The Stolen Earth / AU
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A/N – as the title implies MAJOR SPOILERS for The Stolen Earth. Because as noted I wasn't totally unhappy, but I wasn't quite happy either…
I'm brining the events Stolen Earth into "my" AU world, taking place some time after Chapter 35 of Short Stories. If you're reading this even though you don't read that, just take it on faith that there are new team members and don't worry about who they are. I left them out of the action on purpose.
This may or may not be a one-shot, will decide after next week's episode what to do w/ it. The usual disclaimes apply; Torchwood and Doctor Who belong to the BBC and I'm not making money here.
Everything prior to Jack leaving the Hub follows cannon (except that the Torchwood Team have met Donna and the Doctor as well as several other previous Companions previously, in the above mentioned Short Stories.)
Jack entered the numbers Martha had given him from Project Indigo into the controls of his wrist strap and turned to face Gwen and Ianto, unable to keep himself from smiling. He wasn't going to lose his team, not today. "All right. This is going to be a rough ride, but we're going to go find him..."
"Jack… I can't," Gwen backed away from him.
Ianto gave her an incredulous look, "You can't stay here, you heard what the Herriot Jones said." He fought off the blind panic that was clouding his senses. It was as much a deep seated psychological fear of Daleks triggered by the memories of Canary Wharf as it was a very rational fear of Daleks because they were… well… Daleks. They were Daleks and they had somehow been transported the Earth and twenty six other worlds to some other place in the cosmos, and that was technology that scared the young Welshman half to death.
"Gwen…"
"No, Jack. I have to go to Rhys. This… this could be it. You said so yourself. I don't want him to be alone."
"We have to stick together," Ianto told her.
"But we're not together. Bobby and Wendy are out there somewhere."
"They're together, they'll be all right," the Captain insisted again. He realized he was saying it to convince himself as much as anyone else. He had to believe that he wasn't going to lose them, not today.
"I… I can't leave Rhys alone, Jack. I can't."
He swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. The lump turned to ice and dropped down into his gut when Ianto spoke next:
"You can't go out there by yourself," the younger man stepped away from Jack. Although he looked like his heart was breaking, his voice was calm. "I'll come with you."
She shook her head, "No. Go with Jack. I want you to go with Jack," she fought back the tears.
The young man opened his mouth to protest, but she shook her head again, stepping further away from the pair of them.
"I want you two to stay together. I'll be fine," she forced a smile.
"Gwen…" Jack began again.
"I'll be fine, honest," Gwen swore again, as she began losing the battle and eyeliner-stained tears streaked down her cheeks. "I have to go be with Rhys. You two go. Find the Doctor. Find him and… and save the world," this time the smile wasn't quite so forced.
"All right," Jack nodded. "But be careful out there." He handed her his side arm, "Remember, aim for the eyestalk."
"Right. Eyestalk," she nodded.
"And I expect that returned to me in good working order," Jack added.
"Will do," Gwen nodded and a gave them tight lipped smile; she ran out of the Hub, sealing the doors behind her, hoping they hadn't noticed that she was crying.
"Jack…?" Ianto questioned him.
"It's her choice."
Ianto looked past him at the wreckage that was the Hub. The Daleks would be here any minute… Bobby and Wendy were out there somewhere, they'd been investigating a rift spike when the whole Earth jumped to its present location. But Jack was right, they were together, they would be all right. Even if they'd been unable to get in touch with them, they'd be all right. He took a breath and closed his eyes a moment. He was just barely holding back the tears that had been threatening to break through for the last thirty minutes. But he needs me, Ianto reminded himself. All they had right now was each other.
When Ianto opened his eyes again, he asked simply, "What do I do?"
"Come here and hang on tight," Jack hefted the huge gun over his shoulder. "This thing wasn't really meant to transport more than one person, but it's been done before."
Wiping his cheeks, Ianto crossed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around Jack's waist.
"This is going to be a bumpy ride," the Captain warned; he wrapped his free arm as tight as he could around Ianto's shoulders and pressed the controller on his writs strap.
The Hub abound them seemed to pixilate, becoming a thousand points of light and dark… the colour washed out, the dark over took the light and everything wrenched and twisted in the Ianto's gut… and in a nauseating flash of colour and light and deafening white noise, they were standing on the street under a dark alien sky… Earth's new sky.
"Just take a deep breath," Jack held on tight until it felt like Ianto had found his feet again.
The young man nodded to indicate that he could stand on his own.
