DIMINNUENDO
Chapter One
The Exposition Expedition Across the Pond
"You alright there?"
"Shut up."
"It wasn't that bad, it was a pretty smooth flight-"
"I said shut up. Can't a man hurl in peace anymore?"
Sam checked his watch again. If they didn't get a move on, they were bound to be late. Dean had been leaned over the airport trashcan for twenty minutes now, without even the slightest sign of actually bringing anything up. If he was going to feel sick, they might as well multitask and let him feel sick while they got something done. He didn't bring this up to his doubled-up sibling, though. Dean wasn't a big fan of the guy they were going to meet, and probably even less so now that he'd forced them to fly. Still, he'd given them a hand far too many times to turn him down, so it was within a week that they'd stationed the impala and packed for cheery old Europe. Between the griping of his brother and the anxiety of being late, the cheeriest thing Sam had seen all day was the pathetic bag of complimentary nuts that tasted like dust and delayed flight times. It was going to be a long day.
"Dean, come on. We've got to go. It must be pretty urgent if he was willing to fund our tickets, we can't just keep him waiting." Dean gave him only a deadly glare in response, but straightened up and hiked his bag further up on his shoulder. Sam took that as a sign it was time to move on.
The cab ride to the meeting point gave Dean's stomach enough time to settle down, but his temper wasn't feeling such a soothing effect. Most of the ride was occupied by him muttering about just how very much he would kill the Captain when he saw him while Sam rolled his eyes and continued to glance at his wrist every two minutes. Although it was only a manner of minutes, it might as well have been eons before they arrived at possibly the shoddiest of all the hotels in London. It appeared that the Captain had spent all the kitty on their plane tickets and was left to scrape for whatever roach motel was within driving distance of the airport.
"Let's get this over with, Sammy."
Sam retrieved the crumpled and re-crumbled note from his pocket, the one that had arrived in the same envelope as the tickets and the hotel's room key. It comprised of a date, the time they were meant to be there (Sam noted exasperatedly that it read "12:30", and it was now 12:56), the hotel's address, a room number, and a one-lined message written in an untidy scrawl. Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient come anyway. The Captain requires your assistance.
They made their way to the elevator, Dean jabbing at the fourth floor button repeatedly as the doors closed at a snail's pace.
"What's the room again?" Dean demanded, still not feeling completely recovered from their mode of transportation.
"It says 413," Sam responded, reading the message over for what felt like the millionth time. If inconvenient, come anyway? That seemed kind of pretentious, and not at all like something he'd expect, considering the sender. He didn't get to read anymore into it though, as the lift came to a stop and the doors slid open. Then it was down the poorly-lit hallway and away they went.
"You're positive this is the right place?"
"That's what it says on the letter." If you could even call it a letter. Three sentences and handful of numbers didn't make for much of an explanation. But you just didn't leave a guy hanging once he'd saved your life three or four times, so they hadn't had much of a choice. Dean slid the card-key in and out of the door's lock and shoved the door open, not bothering to knock.
"Harkness, I swear to god if you hauled us all the way over the Atlantic just to try out a new pick up line, I will personally devote my entire life to disproving the theory that you can't die."
"Well, well, well. If it isn't my favorite dream team, the Winchesters. And if I might say so, you're looking absolutely-" The characteristic smug grin of welcome was swiped from Jack's face and replaced with an expression of withdrawnness that clearly did not belong there. He glanced down at his hands rested on the tabletop before him and tugged at the sleeve of his long blue coat. "…absolutely nice today," he finished in a reticent tone. Sam and Dean exchanged identical pairs of slightly bemused looks.
"Thanks, I guess," Sam responded. "Listen, I've already had to deal with seven and a half hours of humming Metallica and asking if the plane was crashed yet, so it would be really fantastic if you could just tell us what was so bad that you needed to call us here," he told him.
"He didn't," rang out a voice from behind them. They had burst in in such a hurry that they hadn't even noticed the suited man lingering by the door way, leaned against the peeling wallpaper. He was half hidden in shadow as he stuck out an arm and slowly pushed the left-open door closed. "I did."
"Who the hell are you?" Dean asked in alarm, regretting to no end the fact that any kind of firearm would take thirty seconds too long to retrieve from the bag slung over his shoulder.
"The name," he stepped forward into the weak fluorescent glow, revealing a grave expression and a wild mess of chestnut hair that didn't seem to pay the laws of physics much mind, "is John Smith. And I very much need your help."
Chapter Two
An Unexpected Turning of Events, Crossing of Paths, and Meddling of Time Streams.
"John Smith? Nice try, but you've already used that one on us. You must be the Doc-" Dean's sentence was cut off by an unfortunate combination of Sam elbowing him sharply in the stomach and the Doctor having an opportune (and quite intentional) coughing fit. Dean glared at Sam, who gave him a very pointed look as though he'd missed something quite obvious.
"Sorry Jack, could you excuse us for just a second?" The Doctor asked apologetically. Jack smiled weakly at the table, not making eye contact with any of the three people besides him in the room.
"Take all the time you need," he answered quietly, prodding idly at a knothole on the wooden surface. He seemed to have retracted further into his coat; an action quite contrary to his usual habit of filling the room with his boisterous personality. The Doctor looked at the brothers and jerked his head towards the hall, following them out as they padded out into the corridor. Quietly, he shut the door behind them. The Winchesters exploded into an unstoppable fountain of questions as soon as dead latch met strike plate.
"What's going on? Why is Jack being so weird?"
"I flew here, goddamn it! There had better be a legitimate explanation within the next thirty seconds or I'm going to have to preemptively report a homicide-"
"Why did you tell us you were John Smith? What are you trying to pull?"
"What happened to you? Last time we saw you, you were an eight-year-old in tweed!"
The Doctor grabbed at a side of each of their heads and conked them together, just hard enough to shut them up. He kept them pinned together as he explained, eyes darting between the two of them. "Listen. Something very serious and very strange has happened to Jack, and I haven't got the slightest clue what it might be. I came back to visit him in his time stream, but I overshot it a little and came too early. He won't meet this version of me for another year or two, and that's a fixed point in time! He still remembers me in my ninth regeneration, so he can not know who I am! That means you've got to play along while we try to fix him. I haven't been able to get anything out of him yet, he doesn't trust me, but he's still met you, so you'll be able to get him to talk. I have some suspicions, but until he tells me what happened I can't confirm anything. If I'm right, it'll be something like that awful run-in with the fear demon you two had."
"Fear demon?" Sam asked quizzically.
"Oh. Right. Not there yet. Well, when you catch up, you'll know exactly what I mean," the Doctor said. Dean sighed audibly.
"Man, I hate time travel."
"Funny, I know a consulting detective who says the same thing every time I see him." He let go of their heads, suddenly taking on a puzzled expression. "Tweed? Really? Well, I suppose that's something to look forward to. Now then! Any questions?"
"Got any food? That airline crap is an abomination," Dean griped.
"Get your job done and you can have the pick of the finest take-out in the city, within reasonable pricing range and walking distance."
