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wintercompanion2008-07-28 10:58 pm
vail-kagami: To Wander, Between the Stars, Part 3b/3 (Jack/Ten) [R]
Author:
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vail_kagami Beta:
nightrider101Challenge: AU
Rating: R (overall)
Spoilers: Series 3 Finale
Warnings: Violence, mentioned rape
Summary: Jack never made that con in 1941. Instead his broken vortex manipulator strands him in the twenty-first century, where he finally meets the Doctor - who's been a prisoner of Torchwood for a long time.
It wasn’t going to be just any talk. It was going to be a top secret no-one-shall-hear-this talk. Jack could tell because she led him to her laboratory, send out the assistant and locked the door.
He looked around with fake interest.
“So… this is where the bits cut out of the Doctor end up, is it?” he asked lightly.
“No,” the medic said impatiently. “My job is to keep him alive and moderately well. I have nothing to do with the experiments.”
“You seem to know a lot about them, though.”
“I have to, if I want to treat him correctly.” She pulled a plastic chair out from under a table. “You might want to sit down.” When he declined, she sat down herself without further reaction.
“What’s this about?” Jack asked suspiciously. He’d been feeling strangely numb, too emotionally exhausted to care much for her mysterious behaviour but now curiosity was taking over. “Why this secrecy? If you want into my pants you just have to say so.”
“I know you warned Mr. Jones to get away,” she told him.
Jack let his head fall back. “Ah.”
“And,” she continued, “I heard your argument with Hart.”
“That was you around the corner.” Jack realised.
“Yes. And you didn’t tell him.” For the first time the hint of a smile appeared on her face. It made her look younger and a lot gentler. “Why not?”
Jack shrugged uncomfortably.
“I didn’t want him to kill anyone else, I guess,” he admitted.
“Well, you can prevent him from killing me by keeping this conversation a secret.”
It wasn’t a hard promise to make.
-
If there had still been any doubt to Jack that there was more to this woman than he had thought, he would have learned better now.
As it turned out the Doctor had a lot of friends here on Earth. Friends who knew about his situation and were determined to get him out of here. He was quite surprised to learn that the little group that had worked out a plan to rescue the Time Lord was supported by UNIT.
“They tried to get Torchwood to hand him over years ago, but they refused. A mission to break in and free him also failed.”
“And you think you can succeed where UNIT failed?” Jack had his doubts, and a voice at the back of his head was warning him that maybe this was a trick, that John had sent her to test his loyalties. If that was true, Ianto was dead by now.
“I’m here, aren’t I? I’m the first of us who has even seen him since his capture.”
“Right. So they got themselves an ally inside the Institute. Always handy. How did they win you over?”
She shook her head.
“I was the one who found them. The Doctor’s life isn’t linear. He keeps showing up out there, a younger him… Without me no one would ever have learned what happened to him.”
Jack hadn’t expected that. He looked at the doctor in her white coat and wondered who she was.
“It took me a while to find Torchwood and even longer to get employed by them,” she explained. “My experience with alien life forms helped, though. But I worked at the wrong Torchwood. There’s a branch in
He winces inwardly at the bitterness and pain in her voice.
“And then you got transferred here, as his personal doctor,” he continued her story. “Very convenient, wasn’t it?”
“It would have been convenient had it happened twenty years sooner,” she points out.
“I suspect Dr. Roberts isn’t your actual name then?”
“Yes, it is. I’m just not really called Samantha.” She didn’t seem inclined to explain further, so Jack asked the question that was burning on his tongue:
“I suppose now you’ve finally got to him, you have some grand plan to get him out of here. Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I’m a good observer who’s also good at reading people,” she replied. “I didn’t think much of you at first, but I noticed that you felt sorry for the Doctor. You didn’t seem to dislike him and according to what Lisa Jones told me, you seemed genuinely interested in his fate. Then I heard your argument with the General and saw you help Lisa’s husband. I think out of all people here you’re the best person to ask for help.”
“You trust me?” His eyebrows rose, quite significantly.
“No,” she said honestly. “You’re Hart’s friend. But I need you and have to take the risk.”
