Hello and welcome to part three of the Impossible series!
With the exception of the one-shot, I recommend reading these in order:
Getting Back to Impossible, Golden Age of Impossible, The Impossible Dream, and A Proper Goodbye for the End of Time (one-shot).
I own nothing save for some T-shirts and my Official Companion Guide from the Doctor Who Experience in Cardiff.
Chapter 1
The distinctive wheezing noise of a materialising TARDIS could hardly be heard over the pulsing rhythm of the darkened 51st century bar. Nor did any of the inhabitants seem to notice yet another set of floor-to-ceiling speakers just fade into existence in front of them. It could have been that the bar was dark, the only illumination provided by beams of multi-coloured laser lights on the walls, or it could have been that the hypervodka was so strong, none of the patrons really cared.
Inside the TARDIS, the noise of the bar was apparent from the moment they materialised. Rose thought something or someone was pounding on the ship's doors. "Are you sure this is the right place?"
"Of course it is." The Doctor strode confidently past her to fling open the TARDIS doors, which unfortunately also let the painfully loud booming noise that passed for music inside. "I'm certain Jack is here somewhere."
"What?" Rose shouted over the din.
"I said I'm certain–" the Doctor began shouting. "Oh nevermind." He grabbed Rose's hand and pulled her out into the large dark room, dominated by a long U-shaped bar with patrons sat on either side who ranged from ordinary human to very, very alien.
It wasn't easy to identify people in the dark, at least not for Rose's human eyes, but she followed the Doctor as he wove through the moderate crowd. As they moved further down the bar, Rose's ears popped and suddenly the banging of the music was muted to a tolerable level.
"What was that?" She was finally able to talk to him again at a normal volume.
"Noise cancelling field. This is the quiet side of the bar."
It took a few more seconds for the pounding in Rose's head to subside. "Is that what they call music in the fifty-first century?" she asked with a grimace.
The Doctor looked over his shoulder at her. "Well, it's not what humans call music, if that helps restore your faith in your own species."
"It does, yeah. Oh there he is!" She tugged the Doctor up to the bar beside a tall, dark haired human man in a long navy coat. The Time Agent they knew as Jack Harkness seemed more focused on the empty shot glasses in front of him, arranged in a neat and orderly grid, than in the blonde woman sliding onto the stool next to him.
"Fancy meeting a bloke like you in a place like this," she said with a cheeky grin.
Jack's head snapped up when he recognised the voice. "Rose!" He pulled her into a hug that nearly lifted her off the barstool. "And the Doctor," he added, seeing the man in question give him a challenging look. "So what brings you two to this side of the galaxy?"
"Special delivery." Rose reached out her hand towards the Doctor, but Jack caught it and held it up to his face.
"And what's this?" he asked, examining the silver tone ring with a setting that swirled around the central deep blue stone. "Is that?" He tapped the stone with a finger and watched it turn from blue to ruby red. "Chameleon quartz. Don't see that too often. So who's the lucky guy?" he asked with a teasing grin as he released Rose's hand. He couldn't help cutting a brief glance to the Doctor. It was so easy to wind him up, at least where Rose was concerned.
"Looking for one final fling before the big day? I get that a lot." He said it deliberately just loudly enough so the Doctor could hear. Rose just slapped him on the shoulder before giving the Doctor's arm a reassuring squeeze.
The Doctor's narrowed dark gaze never wavered from Jack as he reached his arm down into the pocket of his brown pinstriped suit and removed a square ivory envelope. "We were going to invite you to the wedding, but I think I've changed my mind."
Rose snatched the envelope out of the Doctor's hand and passed it to Jack. "I know it shouldn't be any trouble for a Time Agent, but please make sure you note the date, time, and year."
"Not a Time Agent anymore," Jack commented bitterly as he carefully pried open the envelope. He missed the look exchanged between Rose and the Doctor. "John Smith. You really go by John Smith?" he asked with disbelief.
"Not for much longer," the Doctor replied enigmatically. "How long has it been since you last saw us?"
"You mean Hollywood?" Jack carefully tucked the invitation inside his coat, similar but not quite the same as their original Jack's military overcoat. "It seems like it was only a few months ago, but apparently it was almost two and a half years ago."
"What do you mean?" Rose asked cautiously, fairly certain she knew the answer.
"About a month ago I discovered two years of my memories were gone. I have no idea what happened or why. But I think I know who."
"The Time Agency?" Rose asked.
"Yes," Jack said slowly. "Do you know something?"
"The same thing happened to you in our universe."
"So what can you tell me?" Jack demanded.
Rose looked to the Doctor, who shook his head and replied, "Our Jack Harkness didn't know what happened, either. At least not as of the last time we saw him. He only said the Time Agency had stolen two years of his memories."
"Ret-conned," Rose said sadly.
Jack's head jerked in her direction. "How does a human from the twenty-first century know about ret-con?"
"I work for Torchwood, or well, I did. They don't use it anymore, but before it was taken over by the People's Republic, apparently it was used a lot."
"Torchwood," Jack said slowly. "Like the great-great-grandfather of the Time Agency?"
"Maybe," Rose said with a shrug. A thought occurred to her, and she grabbed the Doctor's hands and pressed lightly on his much stronger mental shields so he'd let her in.
"We can help him, find out what happened," she said silently. But the Doctor didn't even have to put his reply in words; Rose could feel his negative response. She turned pleading hazel eyes towards him and felt his resolve start to slip.
"Just a look," he acquiesced, and she could almost hear him sigh reluctantly in her head. "If it's a fixed point, we leave."
Rose gave him a tongue-in-teeth grin followed by a quick, hard kiss.
"Why do I feel like I missed something?" Jack drawled.
"I'm going to need your Vortex Manipulator," the Doctor announced with an outstretched hand. Jack quirked an eyebrow but did as he was asked, unfastening the brown leather strap and handing it over. Without another word, he shoved the Vortex Manipulator in his jacket pocket and tugged Rose in the direction of the TARDIS. A still-perplexed Jack followed closely behind.
The noise that passed for music once again started trying to pound its way painfully into Rose's skull as they passed through the deafening side of the bar. Fortunately the towering array of speakers wasn't far, and none of the patrons seemed to notice the three people disappear inside. With the TARDIS doors closed, the sound once again returned to a bearable level.
"So what's the plan?" Jack asked as the Doctor rounded the console to set the Vortex Manipulator next to the monitor. Rose stood just behind the Doctor, watching the monitor over his shoulder.
"I'm downloading the logs from your Vortex Manipulator. Maybe where you've been in the last two years will help us figure out what happened."
"But you need the Time Agency's encryption keys to get that data. I don't have access to that," Jack protested.
"You forget," the Doctor said smugly as he pointed to his temple. "Exceedingly clever."
"There isn't much here, but it looks like you made multiple trips to London from late 2005 through mid-2006," Rose said, reading the data on the monitor. "Doctor, that's around when we came here the first time."
Even without the benefit of telepathy, the Doctor would still have been able to feel the worry radiating from Rose. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer before addressing Jack. "Do you recall ever running into any Cybermen?"