"It'll have to do. Let's roll." As they reentered the room, it appeared Jack had become restless in their absence. He was pacing over the thread-bare carpet for what was sure not to be the first time, and he looked up towards them at the sound of the door opening. He gave them a very decidedly Harkness-y smile, but as if it was compulsive the slyness drained out of it and was replaced with sheepishness. He must have found the floor very interesting, because that was the only direction in which he would look.
"I-I told you it's not that big of a deal. It's probably not that bad. I could get used to it, I guess. I mean, I don't want to be any trouble," he muttered.
"You're nothing but trouble," Dean muttered. Suddenly Jack glanced up, grinning again.
"So I've been told," he winked.
"Oh great, he can't have been affected that much," Sam mused. He made his way to the table and sat down. "Jack, can we ask you a couple of questions?"
"Well, usually I try to do dinner or something first, but if you're more of the talkative type-" He sort of seized up again, and starting tugging at his coat sleeve once more. "Sorry. 'Course, yeah."
"The fact that we got here in the early stages is a miracle, but it gets worse every day," The Doctor told the boys. "I don't know how much longer he can hold out." Dean sat down at the table next to Sam, leaving one spindly wooden chair open for the Captain as the Doctor leaped onto one of the beds and sat cross-legged on the edge. "I'll tell you what I know so far, and he can take it from there. Torchwood, brilliant bunch of people that they are, thought it would be a good idea to try going poking into other dimensions, maybe let somebody go in, or… let something come out. I'm afraid of which dimension it may have been, and god hope that I'm wrong. But something happened, and he won't tell me, so it's up to you."
"You're not even supposed to know about Torchwood!" Jack protested, before propping his elbow up on the table and resting his face in his hand. He drummed on the tabletop with his fingers, slouching down in his seat and altogether not wanting to be there all that much.
"Jack, what did you see?" Sam asked as patiently as he could. Dean had been right, the airline food was disappointing, it was already past noon, and he'd had virtually nothing to eat all day. The faster they could get a lead, the faster they could eat. Jack shifted uncomfortably in the chair.
"It was a…" he trailed off too quietly to be heard.
"A what?" Dean asked.
"A ye…."
"Didn't quite catch that?" Sam chimed. Jack sighed loudly.
"It…. Was a yellow horse." Sam and Dean glanced at each other, Dean raising one eyebrow dubiously.
"A yellow horse?"
"Yes," Jack responded, a tone of frustration creeping into his voice. "With… with wings." Dean tried, unsuccessfully, to keep from laughing. Clearly Harkness had lost it, once and for all! But then… why did the Doctor look so grave?
"It's just as I suspected. With pink hair, I presume?" Jack nodded. Sam glanced between the two men and couldn't believe he had flown to another continent for this.
"Sorry, but are we talking about a supernatural occurrence, or a child's television show?"
"What do you two know about the Elements of Harmony?" Their resounding silence made it clear that they knew little to nothing.
"Is that a band?" Sam asked.
The Doctor sighed. "You know there are parallel dimensions, yeah? Well, some dimensions are less parallel than others… a lot more off-shot, entirely different. The Elements of Harmony are possibly the most powerful force that can be found in one of these off-shot universes. This place Torchwood opened up, it's not like here. Magic is widely practiced and expected, practically commonplace. That horse Jack saw, she's the guardians of one of the elements. If she was in possession of it when Torchwood brought her through, it's likely that in a fit of terror or surprise she activated it and, well… instilled the better part of herself in Jack. With it being what it is, and Jack being what he is, the two are probably so conflicting that it's tearing him to bits and pieces, one sacrificed innuendo at a time. "
The brothers reacted with a kind of stunned silence. It was a few moments before Sam turned to Dean and asked "Horse guardians… have we done that before?" Dean shook his head.
"I don't think we're asking the really important questions here."
"What might that be?" The Doctor asked, cocking one eyebrow.
"…Can we get food now?"
An hour and six boxes of Chinese later, the four were sprawled comfortably over the various pieces of furniture in the hotel room, and partaking in casual conversation. Jack, who was doing quite well considering, had tipped back one of the spindly chairs and had his feet propped up on the table. Dean, who had in the past forty minutes disproven all previous assumptions about how many pieces of chicken could be fit in one mouth, was seated on the edge of one bed and clicking through channels on the television's questionably receptive screen. Sam sat on the floor, riffling through his and his brother's hastily packed bags, making sure they had everything they could need, or at least need and not be able to buy in London. The Doctor, leaned up against one of the bed's backboards with his hands locked behind his head, explained that the room was paid for for the night.
"Hey John," Sam started, remembering at the last second to use the proper alias, "where do you get all your money anyways? Can't imagine there's a lot of revenue in the traveling business. How do you manage to set things up like this?"
"Well I could tell you, but to be entirely honest it's not completely legal. I figure once you save the world a couple of times you're allowed to pull a few strings here and there," he admitted. Dean gave a short laugh.
"Can't argue with that!" He said. Just then Jack spoke up.
"Be honest here, do any of you have a clue what you're doing? No offense, it's just…I can't live like this. I have a team to command, things to do! You know I have a guy's severed hand in a jar in Cardiff right now, just for the sake of tracking him down! How am I supposed to do that if I can't even tell somebody to shut up and sit down without saying 'please' and 'I'm sorry' every two seconds?"
"More importantly, where do you even get a severed hand?" Sam chimed in.
"Er, moving on from that topic of conversation," The Doctor interjected uncomfortably, "Yes, I do think we can help you. If we can get back to the source, it shouldn't take too long to determine how to reverse the effects."
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Sam asked. "Listen, we know you're good, but isn't the 'source' caught in another dimension? Aren't there rules about that kind of thing? You know, wibbly-wobbly?"
"Timey-wimey?" added Dean, glancing up from the screen.
"And I don't think Torchwood will be particularly keen on letting us use their top-secret equipment to reopen a hole in the fabric of space-time," Sam pointed out.
The Doctor didn't answer right away. He seemed to be staring straight ahead at nothing, deep in thought. Finally, he muttered "There's another way in." No further explanation, simply that, and he continued his thinking. You could practically smell smoke, and hear the gears turning at a thousand miles a minute, with his brain process chugging along at an unfollowable speed.
"…Are you going to tell us what it is at some point here?" Dean asked, the TV long forgotten. The Doctor stayed silent for a few moments before suddenly springing to his feet.
"Nope! Anyhow, I really must run, things to do, people to see, favors to ask, phone calls to take, you know how it is."
"Whoa whoa whoa, wait a minute here. Where are we supposed to go?"
"I'm quite sure I don't know what you mean, Dean." The Doctor replied, a trace of smugness evident in his voice and face alike.
"Well… do we go with you? Do we stay here?"
"I told you, the room's paid for for the night," he answered, barely holding back a sly grin.
"Well yeah, but…"
"Yes?"
"Well there's three of us."
"I'm glad to see you've learned how to count, Mister Winchester."
"But…"
"Yes?"
"There are only two beds."
The Doctor feigned shock in a way that made it blatantly clear that this was not news to him.
"Are there? Fancy that… well, I'm sure you'll figure something out. Like I said, People, places, favors, phones! See you tomorrow!" He called, the slight trace of smugness having now evolved into a decidedly mischievous air as he grabbed his coat off the closet's door knob and made for the door.
