Part 12 - The Oncoming Storm

It was perhaps two weeks later, during one evening, that the sky became thickly overcast, and the clouds, rolling over one another in great, slothful waves, began to rumble with thunder. There was a flash of lightning before the rain came pouring down and the atmosphere darkened. The air tasted electric.

Hope stared out of the lounge window and pressed her nose against the glass as the rain thundered against it in harsh waves, creating quite a clamour. The temperature then suddenly dropped, making her breaths mist on the glass, before, with another flash of lightning and crack of thunder, all the lights in the flat - and across London - went out. There was a power cut.

Hope turned around, hearing her grandma blaspheme as Eastenders blinked off on the TV. This was followed by a teasing cheer from Uncle Jack, and a laugh from her mum.

“Thank God for storms like these,” Jack chortled. “It’s saved me from another half hour of torment.”

Jackie gave him an evil glare. “Shut up, you - it was just getting good.”

“Yeah, it was,” Rose agreed with a nod. To Platform One, she may have been, but she still enjoyed her melodramatic soaps.

Jack shook his head. “Can’t get into it, ladies.” He then turned to Hope and said, “What d’ya say, Hope? You with Uncle Jack on this?”

Hope gave him a smile and a nod. “Yeah. ‘s boring,” she replied.

Jack laughed. “Two on two. Oh, we need another vote to tip the scales…”

There was then another great flash of lightning, and the ensuing rumble of thunder was so loud that it made Jackie shriek. “My God, it’s gonna be a bad’n, isn’t it?” she murmured a second later.

“Too right,” Jack agreed, getting up from his armchair and standing behind Hope at the window. He then watched as a fork of lightning arced down over the horizon. “Gees…” he added, “Not good at all.”

And it was then that Hope was overcome with the tingling, cold sensation that all too often frequented her. It felt like there were icicles rushing through her veins, and she knew at once that the danger the Doctor had foretold was coming was now here…

Rather than saying anything about it, though, Hope just raised a finger toward the misty window, as if she were compelled to do it by some unearthly force, and began to draw a picture in the condensation.

“Now Hope, that’ll make marks!” Jackie nagged from behind, but Jack turned to her and said, “Give the kid a break, mom. It’ll take you two minutes to polish these windows again.”

Jackie pulled a face, telling him that that wasn’t the point, but Jack ignored her, and placed his hands on Hope’s shoulders as she continued to doodle. “Wha’cha drawing, sport?” he asked.

Hope drew a rounded head and an eye stalk, then two ear-like appendages, followed by a dustbin shaped body. It was now that the word she’d sought after for years emerged from her mouth, as if it had always been there, just waiting for the right moment to be uncovered. “A Dalek,” she replied.

Jack’s smile vanished as he watched the simplistic Dalek take shape on the window, and he felt a little unnerved. Somehow the image seemed so very sinister since it was coming to life from the tip of a child’s finger. “Why you drawing that, honey?” he asked whilst Rose paced anxiously to his side and watched the Dalek materialise in turn.

“I see them a lot,” she said. “Daddy and the Daleks.”

Jack’s brow furrowed and he looked at Rose, who shook her head in uneasy disbelief. No one had ever mentioned the word Dalek since before Hope’s birth - how could the child even know of them, never mind draw one?

“They always fight,” Hope continued before her finger stopped, the outline of her Dalek now complete. She then began to add the final touches to her picture, starting with the spheres on its flanks. “They fight near here,” she added, “right near home.”

The image of Hope’s Dalek sent a terrible chill down Rose’s spine, bringing every single horrid memory of the real things floating back to the surface - the time in Utah when she had been cornered by one in the vault; the time when she had been surrounded by them in the fleet; the memories of their merciless screeching and barking; the way they seemed to treat you like you were nothing…

She swallowed, shaking her head, and felt suddenly unable to bear seeing that ghostly apparition on the steamy window any longer. She therefore stepped forwards and quickly wiped her hand across the glass, erasing the monster.

Hope watched her creation disappear without a word, but, as soon as Rose had wiped the image away, there was another flare of lightning outside, one which illuminated the skies and brought something wholly unexpected into view. Jack and Rose stared up in horror as they saw, in the heavens, as if they’d come straight from the year 200,100, the great Dalek fleet!

“Oh my God,” Rose gasped.

Jack swallowed, and Jackie soon crept up behind them to take a look in turn at the terrifying scene, and for once she was lost for words. She had to stagger back into her seat again just to collect herself!

In contrast, Hope just stared impassively at the saucer-like ships as they rotated steadily in the skies, making no remark of surprise or fear. It was as if she had been seeing them for every day of her life.

Then, out of the blue, just to heighten the tension, there came a sudden knock at the door!

Everyone jumped at once, and spun around, staring down the dark hallway toward the front door, but no one made a move. It wasn’t until the knock came again, more persistently, that Hope freed herself from Jack’s hands and began to make for the door.

“Hope, no,” Rose whispered urgently, taking her daughter back into her grasp and holding onto her tightly. She then looked to Captain Jack who, rolling back his shoulders and taking a deep breath, decided that it was his responsibility to go and see who it was.

The thunder continued to rumble as he paced anxiously down the hall, and every hair on the back of his neck was standing on end. His only comfort was to know that Daleks couldn’t knock on doors. (Or would more likely just run through them.)

As he reached the door, the knock came another time, but much more insistently, so Jack, with one deep breath, reached out quickly and wrenched the door open! He then found himself staring with wide eyes at--

“Hello.”

