Jenny smiled. "Make your decision, Mr Smith."

"Perhaps if that human heart breaks, the Time Lord will emerge," Baines suggested.

Kezia cried out as her pendant grew red hot against her chest, and suddenly, finally, she understood. The pendant released McKenzie back into her body, and she quickly kicked Mr Clark in the groin, before spinning and chopping at his neck, punching him in the stomach, and landing an uppercut to his chin. Martha used the distraction to get the gun off Jenny, and use her as a shield as she aimed the gun at Baines, who had switched his aim to McKenzie. "One more move, and I shoot," Martha threatened.

"Oh, the maid is full of fire," Baines jibed.

"And you can shut up!" She fired at the ceiling.

Mr Clark looked a little nervous as he recovered from McKenzie's assault. "Careful, Son of Mine," he wheezed. "This is all for you so that you can live forever."

"Shoot you down," Baines narrowed his eyes.

"Try it. We'll die together," Martha raised an eyebrow.

Baines hesitated. "Would you really pull the trigger? Looks too scared."

"Ooh, I don't know," McKenzie grinned, going back to her normal London accent. John stared at her. "Scared and holding a gun? It's a good combination. Question is, do you wanna risk it?"

The Family all lowered their guns, and the girls smiled in satisfaction. "Doctor, get everyone out," Martha ordered. "There's a door at the side. It's over there. Go on. Do it, Mr Smith. I mean you."

Joan walked over to him from the refreshment bar and took charge. "Do what she said. Everybody out, now. Don't argue, Mr Jackson. They're mad. That's all we need to know. Susan, Miss Cooper, outside, all of you."

"And you," McKenzie said, looking at John oddly. "Go on. Just shift."

"What about you?" he asked, looking at her with such a familiar face that she wanted to cry. It wasn't him, she reminded herself. Not really.

"Martha, give me the gun and get him out," McKenzie commanded, turning away from John and pulling her hair loose. Martha obliged, squeezing her shoulder before escorting John out. "Don't try anything. You can see it, can't you? You know I'll kill him."

Baines smirked. "She's almost brave, this one."

"I should have taken her form. Much more fun. So much spirit," Jenny snickered, trying to unnerve her.

McKenzie didn't show anything in her face, she just adopted the schooled expression she'd seen Natasha, Clint, and Steve use in New York. "What happened to Jenny? Is she gone?"

"She is consumed. Her body's mine."

"She's dead," the redhead stated, swallowing.

"Yes," Jenny's possessor smiled. "And she went with precious little dignity. All that screaming."

The girl with the gun scoffed. shaking her head. "She was dying. It wasn't an overreaction." She sped out of the room, dismantling the gun as she went, rendering it unusable. She found Martha, John, and Joan waiting a few metres away. "Don't just stand there, move!" She took a look at John and shook her head again. "God, you're rubbish as a human. Come on!"

When they reached the school, John closed the main doors behind them, grabbed a bell and started ringing it. "What the hell are you doing?" Martha demanded.

"Maybe one man can't fight them, but this school teaches us to stand together!" John replied. "Take arms! Take arms!"

"Don't you dare!" McKenzie shouted, realising what he was doing.

"You want me to fight, don't you?" John looked at her helplessly, before looking away quickly. She was too different. "Take arms! Take arms!"

McKenzie growled, fiddling with the back of her dress. "If I could just—!"

Martha frowned at her. "There's normal clothes in my room. I'm pretty sure there's a shirt you can have your wings free with."

"Thanks, Mar." She glared at John. "I'll be back in five." She sped off.

"I say, sir, what's the matter?" Hutchinson asked, yawning.

"Enemy at the door, Hutchinson. Enemy at the door. Take arms!" John replied.

"You can't do this, Doctor!" Martha protested. "Mr Smith!"

"Redfern, maintain position over the stable yard. Faster now," John ordered, ignoring her. "That's it."

"They're just boys," Martha reasoned. "You can't ask them to fight. They don't stand a chance."

