Chapter Twenty-Eight: School Reunion

At Deffry Vale High School, a class of twenty or so teenagers sat in the Engineering classroom, waiting for their lesson to begin.

Their teacher, a young woman with her fiery ginger hair tied back in a loose french braid, stood just outside in the corridor. A silver wing-shaped pendant hung around her neck, a present from the Doctor. It was a perception filter, designed to hide her wings—but it also hid her scars. He knew all too well what it felt like to have to hide, and at least this meant she wouldn't have to worry about the children being afraid.

She took a deep breath and went into the classroom, taking a seat on the corner of her desk. The name on her lanyard was 'McKenzie Di Angelo' because they didn't want everyone to know she and Rose were sisters, but also because the Doctor couldn't resist a joke.

"Right!" she said, flashing a smile at the kids. They all looked very bored, except for one blond boy with glasses. He was completely blank. "This half term we'll be making some circuit boards so we'll be needing some knowledge about electrical circuits. Can anyone tell me how I would measure the electrical power going through a circuit at any one point?" The boy with the glasses raised his hand, and she pointed at him. "Yeah, go on. Sorry, what's your name?"

"Milo," the boy replied.

She nodded. "Right then, off you go, Milo."

"Measure the current and PDs in an ammeter and a voltmeter," he answered.

"Good, yeah," she evaluated, narrowing her eyes slightly. "A textbook response. Er, okay, Milo, true or false: the greater the dampening of the system, the quicker it loses energy to its surroundings."

"False."

"What is non-coding DNA?"

"DNA that doesn't code for a protein."

She grabbed a calculator. "Sixty-five thousand nine hundred and eighty-three times five?"

"Three hundred and twenty-nine thousand nine hundred and fifteen." The calculator agreed a moment later.

"How do you travel faster than light?"

"By opening a quantum tunnel with a FTL factor of thirty-six point seven recurring."

Alex stared.

***

The Doctor smirked as a young blonde woman dumped a healthy serving of chips into the two polystyrene containers on his tray. She scowled at him as he walked back to his table, where Alex was already waiting, zoned out.

He slid one of the trays in front of her. "Dinner for Di Angelo."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Of all the names."

Rose stomped over with a cloth and started to wipe the table down. "Two days," she hissed.

"Sorry, could you just?" Alex pointed to a clean spot. "There's just a bit of gravy. No, no, just, just there." Rose glared at her, and she smirked.

"Two days we've been here!"

"Blame your boyfriend," the Doctor advised. "He's the one who put us onto this."

"And he was right," Alex added, blowing on a chip. "Boy in class this morning, got a knowledge way beyond planet Earth. He told me how to travel faster than light!"

The Doctor's eyes widened. "He didn't!"

"He did!" she insisted. "He did mental maths quicker than a calculator and all."

Rose raised an eyebrow, seeing the Doctor had made very little headway into his container, while Alex was polishing hers off at a remarkable rate. "You eating those chips?"

He made a face. "Yeah, they're a bit different."

"I think they're gorgeous," Alex said, she and Rose digging into his portion. "Wish we'd had school dinners like this."

"It's very well-behaved, this place," the Doctor noted. "I thought there'd be happy slapping hoodies. Happy slapping hoodies with ASBOs. Happy slapping hoodies with ASBOs and ringtones. Oh, yeah, don't tell me I don't fit in."

The head dinner lady stalked over to them, making Rose stand up hurriedly. "You are not permitted to leave your station during a sitting."

"I was just talking to these teachers," Rose excused.

"Hello!" the Doctor and Alex smiled.

"He doesn't like the chips," Rose whispered conspiratorially.

The head dinner lady turned her glare on the Time Lord, who adopted an innocent expression. "The menu has been specifically designed by the headmaster to improve concentration and performance. Now get back to work." She strode away, and Rose made a face at her retreating back.

"See? This is me. Dinner lady." She headed back to the serving hatch.

"I'll have the crumble," Alex called after her.

