Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.
One-shot.
The Final Minute
They needed the Doctor. There was only thirteen minutes left.
The Earth was going to be destroyed if nobody was able to disarm the bomb sitting on Jack's desk. Somebody had posted it, green slime all over the brown wrapper - and upon opening it, it started ticking down. Jack hadn't yet had time to think who, what or why.
Seventeen tense minutes had already gone by, with every Torchwood resource being implemented and unable to do anything other than predict the scale of the blast. And it was big. The Doctor was their last resource; their last chance. Jack had already dialled the number and held the mobile anxiously to his ear while it rang.
"Hello," answered a mature voice. That wasn't the Doctor, a companion maybe.
"Where's the Doctor?" Jack shouted.
"Ah, this is Three speaking."
"Free what?" asked Jack, confused.
"The Third Doctor, which number are you looking for? He has explained regeneration to you, hasn't he?"
"Oh. Right. Yes. I don't know which number he is. This is urgent."
The man sighed.
"Well, I don't remember you, so that rules out One and Two. Is his body young?"
"Yeah, mid-thirties," shouted Jack, trying to find the right Doctor as quickly as possible.
"I met Five once, we'll give him a go shall we? Goodbye, for now!"
Then the phone started ringing again.
"Hello!" answered a young, cheery voice.
"Doctor?"
"Oh it's you again! I thought I put you through to Nine?"
Jack frowned, "No, you said you'd put me through to Five."
"That's odd. Well I'm Five so that's right, time sure does fly doesn't it? Sorry though, still haven't met you yet. But let's see…I'll bump you forward two bodies and see where that gets us, okay?
"Can't you just help me? This is really, really urgent!"
"Oh dear no. You, my friend, are a fixed point in time. That could destroy…" the voice paused, looking at the caller ID, "Earth; I like Earth - good Cricket!"
"But it's…" Jack shouted, stopping himself as the phone started ringing again. He began pacing around his office. The bomb declared there to be ten minutes remaining.
"Hello," said a man, he sounded out of breath, an explosion could be heard, followed by a scream.
"Doctor?"
"Yes? Oh it's you again. Little busy now actually."
"Big brown hair," shouted Jack, "My Doctor is tall, with big brown hair."
"Right. Well Four sounds about right, although I don't recall meeting you, but then I did have a bout of amnesia recently; I say bout but…"
There was some more shouting and explosions.
"Bother, I'll just put you through to Four, things are quieter when you ring."
Jack sighed loudly as the phone began to ring again.
"Hello?" answered a controlled but excited voice.
"Four?"
"Yes?"
"No, you're not the one I want," shouted Jack in exasperation, "I've done Seven already, so give me Nine because I've met the Doctor before the current one and Seven wasn't him."
"Oh, hello, I thought I put you through to Five?"
"Long story, this is kinda urgent, Doctor!"
"Certainly, I'll put you through to Nine right away. The TARDIS is very good at knowing my timeline, strange actually how she didn't put you through directly to your Doctor. There's something very odd about your timeline."
"Yeah, yeah I'm immortal. Now let me speak to Nine!"
With that the phone started ringing again, and a familiar Northern voice answered.
"Hello?"
"Doctor!" Jack cheered, he'd missed that voice.
"Have we met?"
"Yeah, it's me, Doc!"
"Oh it's Mystery Phone Man again," he said with cheery sarcasm, "things still urgent your end?"
"Yes! I need Ten."
"Oh, way to remind me of my own mortality. Who are you anyway?"
"We'll meet soon, just put me through!"
The voice cut off and phone began to ring again.
"Ahoy," said the Tenth Doctor in a voice that made Jack almost fall to his knees in relief.
"Doctor, you're a hard man to find."
"Jack? Oh that's brilliant! You're Mystery Phone Man?"
"Is that the best name you could come up with?"
"It was Nine's idea," said the Doctor a little defensively, "Must be your Timeline or something," pondered the Doctor, "you should call direct to me..."
"Yes, you said -"
"Oi, that was centuries ago!"
"Doctor, we need you at Torchwood, there's a bomb; there's five minutes left before it destroys Earth."