"Wait, you can't just…!"
The door slammed behind him.
"…Son of a bitch."
Chapter Three
A Friend in Need and Another Set of Characters
Bing-bong.
…Silence.
Bing-bong ,Bing-bong.
Not so much as a shuffle across the floors from inside the flat. I know you're home, don't try to convince me otherwise. He pounded on the door, the brass numbers gleaming in the early afternoon light. Finally, it swung open.
"Sherlock!" The Doctor said brightly.
"No," said Sherlock, much less so. The door of 221B shut in his face.
Sherlock leaned forehead first against the interior of the door. Please, no. Not today. He took it all back, one hundred percent, all that wishing that something exciting would happen, if it just meant this man would get off his doorstep. Please, please, please, please, please… What was that sound?
"I will use this if I have to! Don't tempt me for a second, Holmes, because I've got a crisis on my hands and one of my hands in a government base, and I need your help."
"There's nobody home," Sherlock drawled from inside.
"Sherlock, dear, I think there might be somebody at the door!"
A-ha! Victory. The Doctor had pressed his ear up against the door, and it didn't take the second opinion of a consulting detective to guess who might have been speaking.
"Mrs. Hudson! Lovely afternoon, isn't it? I'd love to enjoy it from inside, if it's not a bother!" He called, pocketing his sonic screwdriver.
"Is that the Doctor? Sherlock, let him in, he'll catch his death out there!"
"It's the middle of spring," Sherlock griped through gritted teeth, but opened the door anyways. "Doctor," he said stiffly, with a touch of exasperation.
"Hello, Sherly! Long time no see. Well… at least for me. If I've been reliably informed, and I assure you I have, I should be popping up any month now. Something about a stolen crystal set... anyway, that'll give you something to look forward to, won't it."
"I hate time travel."
"Yeah, it's good to see you too. Listen, pal of mine sort of got himself in a fix. And, I think I can fix this fix, it does seem a fix of the rather fixable sort, but the fix about fixing that fixable fix is that he… can't really come with me. Or rather, us. The gang. I've got a gang now. It's all very jaunty and twenty-first century. Anyhow! He may or may not be increasingly subject to lapses in behavior and/or control, and I can't just really leave him out on the streets, and he works in Cardiff so that's sort of a long drive so I was just sort of kind of maybe wondering if he could possibly by any chance at all maybe sort of… spend a day here?"
"I should have stuck with my first answer."
"Oh come on! Please? Please, I'll take you on a field trip! You can go solve the 'Jack the Ripper' case! Or I'll, I don't know, buy you an entire crate of scarves, or something, I just really, really need this one solid! He won't be any trouble, you'll hardly even know he's there, he's definitely the… quiet type."
"You mean Captain Harkness? I don't think so, hardly what I'd call the quiet sort. Furthermore, those two American friends of yours won't be much of a help to you. It's their first time over and they're lucky if they can navigate the London Underground, let alone patch up and inter-dimensional dilemma."
The Doctor half-smiled, and made his way up the stairs towards the upper half of the flat. "Who said anything about the Captain, let alone inter-dimensional dilemmas? That's an awfully far jump to your conclusion… you sure you aren't losing your touch, old man?" He paused at the top of the stairs. He could almost hear the frustration building in Sherlock's mind. After all, what were friends for? Well… as much of a friend as you could consider an extra-terrestrial being who occasionally popped up in your life without any warning or explanation and a different face every time to be. After all, Sherlock simply did not have friends.
"Sorry, who are you? Another client?" The Doctor stopped short as the voice rang out through the flat. It wasn't one he had heard before. He turned towards the living room slowly, not at all expecting what he saw there when he did.
"Sherlock. There's somebody on your couch, did you know that?" He called down the stairs. From the man at the bottom and the man on the couch he received a frustrated huff and a confused silence, respectively.
"Maybe if you'd wait half a second before barging into peoples' homes, they might have a chance to explain these kinds of things to you. That's John. He lives here." Sherlock explained, grabbing at the bridge of his nose and feeling the common side-effects of over exposure to time lord starting to kick in. Worst of all, these included headaches, lack of patience (even more so than usual), and the possible toll on his sanity. The Doctor's eyebrows raised in surprise and amazement. Could it be? After all these years, could it really, really be?
"You… live here?" he asked, with acute disbelief.
"That's right. What's so strange about that?"
"With Sherlock?"
"Yes," John replied, feeling that asking what was strange about that would actually warrant an answer this time.
"And you… do things with him, I suppose? Cases and such?" The Doctor inquired. John sighed, ready to run through the motions of such common assumptions the way he always did.
"Yes, I do, but if anybody in the world is ever going to believe me, I'm not actually g -"
"That's fantastic!" The Doctor interrupted, a wide grin breaking over his face. "He really did it, oh I knew he would, but he didn't believe me, but look who's laughing now! Thought it would be a good idea to take a page out of my book, and I must say the results are excellent! Sherlock, you old dog, you've finally got yourself a-"
"Don't say it!" Sherlock shouted from the stairs. "Don't you dare say it!"
"COMPANION!" The Doctor cried out triumphantly. Sherlock scoffed in annoyance.
"He is not my companion, nobody has companions but you. He's my friend," Sherlock insisted, a dash of pride in his last sentence.
"That's what I said, companion."
"Not it isn't."
"Yes it is."
"No it isn't."
"Yes, it really is."
"No it isn't."
"Is."
"Isn't.
"Is."
"Ladies, ladies, you're both pretty. Now if it's not too much trouble, would one of you like to explain what the hell is going on?!" John interjected. "Who are you?"
"Right, sorry, I'm the Doctor! I'm so pleased to meet you, Doctor Watson, just charmed."
"No you're not," John protested. That wasn't possible.
"What? Of course I am, I love meeting people!" The Doctor insisted, surprised.
"Wh- no, that's not what I meant. You can't be the Doctor, I've met the Doctor, and he's an eight-year-old grown man in-"
"Please don't say tweed. I've already heard it today, and that was one time too many."
"I was going to say 'a bowtie'," John admitted. Sherlock cleared his throat from where he was standing at the top of the stairs.
"He will be, but… not yet," he said, pointedly glancing at John as he made his way over to the sitting room chairs, flopping into one. "We have business to discuss, then. Might as well get this over with," he grumbled to himself. It didn't look they'd be getting anything over with just that minute though, as Mrs. Hudson appeared in the doorway.
"Oh Doctor, it's so good to see you again! Coming to help out with another one of the boys' cases? They've been stuck on one for days now, can't seem to find any leads at all, you've shown up just in the nick of time," She poured out, much to the dismay of Sherlock and the amusement of John. The Doctor smiled jovially.
"Always nice to see you, Mrs. Hudson," he laughed.
"Look at you, you haven't aged a day!"
