The shapes
Rose and Robert had seen did in fact turn out to be buildings, but they were
uninhabited.
"Where are all the people?" Rose wondered aloud.
Robert punched some buttons on his vortex manipulator. "No idea," he
murmured. "Retroactive lifesign scan… it's like
there were never any people here, nothing living at all."
Rose felt a chill run through her. "But there's all these buildings.
Someone had to be here." Tentatively, she approached one, a two-story
clapboard house that probably wouldn't have looked so sinister if it had had
some pleasant lighting or nice curtains.
"What are you doing?" asked Robert, behind her.
"You said there's nothing alive," she said as she turned the
doorknob. "Nothing that can hurt us, yeah?"
"I'm not picking up anything on my scans," he said simply. Rose took
a few steps forward.
"I think it's safe," she said.
"How do you know?"
She hesitated. "I don't know," she said. It felt like something was
pulling her, willing her to go into that building and then… She saw it as
clearly as if it had been right in front of her. There would be another door
and another door and some stairs and a long, dark tunnel, but it was calling to
her, the Bad Wolf, and it would take her where she needed to go. "This is
the right way," she said simply. "To get back to the Doctor and Jack.
This is the right way."
Robert didn't say anything, but he did take a couple steps forward. "I
just have this feeling," he said, shaking his head. "Something's not
right here. Something's wrong."
She turned to face him. "If you don't trust me, what are you going to
do?" she asked.
He looked taken aback.
"You don't have any other choice," she told him. "You can come
with me, or you can keep walking. What's the worst that could happen?"
Robert hesitated for another moment and then drew his gun. "Just to be on
the safe side," he said. Cautiously, he reached for the doorknob and
turned it.
**
The Doctor watched Jack fall. He knew what would happen next–hoped he
knew what would happen next.
It took longer than he thought his hearts could hold out for, but it happened.
The blaster burns were rapidly healing over with new skin; the only indication
anything had happened to him was some singed hair on the back of his head. Jack
sucked air back into his lungs with a gasp. The Doctor bolted for him but both
guards' blasters clicked and he froze.
"How'd he do that?" asked Hauser. He said it in the kind of tone that
made the Doctor think that if they had been four thousand years earlier and
actually on Earth, he'd have been accusing them of witchcraft.
"You couldn't even begin to understand," muttered the Doctor.
Jack coughed.
"Get in the truck," said Rye, "or we see how many times your
boyfriend can do that neat little trick before he stays dead."
The Doctor helped a still dazed and coughing Jack to his feet. They were
hustled unceremoniously into the pitch blackness of the back of the transport,
the darkness only increasing when Rye and Hauser slammed the doors. The Doctor
heard the deadlock click with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He
couldn't get them out of this.
Jack shifted, indicating that he wanted to be let down, so the Doctor eased
them both to the floor. Jack sank against the Doctor's shoulder.
"What just happened?" he asked plaintively.
"You died," said the Doctor, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
"And you came back to life."
"I could tell that," said Jack testily. At least his attitude hadn't
died with him, though he still remained pressed close to the Doctor.
"How?"
The Doctor hesitated. He remembered when it had happened. He had known when
Rose had done it, yet it had still been jarring to see Jack when he'd stepped
into the TARDIS. The Doctor's first instinct had been to run, to take Rose away
from the thing that was wrong, oh so wrong, but his rational side had
prevailed–this was still Jack after all, and nothing had changed in him beyond
that.
Instead, the Doctor had pulled Jack close and kissed him, trying to forget. He
had truly been glad to have him back–it certainly wasn't that he'd rather Jack
was dead. And then, after regenerating, he had… learned to live with it.
Looking at Jack hadn't bothered him for weeks and their relationship was now
back to normal. If Jack had noticed the initial strain, he hadn't said
anything, plus, it had come at the same time Jack and Rose were getting used to
the Doctor's new body, so a little awkwardness was to be expected.
"Rose," said the Doctor quietly. "It was Rose."