"They're cadets, Miss Jones," John snapped. "They are trained to defend the King and all his citizens and properties."

"What in thunder's name is this?!" the Headmaster demanded as he entered in his dressing gown. "Before I devise an excellent and endless series of punishments for each and every one of you, could someone please explain very simply and immediately what is going on?"

"Headmaster, I have to report the school is under attack," John stated strongly.

Rocastle narrowed his eyes. "Really? Is that so? Perhaps you and I should have a word in private."

"No, I promise you, sir. I was in the village with..." John hesitated. "With Matron. It's Baines, sir. Jeremy Baines and Mr Clarke from Oakham Farm. They've gone mad, sir. They've got guns. They've already murdered people in the village. I saw it happen."

"Matron, is that so?"

Joan nodded. "I'm afraid it's true, sir."

"Murder on our own soil?" Rocastle checked.

"I saw it, yes," Joan confirmed.

"Perhaps you did well, then, Mr Smith," Rocastle conceded. "What makes you think the danger's coming here?"

"Well, sir, they said," John stuttered, seeing McKenzie appear on the stairs behind the Headmaster, her wings free and visible as she was no longer wearing her perception filter pendant. She was wearing black jeans and a tank top, and a burn mark was clear on her collarbone. Her toolbelt was back fastened around her waist.

"Baines threatened Mr Smith, sir," Joan supplied. "Said he'd follow him. We don't know why."

"Very well. You boys, remain on guard. Mr Snell, telephone for the police. Mr Philips, with me. We shall investigate," Rocastle decided.

"No!" McKenzie contradicted. "You go out there, you will die."

Rocastle bristled. "Mr Smith, it seems your favourite servant is giving me advice. You will control her, sir." He and Philips left, making the redhead curse.

"We've got to find that watch," Martha decided, and she and McKenzie ran off to John's study, Joan following them.

***

John winced as the headmaster ran back into the school. "Mr Philips has been murdered, Mr Smith. Can you tell me why?"

"Honestly, sir, I have no idea," John spluttered. "And the telephone line's been disconnected. We are on our own."

Rocastle sighed. "If we have to make a fight of it, then make a fight we shall. Hutchinson, we'll build a barricade within the courtyards. Fortify the entrances, build our defences. Gentlemen, in the name of the King, we shall stand against them."

"Yes, sir!" Hutchinson turned to the other boys. "Right, come on. Let's get moving."

***

"I know it sounds mad, but when the Doctor became human, he took the alien part of himself and she stored it inside the watch. It's not really a watch, it just looks like a watch," Martha explained as she and McKenzie searched, Joan just standing and watching.

"And alien means not from abroad, I take it," Joan stated.

McKenzie nodded. "The man you call John Smith, he was born on another world."

"A different species?"

"Yeah."

Joan frowned. "Then tell me. In this fairy tale, who are you?"

"I'm his girlfriend," McKenzie replied easily. "Not human, obviously."

"And I'm a friend. Human, don't worry," Martha supplied. "And more than that, I don't just follow them around. I'm training to be a doctor. Not an alien doctor, a proper doctor. A doctor of medicine."

"Well, that certainly is nonsense," Joan scoffed. "Women might train to be doctors, but hardly a skivvy, and hardly one of your colour."

McKenzie narrowed her eyes, glaring at the nurse, while holding up her hand for Martha. "Oh, do you think?" the trainee doctor asked. "Bones of the hand. Carpal bones, proximal row. Scaphoid, lunate, triquetal, pisiform. Distal row. Trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, hamate. The the metacarpal bones extending in three distinct phalanges. Proximal, middle, distal."

"You read that in a book," Joan accused uncertainly.

"Yes, to pass my exams," Martha stressed. "Can't you see this is true?"

"I must go," the nurse avoided the question.

"If we find that watch, then we can stop them," McKenzie told her.

"Those boys are going to fight," Joan countered. "I might not be a doctor, but I'm still their nurse. They need me."