"I could say the same for you!" The Doctor responded. Mrs. Hudson chuckled cheerily, saying something about going to fetch some tea and biscuits, with her usual comments of how the Doctor was thin as a rake and it simply wasn't healthy. He felt a bit queasy at the mention of food. Witnessing Dean Winchester down a box of second-rate General Tso's in record time certainly did put a damper on the appetite. That would have to be a bridge he crossed when he got there, though. Sherlock was, as usual (though the Doctor would never word it like that aloud, much less in Holmes's presence) correct. They had business to attend to. He climbed over the back of the chair opposite Sherlock's and settled himself into it, earning him a confused glance from John. He couldn't he have just walked around and sat down like a normal person? Was John the only one in London who didn't need an instruction manual to properly use furniture? Either way, he pulled a chair from the kitchen table over towards the sitting area and sat down with his laptop, flipping it open along with his usual default tabs without planning on actually doing anything with it.
"The Doctor needs a favor from us, and a rather unpleasant one to execute at that," Sherlock explained to John, who was starting to piece together just what was going on.
"What sort of a favor are we talking about?" He asked suspiciously. Every time the Doctor came round, he was plenty of fun and usually had some exciting adventure in store for them, but John had also seen the damage he could do, and not always on purpose.
"It's nothing big, I just need to park a guy with you for a day while wonder brothers incorporated and I go take care of some run-of-the-mill dimension straightening out. It wouldn't be for more than a day, and I swear I'd be able to pay you back!"
"Which 'guy' do you mean?" John asked, not at all liking the devious grin that was creeping onto Sherlock's face as he reached for his violin. The Doctor cleared his throat and muttered inaudibly. "Sorry, could you speak up a bit? Who?"
"He's really an agreeable guy, if we've really met before you actually might know him already, I'm sure you get along well," the Doctor protested weakly. Watson was not to be swayed so easily.
"Doctor, who is it?" he repeated more firmly. The Doctor took a deep breath, knowing full well that if Sherlock's friend really had met him, his chances of acquiring the favor he so desperately needed would be reduced from "not likely" to "don't kid yourself" in a heartbeat.
"Captain Jack Harkness?" he answered hesitantly. The reaction was immediate.
"No no no no no no no, I don't think so, not after last time!" John exclaimed, as he snapped the laptop shut and crossed his sweatered arms across his chest. Sherlock laughed vindictively and leaned back, playing a few high, fast notes on the strings.
"Oh but you haven't heard the best part yet," Sherlock started, reveling in the Doctor's apparent discouragement. "It's not just any Captain Jack Harkness, it's the limited edition brain-addled Captain Jack Harkness! Who knows what kind of fun new features he could include?"
"Now come on, it's not that bad, it would only be for a day, and I'll do anything!" The Doctor pleaded. The string of notes cut off suddenly, filling the flat with an eerie silence, and he wished he could have shoved the words back into his mouth, or better, out of sight forever.
"Anything?" Sherlock repeated, barely above a whisper.
"W-well now, let's be reasonable here," the Doctor said, shifting uncomfortably in the chair. He knew what was coming up next, and it was NOT a pretty sight.
"You did say 'anything', Doctor?" Sherlock pushed.
"For god's sake, Sherlock, you can barely drive a car, let alone a highly refined piece of machinery that's far beyond your time! Who knows what kind of damage you could do to her, not to mention the time vortex!" The Doctor protested, an edge of hysteria coming into his voice.
Sherlock merely shrugged and took up an upbeat tune once more.
"It appears it wasn't so important to you after all. Good luck then, and send Torchwood my love!" He said nonchalantly, already knowing he had the time lord on a string. The Doctor only lasted the better part of twenty seconds before caving in with desperation. He leaned forward in the chair, clasping his hands together and leaning onto his knees.
"I'll give you one hour, take it or leave it."
"Ummm….. NO. I want at least twenty four hours, give or take depending on the traffic."
"Sherlock, it's the time vortex! How much traffic could there be?"
"Do we have a deal?"
"Absolutely not! Tell you what, two hours, and I'll let you parallel park."
"Make it three and a half, and I want my own key. That's my final offer," Sherlock said resolutely. The Doctor slumped resignedly back into the overstuffed cushioning.
"Your own key, three hours and twenty minutes, and I won't hear a second more."
"Done." Sherlock grinned, putting his violin down in his lap. "I'm sure the Captain will find nothing but hospitality here, no matter how addled his brain may be."
"Don't I get any say in this?" John asked, downtrodden with his already accepted fate.
"Of course John," Sherlock replied, much to the surprise of both parties present, "when I captain the TARDIS you can navigate," he said, looking like the cat who ate the canary and had managed to devise a clever scheme composing of a dozen different artifices that would ensure the domestic bird's death could never be linked to him, no matter how legitimate the suspicion.
"Don't push your luck, Holmes!" The Doctor warned. "Now that that's out of the way, what's all this I'm hearing about a dead end?"
It appeared Sam was the only one concerned with how much time they were wasting. He had tried repeatedly to point out that, for once, they weren't occupied with a hunt, and were furthermore staying all-expenses paid in what was arguably one of the most famous cities in the world, but as was to be expected, only got a load of trouble for his "pansy girly interests". Jack had laughed good-naturedly at that, but at a glance from Dean, ducked his head and apologized. All in all, the hotel was becoming absolutely insufferable, and each of the men in their own way felt they could only take so much more.
This is pathetic, thought Jack.
I can't take the silence anymore, thought Sam.
I miss my fucking car, thought Dean. "I swear to god I'm going to throw this entire useless television set out the window if it doesn't give me something decent to watch or an idea of something to do in the next fifteen seconds," he stated. Sam tried to think of more ideas that wouldn't be categorized under Not-Cool-Enough-For-Me in Dean's mind.
"We could go ride the Eye?" he suggested. "Or… go see the clock tower?"
"I've parked there!" Jack chimed in from the table. Dean shook his head.
"I don't think it's a good idea taking Namby-pamby Bambi out in public. God knows Torchwood will be looking for him after Mister Smith's daring abscond. One of these days, that guy's gonna get us killed," Dean commented. Sam sat down on the other bed.
"Well what do you suggest, then? We can't leave, we don't know when and if John is coming back, and our only assets are an apparently disappointing array of channels, a few tiny soaps and a phone!" As he spoke, he saw one corner of his brother's mouth turn up. Sam hoped dearly that Dean wasn't thinking what he thought he was thinking. "Dean, no," he said firmly. The other corner turned up as well. "I'm serious, man! We're beyond this, prankless means prankless, cold turkey." Dean had already sprung towards the superannuated cord-having phone resting on the side table between both beds, chuckling menacingly. "Dean! Cut it out, I mean it!" Dean picked up the receiver. Sam felt intertwining emotions of disapproval and curiosity. The stronger of the two won. "Who you gonna call?"
Jack and Dean simultaneously regarded him with skeptical expressions, both of them wondering alike if Sam even realized how long ago that phrase had been put out of commission for obvious reasons. Evidently he did, albeit on a bit of a delay. "You know what I meant."
"Oh dude, we should call the Doctor and order a pizza from another galaxy or something!" Dean said excitedly. In the corner, Jack's interest was piqued.
"I don't even think he carries a cell phone and neither of us have a number beside," Sam pointed out. The tipped-back front legs of Jack's chair met the faded greenish carpet.