Jack stiffened. "When she...?"
"Yes. You... died." He glanced at Jack's expression. "I think
you knew you were dead." Jack nodded. The Doctor took a deep breath.
"You died and she brought you back. But it was forever. Jack... you'll
never... be able to die."
Jack slid away from him in the dark. "You knew," he said
darkly. "You knew for weeks after it happened and you didn't tell
me."
"It's not like that," said the Doctor quickly. "I was trying to
protect you. I thought... I thought maybe you'd never find out, or maybe you
wouldn't find out for a long time."
"And I'd just wonder, gee, why do I keep coming back to life?"
"You know I didn't mean it like that."
They were both silent for a long time. The only sound was the rocking of the
truck beneath them.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said finally. "I should have told you as
soon as it happened. I didn't want you... I didn't want you to blame
Rose."
"Never," said Jack firmly. "God, that's the last thing I'd
do." He slid closer to the Doctor. After a moment, he said, in a light
tone, "Now you'll never get rid of me."
The Doctor felt his lips twitch. "Never thought of it that way."
"Rose'll never hear the end of it."
"Don't tell her," said the Doctor quickly.
"I wasn't going to," said Jack. There were another few minutes of
silence. The Doctor knew they were both thinking about what this meant for
Rose. It made him far more concerned for her, now knowing that he could only
really lose one of them. He hugged Jack to him.
"We'll find her," he whispered.
"I know," said Jack. Then he added, "Anything you want me to do,
I'll do it. Least I can do is make myself useful, right?"
"Jack," said the Doctor warningly, "what are you thinking about
doing?"
Jack staggered to his feet, difficult to do in the speeding truck. He banged
hard on the metal wall. "Let us out!" he roared.
"Don't be stupid," snapped the Doctor, grabbing the back of his coat
and yanking him back down. "I didn't realize immortality turned you into
an idiot."
Jack sat up indignantly. "So what do you suggest we do?"
The Doctor leaned back against the side of the truck, putting his feet up in
Jack's lap. "Well, Gerardo, I say we let them take us to their
leader."
**
Rose and Robert found themselves in a long corridor with a threadbare carpet in
a dull shade of red. The collection of vases on the side table didn't look the
least bit dusty. It was dark, though, with the sunlight outside fading rapidly.
Robert reached into his pack and handed Rose a large torch.
"I'll go first," he cautioned her. "Give me some light."
Rose carefully shined the light down the hall in front of them. "It's a
hotel," she murmured, pointing at the large desk at the end of the
corridor. On the wall behind it was a pegboard on which hung rows of keys under
number plates. None seemed to be missing.
Robert strode forward, checking around the corners with his gun out, like Rose
had seen police officers do on telly. She didn't know what he expected to find,
though.
"Looks like the coast is clear," he said, but he didn't put his gun
away. "So where do we go from here?"
Rose turned slowly, trying to get her bearings. The pull she'd felt outside had
been so strong but she seemed to have lost it now.
"I don't know," she said slowly.
Robert sighed. "What kind of ship is this, anyway?"
"Not an ordinary ship," she said, as she approached the wall the keys
were hanging on. "I mean, the Doctor's not an ordinary man. The TARDIS is…
well, it's almost alive. The Doctor says he's got this psychic link with her,
and one time I… I…"
"What?" Robert prompted, intrigued.
Rose felt her stomach flip-flop. "I just can't remember. It's like it's
sealed off, like I can't tell you." She paused, and then deliberately
turned left. "I think this is the right way." She opened a door that
almost seemed meant to be hidden; it was covered in wallpaper.
"How are you determining this anyway?" Robert asked, stooping to
follow her into the low passageway.
"Bad wolf," she said simply, brushing a cobweb away from her face.
"I told you I don't quite understand it, but I know where I'm going. I can
find the TARDIS and the Doctor and Jack."
Robert seemed to take this in stride. "I've seen weirder things," he
said.