--the Doctor!

Jack shrieked with laughter and gathered the man into a lung-crushing hug. “Oh my GOD!” he cried, holding him so tight that the poor man almost went blue. “It’s you! It’s really you, you bastard! Rose, come quick, it’s the Doctor!!”

The Doctor disentangled himself from Jack and looked at the man with a little concern. “What you trying to do, asphyxiate me?” he asked, rubbing his arms before, without a chance to recover, Rose was suddenly there, launching herself upon him.

The Doctor suppressed an ‘oomph’ as he stumbled back a little from the door and tried to maintain his balance as he felt several kilos-worth of Tyler hanging from him.

“Doctor!” Rose said, clutching him round the neck and beaming with delight, “God, it’s really you.”

“Yes, it is really me,” he said, prying her off, “But at the rate you guys are going, there won’t be much left of me soon.”

He then set Rose down before him and gave her a smile, seeing now properly the joy in her face, a face glowing with happy tears. “Hey, no crying now,” he said, cupping her cheek in his hand and stroking her skin, “Can’t be doing with that.”

He then dropped his hand and was suddenly back on duty, pulling his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and pointing it in the direction of Rose’s sitting room. “Hmm…” he pondered as it went crazy, “I think you might have someone here that I’ve been looking for.”

Rose finally calmed down and turned to look toward the lounge, where Jackie and Hope were stood in the doorway. The little girl stared up at the stranger from the park, a man she had been told was her father, and wondered now what to do. For the time being, she just hung around the doorframe, near her grandma, and bit down on her fingernails.

The Doctor stared at the girl and remembered her immediately. “Hello again,” he said with a smile, before his face regressed to a more sombre expression. He stepped inside the flat, shaking some of the rain from his jacket, and asked, glancing for a second back to Rose. “Is she a relative of yours?”

The lightning flashed again, followed by the roaring thunder, and Rose slipped her hand into the Doctor’s, just as she always used to, and said, “Come and sit down.”

“I don’t have time, Rose,” he replied, giving her a significant stare. “There’s a Dalek fleet in the skies, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I know,” she said, “But this is important.”

“And talking of importance, Doc’,” Jack added sarcastically, shutting the front door behind him, “thanks for taking some time out of your busy schedule to come and see us so soon. I mean, just a phone call would have done, just to let us know you were back, y’know?”

The Doctor sighed and looked again at Rose, giving her a rueful look. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I‘ve got a lot on my plate.”

“You’ve got more on that plate than you think, mister,” Jackie snapped, folding her arms and taking on that mother-in-law-ish aura she commanded so effortlessly. “Come and sit down. Now.”

The Doctor blinked in utter disbelief and shook his head - there might be an alien invasion at hand, but domesticity and Jackie Tyler went on. He therefore let Rose lead him into the darkened sitting room, where he took a seat and watched everyone convene uneasily around him, each regarding him like a bomb about to go off. It didn’t relax him in the slightest.

“I’ll explain about the escape and all later,” he assured Jack and Rose in turn, trying to dispel the taut atmosphere, “Y’ know, about the Daleks and whatnot.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Rose said. It just felt like too long ago to bother dredging all that back up again now.

He nodded and looked again at the little girl, staring deeply into her eyes. “So, how long we been apart?”

“Six years this end…” Rose replied.

The Doctor’s brow rose. “That long, eh?”

“Don’ I look any different?”

He looked at her hard, studying her visage carefully. “Nah,” he said at last. “you still look like Rose Tyler to me.”

“And Hope,” Rose said, inclining her head in the little girl’s direction. “What does she look like to you?”

The Doctor’s brow furrowed in befuddlement, but his expression altered from mild to serious confusion in a matter of seconds. He held his screwdriver out toward the child once again and it bleeped more and more vigorously the closer it got.

He quickly pulled it back and flicked it off, swallowing hard. It was her, there was no question about it - she was the other person with the two hearts. And yet this all meant that there was a far more important issue to be addressed right now. The girl had told him that she didn’t have a daddy when they’d met in the park, hadn’t she…?

“Rose?” he murmured, staring again into Hope’s blue eyes before he looked back at her for answers.

Rose smiled at him and nodded.

But the Doctor couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He just sat there, looking totally lost, as if he didn’t want to suggest anything lest he make a fool of himself.

It was thus left to Rose to bridge the gap, as usual. “Hope,” she said, gesturing for her daughter to approach, “aren’t you going to say hello?”

Hope walked to her mother and was lifted into her lap. “Hello,” she said to the Doctor.

As if stopping the Dalek fleet hadn’t been enough… The Doctor felt a little sick. He realised that there was only one thing he could see in this child’s eyes, and that was himself. But surely that was impossible…?

“Rose?” he murmured again.

Rose chuckled gently at his vulnerability and said, just to put him out of his misery, “She’s yours.”

Jack had to try not to laugh - the Doctor’s face was a picture.

“Mine?” the man gasped.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Yes, yours, you irresponsible rake, you,” Jackie now blustered whilst the Doctor gave her one of his most helpless stares. “Typical man, getting my poor daughter up the duff then turning your back. I should have known…”

“Mum!” Rose protested, “Leave him alone. I told you wot happened…”

Jackie opened her mouth to respond but was silenced by another flash of lightning and loud bang of thunder. And before anyone realised what was going on, the Doctor had shot to his feet and left the room.