***

"Joan, it's not safe," John protested when he saw the woman walking up in her nurse's uniform.

"I'm doing my duty, just as much as you," she stated firmly, before hesitating. "Tell me about your home."

"Sorry?"

"Where you were brought up," Joan clarified. "Tell me about it."

"Nottingham," John answered. "Well, it lies on the River Leen, it's southern boundary following the course of the River Trent which flows from Stoke to the Humber."

Joan raised an eyebrow. "That sounds like an encyclopaedia. Where did you live?"

"Broadmoor Street. Adjacent to Hotley Terrace in the district of Radford Parade."

"But more than facts," Joan stressed. "When you were a child, where did you play? All those secret little places, the dens and hideaways that only a child knows. Tell me, John. Please tell me."

"How can you think that I'm not real?" John demanded. "This Doctor sounds like some, some romantic lost prince. Would you rather that? Am I not enough?"

"No, that's not true. Never," Joan backtracked.

John sighed. "I've got to go."

"That Martha and McKenzie were right about one thing, though," Joan called, stopping him. "Those boys, they're children. John Smith wouldn't want them to fight, never mind the Doctor. The John Smith I was getting to know, he knows it's wrong, doesn't he?"

The headmaster called him over, and John frowned. "What choice do I have?"

"Stand to!" Rocastle ordered as there came a hammering at the main gate. "At post!"

"Enemy approaching, sir," Hutchinson warned.

"Steady. Find the biting point." Suddenly, the door opened, and a flock of scarecrows entered. "Fire!" Once all the scarecrows had fallen, Rocastle held up a hand. "Cease fire!" He walked over to the bodies and poked at them. "They're straw. Like he said, straw."

Hutchinson frowned, disappointed. "Then no one's dead, sir? We killed no one?"

They heard footsteps on the gravel. "Stand to!" Suddenly, the little girl who had been with the Family, Lucy Cartwright, walked in, carrying her red balloon. "You, child. Come out of the way. Come into the school. You don't know who's out there. It's the Cartwright girl, isn't it? Come here. Come to me."

Martha and McKenzie sped out to join them. "Mr Rocastle! Please, don't go near her!" Martha cried.

"You were told to be quiet," Rocastle snapped.

McKenzie rolled her eyes. "Oh, for—! Just listen to us, okay?! She's part of it! Matron, tell him."

"I think that..." Joan hesitated. "I don't know. I think you should stay back, Headmaster."

The ginger looked to John, wincing at the familiarity his face held. "Mr Smith, please."

"She was, she was with, with Baines in the village," John stammered.

"Mr Smith, I've seen many strange sights this night, but there is no cause on God's Earth that would allow me to see this child in the field of battle, sir," Rocastle decided. He held out a hand to Lucy Cartwright. "Come with me."

"You're funny," the little girl smiled.

"That's right. Now take my hand."

"So funny." She pulled out a ray gun and vaporised him. "Now, who's going to shoot me? Any of you, really?"

"Put down your guns," John ordered.

"But sir, the Headmaster!" Hutchinson protested.

"I'll not see this happen. Not anymore. You will retreat in an orderly fashion back through the school. Hutchinson, lead the way."

"But sir—!"

"Lead the damn way!" McKenzie shouted at him, remembering the way he'd bullied Martha in the last two months. He obeyed, scared.

"Come on!" Martha called, ushering the boys away.

"Let's go," John encouraged, frankly scared of McKenzie himself. "Quick as you can."

"Don't go to the village! It's not safe!"

"And you, ladies," John said.

"Not till we've got the boys out," Joan stated determinedly.

"Now, I insist," John said, trying to take charge. "The three of you, just go. if there are any more boys inside, I'll find them." He opened the door, saw scarecrows, slammed it shut again, and locked it, avoiding McKenzie's raised eyebrow stare. "I think, retreat."

***

The quartet ended up hiding in bushes watching as the Family of Blood surrounded the TARDIS, shouting. "Doctor! Doctor! Come back, Doctor! Come home! Come and claim your prize!"