Jack let him go slowly, taking in the scene around them. The street was in ruins… smouldering rubble where houses had been… wreckage of vehicles… the smell of death. The smell of extermination...
"What do they want?" Ianto whispered, clinging to Jack again without meaning to. It was Canary Wharf all over again, only somehow it was worse… it was a scene out of his worst nightmares...
"I don't know. Come on," he checked the readings on his wrist strap. The TARDIS should be around here somewhere… "We're close. Keep your eyes open."
"Right." Ianto took another breath and drew his gun, unsure it would do any good, but it was better than nothing. "I'm all right," he said to Jack's concerned expression.
The Captain nodded and led the way… first he saw the Doctor… running… then he saw the Dalek… then he saw Rose.
The next few seconds were a blur; he didn't remember aiming or even pulling the trigger, but the gun in his arms went off and the Dalek went up in smoke and then he was running.
"Rose? Rose!"
"Jack…!" she grinned wildly, but it only lasted a second, "The Doctor…We have to get him to the TARDIS…can you help me carry him?"
Jack handed the gun off to Ianto and got the semi-conscoius Time Lord to his feet. Then he looked over at Rose again, half expecting to see Donna standing there wanting to know why he'd just called her Rose, but it really was her… it was Rose Tyler… "How… how are you here?"
She was too consumed with worry for the Doctor to answer his question, but she did manage a tight smile over in his direction, "Great timing, by the way, Captain."
Jack smiled back, wondering if that was true or if he'd arrived too late for it to be the nick of time. It looked like the Doctor was losing strength with each passing second.
"Oh my God!" Donna cried when they got in the TARDIS door, "What happened!"
"Dalek," Jack explained, "Are you all right?"
"NO! I'm not all right. I'm not at all all right!"
"Donna… calm down," Ianto put the gun down and moved towards her. "It's all right," he didn't really believe that, glancing again at the Doctor as Jack and the blond laid him down on the control room floor, but he needed to say it anyway, and not just for Donna's sake.
"Stay with me, Doctor, please!" Rose held him close. "I came back for you!"
He smiled up at her, "You're still fantastic."
"Doctor…!" She sobbed, understanding what he was saying. That's what he'd said the last time he did this, that she was fantastic.
The Time Lord's gaze shifted to the man clinging to him, "Jack, good to see you. Good timing. You too, Mr. Jones," he glanced up at the young Welshman. "Donna… it's all right…"
"Doctor!" Donna cried. "Don't you dare leave me like this…!"
Jack held onto him, "Hang on! We need you. I need you!"
"It's starting…" he said then, and closed his eyes.
"We're losing him," Rose sobbed. "And I came all this way… I came back for you," she told the Doctor. But as he began to shimmer, she pulled back, hauling Jack to his feet along with her. "It'll be all right," she said, realizing that she was the only person who could explain it (not that she had the words.) "I came back for him, but it'll be all right," she wiped the mascara and eyeliner stained tears from her cheeks and held onto Jack as tight as she could. "It'll be all right, really it will."
Jack gave her a confused look, "I don't understand…"
"This is it, he's regenerating… I saw it before… " she told the Captain. "He'll never be the same, but he'll be all right."
Donna shook her head. "What's happening? What do you mean 'regenerating'?"
"It's what he does when he's about to die…" Jack told her.
"Die…?"
"It's what he does instead of dying," he tried to explain. "It's ok. It's going to be ok. He's changing. But it's going to be ok."
Donna looked to Ianto but the best he could do was shake his head; he was completely out of his depth and not afraid to say that this was one time when he didn't know everything.
Neither Jack nor Rose were completely convinced that it would really, truly, be all right, which was why Jack chose that moment to tell he something he hoped would make her smile. "By the way," he wiped the rest of the moisture and black smudges from Rose's cheeks, "Sorry we didn't invite you… but I got married a couple of weeks ago."
She took the bait and grinned, "You? Jack Harkness? Married… how…who…?"
Jack chuckled despite everything else that was happening and nodded over his shoulder, "That gorgeous Welshman behind me."
Rose looked over at Ianto; he gave her one of those shy little smiles…
As the shimmer radiating form inside the Doctor intensified, Jack held onto Rose tighter hoping she was right, that this was what it was really supposed to look like when the Doctor did this…
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A/N:
It bugged me that Jack knew about regeneration but Rose was the one who'd witnessed it first hand, yet in the actual script, he was telling her what was going on. While I agree that Jack certainly knows what it is and maybe even how it works, she should have recognized it (IMHO) right away from the last time she was there when the Doctor regenerated.