Jack thought back to the bloody cell, to the Doctor’s silent plea. “The Doctor trusted me.”
It didn’t seem to surprise her.
“He’s like that. Always thinking people to be better than they are.”
He had to be, yes. But perhaps he was making those people better through his belief.
“Lisa is dead,” Jack told her. For a second Roberts closed her eyes.
“I know.”
“What do you need me for?”
Jack did trust this woman, he found out. She wasn’t lying to him – the Doctor mattered to her, more than he could imagine. He saw it in her eyes, heard it in her voice when she spoke of him.
“The escape is planned for this morning, half an hour before the regular staff moves in. I don’t know exactly what’s going on in that cell, but I don’t think he’ll be able to walk by himself once they are done with him.” There it was again, the pain in her voice. “I can’t carry him.”
“So I’m the muscle,” he realised.
“Yes, you are,” she confirmed, before adding: “Or the traitor, telling your friend and having me shot. Destroying the Doctor’s best chance of freedom.”
He looked her in the eyes and saw hope there, determination, but no fear. She was brave, heroic even – she was what he’d wanted to be, once. Maybe that was what happened to the people who touched the Doctor.
Maybe that was what had happened to him, because he found out that he still wanted to be like that, that he still wanted to be a hero. He’d disappointed the Doctor when he’d let Lisa die, had had no other choice then. Jack needed to prove he was better than that if given the chance.
“John isn’t my friend,” he said.
-
She didn’t tell Jack the details of the plan – he couldn’t blame her for not fully trusting him and didn’t try too hard to find out.
In the end, she sent him away with the instruction to wait in his room and come when she called for him. Jack could imagine John showing up tonight, because Jack was pissed at him and John liked it when he was aggressive and violent. He wouldn’t let him in, though. Play the sulking lover if he had to. Eventually the other man would give up.
As he left the laboratory, Jack asked one more thing he wanted to know:
“How long have you been trying to get to him?”
Roberts smiled her bitter little smile.
“Since the very beginning.”
-
As expected, Jack didn’t find any sleep but the adrenaline pushed him forward even after three days without sufficient rest. Dr. Roberts called him on his mobile at
She’d just gotten an order to get to the Doctor, she told him. Jack would get into the restricted area with her, sporting a special allowance from the head of the organization. He was quite surprised to see the psychic paper she handed him – he’d lost his when his spaceship exploded.
They found the Doctor in his usual cell but not on the bed as Jack had expected, but kneeling folded up in the middle of the room. His ankles were chained to a hook in the floor, his wrists to another one, leaving his arms stretched forward and his forehead resting on the floor.
He didn’t move when they entered. Roberts told the armed man waiting outside to close the door.
“You stay there,” she ordered Jack. “Until the security cameras stop functioning, I’m just here to take care of him and you’re just here to watch.”
“What’s going to take out the cameras?”
“The same thing that will take out everything else here.” Her answer was suitably vague.
With his face hidden by his arms, it was impossible to see if the Doctor was awake. He had to be unconscious, though, because otherwise he would have reacted to their conversation by now.
Jack became aware that Dr. Roberts had so far only been called when the man was out, and had been gone before he woke up – probably to keep him from accidentally giving her away in his confusion. He didn’t know she was even here.
Once he woke up and recognized her, Jack would have the final proof that she wasn’t lying to him.
If he even recognized her, a persistent part of his mind whispered. After all, forty years had passed since he’d last seen her.
The medic set down the large case with her medical supplies and knelt beside the Time Lord. She opened his shackles and carefully rolled him onto his side. Jack was surprised, shocked even, to see him awake after all. Tears were shimmering in his eyes as he looked up at the old woman now cradling his head in her lap.
“Martha,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
-
They had almost an hour before they could leave (or attempt to). Enough time for the Doctor and his friend to do some talking. Jack did his best not to feel left out.
“So, it’s Martha Roberts then,” he said after he had helped her get the Time Lord onto the narrow bunk.
“Yes,” She nodded, and when she noted the Doctor’s questioning look, she added, “I was married.”
She didn’t offer any further information and the Doctor didn’t ask.