The passage they were walking in turned out to be one of those. Abruptly, at
what was apparently the end of the hotel, the passage's walls turned from
unfinished boards to dirt. The wet chill seeped through Rose's clothes and she
shivered.
"I hope this wolf is leading you in the right direction," Robert
remarked.
"I think so. There's a light." She pointed. About twenty yards in
front of them, they passage came to a dead end but there was light along the
dirt.
"Now how do you figure that?" Robert lengthened his strides. "If
I didn't know any better..."
He reached the end of the passage and shoved on the packed earth. It opened.
**
When the truck came to a stop, Jack tensed.
"Don't do anything stupid," the Doctor reminded him.
"Did you think I was going to?" Jack hissed back. He took the
Doctor's silence for a yes.
Jack heard the cab doors open and close and then footsteps as Rye and Hauser
came around to open the back. Jack's first instinct was to ignore the Doctor's
warning and lunge for their weapons–the knowledge that they couldn't kill him
opened up a lot of new possibilities, but he wasn't sure what they would
do to the Doctor if Jack fought back. It probably was better for them to
play it safe, as much as he hated to admit it.
The doors opened. The Doctor pushed Jack off him and stood up. Jack did a
double take. They definitely weren't in the English countryside anymore. The
truck had stopped in a long hallway, which possessed no identifying
characteristics. For all Jack knew, this was some base in a nearby village or a
seabase several galaxies away.
"Get out," ordered Rye. The Doctor complied, Jack following his lead.
"Good," said the guard, nodding. "You're learning. Now keep that
up and you won't run into anymore trouble."
"Oh, well, that's disappointing," said the Doctor. "I quite like
trouble. You could even say Trouble's my middle name. John Trouble Smith,
that's me."
Rye and Hauser ignored this and began forcing the Doctor and Jack down the
hallway. Jack didn't like being manhandled, except on rare occasions when the
Doctor was the man doing the handling, but after a firm look from the Doctor,
he decided not to struggle.
"I guess I can't persuade you to tell me who you are or who you work
for," said the Doctor conversationally. "Since you've got us rather
cornered and all." The look Rye gave him told him he wouldn't even dignify
that with a response. The Doctor sighed. "It was worth a try," he
said to Jack.
After a few minutes of walking through a maze of corridors, in which Jack
became completely disoriented, they came to a row of cells. Hauser tapped a
keypad on the wall and the door swung open. He shoved Jack inside. Rye was
about to send the Doctor in after him when there was a crackle of static from
the com link on his ear.
"What?" He glanced at Hauser. Hauser shrugged.
"Looks like you're going upstairs," he said to the Doctor. "She
wants you."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Now that sounds interesting. I'm very
curious to find out who this 'she' you're talking about really is. It's almost
like my birthday! If… I had a birthday, that is. And if, for my birthday, my
friends kidnapped me." He looked at Jack. "Don't… don't kidnap me for
my birthday, all right?"
Jack shook his head. "I don't even know when your birthday is."
The Doctor cocked his head. "Well… it varies. You might say–"
"Shut up." Rye twisted the Doctor's arm sharply. "You're coming
with us, he's staying here."
The Doctor yanked himself free of Rye's grasp and hurled himself at Jack,
throwing his arms around his neck and kissing him firmly.
Jack stumbled a bit and by the time a scowling Rye had pulled the Doctor back,
he was breathing hard. "Wow," he said.
The Doctor winked, just as Hauser slammed the cell door and helped Rye drag the
Doctor away, leaving Jack alone in silence. He slid to the floor with a sigh.
He'd been in worse prison conditions, so he couldn't really complain–the cell
was pretty nice as prisons went. He didn't like being separated from the
Doctor, though.
Glumly, he stuck his hand in the pocket of his coat. It brushed something cold
and metal. Jack blinked. What could that be? He pulled it out.
It was the sonic screwdriver.
Jack's face broke into a grin. "Oh, you brilliant bastard."