McKenzie cursed, her eyes wide. "It's okay, old girl," she whispered, biting her lip and hoping the TARDIS could hear her.

"Out you come, Doctor. There's a good boy. Come to the Family."

"Time to end it now."

"You recognise her, don't you?" Martha asked, seeing John staring at the TARDIS.

"Come out, Doctor. Come to us!"

"I've never seen it in my life," John denied.

"Do you remember her name?" Martha wondered, wincing as he called her an it.

"I'm sorry, John, but you wrote about her," McKenzie told him. "The blue box. You dreamt of the blue box."

"I'm not—! I'm John Smith. That's all I want to be," John cried. "John Smith, with his life, and his job, and his love. Why can't I be John Smith? Isn't he a good man?"

"Yes. Yes, he is," Joan assured him.

"Why can't I stay?"

"John, look at me," McKenzie begged, letting her true emotion show on her face for once. "I love him, and I need him. I can't save these people without the Doctor. I can't—I just can't, okay?! And it's been two long months since I've seen that man, and I need to know he's all right. If he could, he'd come back right now, just because people are dying. That's who he is. He sacrifices everything to save people, and I think there's some of that in you, too. Just, please, John. Please. Don't fight this."

"Come on, this way," Joan said, starting off awkwardly. "I think I know somewhere we can hide."

"Surely we've got to keep going," John argued.

"Just listen to me for once, John. Now, follow me." They started running,

***

The four of them came up to a cottage. "Oh, here we are. It should be empty." Joan paused. "Oh, it's a long time since I've run that far."

"Who lives here?" Martha asked, rubbing McKenzie's back as the redhead wiped tears from her cheeks.

"If I'm right, no one." Joan opened the door, reveallng the cottage in darkness. "Hello? No one home. We should be safe here."

"Whose house is it, though?" Martha questioned as they took a seat around the table, McKenzie opting to stand.

"Er, the Cartwrights," Joan replied. "That little girl at the school, she's Lucy Cartwright, or she's taken Lucy Cartwright's form. if she came home this afternoon, and if the parents tried to stop their little girl, then they were vanished." She touched the teapot. "Stone cold. How easily I accept these ideas."

"I must go to them, before anyone else dies," John decided.

McKenzie pushed him back down by his shoulder. "You're gonna sit your ass back down and shut up."

"Girls, there must be something we can do," Joan tried.

"Not without the watch," Martha shook her head.

"You're this Doctor's companion," John protested. "Can't you help? What exactly do you do for him? Why does he need you?"

Martha shrugged. "Because he's lonely."

John raised his eyebrows. "And that's what you want to become?"

There was a knock at the door, and Joan jumped. "What if it's them?"

McKenzie rolled her eyes. "Scarecrows don't knock." She went over and opened the door, admitting Timothy Latimer.

"I brought you this," he said, holding out the pocket watch.

Martha turned to John. "Hold it."

"I won't," he refused.

"Please, just hold it," McKenzie persuaded.

"It told me to find you," Latimer stated. "It wants to be held."

"You've had this watch all this time? Why didn't you return it?" Joan questioned.

"Because it was waiting. And because I was so scared of the Doctor," Latimer admitted.

McKenzie smiled sadly. "Tell them why."

Latimer nodded. "Because I've seen him. He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun."

"Stop it," John muttered.

"He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time, and he can see the turn of the universe."

"Stop it! I said stop it!"

"And he's wonderful," Latimer breathed.

"I found this in your study," Joan stated, pulling out John's Journal of Impossible Things.

"Those are just stories," John dismissed.

"Now, we know that's not true," Joan chastised. "Perhaps there's something in here."

There was a loud crash, and the cottage shook. "What the hell?" Martha gasped.

Joan looked out of the window. "They're destroying the village."

"The watch," John requested, holding his hand out. Latimer handed it over.