He’d been dressed in clean clothes. At Martha’s request Jack turned away while she quickly checked him over and treated to his injuries. It was blatantly obvious already that she had been right: he wouldn’t be able to walk on his own.
Staring at the wall, Jack heard her tell the Doctor her story with little more detail than the version she’d told him.
“You knew they were going to get you,” she finally said, after a long pause. “I knew the moment I found your psychic paper and the other thing in my pocket.”
“Yes. I’m sorry.” The Doctor’s voice was even quieter than before. The conversation was enough to exhaust him and Jack began to worry he wouldn’t be able to move at all when the time came. “They could track me, and without the TARDIS, there was no escape. No point in keeping that stuff, they would have taken it from me right away.”
“That’s why you sent me the other way.” There was accusation in her voice.
“They wanted me, so I knew if they got me first they’d probably ignore your existence – no offence. But if they had caught you along with me, they wouldn’t have let you go.”
Dr. Roberts was done with her work and Jack was allowed to turn around again. The Doctor’s clothes were neatly in place – the only change Jack could make out were the bandages around his hands and the fact that the bruised cuts on his face had been cleaned.
“I had hoped you’d find the TARDIS before Torchwood could collect it. There would have been an emergency program…”
“But I didn’t,” Martha cut off her friend. “And I wouldn’t have wanted to leave. They had you, and I wasn’t going to leave you behind.”
“And you didn’t,” the Doctor whispered, lifting one thin hand to cup her face. “I’m so sorry. You wasted your life looking for me. All those years trying to get here…”
“…weren’t wasted,” Martha finished his sentence. “I didn’t live in the time I belonged in. I didn’t have the life I was supposed to have, but I did have a life. You’re acting like I was robbed of thirty-eight years, but I’ve lived every single one. I’ve seen things I wouldn’t know about if I’d never met you. And all this time I’ve had a goal. Now I have reached it. How can you say my life was wasted?”
“If that goal you’re talking about is getting the Doctor out of here, I wouldn’t say you reached it before we see the sky.” Jack decided it was time for them to remember his presence. “And I don’t mean lying on our backs while our blood is soaking the earth. Don’t you think it’s time to fill us in on your plan?”
“Right.” Dr. Roberts sat on the bunk, her back against the wall. Somehow she seemed younger now she had dropped her act, even though Jack could tell from her story that she was older than she looked. Definitely hot for her age, but now was not the time for thoughts like that.
“During my stay here I have placed a number of transmitters around the complex. The security systems won’t detect them.” She glanced at her watch. “In about five minutes friends outside will send a signal that kills every system. Once the signal comes through, it’ll all have to happen very fast. First of all we’ll have to deactivate the chip. That will hurt.”
“I can take it.” The Doctor sounded confident for someone who couldn’t stand on his own.
“What chip?” Jack asked.
Martha explained it to him: “There’s a chip implanted in his neck that responds to the signal of a transmitter nearby. Once the signal doesn’t reach it anymore, like when he manages to escape from the building, the chip knocks him out cold.”
“Stopped me from getting away twice.” The Doctor gave them a slightly embarrassed smile.
“We need to time it perfectly,” Martha told Jack. “The chip needs to be taken out before the signal it responds to is cut off by our attack, but so shortly before that even if it is spotted on the CCTV, they don’t have time to react anymore.”
“If the systems are killed all the doors will lock,” Jack pointed out. “And what about the armed guards out there? I can’t imagine they’ll just let us walk out.”
He looked at his companions: An old woman and a weak and injured alien. His optimism wavered.
“We’ve actually considered that, thank you,” Martha replied, slightly irritated, before she made Jack help the Doctor to kneel so she could access his neck. Half a minute to go.
“Is that a sonic screwdriver?” Jack’s eyes widened when he saw the tool the medic pulled from her case.
“The Doctor’s.” She nodded. “He gave it to me just before he was taken. It’s surprising just how much you can get through the security controls by claiming it’s a medical tool. Brace yourself.” The last words were spoken to the Doctor.
About ten seconds before the lights went out, Martha pressed the tool against the Doctor’s neck and activated it. He didn’t scream, but his body jerked violently before it fell forward and for a moment he stopped breathing.