A whooshing, whirring, scratching sound engulfed the room and a sharp breeze made Jack stagger backwards a step.
"Oh dear," said the Doctor, still on the phone to Jack, "How did you end up with a bomb that powerful?"
"That was quick," said Jack as the TARDIS door opened and the Doctor walked out.
"Quick?" said the voice on the phone, "I haven't left yet."
"Just hang up on me," said the Doctor standing before him, hands in his coat pockets, "and excuse my language."
"Jack?" shouted the Doctor on the phone, followed by several obscene and alien swearwords when he realised what had happened. Jack hung up the phone with a tired sigh; glad that strange experience was now behind him, but knowing Earth wasn't out of danger yet.
"That's it there," said Jack, pointing at the spherical bomb sitting on his desk, it's multicoloured innards hanging out - Torchwood's failed attempts to disarm it.
The Doctor rushed over to it, putting his glasses on.
"Oh that is a powerful bomb," he said, pulling forward a few of the hundreds of tiny wires, all of different colours and shades and hues, "it's been a while since I've had to disarm one like this, mind."
He leaned in close.
"Hmm, Tuscan Terracotta and Apricot White have to be crossed," he mumbled, biting into the thin plastic wires to expose the metal. He flinched a little at the tiny electrical impulse, but took no notice and wrapped the wires around one another.
"Teal Tension has to be cut," he said under his breath as he reached into his pockets for some wire cutters.
He paused about to cut it.
"Or is it Mediterranean Blue," he asked himself.
Jack's phone suddenly rang, it was the TARDIS' number.
"Doctor, the TARDIS is ringing me."
"No, it's Mulberry Burst," the Doctor smiled to himself, swiftly pulling out one of the darker shades of purple and cutting it. "Then Spring Blush has to be switched with Sorbet."
Jack decided it best to answer the phone,
"Jack!" shouted a anxious voice he didn't recognise, "It's the Doctor, from the future, tell me to check Sorbet twice before I cut it. I'm going to confuse it with Jasmine Shimmer. I've just noticed Dulux changed their classification! This must be when I rang myself."
"Noooo, Doctor, stop!" shouted Jack as the Doctor pulled out two almost identically pink wires, "That's not Sorbet!"
Not quite as dramatic an exclamation as Jack would have hoped for, but at least it was pithy.
The Doctor froze, his brow beginning to sweat as the timer counted down: two minutes remained.
"Says who?"
"Says a future you! Apparently you're redecorating."
"Pink?!" squeaked the Doctor, "I'm redecorating pink?"
Jack shrugged and the Doctor turned back to the task at hand.
He dug deeply into his inside coat pocket and pulled out a digital Dulux paint-colour-code card; clearly too big to have sensible fitted into normal pockets.
He pressed the screen to access the 'Reds, Pinks and Violets' section and squinted at the line of colours.
"Universal standard," the Doctor explained.
Jack moved in closer; he could barely tell the difference between them.
"Oh yes! They've changed that one," he grinned to himself as the timer reached one minute.
"Doctor?"
"Right," he looked up as Jack reminded him of the dire situation. "Right!" he repeated more enthusiastically, throwing the card onto the desk.
He tucked the fake Sorbet back into its place and switched the correct wires.
The bomb's dramatic counter stopped with only fifty seconds remaining. Jack sighed and the Doctor grinned; the world had been saved in the final minute.
Jack ran forward to hug the Doctor.
"Mystery Phone Man!" he cheered as Jack threw his arms around him.
Jack laughed heartily as he stood back. He held his phone to his ear.
"Thank you, Doctor!" he said.
"Is that me?" nosed the Doctor, "what do I sound like? Do I sound ginger?"
Jack smiled, said a cheerful goodbye and hung up the phone.
"What did you hang up for? Did I say how I died?"
"No, but he said you'd ask that," laughed Jack "he just said: spoilers."
The Doctors eyes widened.
"Spoilers? Was there a woman there too?"
"Not sure, but there was a baby crying," said Jack with a frown.
"What?!" shouted the Doctor, his eyes - quite impossibly - widening even more.
The End
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