary?"

"I'll try to block out the signal. Least I can do,"

"Coming to find you, mummy,"

The radio went staticy for a moment, and then music filtered in through the vintage-from-their-point-of-view speaker.

"Remember this one, Rose,"

Rose's eyes lit up with recognition. "Our song,"

Marion didn't remember what the song was called. Something Moonlight maybe? Music with no lyrics was hard to look up that name of. "Yeah, it had a really good flute bit about a minute or so in," not very helpful. It was a shame because a lot of it was very nice to listen to.

The music continued to drone on through the supply closet. Rose sat down in a nearby wheelchair and lazily spun it around as she listened. The Doctor went back to the window, climbed on top of some metal boxes, and started going at the bars with the sonic screwdriver.

"What you doing?"

"Trying to set a resonation pattern in the concrete to loosen the bars so it'll be easier for Marion to pull them off the window,"

He nodded his head towards Marion.

"Try now,"

"I mean…I'm not sure if that's necessary," Marion said glancing up at the wall. And mentally filing away the fact that the Doctor thought that her managing to rip a metal pipe out of concrete was in the realm of possibility. It didn't seem too far-fetched, but it was still kind of surreal to hear it.

"Jack will come back for us, won't he?" Rose asked.

"Sure. He's still setting up the transport,"

The Doctor continued going at the concrete with the screwdriver.

"It's not that I don't trust Marion, I just really don't trust him,"

"Why don't you trust him?" Rose asked, rolling closer to him.

"Why do you?"

"He saved my life. Bloke-wise, that's up there with flossing. I trust him because he's like you. Except with dating and dancing," The Doctor looked away from the window and shook his head.

"What?" Rose asked.

"You just assume I'm-"

"What?"

"You just assume that I don't dance,"

"What," Rose laughed in disbelief, "are you telling me you do dance?"

"Nine hundred years old, me. I've been around a bit. I think you can assume at some point I've danced,"

"Oh really? Marion, since when does the Doctor dance?"

"Oh, he does. Some ver- sometimes he's better at dancing than other times, but I've seen him dance once or twice,"

"Him?"

"Problem?" Rose looked back at the Doctor.

"Doesn't the universe implode or something if you dance?"

"Well, I've got the moves but I wouldn't want to boast,"

Rose suddenly got a smile on her face and stood up out of the chair. Marion caught her eye and winked. She turned up the volume on the radio and gave Rose a cheerful thumbs-up. Rose smiled back at her and walked towards the Doctor. He held out a hand.

"You've got the moves?" she tilted her head, "Show me your moves,"

"Rose, I-I'm trying to resonate concrete,"

"Oh come on Doc," Marion said, crossing her arms and a small smile on her lips. "Live a little. Dance with the lady! You might have some fun!"

"Marion said Jack'll be back. He'll get us out. So come on. The world doesn't end because the Doctor dances,"

The Doctor turned around, got down from the window, and reached out for Rose's hand. He paused, looking down at her palms.

"Barrage balloon?"

"What?"

The Doctor continued looking over Rose's hands.

"You were hanging from a-," The Doctor turned his head to look at Marion, "She was hanging from a barrage balloon!"

"She was," Marion nodded.

"About two minutes after Marion and I split up. Thousands of feet above London, middle of a German air-raid, Union Jack all over my chest,"

"I've travelled with a lot of people, but you're setting new records for jeopardy friendly,"

"What about Marion?"

"I don't count," Marion deadpanned. "Death has my number blocked. I flirted with them too many times. They think I'm a creep and don't want to come close enough to me to collect my soul. I'm functionally immortal,"

The Doctor didn't react much to what Marion had said. He was probably used to those little jokes at this point. He was also too busy looking at Rose's hands. "Hanging from a rope thousands of feet above London. Not a cut, not a bruise. You don't heal like Marion does. I've never met anyone who could,"

"Captain Jack fixed me up,"

"Oh, we're calling him Captain Jack now, are we?"

"Well, his name's Jack and he's a Captain,"

"He's not really a Captain, Rose,"

"Do you know what I think? I think you're experiencing Captain envy," Rose started swaying back and forth in a simple dance to the music, taking the Doctor with her. "You'll find your feet at the end of your legs. You may care to move them,"

"If ever he was a Captain, he's been defrocked,"

Marion felt the world around her shift slightly under her feet as she watched the two of them dance. The best Marion could describe it, was the feeling of an especially smooth elevator in motion under her feet combined with a flippy feeling in her stomach. It was barely noticeable unless you knew where you were and what you were doing.

When she blinked, she was on Jack's warmly lit ship.

"Yeah? Shame I missed that," Rose said. Neither Rose nor the Doctor had noticed they had left. They were too busy dancing.

"Actually, I quit. Nobody takes my frock," Jack flipped one of the brightly blinking buttons on his ship console and the music stopped, "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,"

"You can spend ten minutes overriding your own protocols?" the Doctor stepped closer to the console and leaned forward, "Maybe you should remember whose ship it is,"

Jack chuckled and shook his head. "Oh, I do. She was gorgeous. Like I told her, be back in five minutes," He crawled under the console to presumably to reconnect whatever wires he's disconnected.

"Give him a break Doctor," Marion said light-heartedly "Not everyone who steals a ship is lucky enough to steal a ship that's both alive and fond of them,"

"This is a Chula ship," The Doctor said in realization.

