THE DOCTOR
I'm not lonely, but I am alone. I can't be lonely, because if I'm lonely I'll just end up going and finding another companion, and she'll end up dead. Or worse. So I can't be lonely, because that can never happen again. I've been to places – planets, crashing spaceships – and saved people, on my own, and worship me, and then I disappear and find myself back in the silence of the vortex, almost outside time itself, except that every beat of my hearts marks off the moments of my self-imposed exile.
When a light starts to flash mauve on the console, I am glad of the distraction. Even when I track the source of the anomaly to early 21st century earth, just outside Cardiff. I'm not so surprised. That time and place is just one big anomaly, with the great big rift running through it. I hesitate. This is Jack's territory. Part of me wants to see him, because I miss him. Truth be told I miss his immortality. I sent him to his death on the games station, but thanks to Rose, the TARDIS and Bad Wolf, I can never get him killed again. At least, not permanently. And part of me wants to check up on him. Torchwood is Torchwood after all, and for all Jack's qualities and ideals, and for all that he worships me too, he's a man who carries a gun, and that's a habit that does things to a person. That's why I never will, not again. I can't afford to give myself that kind of easy power over life and death. I have enough temptations and enough power as it is. And part of me wants to leave whatever anomaly this is to Jack, and just keep well away from earth for a while. They're quite well protected these days. Not just Jack, but Sarah Jane, K9 and Mr Smith, that sinister Xylok (always did give me the creeps, Xyloks, though she seems to have it better under control now), and UNIT, of course. I shudder again at the thought of all those guns.
The light is still flashing, and almost without my consent my fingers flit over the controls and the TARDIS is materialising on the Roald Dahl Plass, already hungrily drinking in the rift energy that she seems to love so much. I transfer the tracking signal to my sonic screwdriver, click the door closed behind me, and leave her to it.
It's always windy in the Plass. This looks like early November, and it's raining. I don't usually feel the cold, but I thrust my hands deep into my pockets. I walk slowly to Jack's invisible lift – the paving stone that I materialised on once, and left an imprint of the TARDIS's perception filter. It's irresponsible of me not to fix it, but I know Jack needs it. And likes it. I owe him that much. And so much more.
There's no sign of him. I hesitate, then simply start walking, away from the hub, and towards the direction of the signal on my sonic screwdriver. He's probably already there. I walk all morning, out of the city on Taff way, all the way out to the hills by Radyr. The signal gets stronger with each step, and I am increasingly concerned, even worried. I almost wish I had materialised closer, so that I could have got here sooner, but the more I see of the signal, the less I want my TARDIS anywhere near this anomaly. I increase my pace, and by the time I reach the open hills I am running, my sonic held before me like a torch. That's when I see her.
THE WOMAN
I'm walking. Walking and crying. Not sobbing, just enough that I have to keep wiping the sleeve of my top over my face and pretend it's the rain. I don't know why I bother. There's nobody else here to see me cry, and I'm not looking where I'm going anyway. And there's nobody back in Cardiff to miss me anymore. Not now. Cold and wet all over, I don't see the grass, the sky, the trees. I just walk, and cry.
And suddenly I'm knocked off my feet, and there's hands all over me, and staring eyes – mad, staring eyes, and a smell like pee and sweat and rotting meat, and I know I'm fighting back but there's nothing I can do, it's not human, it's some sort of monster, and it's ripping my clothes and its fetid breath comes in grunting gasps, and there's nothing I can do. Vicious nails rake my shoulder and there's blood, and I don't even scream, and I'm still crying, and it hurts, and then there's nothing.
There's a moment of blissful numbness and then I hurt all over. My top is in tatters, and my jeans and pants are lying next to me, crumpled in the damp grass. I remember everything and roll over just in time. My stomache heaves, and I vomit. It splashes my hands, and my arms are shaking just holding me up. I stagger to my feet, and the monster's there, right behind where I was lying, but he's not a monster any more, he's a man – a tramp - and he's dead, so dead, his mad staring eyes blank and glassy, and his face is gray and wet with rain.
I wipe my mouth with my tearstained sleeve, and step back, appalled, then my legs act on their own and I'm stumbling away, anything to get away from the horror of it all, and the world is spinning, and it feels like I'm dragging a 20 ton weight behind me, and I hurt all over. There's a knifing pain in my gut, and I double over, retching again, but the heaviness that's following me is like a tidal wave, and I drag myself up again, not knowing where I'm heading but just needing to keep moving.
I don't know how long I've been staggering through the long wet grass. Time has no meaning, my head's spinning, and everything hurts, and the tidal wave always feels like it's a millimetre behind me. I keep on going.
THE DOCTOR
She's trying to run, but it's like watching someone dying. There's blood all over her top, and she's wearing nothing else. It doesn't take a genius to work out what's happened, but that's not what fills me with such horror. It's the great gaping, oozing wound in time and space that she's dragging behind her that makes me stop short and throw my hands in front of my face, as if I can hide from it. She hasn't seen me (I'd be surprised if she's seeing anything around her) and I'm still stood there useless when I hear Jack. He's running behind me, calling my name, but I daren't take my eyes off what's coming towards us. I know exactly the moment when Jack sees it. I know he can't see it like I can, but he's done enough time travelling, and spent enough time babysitting the rift to know a huge problem when he sees it, and his language has always been colourful in extremis.
He grabs a fistful of my jacket, as if to steady himself, and for once his own wrongness hardly registers, I'm already so shattered by what's happening. Neither of us wants to go anywhere near it.
This is the sort of damage to the fabric of space and time that tears whole planets apart. Left unchecked it's end of the universe stuff.