"Maybe you don't." He smiled complacently. "This may be news to you, but as part of Torchwood alien stuff is literally my business. And, if a one certain alien with a particular phone box happened to have been lucky enough to make my acquaintance once upon a time, I just might have found it necessary to do a little research. There's no guaranteeing the call will get to him in any kind of timely fashion, but it'll make it work. I think. Never actually tried it before. Could possibly cause the universe to implode, but I'm thinking it's a sixty-forty chance."
"Why haven't you tried it before?" Sam questioned warily.
"Supposedly something about fixed time points and how the time between now and the next time I see him can't be changed unless we want to unleash one hell of a paradox."
"So why would you think it's a good idea now?!" Sam asked with alarm.
"At least a paradox would be interesting. Anything beats just sitting here."
Sam glanced at Dean in an attempt to ascertain whether or not he understood the magnitude of the situation they were about to get themselves into. He didn't. He was grinning ear to ear, poised to type in the number at a moment's notice. But instead of reciting a number, Jack tossed him a small object from his coat pocket, one hardly bigger than a pocket watch. But it wasn't a pocket watch, much to the relief of Sam and Dean. They'd heard from Martha just what kind of trouble could come from a simple pocket watch, and neither of them felt up to the task of dealing with anything else they fully understood when they still weren't sure what all this horse guardian business was about. Dean caught it with one hand, turning it over in his palm and examining it.
It appeared to be made of some foreign black metal that gleamed brightly even in the dull lighting of the room. Upon further inspection, a set of minute claws sprang out of the sides, not unlike those that held precious stones in place in jewelry.
"It's infused with a sampling of the TARDIS's wiring, straight from the location mainframe. Attach that sucker to any communication device and it'll hook you up with the easiest to reach section of the TARDIS's timeline, up to but not exceeding present day," Jack explained. "Or at least, usually not exceeding present day," he corrected himself.
"I don't understand. Where would you even find one of these, and why?" Sam asked.
"You're forgetting, I've had my fair share of experience with time travel. Used to be a time agent. On top of that, I'm no stranger to the classic 'don't-call-me-I'll-call-you' line. It's not exactly easy to drop somebody a line once they're centuries away, not to mention light-years. I took a few precautions, just in case I got 'dropped off' again. Turned out, I wasn't so far off the mark," he added bitterly. In a truly Winchester show of explanation, he continued "But get this! I told you about the Doctor's hand, right? I have a feeling he wouldn't just lose a body part and go on dealing with it. That was never really his style. I think he's regenerated, and he could be anywhere right now. Might even be on his way here right now! I thought about using that dozens of times," he confessed, nodding towards the device in Dean's hand, "But I just couldn't risk the fourth-dimensional manipulation so close to the rift. I figure it might be alright now that we're so far away from Cardiff. Might even help me catch a hold of the Doc! I've got a bone to pick with him, but without the technology to detect the TARDIS, I can't tell. Left it all back in Torchwood. When Mister Smith popped up as soon as he found out what we'd been up to and what had happened. Awfully suspicious character, that Smith. Great hair, though. Seems familiar, but I can't put my finger on why…" he trailed off thoughtfully, leaving Sam and Dean a moment of silence to exchange knowing (and slightly nervous) glances.
"Yeah, how 'bout that. Thanks for that inexplicable convenient recap of events we all already knew happened. Phone? Now? Calling?" Dean asked, waving the receiver pointedly. He moved it close to the pocket device and it jumped towards the receiver, as if by strong magnetic propulsion. The tiny claws dug into the plastic, leaving indents so small that it they wouldn't be noticed in many years to come by guests and housekeeping alike. The dial tone stopped short, as if quietly processing a new intake of information. Then, with the three revealing in the sophomoric thrill of wrongdoing, the unmistakable trill of ringing rose from the speaker.
Chapter Four
You Rang?
She bounced energetically as they re-entered the ship, still whirring with excitement from their latest family vacation. It had to have been one of her favorites so far.
"An amusement park! On the moon! I don't think any of you understand how much I love you. Last spring break I had, my Aunt took me on a tour of a car factory in Halewood. Sort of pales in comparison, doesn't it?"
"But I don't understand why they would bother with building a gravitational stabilizer. If you have to go to all that work to make the conditions the same as on the planet next to it, why not just build it there?" He asked. She punched him in the arm.
"Who cares? It's on the moon! You're just upset because that 6o-degree drop made you think you were going to die," she quipped in good nature. He scoffed.
"I did not think I was going to die! I think I would know when I'm about to die by now."
"Don't worry dad, next time I'll wait with you at the end of the ride. We can get snowcones!" The other woman promised. The fourth of them popped in through the doors at the very mention, grinning from the approval of his choice in destination.
"I'm going too. Nobody's allowed to get snowcones without me, it's rule number seventy-eight of traveling with me. I have an entire book published of them; maybe I'll get you all a copy for Christmas. That way you can all compare notes and see who's broken the most."
Just then the old-fashioned phone by the door rang shrilly in a way that startled one of the young ladies, who was starting to nod off. She made to answer it, but was stopped by the other.
"I don't think so. You two need to get some sleep unless we want you dosing off in the middle of the Lynx tomorrow. They don't call it the Supernova Factory for nothing, and you'd best be on your toes. Go on, off!" She insisted. The other smiled gratefully, even if a bit exhaustedly, and the first couple left the room, his arm slung around her shoulders. The remaining woman turned to the man, the guise of light-heartedness evaporated now that her parents had left the room.
"What's that look for? What's wrong?" She asked, knowing the expression of concern a mile away. He was leaned against the central console and starring at the still-ringing phone set as if something was terribly out of place.
"That's not my phone."
"What do you mean? Of course it's your phone. Who else's phone would it be?" She inquired. She would like to think that he was, as usual, just being silly, but she wasn't fool enough to believe that he would kick up a fuss just for the sake of frightening her. He shook his head, disbelief still apparent in his face.
"It's not my phone!" He repeated. "This is my phone," he explained, lifting and slamming back down a receiver inlaid in one of the control panels, "this is my phone," he added, gesturing towards a mobile that was once given to him by an old friend and was now laying on the flat surface before him, "even this is my phone!" he exclaimed, tugging open a drawer from beneath a board of flashing lights and pulling out a tangled pair of tin cans on strings. "But that? It's not even a real phone! It's part of the chameleon circuit, part of the woodwork! To be calling it, you'd have to be calling the ship itself. It would take a ridiculous amount of energy, not to mention an extraordinary level of technological prowess and equipment. It's nearly impossible. Any manner of hell could be on the other side of that connection."
Dean's face had fallen into deep concentration, like he was willing the ringing to stop and be replaced with the familiar voice of trouble. After the sixth ring, he figured something might be deterring the signal.
"Why's it taking so long?" Sam asked, breaking the gap of silence.
"Shhh!" hissed Dean. He was a tried and true veteran of the phone wars, and he knew all too well that a single fragment of conversation picked up in the background when your adversary answered could bring an otherwise stellar prank call to pieces. It was imperative that the operation be handled by all present with the highest level of seriousness if they were ever going to succeed. In a perfect world, he would have put it on speaker phone, but the telephone set was so out-dated that it didn't even have a speakerphone button. It even had a rectangle inlaid in the dusty surface where could be written the numbers of your most frequented landlines, an attribute that hadn't shown up in modern phones for years. That being as it was, the two brothers were seated on the edge of one bed and Jack on the opposite edge, straining their ears to hear both sides of the exchange, or rather, lack thereof.