Jack caught him before his head hit the floor.
A strong flashlight provided illumination in the darkness that followed.
“This is the first place they’ll send their soldiers in the case of a total power failure,” Jack said even as he gently stroked the shaking Doctor’s hair. He resisted the urge to whisper – the darkness didn’t make the room any less soundproof.
“Don’t worry.” The way Martha said those words they sounded like an order. She took another thing out of her case, small and circular.
“Is that a Doolan Mind Buster?” the Doctor gasped breathlessly. “Martha Jones, you are brilliant!”
“I know,” she replied with a smile. “A present of Torchwood Three. Well, not really. Now, nobody moves.” She pressed the button and a red wave of energy spread through the building unhindered by walls. Knocking down everyone further than two metres away from the source, letting them sleep for an hour without causing any lasting damage.
They still had to worry. Ten minutes at best before the reinforcements showed up, Jack estimated. He helped the Doctor to his feet and supported him while Martha used the sonic screwdriver to open the door. Outside the guard was lying soundly asleep.
The Doctor stopped Jack from taking his gun.
They hurried through the corridors, the Time Lord leaning heavily on Jack. It would have been easier to simply carry him but Jack didn’t want to rob him of the pleasure of walking out of his prison on his own.
More unconscious bodies in the corridors. Jack kept expecting them to jump up and shoot them, even the ones who weren’t armed.
This early in the morning the main area was nearly deserted. As they reached the lift, the ex-time agent hesitated.
“I don’t suppose there’s time for me to go up and kill my dear old friend, is there?” he asked grimly. He didn’t understand how attraction had turned to hatred so quickly, but right now John Hart was a part of his life he wanted to sever all contact with. Quite ultimately. (Maybe if John was gone he could forget he had ever been a man who’d seen the Doctor only as a ticket home.)
“We won’t kill anyone!” the Doctor hissed, and Jack realised that murder was not the way to go here.
“With even Harold Saxon taking an interest in the Doctor, losing him is probably going to have consequences for General Hart anyway,” Martha tried to console him.
“Saxon?” The Doctor looked at her, his voice alarmed. “You saw him?”
“Yes, we met in the corridor. Why do you ask?”
The Time Lord didn’t answer, but he looked deeply troubled in a way Jack didn’t like.
Jack suspected this was not the best time to inform Martha about the politician’s true nature.
Naturally the lift didn’t work. They had to take the stairs, and now Jack did carry the Doctor in his arms – he was already on the verge of collapse. Just before they reached the large doors leading outside he set him back on his feet and just kept him from falling as they walked out into the early morning sunlight.
-
Outside the building they found a number of people gathering on those spots where passing men and women had fallen to the ground unconscious. The early hour had reduced the number of victims of Martha’s mind buster device, and apparently no moving car had been inside its range at the time. The Doctor still had a worried frown on his pale face.
If anyone had seen the wave of energy emerging from the building they’d just walked out of, they didn’t think anything of it. The only thing that raised the interest of one or two passers-by was Jack lifting the Doctor off the ground to carry him like a child. They needed to get away quickly now.
“There’ll be a car to pick us up a few metres down the road,” Martha informed them. Jack hurried after her, the Doctor a paperweight in his arms, until the Time lord suddenly said, “Stop.”
They stopped.
“Doctor, what’s wrong?” Martha asked. “We don’t have time. They might be after us already!”
The Doctor was staring unblinkingly down the narrow road they were just about to cross, his head tilted as if listening for something.
“Turn left,” he said.
“Why? What’s there?” Jack wanted to know.
“Do it!” The alien spoke with such urgency that Jack found himself obeying without protest. “There! Around the corner, between the buildings.”
Jack saw nothing but followed the Doctor’s instructions until they entered an alley blocked by a large blue thing that looked a bit like a phone box.
“The TARDIS!” Martha exclaimed. “How did she get here? I thought they took her!”
“They did,” the Doctor confirmed. “And last year she was taken from them.”
“By who?” As if the Doctor had any chance of knowing, thought Jack, not sure what use this large wooden piece of junk would be to them.
“By Saxon,” the Doctor said grimly.
