Earth Grazer || Doctor Who

52. Ella's Acceptance

~Unedited~

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After a brief regrouping in Jack's ship the group of four headed out to the crash site, "there it is! Hey, they got Algy on duty. It must be important," the guard was pacing not too far ahead of them.

"We've gotta get past him ... Jack?" Ella suggested, going by his tone and the soft smile Jack would be the perfect distraction.

"Yeah, I've gotten to know Algy quite well since I've been in town." With that settled the man walked up to the guard and began talking but the guard was acting strange. He fell to his knees as his face very quickly and horrifyingly turned into a gas mask, it made Ella want to throw up but maybe it was just her turn. The three ran up and the Doctor shouted for the other people to stay back as apparently the effect has become airborne and Rose asked the question Ella didn't want to hear the answer to.

"What's keeping us safe?" Us meaning the three of them as Ella had been a dead man walking for a while now.

"Nothing," oh, at least I won't be going out alone. The air raid sirens started up again and Jack made a comment which reminded Rose of something that was mentioned earlier when Jack was trying to defend himself. At the time it was promptly pushed to the back of Ella's head due to the situation they found themselves in.

"Wait didn't you say a bomb was going to land here?"

"Never mind all that, if the contaminants airborne now, there's only hours left," Ella couldn't exactly focus on all that when she started to hear soft singing.

"For what," Jack raised his voice slightly in exasperation.

"Till nothing, forever. For the entire human race."

"Hey, can anyone else hear singing?" Ella interrupted the Doctor, the group of three rushed over to the building on the side which seemed to serve as the bomb site HQ. They peeked in and Ella was mostly shocked to discover a young woman singing a lullaby and it appears that her quick thinking may have saved her life. There was a gas mask zombie in there with the young woman which she had managed to sing to sleep. It looked like the Doctor knew her because she looked extremely relieved to see him.

The Doctor motioned for her to keep singing while he helped her out of the cuffs that they found her in, the Doctor quickly introduced them, "oh, this must be the brunette and blonde you were looking for." Nancy mumbled rubbing her wrist as they made their way over to the spacecraft because Jack was still adamant that he had nothing to do with the empty child plague. They removed the tarp and Jack keyed in the access codes while Rose tried to explain to the newcomer Nancy what they were doing. Sparks flew while an alarm sounded and the access panel started flashing red, Jack claimed it hadn't done that last time, but the Doctor pointed out the crash must have set off the emergency protocols.

"Doctor, what is that," Rose asked.

Ella turned to the direction of the hospital where she could practically feel the child get summoned, "a beacon." Just as she said that she knew the other patients had gotten the summons as well because there was a battering on the gates surrounding the crash site. The Doctor started shouting out orders to Jack and Rose, Ella was left out, but she felt like it was warranted as this pain started in her stomach. "Stranger?" she managed to get out before she collapsed, she wasn't sure why she referred back to the nickname she used to call him but today felt very final to her.

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When Ella had gone down, the Doctor had to try very hard to keep focused on the task at hand, which was save the entirety of the human race on this night in 1941. He had several ideas he could try but he felt like the one that had the best chance at succeeding was impossible since Nancy and Jamie were orphans, he looked over at where Ella was set down. He noticed right away that the odd thing about her was that she wasn't transforming, she had just passed out, and the Doctor thinks it could have to do with the chronon energy coursing through her. The two unfamiliar energies might have a different reaction mixed together than if a regular person got infected with the empty child plague. It was a long shot, but he sincerely hoped his guess was right because he wasn't sure what would happen to him and Rose if they lost their Ella.