"Hello?" answered a falsely bright voice. Sam opened his mouth to point out the obvious, that that was clearly a woman's voice and therefore unless the Doctor had regenerated yet again, not the droid they were looking for. That was what he would have said, if he hadn't been promptly shoved violently by Dean, in a universal message to keep his mouth shut. Sam got the message.
"Hi there, this is Greenway Fruit Supplies. I'm looking for a one mister "the Doctor?" Dean said, with his perfected sales-person voice. After all, he was a sales-person! That, and a cop, an FBI agent, homeland security, wildlife agent, and occasionally a professional international actor on vacation to the states, depending on the crowd. There was a pause at the other end of the line.
"I'm sorry sweetie; he can't come to the phone at the moment! Might I ask why you're calling?" the sickly-sweet voice continued in way that made Sam a tad wary.
"Yeah, we've got an order of about thirty crates of apples under his name, and we were just wondering whether he wanted them picked up or delivered," Dean said.
"Oh, I see. Apples. Mhm… Funny, I don't think he likes apples!"
"That's strange, because he clearly ordered a lot!" Dean insisted.
"Well I'll make sure to tell him you called. Oh, and one more thing!" The voice woman's voice went on, dropping the cheery guise. "Before you try to be clever, why don't you make sure you're calling from a number that's slightly less traceable?" she suggested, tone turning dangerous. Dean knew this was the final test, and he was entirely ready.
"Sorry, ma'am? I don't follow?" he said, cranking the innocence factor up to eleven.
"Let's see... Earth, UK, London, Smithway hotel, room 513, no, sorry, 413is it?" She asked with a touch of smugness. Dean's face fell.
"What. How-"
"Really shouldn't be making prank calls so early in the day, now should we, honey?" She tutted, with a growing air of victory that made Sam feel full-on uneasy. "Maybe we ought to send somebody to straighten you out, don't you think?"
"No, I'm sure that won't be necessary," Dean assured her, sounding a lot more confident than he felt.
"Oh no, I insist," she purred. "When's good for you, five? Five thirty? Oh, what am I thinking, clearly you've got plenty of free time, so we'll just swing by any time!"
"No, I really don't think you want to do that!" Dean insisted with growing urgency.
"Almost sounds like you're sorry!" noted the voice at the other end of the line.
"Yeah yeah yeah, sorry, won't happen again. These must be somebody else's apples," he responded, and Sam flinched at the show of stubbornness. They came that close, that close to getting off the hook, but noooo, Dean's smart-ass tendencies were stronger than his will to prevent a paradox.
"…You know, I think we really should swing by. I'm certain we could sort out just whose apples those might be, wouldn't you think?"
"Please don't."
"What should we say, twenty minutes? Twenty-five in case of traffic?"
"Really, I'm asking you please don't do this. You'll regret it."
"Oh I don't think I will, not one bit."
"Lady, please! You don't know what you're getting into, forget about the apples!"
"Let me tell you something, little man. You've got half an hour to get yourself in order and pray to god that you're far, far away from there before I have the chance to fine you, because you're in for a world of trouble if and when I do. How d'you like them apples?" There was a solid on the other end of the line.
The three were suspended in a horrified kind of silence for what seemed like ages, staring at the receiver still gripped in Dean's hand in disbelief.
"Don't tell John," Jack said resolutely, a request that was greeted by hasty nods of agreement from the brothers. They were, undeniably, in trouble.
"I hate apples!" The Doctor exclaimed in protest as soon as River had replaced the phone decoy in its place. "What are you doing talking to somebody about apples? Waste of time, if you ask me, and that's coming from somebody who has literally all the time you could want and more," he noted. River rolled her eyes, and consulted the window opened on the control panel's screen. It still had the tracked address displayed in bold letters.
"What do you think, Doctor? Fancy a detour before hitting the Pond household?" She asked. The Doctor considered this for a minute, mulling it over. Well, why not? What could possibly go wrong just from tracking a simple, if not completely impossible and potentially dangerous phone call?
"Well alright, suppose it couldn't do any harm. What's the date?"
"Seventh of May, 2009 by the looks of it," River reported. The Doctor paused, as if pulling up memories that had been filed away long ago for safe-keeping. He half-smiled.
"May '09… great month. Had myself a real adventure right about then, if I remember correctly. Not often you've got to deal with the brothers and the detectives in one place at the same time," he added, more to himself than to River. "Quite the debacle, that was… never really figured out entirely what happened. Drove me mad for ages of course, but you've just got to move on sometimes." River nodded in agreement, having absolutely no idea what he meant.
"Shouldn't take too long… just a quick pop in to sort out some rabble and then back on route. Amy and Rory will probably sleep right through it," she remarked. The Doctor glanced up at the screen once more, just to make sure he was going to exactly the right date, and not somewhere in the near vicinity of time, as that did happen on occasion. He reset the copious number of dials, levers, buttons, and settings, and off they went.
"Given the probably density, there would have and should have been room enough for them both on the door, it was foolish to ever assume otherwise," Sherlock insisted.
"But what you're not taking into consideration is the fact that it wasn't a door at all, it was in fact part of the architectural doorway, which actually was much thinner and much denser. It's easily recognizable by the design; it's based off the original after all," the Doctor rebutted.
"Oh, how would you know?" Sherlock sneered.
"I was there!" the Doctor informed him.
"I still don't like that she said she'd never let go and then did… it's just not decent to let the poor boy's body go off to sea somewhere like that!" Mrs. Hudson commented.
"Forget the body, why would you let a priceless diamond necklace go off to sea somewhere like that?" John scoffed. Sherlock was prepared, as always, to give his opinion, but was interrupted by a loud, repetitive beeping.
"What's that? Smoke alarm?" The Doctor asked curiously.
"Smoke alarm?" John half laughed, "In the same flat as him? They'd have to start charging us for the number of false alarms we'd cause."
"All for the sake of science," Sherlock assured him somberly.
"But then what could it…?" The Doctor stopped, realizing that the sound, although loud, sounded somewhat muffled. He reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and sure enough, there was the sonic, raising five types of hell with the way it was shrieking now that it wasn't hindered by the fabric. All color drained from his face.
"Doctor? Something wrong?" John questioned quizzically. Whatever the alarm meant, he had a feeling it wasn't anything good with the way the Doctor's face had fallen.
"Paradox… huge paradox. Could rip the world to pieces… what's it doing here? Why now?" He finally managed to get out, his mouth having gone dry and leaving him somewhat stunned. It didn't make sense! Even with another dimension having brief access to this world and vice versa, nothing like that should have caused a paradox! How could that be?
"Isn't there anything you can do?" Mrs. Hudson asked with concern, taking a sip from her tea cup. The Doctor snapped out of his stunned trance and sprang into action.
