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wintercompanion2009-01-01 12:03 pm
sassy_lion: Saved By Memories [3/3] (Ten/Jack) [R]
Author: sassy_lion
Challenge: Originally started for September's Amnesia challenge, fianally posted for the Amnesty challenge.
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Jack Harkness
Rating: PG-13 (This part)
Word count: 2466
Spoilers: Journey's End
Summary: The Doctor gets caught by a mastermind, can he rely on an amnesiac man to help him get away?
Author's Notes: Thanks to my beta
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cytherea999. All other mistakes are completely my own. Also, I've been really really busy these last couple of months, haven't been paying attention or writing much....
Part 2
The Doctor figured Jack had the situation under control and announced he was going to search the complex. He exited the hall on the opposite side that he'd been brought in on and found a large room. It was decorated extravagantly with a large bed, a several large windows. The curtains covering the windows were made of a simple black fabric the Doctor couldn't identify, but the fabric was patterned with concurrent circles that seemed to move both clockwise and counter-clockwise on their own.
The bed was large, big enough to fit six people, the twisting trunk-like posts were smooth to the touch and branched out, crisscrossing across the canopy. The sheets on the bed were Perlexian satin. It shimmered brightly in the dim light of the room. There were nearly a dozen pillows on the bed, most of them made of more Perlexian satin and the same fabric the curtains were made of.
Next to the bed was a set of doors. The Doctor assumed it was a cupboard of some kind, probably for clothing and other various items the individuals of this room would need on a daily basis. He moved toward it and pulled gently on the handles. The doors never budged. The Doctor wished he'd had his sonic screwdriver, but it was in his brown overcoat, wherever that had been placed after his initial capture.
His quick search of the room produced several possibly useful items including a Dixall transmat adapter, a handful of high valued galactic currency, a metal cylinder approximately six inches in diameter and heavier than anything he'd picked up in a while, a pair of small hand guards made of what looked to be a flexible type of plastic the Doctor couldn't identify, two sonic blasters (he wondered if Jack missed the one he'd left in the TARDIS) and three pair of brown Perlexian satin ribbons (he wasn't sure why they seemed useful, they just did). An additional search of the adjacent en-suite came up empty.
He left the items on the bed for the moment and stepped back into the main hall. The Lord was still sitting where the Doctor had left him earlier, on the floor, staring blankly ahead. He felt anger welling up in him once again and roughly searched the large pockets in the Rollatifallan's robes. It turned up a few more coins, a large gold ring with a wolf emblazoned on it and a large metal key on a long piece of twine.
Jack seemed okay from this distance as the Doctor quickly glanced over before stepping back into the room he'd exited a minute earlier. The key in his hand worked and the doors of the cupboard swung open. It was as the Doctor had thought, and then some. It was full of anything and everything the Doctor could imagine. There, in the corner to his right, next to his feet was a bunched up brown overcoat.
He shook it out, checking for damage. It was still intact. He slipped into it, quickly checking the pockets. He found everything to be where he had left it. His hand gripped his sonic screwdriver a minute longer than necessary before he existed the room once again.
Jack was destroying the last of the orbs when the Doctor reached him again. The Time Agent turned toward the Doctor, he was still shaking a little and he'd begun to sweat. Nothing new for a man who'd just overturned several cabinets that were roughly the same weight as him.
“You have a way off this damn rock?” Jack's voice drawled.
The Doctor nodded. “My ship's quite far away, but if we can find transport, we'll reach it in no time.”
They exited the room then. Jack tilted his head, indicating heading south was the right direction. The Doctor's questioning glance made Jack shrug. “Going that way,” he pointed down the hallway heading north, “leads back to the cells. Not much I want to see down there ever again.”
The Doctor nodded and began to follow Jack. They didn't get very far before a handful of guards appeared. All of them were male, two of them holding heavy batons. One of the batons sparked to indicate it was electric.
