Touch The Sky: Doctor Who/Studio C [Book 3]

The Doctor's Daughter (Part 2)

A/N: It unfortunately seems that I'm going to have to change my posting time from morning to evening (sorry European readers). I'm still going to do my darndest to get them out, though.

Jenny's words hung in the air for a moment, before Matt blurted, "Phone." Donna and the Doctor turned to look at him, and he continued, "Did Mal have her phone on her?"

"I think so," Donna said, and Matt was turning away and reaching for his phone before she'd even finished.

Every ring was agony, because what if it kept ringing and she never answered because she wasn't there to answer anymore, but a moment later he let out a gigantic sigh as her muffled voice reached his ear. "Mal, you're alive." She said something else that he couldn't quite make out. "I can barely hear you."

"Sorry," she said, clear this time. "The Hath are a bit... curious about me." On her side, a dozen Hath had gathered around her, intrigued with a human who didn't seem to want them dead. One reached out, petting her hair, and she was torn between freaking out and simply giggling. "What about you three, are you all right?"

"Present and accounted for," he told her. "Listen, we're gonna come find you, it just might be a while." He hesitated. With the immediate threat of losing her gone, doubt started creeping in again. "Stay on the line, yeah?"

"Sure thing," she answered, and for a minute he forgot about everything. They were back to their own time with the Doctor, trusting each other to rip down walls with their bare hands if that's what it took to get back to each other. Before he'd died and she'd left. "So we're here, right?" she asked of the Hath. A bubbling answer was her only reply.

Matt glanced over and found the Doctor staring at a holographic map, wondering if Mallory was looking at something similar. "Does this show the entire city, including the Hath zones?" the Time Lord asked.

"Yes, why?" Cobb said.

"Well, it'll help us find Mallory."

"We've more important things to do," said Cline. "The progenation machines are powered down for the night shift, but soon as they're active, we could breed a whole platoon from you three."

"I'm not having sons and daughters by so great big flippin' machine," Donna snapped. She looked over at Jenny. "Sorry, no offense, but you're not... well, I mean, you're not real."

"You're no better than him!" Jenny exclaimed. "I have a body, I have a mind, I have independent thought, how am I not real? What makes you better than me?"

"Well said, soldier," Cobb praised. "We need more like you if ever we're to find the Source."

"Ooh, the Source, what's that then?" the Doctor asked. "What's a Source? I like a Source, what is it?"

"The Breath of Life," Cobb said reverently.

"And that would be...?"

"In the beginning the great one breathed life into the universe. And then she looked at what she'd done, and she sighed," Cline explained.

"She? I like that," Jenny said.

"Right, so it's a creation myth," the Doctor said.

"It's not a myth, it's real," Cobb insisted. "That sigh. From the beginning of time it was caught and kept as the Source. It was lost when the war started. But it's here, somewhere. Whoever holds the Source controls the destiny of this planet."

The Doctor had evidently been preoccupied with something other than the general's story, because he broke in with "Ah! I thought so!" He reached for his sonic. "There's a suppressed layer of information in this map, if I can just..." He sonicked the map and it zoomed out slightly, the entire complex nearly doubling in size as a whole new set of tunnels appeared. "See? A whole complex of tunnels, hidden from sight."