"Yes! I can source it, it's got to be within the city limits to be working this strongly, and otherwise the alarm would have been sent to the TARDIS and relayed to me, not just directly sent to the sonic. It's too dangerous to find the primary source though, that could trigger the paradoxical potential energy and rip the universe apart. But I can triangulate where we are right now with the possible source and the secondary source, and find out what caused the paradox, not the paradox itself," he explained as he ran through the screwdriver's modes in a hasty attempt to complete the process he was telling them about, "That should be lead enough to give me a head start on…" he trailed off. The results were in, and they spelled trouble with a capital T and an extra side of incompetence dangerously mixed with temerity. "I have to go."
Sherlock raised an eyebrow somewhat in a nonchalant show of interest. "Sounds like trouble… do wish I could be there, but the brother isn't going to arrest himself, and I have to make sure we have the proper accommodations for Captain Jack. He'll still be coming tomorrow, I assume?" Sherlock asked.
"What? Yes, of course, I'll need your help now more than ever," the Doctor responded distractedly, stuffing his arms into his coat and stuffing a few more of Mrs. Hudson's biscuits into the pocket opposite his psychic paper. "Sorry to have to go so abruptly, but it really is an emergency! I'll see you all tomorrow, good luck on that case, try not to blow anything up without rationalizing why first!" he listed quickly by means of good-bye before his frantic face disappeared from view as he scrambled down the stairway.
"…Did he seem a bit tense to you?" Watson asked.
"Probably," Sherlock answered.
It had been a hectic night at Torchwood. What should have ended in a day of celebrating their advances in the field of inter-dimensional exploration had ended in the strange and mysterious kid-napping of their leader. Nobody knew where he'd gone, not for sure, but everybody had witnessed some tiny, out-of-place thing or had some small scrap of information each that made it clear Jack was most certainly not alright, and that there was foul play at hand.
Nobody had quite caught what had happened to Jack. They, or really, Toshiko had managed to convert the rift machine blueprints so that they had relatively the same effect of opening a portal from one place to another, but instead this time having the effect on space, not time. As soon as they set the machine into motion, a blinding white light had spurted from the machine with a terrifying roar, filling up the whole of the base with light and sound and making it impossible to see or hear what was going on. It must have lasted only a minute or so though, because everything was exactly the same as it had been when Tosh finally managed to grope around for the controls and shut it back off. There was one difference though… There was Jack, leaning against the computer desk with his face twisted up in pain, gripping at his stomach as though he were about to be sick.
They had asked him if he was okay, but none of them could get a word out of him at first. He only nodded in response. Eventually he choked out something about needing air, and stumbled away to the front entrance, not bothering with the lift. That was the last all four of them saw of him together. That was the last of any solid information.
Ianto insisted that Jack had seemed a bit "off", whatever that meant. Gwen thought that anybody might seem off when they were keeled up and about to be sick, but she admitted that she might have seen something suddenly flitting out of the opened portal before she was forced to close her eyes and cover her ears in defense against overpowering sight and sound. Owen told them that according to the overall health-monitors which automatically scanned every two and a half minutes and updated on the vitals and information of all Torchwood personnel, Jack was experiencing an unusual and potentially dangerous spike in blood sugar, as well as either emitting or carrying some sort of energy that couldn't be identified by the default software. But nothing was as ominous as the testimonial Toshiko gave.
After twenty minutes, she'd figured somebody ought to check up on Jack. With everybody else running about in a tizzy trying to find more information on just what the hitch-hiking energy could have been, she slipped away to the exit, expecting the worst and hoping for the best. He wasn't leaning against the building's wall, or even anywhere near the entrance as she'd thought he would be. As a matter of fact, he wasn't anywhere to be found. Of course it was night, and there wasn't any way to be sure if she'd heard correctly, but she could have sworn she'd heard somebody call her name, and that somebody sounded like Jack. But when she glanced up, the first thing that caught her eye was a police car parked several meters away, just outside the pooling light of the streetlamps. There was the swish of a long coat, the slam of the car door, and it sped away with the tires squealing. Tosh had even tried to chase after it, screaming herself hoarse for it to stop, but it was predictably fruitless. All she could do was tell the others about the disappearance and the police car. Gwen contacted the department, inquiring about the car and the mysterious driver, and who might have been nearby to witness the event.
Not a single police officer had been near the docks or the base in weeks.
The Doctor tapped his foot impatiently against the grubby viridian carpet, arms crossed over his chest. He fixed each man, no, with their behavior they were more like boys, before him with a disapproving stare in turn, which turned out to be quite difficult when he got to Sam and had to stare disapprovingly up at him, due to the three inches height difference.
"Now I'll say it again: I'm not mad, just disappointed," he sighed
"It was Dean's idea," Sam said hurriedly.
"Dude, shut up!" Dean protested with a hint of a whine. The Doctor looked between the two brothers, already aware of the fact that they had undergone a decent number of interrogations and come out in one piece. That left him with only one option. He really, really hadn't wanted to play this card, but he just didn't have a choice.
"Jack, what happened?" he asked sternly. Jack raised one eyebrow in disbelief. Whoever this Smith guy was, he knew more than he was letting on. Withhold and be withheld on, that was the way of the world, Jack thought to himself. It was a principle that had suited him just fine up until now, and he wasn't looking to reevaluate his life choices right then.
"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Jack responded.
"Now keep in mind, Captain, it wouldn't be very…nice of you to lie to me." What? What was that supposed to mean? What a load of old… actually, more important question, what was that queer feeling coming over him? He did feel kind of bad… after all, whoever Mr. Smith was, he had tried to be really accommodating ever since picking him up without explanation outside of the Torchwood base in Cardiff, even if it was sort of an unexpected gesture. He didn't really want to have to lie to him, did he? He supposed not… gosh, he felt terrible for even considering it as an option. What kind of person did that, just went around lying to everybody? How awful.
"Well, first of all it wasn't really Dean's fault, it was really sort of a group effort," Jack confessed hesitantly. The Winchesters groaned. The Doctor sent a smug grin in their direction.
"Tell me everything," he prompted of Jack.
Dean went to bed with the ever-renewed feeling of rancor towards the Doc. He'd given them the scolding of their lives, like he thought they were some middle-school delinquents! Who did he think he was, with his dumb time machine and his dumb coat and his dumb everything? It was just a harmless prank call that actually turned out to be maybe a little harmful after all! There was no explaining that to him though, it was just 'blah blah responsibilities, blah blah low-profile, blah blah possibly tearing a whole in the space-time continuum'. The Doctor was so full of hot air he must have made bounce-houses jealous. The only consolation Dean got was from the knowledge that the Doctor's clever little stunt he'd tried to pull hadn't gone off without a hitch after all. Turns out Jack didn't actually sleep… at all. Which was, even if a little disconcerting, convenient for the time being. One bed for each brother and nobody got the floor. What more could you ask for under the conditions? Maybe for whoever thought it was a good idea to turn the bathroom light on in the middle of the goddamn night would get some common sense knocked into their thick skull!
He rolled over to face the digital clock perched next to the phone that had lead to so much trouble earlier. The glowing display read ten minutes to two. Dean sat drowsily up in bed.