“You got any good tricks up your sleeves?” Jack put himself into a fighting stance as one of the guards rushed him. He flipped him over his shoulder, bouncing the Rollatifallan's head on the floor, knocking him unconscious. A second guard rushed Jack and managed to knock him to the ground. He came down, like he was going to knock Jack out with the baton, but he didn't get that far as Jack cut him across the throat with his foot. The guard looked shocked as his throat expanded and he tried to bring oxygen into his lungs. “Huh, what do you know.” The Doctor spoke from behind Jack. “Buccal pumping respiratory system. Like with amphibians and reptiles on Earth. Never knew that, though it does explain why everyone I've ever met on this planet talked in such a guttural voice.”
The electric baton holding guard, rushed the Doctor who reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. He brandished it at the guard, who'd stopped and looked at it confusingly.
“You think that will hurt me?” The guard's voice was deep, a bit guttural, as expected.
“No.” The Doctor smiled and pressed the button, causing the screwdriver to hum briefly. “But it will disable to electricity in your baton. Mind you, I don't react quite the same way a human would, but I'm still not fond of being electrocuted.” The guard didn't seem that worried as he swung the baton at the Doctor's head. The Doctor reacted by pocketing the screwdriver and knocked him out with a few Venusian aikido moves. The other guard took this as a sign and miraculously disappeared when the Doctor reached over to help Jack up off the floor.
“You got anything else in those pockets of yours?” Jack asked.
“Oh, plenty of things. He began to pull things out of his pocket. The cannister was first and Jack took it briefly, opened it up and looked inside before downing half of it.
“Perpetual water thermos.” Jack closed the cover and handed it back to the Doctor. “Comes in handy.”
“Of course, water thermos,” he mumbled distractedly and placed it back into his pocket. The hand guards were next.
“Those won't be useful here, unless you're interested. I've done electric play before, though it isn't one of my favorites, I wouldn't exactly say 'no' either.” Jack waggled his eyebrows suggestively, but the Doctor shook his head and shoved them back into his pocket.
The satin ribbons were pulled out at the same time as his yo-yo.
“A guy could think you liked it a bit rough by the contents of your pockets.” Jack took a pair of the ribbons, pulled them apart in the designated area and pulled two of the unconscious guards together. He motioned for the Doctor to help. They placed the two of them back to back, Jack swiftly tying their hands together tightly around the wrists, leaving a one inch gap between their hands. The third guard, who'd passed out from lack of oxygen, seemed to be breathing normally now. He was tied to the first two with a second set of ribbons, one hand tied to each set of the other guards' hands.
“There's no way they're going to be getting up anytime soon. Not tied like that. Got stuck like that once. Ended up being tied for three days, despite the fact my partner had training from Harry Houdini himself on escape techniques.” He patted the Doctor's shoulder and handed him back the third set of ribbons. “Let's get out of here before any more guards show up.”
The Doctor nodded in agreement and followed Jack.
It took them nearly half an hour to find a dingy small jeep-looking transport in the transport area. Correction – it took them half an hour to walk to the transport area. They climbed in and the Doctor pressed the screwdriver against the identification panel, starting the car immediately.
They took off in a northwesterly direction, cutting through a large green-gray field over two hours later to find the TARDIS sitting under to the yellow-barked Marpalosa tree he'd parked it next to so many weeks earlier.
As he and Jack climbed out of the vehicle, the Doctor couldn't help but notice that Jack was shaking harder than he had been back at the palace. He took two steps before his feet crumpled, leaving him puddled on the white-green grass.
“Jack!” The Doctor rushed to him, kneeling in the grass. He was near seizing now, his eyes closed and his hands pressed heavily against the grass in a feeble attempt to keep himself from shaking. The tremors slowed a moment later.
Jack clicked his tongue. “I do have a real name, you know.”
The Doctor nodded. “I know. I got used to calling you Jack though.” The Doctor hauled Jack to his feet; half carrying, half dragging him into the TARDIS.
Jack's eyes widened as they stepped in. “Bigger on the inside.”
“Yep,” the Doctor agreed succinctly as he led the way down the corridor towards the medical bay.