Martha stared at him. “Harold Saxon? Future Prime Minister Harold Saxon?”
“Yeah. He’s an alien. Not a nice one.”
“And he just parked it here for us to find?” Martha sounded sceptical.
“Yes. He knew we were going to escape.”
“How could he?” Jack asked.
“Because he saw Martha,” the Doctor explained darkly. “If he’s been here for months he’s seen her and me running around in this time. He knew she was my friend.”
“Maybe he didn’t recognize me,” Martha offered. “I’m not exactly as young as I used to be.”
“He recognized you,” the Doctor claimed.
“If he’s your enemy, why did he let us get away?” Jack wondered aloud. “You think it’s a trap?”
“No.” The Doctor shook his head. “We’re safe with her. I’d know if we weren’t.”
“Then what is he planning?”
“I don’t know.” The Time Lord’s head fell against Jack’s shoulder. He was breathing harder now. “But I have to stop him.”
“Right,” Jack said sourly. “I think you should leave the stopping of villains to someone else for a while.”
“No! It has to be me!” The harshness of the Doctor’s voice was a surprise. “I’m the only one who can.”
“I think we’ll discuss that once we’re somewhere less exposed,” Martha decided.
Jack asked, “What is this thing anyway?”
“It’s the Doctor’s ship.”
“That?” Jack frowned. “I bet it’s all nice and cosy but I doubt it’s the right vehicle for someone in his condition. There wouldn’t even be enough room to lie down if there weren’t three of us.” He worried, briefly, about getting left behind.
Martha ignored him. “How did you know she was here?” she asked her friend.
A tired smile graced the Doctor’s face that made Jack fall a little bit in love.
“She called for me,” he whispered. Then his face fell. “They took my key.”
Martha grinned and pulled an utterly normal looking key on a chain out of her pocket.
“You didn’t think I’d ever let go of it, did you?”
She unlocked the door and the Doctor let out a chocked little sob as Jack carried him over the threshold, at any moment expecting to bump into a wall.
-
As it turned out the ship was bigger on the inside. The Doctor flicked a few switches on the console in the middle of the first room, causing the column in its centre to move. They were in the vortex now, the Doctor told them. Going nowhere.
The Time Lord seemed reluctant to leave Earth and the evil called Harold Saxon behind but even he had to accept that in his current state, he wouldn’t be able to fight anyone. By the time they reached a bed to put him in, he was barely conscious.
Once Jack had laid him down on the soft surface he just rolled to his side, curled up and passed out. Jack thought Martha would use the opportunity for a more thorough check-over but she shook her head when he mentioned it.
“There’ll be time for that later. He’d not in immediate danger. I think it’s best to just let him rest for a while.” She opened her medical case anyway and pulled out a neatly folded, long brown coat to drape it over her sleeping friend.
“There,” she murmured. “That’s better.”
-
Given the strangeness of this place and everything he’d seen and done in the past few days, Jack was surprised how quickly sleep came to him. He’d lain down in a plain little chamber that contained only the bed and a dusty closet and woke up in a room that looked a lot like that hotel room on Vegas Prime in Fornax, where he’d once spent a rather fantastic weekend.
Martha had fallen asleep on the couch in a living room he hadn’t seen the first time he came this way. As he looked closer, Jack saw traces of tears on her cheeks. He did his best not to disturb her.
In the maze of corridors the room they had left the Doctor in was surprisingly easy to find. Jack stopped in the open doorway, just watching him for a while.
The Time Lord hadn’t moved at all – Jack needed a moment to figure out what had changed in the picture presented to him:
It was as if the man had sunken into the mattress. It was engulfing him, as if trying to absorb him. Jack frowned a little, but he didn’t get the impression that anything was wrong. The Doctor looked safe there, cradled in the warmth of this place.
He also appeared to be sleeping peacefully. From the scientists working for Torchwood, Jack had learned that he often had horrible nightmares – it didn’t exactly surprise him.
He imagined waking up from a terrible dream to find himself in a reality that offered no relief.
The ex-time agent sighed softly as he wandered over to the Doctor. His steps were slow and so he registered only after a little while that he didn’t seem to get any closer.