"John?" McKenzie asked, her fingers crossed behind her back.

"Can you hear it?" Latimer wondered.

"I think he's asleep," John whispered. "Waiting to awaken."

"Why did he speak to me?" Latimer questioned.

Suddenly, John answered the way the Doctor would have, with his accent and brilliance. "Oh, low level telepathic field. You were born with it. Just an extra synaptic engram causing—" He stopped Martha's eyes widened, returning to his own voice. McKenzie squealed. "Is that how he talks?"

"That's him," Martha smiled. "All you have to do is open it, and he's back."

John looked at her accusingly. "You knew this all along, and yet you watched while Kezia and I—"

Martha shook her head. "I didn't know how to stop you. The pair of them gave me a list of things to watch out for, but that wasn't included."

"Falling in love? That didn't even occur to him?"

"No."

John frowned. "Then what sort of man is that?"

"What sort of man considers falling in love with someone he's already in love with?" McKenzie countered. "Kas never considered it because... well, it had already happened, years ago." She noticed John stiffen. "You remember that name, don't you? It's the proximity to the watch. Some of his memories are slipping back."

"Yet now you expect me to die?" John asked.

Martha sighed. "It was always going to end, though! The Doctor said the Family's got a limited lifespan, and that's why they need to consume a Time Lord. Otherwise, three months and they die. Like mayflies, he said."

John raised his eyebrows. "So your job was to execute me."

McKenzie growled. "People are dying out there. They need him, and I need him. You have no idea of what he's like. I've only known him for a few years, but he is everything. He is just everything to me, and I will not let you take that away. God, I love him to bits, and I—" she cut off, taking a deep breath.

"It's getting closer," Latimer mused as something exploded nearby.

"I should have thought of it before," John smiled. "I can give them this. Just the watch. Then they can leave, and I can stay as I am."

"You can't do that!" McKenzie exclaimed, her eyes wide and, for once, absolutely petrified.

John shrugged. "If they want the Doctor, they can have him."

"He'll never let you do it," Martha stated confidently.

"If they get what they want, then, then..." John trailed off, seeing the pain he was causing the redhead. The voice in the watch was yelling at him, cursing him for doing this to her.

"Then it all ends in destruction," Joan finished for him. "I just read to the end. Those creatures would live forever to breed and conquer, for war across the stars for every child."

McKenzie took a deep breath. "Mar, Tim, Joan, would you leave us, please?" They left, and she hugged John, who started sobbing. "If I could do this without him, I would. We need him. Not just me, but every single person in this universe. You have no idea of how many people would be dead if he didn't exist. He is so important to the entire universe."

"He won't love you," John tried.

"We both know that's a lie," the redhead whispered. "He's... everything."

"I'm not real. I really thought..." he trailed off.

McKenzie handed him the watch. "Damn thing says nothing to me."

John smiled through his tears. "He wants to wait. Until he's back. Until—until he can kiss you again."

The redhead smiled fondly, put her hands over John's. "What are you going to do?"

***

"We'll blast them into dust, then fuse the dust into glass, then shatter them all over again," Baines was saying inside the Family's spaceship as the door opened to admit John, holding the pocket watch.

"Just—" An explosion rocked the ship, and he fell against a column of switches. "Just stop the bombardment. That's all I'm asking. I'll do anything you want, just, just stop."

"Say please," Baines narrowed his eyes.

"Please," John begged, stumbling against a few buttons.

Jenny activated a control, before sniffing. "Wait a minute. Still human."

"Now, I can't, I can't pretend to understand, not for a second, but I want you to know I'm innocent in all this. He made me John Smith. It's not like I had any control over it," John stuttered, running his hands over more switches.

Jenny raised an eyebrow. "He didn't just make himself human. He made himself an idiot."

"Same thing, isn't it?" Baines laughed.

"I don't care about this doctor or your Family. I just want you to go. So I've made my choice. You can have him." John held out the watch. "Just take it, please! Take him away."