“I also do realize what's going on with me, at least a bit.” Jack crawled up on the table (which the TARDIS lowered closer to the floor to accommodate him). “It's the memories. They're racing through my head, seven hundred thousand miles an hour. Without the active ingredients in the Barshka jam, they’re reacting to my nervous system once again, shutting it down to block out the signals.” The words came out slow and pained. It was taking all of Jack's effort to make complete sentences.
The Doctor's mind unwillingly remembered Donna at that moment. Watching her sob in pain at the effects his memories had on her. Jack chuckled at the Doctor's gobsmacked look. “Time Agent. I know a little about everything, part of the job.”
“'Course you do.” A moment passed and the Doctor looked at Jack, a pained and sad look in his eyes. “I can block the excess memories, but you'll lose about the last two years of your life.”
Jack shook his head. “Why?” It was nearly impossible for Jack to say anything now. He pressed the heels of his hands against the sides of his head. He got the impression that Jack wasn't sure what he'd wanted to ask, but the Doctor interpreted it perfectly. He'd known Jack for a long time now and in some ways knew Jack better than anyone could.
“You've a long life ahead of you.” The Doctor placed his hands on the sides of Jack's face. “You're quite the important person, you know.”
“W-Wait,” Jack forced the words out. “I-I-I ne-need you t-to kn-now.”
“Know?”
“My re-real n-name,” Jack struggled, thought better of it and held his hands against the Doctor's. “It's – It's – It's –“
The Doctor heard the whisper in his mind as he began to rearrange Jack's memories, before it was irreparable. It shook him to the core once he realized what the name Jack told him meant in Neo-Common of the 51st century. The Bridge between the Storm and the Wolf. He pressed some of the memories, mostly the ones of himself and some of the emotive ones from the orbs, behind some of Jack's already buried childhood memories and a large chunk of them behind the memories of Jack's capture on Rollatifalla. He knew those would be erased by the Time Agency, allowing those stored memories to be erased along with them. It pained him to know all those people, some scattered across time, would never remember some of their happiest, saddest, best or worst memories. He knew that if it was possible, he would have taken more. Remembering for those who couldn't remember for themselves. People like Donna. Jamie. Zoe. Rose.
Jack collapsed against the Doctor and he was instantly reminded of Donna collapsing against him when he'd taken her memories away from her. The comparison was painful.
He set Jack on the floor and programmed in the coordinates he knew from Jack's story early on in his days on the TARDIS. Boeshane Peninsula, September 27, 5271. It was where he was found when he'd been brought back to the Time Agency. His partner had found him and claimed he'd only been missing two days, not two years as his personal chronograph said.
He carried Jack out into the sandy area of the beach, laid him gently against one of the dunes and pressed the emergency button on his vortex manipulator.
The Doctor took a brief look at the ocean, noticing the large refinery on the island before stepping back into the TARDIS. He felt the ripples in time the vortex manipulator caused as he closed the door. He waited what felt like an hour before he opened the door again, noticing Jack was gone from the dune.
As he sailed through the vortex, he thought about the last weeks that he’d spent in custody and made a decision.
*~*
The TARDIS landed in the Hub, the time rotor caused Jack to look up from the paperwork he'd been attempting to finish before his team returned from their nightly weevil patrol. The Doctor stepped out and Jack instantly noticed his ragged suit and his utterly disheveled state.
“Doctor…” He almost stammered.
“Care for a trip?” the Doctor asked in place of a greeting. His eyes told a different story, waiting for Jack to refuse the offer.
“Why not?” Jack scribbled a hasty note, rushed it down to Tosh's old work desk, gathered a few things from around the Hub that would prove useful and stepped back into the TARDIS minutes later.
He could be back in ten minutes. Hell, he could be back in ten seconds. It was a time machine. All the time in the world, and he knew the Doctor had a story to tell about his latest planet.
Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved
Jack paused at the door of the TARDIS. He wasn't sure where the lyrics had come from suddenly, but he knew in regards to the Doctor, the last line would never be true.
The Doctor saved people everyday.
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Btw, could I ask you to edit your username into your subject lines? (According to the comm rules, the format should be username: Title (Pairing) [Rating].)
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