He looked back: the doorway was still around him. Feeling slightly freaked out, Jack took a few large steps forward and found that he hadn’t moved at all.
“I think it’s the ship.”
Martha was standing behind him suddenly, taking hold of his arm. “The dimensions are a little twisted here. I already tried to get to him. It won’t work.”
“What do you mean, ‘it’s the ship’?”
“It’s alive. And right now she’s keeping us from getting to the Doctor. We can see him so we know he’s all right, but this is as close as we get. Don’t worry, if anything’s wrong she’ll let us reach him.”
“Why would the ship keep us away?” Jack tried to wrap his mind around the idea of a living time-space-ship that read his mind and manipulated its own internal dimensions.
Martha shrugged.
“I guess she just wants him for herself for a while.”
Jack glanced at her. “You’re used to this kind of stuff, aren’t you?”
She shrugged again. “Life with the Doctor is a bit weird. But you get used to the TARDIS quite quickly.” Finally taking her eyes off the sleeping Time Lord, she gave him a little smile. “Thank you. For helping us get out.”
“I’m the one who has to thank you.” The words left Jack’s mouth before he had a chance to think about what he was saying. It was true, though. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt this all right with himself. Pulling a con had left him feeling self-satisfied, clever and superior to his victims, but there’d always been this little, ignored voice asking him if this really was the person he wanted to be.
“I’m from the fifty-first century,” he explained to Martha. “I used to be a time agent, and have lived a pretty exciting life myself. But this is the first time I really feel I’ve done something good.” It was hard finding the right words to express himself. “As a child I’ve had so many dreams, but when I grew up I gave them up one by one. I wanted to be a hero and ended up always helping only myself. I entered the time agency because I wanted to save the universe, but I soon learned that they don’t need heroes but self-serving, cold-hearted bastards, and so I just followed the easiest path and betrayed myself in the process. The two of you have given me the chance to discover that I’m not really like that.”
Martha’s smile turned wistful.
“You just needed someone to believe in,” she guessed. “The Doctor is good for that.”
She was right. It was very easy to believe in the Doctor. Especially since the Time Lord had been the first person to believe in him.
“This exciting life of yours,” Martha changed the topic. “Tell me about it.”
-
They ended up in the living room with Jack entertaining his new friend with stories about monkeys lost in time, underwear lost in space, and lovers lost in confusion. Martha suddenly became serious when he mentioned the trouble with running into himself, and how to avoid it.
“I left this time with the Doctor only a few days ago,” she told him. “For more than twenty years I had to move very carefully, always trying to recall where I was at the time. There were two of me, and one had no idea what was to come.”
“Did you ever consider warning yourself not to go with the Doctor when you met him?” Jack wanted to know.
Martha frowned. “I’m not stupid: I know you can’t change your own history like that. And I meant what I said to the Doctor – I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Besides, if it wasn’t for me, no one might ever have learned what had happened to him and he’d be a prisoner of Torchwood for another thousand years.”
Jack had to admire her ability to see the good side of things. Then, however, her eyes grew sad.
“I missed my family so much. The last time I called my mother was on election day – that’s in less than a week,” she said quietly. “After that mum will never again hear from me, the normal me. The younger me. If I ever see her again I’ll have to explain why I’m older than her now. It’ll break her heart. I’ve already considered to never seeing her again.”
“That’s stupid,” Jack told her, matter-of-factly. She looked at him in surprise.
“Do you really think your mother would be happier if you just disappeared and she never found out what happened to you?” he continued. “Okay, it will be a shock to see you at this age, but at least she’ll know you’ve had a life, somewhere. And she can learn all about it. Usually parents can only speculate how the rest of their children’s life will go once they’re dead. How many mothers get the chance to know what becomes of their daughters?”
His words made Martha smile again. “You’re right. It was a stupid idea to begin with. But before we face my mother the Doctor will have to get stronger. She doesn’t like him, and this is not going to help.”
Jack looked over at the door leading to the corridor and the Doctor’s room.
“Do you think he will be all right?” he asked quietly.
Martha leaned back, her eyes suddenly fixed on a point far in the distance. But her voice was firm.
“Yes,” she said. “One day.”