Rose shot her a look. "I am so going to kill you."

***

"Yesterday, I had a twelve year old girl give me the exact height of the Wall of Troy, in cubits," a Mr Parsons told the Doctor later that day in the staffroom.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "And it's ever since the new headmaster arrived?" Over the other man's shoulder, he saw Alex making her way over with two cups of tea.

Parsons nodded, not noticing his drifting attention. "Finch arrived three months ago. Next day, half the staff got flu. Finch replaced them with that lot." He gestured towards a group of teachers in the corner. "Except for those teachers you replaced. Well, old Rakesh going was no surprise, not since that wealthy uncle's death gave him the chance to move to Florida with his family. But Karen? That was just plain weird, her winning the lottery like that."

"How's that weird?" the Doctor asked as Alex joined them, handing over his mug of tea.

"Well, she never played." Parsons shrugged. "Said the ticket was posted through her door at midnight."

"Hmm." Alex took a sip of tea to hide her smile. "The world is very strange."

Before Parsons could continue, the staff room door opened and Mr Finch walked in with a smartly-dressed brunette woman. The Doctor stared at her, making Alex blink.

"Excuse me, colleagues, a moment of your time," Mr Finch announced. "May I introduce Miss Sarah Jane Smith. Miss Smith is a journalist who's writing a profile about me for the Sunday Times. I thought it might be useful for her to get a view from the trenches, so to speak. Don't spare my blushes." He gave Sarah Jane Smith a polite smile, then left the room.

She headed over to the Doctor and Alex, gravitating towards the biggest smile in the room. "Hello."

"Oh, I should think so," the Doctor mumbled.

"You're being weird," Alex told him telepathically. Out loud, she greeted Sarah Jane with a smile, shaking her hand.

"And you two are?" she asked.

"Hm?" The Doctor blinked. "Er, Smith. John Smith."

"And I'm McKenzie Di Angelo," Alex added.

Sarah Jane Smith raised an eyebrow. "John Smith... I used to have a friend who sometimes went by that name."

"Well, it's a very common name," Alex said, but in her head she was starting to realise who Sarah Jane Smith really was.

"He was a very uncommon man." Sarah Jane sighed wistfully, then gave them both polite smiles. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you," the Doctor returned, beaming. "Yes, very nice. More than nice. Brilliant." Sarah Jane nodded and walked away, heading for Mr Parsons. "Good for you. Oh, good for you, Sarah Jane Smith."

Alex turned to him, raising her eyebrows. "Okay, spill."

"She travelled with me," the Doctor explained, tearing his gaze away from her. "Way back, way, way back. I met her in... oh, the seventies? Or was it the eighties? Something like that, at any rate." He sighed. "Sarah Jane Smith."

"Smith," Alex repeated, biting her lip. "Both of you Smiths. Were you and her...?"

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Are you jealous?"

She blinked. "What? No! Shut up, of course I'm not jealous." She was blushing, though. "I just worry..."

He took her hand discreetly. "It's you. It'll always be you."

"Hmm." She met his eyes as the bell rang. "It'd better be." She flashed him a smile, and then she was gone.

***

The team broke back into the school some time after midnight to gather more information they couldn't do while everyone was still around.

"This is creepy," Rose said, shivering. "School in the dark, it's just wrong. I used to think all the teachers slept here."

"Alright team," the Doctor said, then groaned. "Oh, I hate people who say team. Er... gang? Comrades? Anyway, Rose, go to the kitchen, get a sample of that oil. Mickey, the new staff are all Maths teachers, go and check out the Maths department. Kez—"

"I'll take Reception," she said confidently. "If there's any kind of alien tech in the system, I'll find it."

The Doctor nodded. "And I'm going to look in Finch's office. Be back here in ten minutes."

***

On the first floor, Sarah Jane Smith backed into a storeroom, looking for a place to hide. She turned around, stopping dead when she saw the TARDIS.

"Hello, Sarah Jane." She whipped around to see the Doctor.