"At last," Baines smiled. He took the watch with one hand, and John's lapels with the other. "Don't think that saved your life." He pushed John away, causing him to activate more controls. "Family of Mine, now we shall have the lives of a Time Lord." He opened the watch, and they all sniffed deeply. "It's empty!"

John froze. "Where's it gone?"

"You tell me," Baines threw the watch to him like bowling a cricket ball.

The Doctor caught it without flinching or looking. "Oh, I think the explanation might be you've been fooled by a simple olfactory misdirection. Little bit like ventriloquism of the nose. It's an elementary trick in certain parts of the galaxy. But, it has got to be said, I don't like the looks of that hydroconometer. It seems to be indicating you've got energy feedback all the way through the retrostabilisers feeding back into the primary heat converters. Oh, because if there's one thing you shouldn't have done, you shouldn't have let me press all those buttons. But, in fairness, I will give you one word of advice." He grinned. "Run."

He ran out of the ship as alarms started to sound, leaving the blast radius where McKenzie was waiting for him, and he kissed her like he'd never kissed her before. "I've missed you," McKenzie whispered.

The Doctor smiled. "God, I love you so much, Kez."

***

He never raised his voice. That was the worst thing. The fury of the Time Lord. And then we discovered why. Why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons, why he'd run away from us and hidden. He was being kind.

He wrapped my father in unbreakable chains, forged in the heart of a dwarf star.

He tricked my mother into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy to be imprisoned there forever.

He still visits my little sister once a year, every year. I wonder if one day he might forgive her, but there she is. Can you see? He trapped her inside a mirror, every mirror. If ever you look at your reflection and see something move behind you, just for a second, that's her. That's always her.

As for me, I was suspended in time. And the Doctor put me to work standing over the fields of England, as their protector.

We wanted to live forever, so the Doctor made sure we did.

***

Martha waiting outside the TARDIS in the pouring rain when the Doctor and McKenzie walked up to join her. "Right then," the Doctor smiled. "Molto bene."

"You two all right?" Martha checked.

"Yeah, course we are," the Doctor nodded.

McKenzie nudged him. "Er, I meant to say, back there, last night. I would have said anything to get you to change."

"Oh yeah, of course you would. Yeah." The Doctor was smirking.

"I mean, you know didn't mean to say all that," McKenzie continued.

"Oh, no, no, no."

She caught the Doctor's smirk, and groaned. "You're never gonna forget that, are you?"

"Nope."

"Oh, God..." She turned her head into his shoulder, blushing.

"So, there we are then," Martha grinned.

"Yes, here we are. And we never said," the Doctor smiled. "Thanks for looking after us." The three hugged.

"Doctor. McKenzie. Martha," Latimer greeted.

"Tim Timothy Timber," McKenzie quipped.

"I just wanted to say goodbye. And thank you. Because I've seen the future and I now know what must be done. It's coming, isn't it? The biggest war ever," Latimer clarified.

Martha winced. "You don't have to fight.

"I think we do," Latimer told her.

"You could die," McKenzie sighed.

Latimer smiled a little. "Well, so could you, Avenging, and travelling around with him, but it's not going to stop you doing either."

The Doctor's lips twitched. "Tim, I'd be honoured if you'd take this." He handed over the pocket watch.

"I can't hear anything," Latimer frowned.

"No, it's just a watch now. But keep it with you, for good luck," the Doctor smiled.

"Look after yourself," Martha said, kissing Latimer's cheek. McKenzie hugged him, and the girls went into the TARDIS.

"You'll like this bit," the Doctor winked, before joining them. Before Timothy Latimer's very eyes, the blue box simply faded away.

~~~

That was an interesting one. Yeah, I'm starting author's notes, so they're probably gonna be super awkward but shh.

Next chapter for this is "Blink", where a special someone is going to turn up. I'll be surprised if anyone guesses who.

Check out my profile for my newest DW fic, Runaway, where we meet a new Time Lady called the Hunter and a new companion, Hazel.