-
The Doctor slept through another day. Jack and Martha did some exploring of the ship she hadn’t seen in almost forty years, got lost five times and finally got the message when every path they took led back to their bedrooms.
This time Jack slept just as well, but he dreamt of his family’s house on
This time it was not the living room he found first but the kitchen. Jack helped himself with a large portion of pancakes, roasted bacon, eggs and a lot of coffee. When he was done he left the kitchen and found himself in the control room five steps later.
The Doctor was sitting on the worn couch in front of the six-sided console. He’d exchanged the light grey clothes he’d worn at Torchwood for a dark blue suit that didn’t go along with the black turtleneck he was wearing beneath. The brown coat was thrown over the back of the couch.
When he noticed Jack’s presence, the Time Lord grinned at him. He looked well rested, if not particularly healthy.
“Jack!” he greeted him happily. “Do you still want to go home? I need to know the exact year.”
His words took the former conman by surprise. In fact, they shocked him so much he needed a few seconds before he could think of an answer.
“Home is overrated,” he said.
The Doctor looked puzzled. “Really? I love being home!” He stroked the console fondly and Jack thought he was very strange and fell in love a little more.
“I don’t really have anywhere I belong,” Jack admitted. “My wish to leave was more of an ‘anywhere but here’ kind.”
“And I always thought that century was a particularly lovely one.” The Doctor looked at Martha, who, as Jack now saw, was standing on the other side of the console. “Don’t you think?”
“It’s lovely,” Martha agreed. “Although I’d like to see another one for a change.”
“The fifty-first it is, then?”
“If we could postpone that for a bit?” Jack tried rather hard not to sound pleading. “It’s not that much fun, compared to some others.”
“Are you sure?” The Doctor was suddenly very serious. “It’s your only chance – the next trip goes straight back to 2007. I’ve got work to do.”
“Ah, that Saxon business,” Jack recalled. “I can help you.”
The Doctor smiled, but it looked a little sad.
“That’s a generous offer, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. The Master is very dangerous. You wouldn’t be safe.”
“All the more reason to stay with you,” Martha replied. “After I waited so long to see you again I won’t let you out of my sight so soon.”
“And I don’t have anything better to do.” Jack had to admit his reason didn’t sound as good as Martha’s, but it was still better than kneeling in front of the Time Lord and begging him to let him stay.
There was something about the Doctor and Jack couldn’t tell exactly what it was, only that he didn’t want to lose it.
Ever.
For a moment the Time Lord was very, very still. Then, suddenly, he beamed.
“All right!” he said, flicking a switch on the console and the next second Jack was lying on the floor while the ship shook and twisted around him. Something exploded in a rain of sparks.
“Oh, no, no, that isn’t good!” he heard the Doctor cry. “This isn’t supposed to happen!”
-
When the shaking stopped the Doctor was clinging to the back of the couch, looking unhappy but adorable. At least he hadn’t fallen to the ground – Jack would have hated for him to get hurt any worse, and he looked so fragile in the suit that was too large.
Like Jack, Martha hadn’t been so lucky. She was sitting on the floor, her greying hair in disarray. Jack offered a hand to help her up and she took it gladly.
“What happened?”
“Something’s interfered with the coordinates. As if there were two orders at conflict in the TARDIS’ programming.” The Doctor’s face was dark. “It must have been the Master. He wanted us to get here.”
“But what for?” Martha asked. “Where are we? Still on Earth?”
“Uh, no,” the Doctor confessed, looking at his screen. “We’re actually quite far away from Earth. Very, very far away. Ah… make that a hundred trillion years away from Earth.” He turned the screen around so the two humans could see a bunch of alien symbols that didn’t make any sense to them. “We’re at the end of the universe,” he added helpfully.
“End of the universe?” asked Jack. “You mean, the stars burning out, galaxies collapsing, and there’s nothing there to take their place? The end of everything?” He whistled between his teeth. “I’ve never been this far in the future.”
“No, me neither,” the Doctor said thoughtfully. “It’s not a place a Time Lord would usually visit.”
“What did that Master guy send us here for?” Martha asked, sounding slightly nervous.