"It's you!" she realised, covering her mouth. "Oh, Doctor! Oh my God, it's you, isn't it? You've regenerated!"

He smiled sadly. "Half a dozen times since we last met."

She looked him over, smiling at what she saw. "You look incredible."

"So do you."

"I got old," she told him, snorting. "What are you doing here?"

He shrugged. "Well, UFO sighting, school gets record results? I couldn't resist. What about you?"

"The same," she laughed. Then she bit her lip. "I thought you'd died. I waited for you, and you didn't come back, and I thought you must have died."

"I lived," he confessed. "Everyone else died."

"What do you mean?"

He met her eyes. "Everyone died, Sarah."

She shook her head in disbelief. "I can't believe it's you." Then a scream rang out through the corridors, and she laughed. "Okay, now I can!"

Rose burst through the doors. "Did you hear that?" Her eyes landed on Sarah Jane. "Who's she?"

"Rose, Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane, Rose," the Doctor introduced quickly.

"Hi, nice to meet you," Sarah Jane said, looking her up and down. She glanced across at the Doctor. "You can tell you're getting older. Your assistants are getting younger."

"I'm not his assistant!" Rose exclaimed, indignant.

"No?" Sarah Jane smirked. "Get you, tiger."

***

"Sorry! Sorry! It was only me!" Mickey exclaimed as Rose, Sarah Jane and the Doctor burst in. He was surrounded by small sealed bags. "You told me to investigate, so I started looking through some of these cupboards and all of these fell on me!"

The door swung open again, and the Doctor caught Alex before she could slip on the bags. She raised her eyebrows at the sheer number of them. "Christ."

"Oh my God, they're rats," Rose realised, picking one up. "Dozens of rats. Vacuum packed rats."

"And you decided to scream." The Doctor raised his eyebrows at Mickey, his arms still around Alex's waist as Sarah Jane noticed.

"It took me by surprise!" Mickey protested. "It was dark! I was covered in rats!"

Rose rolled her eyes. "Hello, can we focus? Does anyone notice anything strange about this? Rats in school?"

"Well, obviously, they use them in Biology lessons," Sarah Jane said. "They dissect them. Or maybe you haven't reached that bit yet—how old are you?"

"No one dissects rats in school anymore," Rose snarked. "They haven't done that for years."

"And even if they were for Biology, what're they doing in Maths?" Alex reasoned.

"Oh, good point," the Doctor told her, making her smile. "Anyway, come on. I didn't get to check Finch's office, and everything started when he arrived."

"Slacker," she teased.

***

On the way to the headmaster's office, Rose was walking alongside Sarah Jane.

"I don't mean to be rude or anything, but who exactly are you?" Rose asked.

"Sarah Jane Smith. I used to travel with the Doctor."

Rose blinked. "Oh. Well, he's never mentioned you."

"Oh, I must've done," the Doctor tried. "Sarah Jane. Mention her all the time."

"Hold on," Rose said, pretending to think. "Sorry, never."

"What, not even once?" Sarah Jane demanded. "He didn't even mention me once?!"

"Ho, ho, mate," Mickey laughed, nudging the Time Lord. "Welcome to every man's worst nightmare."

The Doctor paled.

***

Later, he soniced open the lock on the door to the headmaster's office. His eyes widened when he looked inside. "Maybe those rats were food," he suggested.

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Food for what?"

"Rose, you know how you used to think the teachers all slept at school? Well, they do." He stepped aside so the others could see the huge bat-like creatures hanging from the ceiling.

Mickey's eyes widened. "No way!" He ran out into the car park, and the others followed. "I am not going back in there. No way!"

"Those were teachers?" Rose asked, her eyes wide.

The Doctor nodded. "When Finch arrived, he brought with him seven new teachers, four dinner ladies and a nurse. Thirteen. Thirteen big bat people." He turned back to the school. "Come on."

"Come on?!" Mickey stared, incredulous. "You've got to be kidding!"