"Sammy?" he muttered questioningly. Glancing over, he could see in the dim light that his brother was the furthest thing from conscious, and certainly not responsible for causing the ruckus coming from the bathroom. "Harkness," he growled to himself, disentangling himself from the scratchy sheets and quilt.
As he paced to the bathroom and peered into the doorway, it appeared something was very wrong. Jack was hunched over the sink, coat sleeves rolled up to his elbows and gripping onto the basin's edge so tightly his knuckles had gone white. As Dean tried to work out exactly what was going on, the Captain's shoulders heaved forward as he coughed violently, taking one hand off the sink's edge and trying to stifle the sound by covering his mouth.
"Jack? You alright?" Dean asked warily. Jack nodded fervently with his back still turned to the doorway, but didn't speak. Suddenly he was attacked by another severe bout of coughing. He squeezed the sink even harder and coughed so roughly that a spray of virulent cerulean flecks sprayed into the basin. He straightened up and swiped the back of his hand across his face, leaving a bright blue smear from his knuckles to his wrist.
"Dude, that is definitely not normal," Dean remarked, screwing his face up at the decidedly gross display. For the first time Jack faced him. Dean was taken aback by the state he was in.
"Yeah, doesn't feel too great either," Jack said weakly, albeit sarcastically, with a wry smile. Jack's face was drained of all color, and if anybody could manage to look sleep-deprived without actually needing to sleep, Jack had achieved that hours ago. Looking past him, Dean could see that the sink was full of blue splatters. Apparently Jack had been at it for a while. Dean felt somebody poke him in the arm, and turned to find that Sam had woken up after all.
"Is somebody… burning marshmallows?" Sam asked groggily, not having regained all of his wits quite yet so soon after waking up. Dean would have thought it was the unscheduled wake-up call getting to Sam's head, but then he realized that the question wasn't as unreasonable as it seemed. There was a slight, recognizable smell of burnt sugar loitering the room's atmosphere that he hadn't noticed before.
"Is that you?" Dean questioned Jack disbelievingly. He nodded regretfully.
"Sorry," he said, wincing as another dry heave over took him, producing another glob of blue drivel that splatted into the sink. He leaned resignedly against the wall. "Sorry to wake you guys. I think that's all for now," he promised uncertainly.
"How many times has that happened?" Sam asked. Jack shrugged nonchalantly.
"Five or six times tonight? It's probably some side-effect from the dimensional exposure," he theorized aloud. Sam stared at the sink full of supposed dimensional side-effect. After a moment of consideration, he tugged at the knob behind the faucet that plugged the drain and flipped the hot water on, which immediately started filling the bowl.
"What are you doing?" Dean asked Sam, feeling a little sick at the turn of events.
"Science," Sam replied simply and drowsily. "Come on, there's no use trying to get back to sleep now. Might as well get something done," Sam remarked as he made his way back to his bed and their packed bags.
"What could there possibly be to get done? It's not like we can very well just call up the- John Smith. Hell, he won't even know Martha yet, so we can't call her and ask for his number, she might not even know who we are yet! We don't know where he went off to earlier, so it's not like we can call there. The only place we can really call is off-limits," Dean ranted, following behind him and sitting on the opposite bed. "We don't even have decent wifi connection!"
"We don't need wifi where we're going," Sam assured him.
"Where are we going?" Jack asked, joining them after taking a minute or two to wipe the last traces of blue matter from his face and hands and switch off the hot water that had now completely filled the sink.
"We're going," Sam spilled out a glorious array of notepads and pens, "old school. John won't help us figure out what's up, so I say we take charge ourselves. It's time to do some-"
"Oh boy. Here we go," Dean sighed, rolling his eyes.
"Serious research!" Sam tossed one of the notepads to Dean and another to Jack. "From now on, this is the wifi. If we just manage to amass a web of facts massive enough, we'll be able to connect them and figure out what's going on. We've gotta start with what we know: what happened at Torchwood." Sam had already begun avidly scrawling facts and possible relevancies down on the pad of paper, and Dean sighed reluctantly as he figured he ought to do the same. Great. Three hours of sleep and another seven of studying. It was just like the college he'd never felt the urge to attend. But at least one thing was certain: there was no way tomorrow could possibly be any worse.
After almost a full day of waiting in the dark and anxiously scurrying about the base in a futile attempt to find some kind of lead on Jack, it happened, like a godsend in the form of a vociferous beeping from Toshiko's computer. The entire team was already on edge, and the alert of something possibly bad didn't do much to improve their morale. Of course, what Toshiko announced next did.
"It's identifying registered Torchwood technology in use!" she said with disbelief. Owen crossed the room hurriedly, observing her screen.
"Is it alien?" he asked. Second-in-command hadn't been an easy post to fill, and he could use a lifeline in any form, be it terrestrial or not. Tosh shook her head, and typed furiously at the keys before her, starting the program to trace the source.
"It can't be, with the signal registered. It's our own design, has to be."
"Well it's Jack, isn't it?" Gwen asked excitedly, getting to her feet off of the stray couch pushed against the wall. "Maybe he's trying to signal us! He could be in trouble!"
"Or it could be a trap," Ianto pointed out, joining them around Tosh's computer.
"Either way, we don't have much of a choice. We have to go find him," Owen decided.
"It looks like it's coming from London…Marylebone, by the looks of it," Tosh reported.
"How quickly can we get there?" Owen demanded.
"Traveling-wise? Just shy of three and a half hours, give or take for traffic. Plus another two or three to get everything together so we're not just walking blindly into what could be anything, call it five and a half hours…" Ianto trailed off.
"We'll be there just in time for tomorrow morning," Owen said gravely, nodding. "Do what you've got to do. We're leaving as soon as possible."
Three and a half hours, he'd been at this. Three and a half hours and the Doctor was no closer to finding out what was the cause of the paradox. It's not that he didn't have the technology to do so, no, it wasn't that at all. It was simply that the technology didn't feel like complying. Leave it to the TARDIS to announce that the results were confirmed, but that he wouldn't be allowed to view them "at this point in his personal time-stream". He tweaked and prodded as much as the mechanism as he dared and then some, but to no avail. Eventually, he dropped the mechanics and resorted to name-calling.
"You know, a taxi cab would never sass back to me! Never! Honestly, you're worse than Donna. I don't know why I let you do this to me," he protested. The TARDIS stayed silent, because she was after all a TARDIS. The Doctor was undeterred. "I think you're forgetting which one of us is the pilot here. Here's a helpful guide: It's me! I'm the ring leader, I'm the conductor!" Once again, the concept of a one-sided conversation was lost on him. He sighed and leaned resignedly against the center consol. "I'm sorry, you know I didn't mean that. I know you think this is best, but you know you can't smother me. I'm a grown man and I will not be bossed around by my own ship. Is that clear?" The only response he received was the ever-present subtle ebbing sounds of the interworking. He grabbed his coat from where he'd draped it over the seat next to the center consol. "I'm still very cross! This isn't over!" he called to the empty control room on his way out the door. As the silver key clicked in the lock on the outside, the interior lights of the TARDIS softly dimmed, leaving the control room both silent and shadowed.
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