Jack looked up from where he was working. "Yeah, just like that medical transporter. Only this one is dangerous," he ducked back down.

The Doctor looked up for a moment and snapped his fingers. Millions of tiny lights fell from the ceiling. Marion was reminded of the sparklers that she and her- that she used to light in the driveway during Fourth of July when she was a kid. Only these weren't as bright or hard to look directly at.

They swarmed around the Doctor's hand.

Rose pointed at him. "They're what fixed my hands up Jack called them er-"

"Nanogenes," Marion finished. "They're called nanongenes,"

"Sub-atomic robots. There's millions of them in here, see? Singed my hand on the console when we landed. All better now,"

"Is that what you've got then Marion?" Rose asked. "You've got nanogenes under your skin. That's why your wrist isn't still broken right?"

"Erm..." Marion held up her arm and waved it. "No. I...I...don't..think so?." Marion paused, "Nanogenes see something they think is broken and fix it. For me it, I don't know, it feels more like my body's getting rewound than healed. But I don't know,"

The Doctor waved his hand and the nanogenes scattered and flew back to where they came from. "They activate when the bulk head's sealed. Check you out for damage, fix any physical flaws. Take us to the crash site. I need to see your 'space junk,'"

Jack spun around in his chair to face him. "As soon as I get the nav-com back online. Make yourself comfortable. Carry on with whatever it was you were doing,"

"We were talking about dancing!" The Doctor said defensively.

"It didn't look like talking,"

"Didn't feel like dancing,"

Instead of going back to dancing together, the Doctor sat down on a bench against the wall and Marion sat down on the edge next to him. The Doctor's eyes flickered to her form moment. He looked like he was deep in thought.

Rose leaned on a wall across from them and then pushed off and walked towards the front.

"So, you used to be a Time Agent now you're trying to con them?"

"If it makes me sound any better," Jack leaned to the side and flipped a few switches on the side of the console, "it's not for the money,"

"For what?" Rose asked.

"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,"

"They stole your memories?"

"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. Okay, we're good to go. Crash site?"

Marion couldn't NOT notice the way that Rose and the Doctor glanced at her as if she knew what Jack had been up to in those missing years.

Which was unfortunate because she didn't.

If Doctor Who had ever decided that they were going to sit down and explain what took place in those two missing years, it had been in a Big Finish audio that she hadn't listened to or book she'd never read. And it wasn't like she could pull up the TARDIS wiki and double-check. She didn't know and had no way of knowing.

There were some things that she did know but…

Marion put her head in her hands.

'Actually, it might be a good idea to make a quick list of things later. A little cheat notebook to give to Jack. Maybe slip it into his pocket sometime on Satellite Five. A few notes on when and where I am at different times? Telling Jack where he'd be able to find me. Or the Doctor. Or something? Tell him who avoid. A few notes might not be enough. Maybe a small notebook? Something that could fit in a coat pocket. How big were his coat pockets? Maybe I could side it under his -

Marion thought she felt someone tap her shoulder but was too deep in thought.

'- under his body? But what if someone stole the notebook? She'd have to do something to keep anyone from doing that. Maybe a perception filter? But how does someone go about setting such a thing up? And what about the grave in Cardiff. What was she supposed to-'

Marion felt someone poke her in the side again.

"Marion?"

"Yes!" Marion was quickly drawn out of her thoughts and blinked heavily. "Are we at the crash site?"

"We're close to it. We just landed. Are you alright?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You look like you were thinking about something and spiraling. You didn't even notice that we stopped the ship,"

"Uh…," Marion stood up off the bench and stretched her arm, and went for the exit. "Jack and Rose are already outside. We should go join them,"

The ship wasn't big so Marion was very easily able to locate the door out and she quickly joined Rose and Jack in the small area by the train tracks where Jack had landed it. The Doctor came out just behind her.

"For a second there, I thought you two weren't coming," Jack joked.

"Sorry," Marion shrugged. "I got a little lost in thought and didn't realize that we'd landed until the Doctor told me,"

"Oh? What were you thinking about?"

Jack was literally the last person that she wanted to talk her little moment with. She would rather...actually she'd rather not talk about it at all.

"We should head to the crash site now," Marion said, already walking ahead. "No time to waste after all! We'll need to walk quick if we want to make it there in time,"

Marion turned around walking backwards for a bit so that she could face them.

"It's not too far of a walk. Let's go!"

Next Chapter: Bombs (Go) Away!

Marion: Hey, not a lot going around here lately. Let's just see what's behind this door.

Marion: *opens door*

The Door: Your apparent immortality fills you with existential dread, and your mild atelophobia is making you both anxious about warning Jack about his future. Not because you don't want to help him, but you're terrified of somehow making things wor-

Marion: *closes door*

Marion: No haha, is there a better door around here maybe-

One of these days, I'm going to sit down and make like a, Celery-verse as vines/tik toks video and it's just going to be 2-5 minutes of the little end of chapter Omake bits. From what y'all have told me in the reviews, you guys would probably like that.

This obviously isn't the song mentioned, but if you want to listen to some classical music that absolutely fucks, listen to Antonio Vivaldi's "Winter". It is, and I mean this with zero-sarcasm, an absolute banger.

my tumblr is lunammoon, I have other social medias, but tumblr is really the only place where I talk about this fic and other doctor who content soo...