"I need the TARDIS," the Doctor told him. "I've got to analyse that oil."

Sarah Jane grinned suddenly. "I might be able to help you there. I've got something to show you." She pulled him over to her car and opened the boot, revealing—

"K9!" The Doctor beamed. "Kez, Rose, Mickey, allow me to introduce K9—well, K9 Mark 3 to be precise."

Alex smiled, running her hand across the robot dog's back. "Oh, that is so cool!"

"Why does he look so disco?" Rose asked, unimpressed.

"Oi! Listen, in the year five thousand, this was cutting edge," the Doctor told her. "What happened to him?"

"Oh, one day, he just..." Sarah Jane shook her head. "Nothing."

"Well, didn't you try and get him repaired?"

Beside him, Alex rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah, she just turns up to the local garage with a robot dog from the future, that'll turn out well."

"It's not like getting parts for a Mini Metro!" Sarah Jane agreed. "I couldn't show him to anyone!"

The Doctor scratched K9's ears. "Ooh, what's the nasty lady done to you, eh?"

Rose rolled her eyes. "Look, no offense, but could you just stop petting for a minute? Never mind the tin dog, we're busy."

***

"You see," Mickey said as he, Rose and Alex waited at the counter in the cafe, "what's impressive is that it's been nearly an hour since we met her, and I still haven't said I told you so."

Alex sighed. "I'm not listening to this."

"Although I have prepared a little 'I was right' dance that I can show you later," he added.

"Two quid, love," the woman at the till said, and Alex handed over the money. After salting her chips, the three of them sat at a nearby table.

"All this time you've been giving it 'he's different', when the truth is he's just like any other bloke," Mickey continued.

Rose rolled her eyes. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Maybe not," he shrugged. "But if I were you, Alex, I'd go easy on the chips."

She closed the container, having already wolfed them down, and gave him a lovely view of her middle finger. "I trust him, so drop it." Then she got to her feet. "I'm gonna go see Mum."

The Doctor joined her just outside the cafe. "You're going to tell Jacks," he assumed.

"Gotta do it at some point," she reasoned, shrugging. "Eat the frog, right?"

He nodded sympathetically. "Do you want me to come with?"

For a moment, she looked sorely tempted, but then she shook her head. "I think it might be easier if you weren't within punching range," she admitted. "Nah, you stay with Sarah Jane. She's missed you long enough."

He smiled. "Good luck." And then she was off, disappearing in a blur.

***

Jackie Tyler was reading on the sofa when the front door opened. She stiffened, reaching for her keys to use as a weapon, then sighed in relief when she heard her daughter's voice. "Hey, Mum!" And then Alex stepped into the light, revealing her new face.

"Who the bloody hell are you and what have you done with my daughter?" Jackie demanded, her voice harder than diamonds. She was on her feet in seconds, stopping her from coming any closer with an outstretched arm.

Alex swallowed, biting her lip. "Mum... it's me. It's Alex." And that voice was unchanged, still the same voice she'd had all her life. "I know it's unexpected, but please... please, just see me."

Jackie stared. There was something about the young woman standing before her, she decided. The way she talked and the way she walked. The way she gestured towards her own face, Jackie recognised that. Somehow... somehow this was her daughter. She shook her head. "How...? What's happened to you?"

"I..." Alex hesitated, trying to find the words. She couldn't tell her mother she'd died—the Doctor would never survive it. But maybe she could tell some of the truth. "When the Doctor was dying, when I went back to save him.... I did this thing. There was this energy, and it was sort of inside me, and it changed me. Like how the Doctor changed."

"But you were fine," Jackie protested, her eyes wide. "I saw you, at Christmas, and you were fine!"

Alex nodded. "It just took a while to kick in. For my cells to... to mutate. I'm not human, Mum. Not anymore."

***

And later, when the team returned from the cafe, she and Jackie had fallen asleep on the sofa with matching smiles, even with her perception filter abandoned on the table. All was well. 

~~~