The Doctor stared at nothing for a second, his face hard. Then he said, “Only one way to find out!” He grabbed his coat and jogged over to the door leading outside with a lightness that seemed to mock his weakened state. When he looked back to his companions, he sported a grin Jack was beginning to learn not to trust.
“Aren’t you coming?” the Time Lord called. “End of the universe. Alonz-y!”
- end
July 27, 2008
Part 3a <-
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I'm kinda new to LJ and I dont know all the shortenings.
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Av is short for avatar, which is the picture you're using. For me, it's Frank N Furter, for you, it's the Torchwood School of Snogging!
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But I was wondering, now when Jack is mortal (and we know that his immortality had big part in Utopia), what will actually happen. Because lots of thing won't be discussed - immortality, regeneration, Daleks etc. So what will make Master to notice the fobwatch? :)
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“That’s a generous offer, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. The Master is very dangerous. You wouldn’t be safe.”
“All the more reason to stay with you,” Martha replied. “After I waited so long to see you again I won’t let you out of my sight so soon.”
“And I don’t have anything better to do.” Jack had to admit his reason didn’t sound as good as Martha’s, but it was still better than kneeling in front of the Time Lord and begging him to let him stay.
There was something about the Doctor and Jack couldn’t tell exactly what it was, only that he didn’t want to lose it.
Ever.
I loved those lines. I also love how Martha, despite everything she's been through, refused to leave the Doctor. :) She's definitely a hero.
As always, thank you for sharing. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
On a side note, I hope you're having a great time with your family!
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Thanks for the lovely comment!
I really do enjoy writing Martha. Portaying Jack's developement into a hero wasn't quite as easy but I'm happy to read you believed it!
By the way, I'm typing this on my new laptop!
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I've been off LJ for several days entertaining the family.
By the way, I'm typing this on my new laptop!
Congratulations!!!!! :D That's wonderful news!
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I'm just now working on your birthday fic!
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YAY for birthday fic! I can't wait!
Hopefully I'll find the energy to post the fourth chapter of my fic tonight. *facepalm*
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Yay for next chapter! We need a writing night so you can finish the last part.
The idea I've had for your birthday fic happend to go along with the new wintercompanion challenge. Would you mind if I use it for that? (It would also mean you get no beta-job this month.)
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Would you mind if I use it for that? (It would also mean you get no beta-job this month.)
That's fine by me! I don't mind betaing either if you'd like me to. :) You know I'm always available to read your stories!
What does your week look like for a chat night?
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Any other day is fine with me.
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I'll hop on the teaser thread when I get home from work tomorrow.
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Thank you for writing this!
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Thanks for the comment!
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I loved this story. Loved it, I tell you! Even though I wish you'd let Jack go back and sucker punch John or something, I still loved it. Thank you for posting it up!
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I'm glad you like it.
Unfortunately there was no way to let Jack get some petty revenge on John. My beta was screaming for murder but it wouldn't fit in - at least not without making the story a lot longer than it already was.
And there is the vague, unlikely possbility of exploring this AU universe further. In which case John might come in handy later.
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This is brilliant. What a ride!
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You made me BELIEVE in 10/Jack :)
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But, you never know.
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“Jack!” he greeted him happily. “Do you still want to go home? I need to know the exact year.”
Somehow I like this line. He definitely believed Jack.
And I'm glad you wrote Martha brilliantly. And the Master!
I'd like to see the Master defeating John...
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I squeed at the mental image this line gave me. My brain pictured bride!Doctor and I lol'd. Anyway, this story was absolutely amazing and I could not stop reading it.
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Just read the whole fic (on Teaspoon, and tracked back here to comment), and I love it. All the AU details work together so well, and highlight every character's typical traits: Jack's heroism looking desperately for a catalyst, Martha's courage and tenacity, and the Doctor's unbreakable belief in people. And the stories ties back very closely to canon. This is amazing.
And now I wonder how Utopia/Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords would have played out from that starting point...
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And now I wonder how Utopia/Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords would have played out from that starting point...
Actually, I thought about that too. Once I nearly wrote it, but at the moment I simply don't have the time for anything longer than a few pages.