JACK
I'm running. The SUV is abandoned by a farm gate, and at the crest of a hill I see him. It's the new him, but he's alone. I'm not surprised he's here, and I know straight away that we've both been tracking the same signal. I call out, but he's just standing there, swaying slightly, and he's got his hands thrown up in front of his face, and I feel another shot of adrenaline at the thought of what might stop the Time Lord in his tracks. When I reach the top of the hill and see what's coming at us, I'm horrified.
The fear and aversion coming off him in waves, but for once it's not due to me. Even I can sense the horrific gaping wound in space and time that's literally opening up in front of us, so for him it must be a million times more intense. I'm so battered by it that it's a moment before I see the small bedraggled figure at apex of the damage. It's a girl, looks younger even than Gwen, she's half naked, and Oh God, is that blood staining her thighs as well? Pity, revulsion and fear battle for the upper hand in my mind, and even as I see the same battle going on next to me in the Doctor, we both know that we can't run from this.
THE WOMAN
There's something ahead. Two silhouettes on the crest of the hill, and I falter, and when they move towards me, and become men, men running towards me I panic, I want to run back, but I can't, the tidal wave is pressing in on me, and there's nothing I can do. Then they're on me and there's voices, and hands reaching out, but nothing makes sense and suddenly it's all happening again. I'm not there on the hillside, I'm back to the trees, and it's the mad staring eyes and smell and the pain and I'm struggling, and thrashing, and crying and I'm not sure I'm breathing then mercifully there's nothing again.
THE DOCTOR
We're running now, down the hill towards her. We don't want to go anywhere near the wound that's being carved behind her, but we can't run away. She looks up, and there's nothing on her face but terror. Wide, red rimmed eyes, but not even a scream. I say something inadequate that's supposed to be soothing, and we reach out to steady her – she looks ready to collapse – and then she's somewhere else, reliving whatever hell she's just been through, and it's all flailing fists, and kicking, and she's bitten three of my fingers through to the bone before she finally passes out. I am still stumbling backwards cradling my injured hand as Jack catches her and lays here down in a small broken heap. He wipes blood of his face, and then reaches down to touch the side of her neck. I hardly know what's happened. My hand is agony, but it's nothing to the feeling of being mentally ripped apart caused by being next to the spatial and temporal anomaly that's flowing out of the girl, even in her unconsciousness. Jack's shoulders sag in relief, and then he's beside me.
JACK
It's not normal for me to lose a fight, but I'm losing this one. Whatever hell she's gone to in her mind, it's given this girl the strength of ten. Her forehead makes contact with my face, and I reel backwards as pain explodes in my nose and lip. Beside me, the Doctor is staggering away, blood flowing freely from his right hand, and I'm starting to wonder how the two of us are going to get out of this in one piece when the girl's eyes suddenly go blank, and all the colour drains from her face. I'm just in time to catch her as she falls, and suddenly the only sound is my own ragged breathing. When I reach down to check, there's still a pulse. I go to the Doctor's side. He seems a little out of it, too, or he would resist more when I take his hand gently in mine and give the bite marks a quick look. They're deep, and the knuckles look wrong. The bite was vicious enough to dislocate the fingers, so they're probably fractured too. I wince in sympathy, but I know there's little I can do for the Doctor here, and that we won't be able to stop and sort them out until we've neutralised the anomaly.
THE DOCTOR
I'm still trying to get my mind around what it is we're facing when Jack takes my hand and examines the injuries. I could have told him that they're broken, and pulled from their sockets, but I can't seem to find any words at the moment. I take the opportunity instead to re-establish some of my mental defences to protect my delicate time-sense from being overwhelmed again. The pain recedes, if only slightly. I take my hand back from Jack and thrust it into my pocket, trying to ignore the purely physical pain. It is the least of my worries.
At my feet lies the sonic screwdriver, half hidden in the long grass, dropped during the struggle. I stoop, and use my left hand to pick it up. Clumsily, I reset it and start to scan both the unconscious young woman and the anomaly. Jack asks what it is and it doesn't take me long to find him an answer. I knew there were life forms that inhabited the rift – not falling through from one time and place to another, but actually living in the rift itself, feeding off its energy, just as my TARDIS does. Now I know they can leave the rift and cause havoc in what should be stable parts of space and time. I know that it must be sent back into the rift, but I don't know how to fix the rest.
I tell Jack what I've found so far, but I have one more thing to do. I don't want to do it, especially in my battered state, but I must. I remove my injured hand from its protective pocket, and, kneeling beside the unconscious woman, I ignore Jack's intake of breath and place my fingertips at her temples.
It is all I can do not to scream. My hands shake and I close my eyes, trying to steady myself and brace my telepathic receptors against the mental anguish confronting me. The information I'm looking for is right there on the surface, like an toxic oil slick, and I wish with both my hearts that I could take it away for her. I can't. I can only share it, revolted, as I am forced to watch through her eyes as she is attacked, and as the rift creatures moves from the tramp it had occupied to the body of the young woman, flashing through her bloodstream like an electric shock before coalescing within her like a hideous parody of a pregnancy.
I've seen enough. More than enough, and I withdraw from her mind, reeling backwards and sideways as I return to the physical world. I land on my injured fingers and I don't know whether it's the pain of that or what I've just seen in the woman's mind that makes me bring up the contents of my stomach.
JACK
When the Doctor describes the rift-creature to me, I'm not surprised – I've faced Abaddon, after all, and survived (eventually), so the idea of there being more lifeforms in the rift doesn't really come as a shock. But when I see him enter her mind, and then only a few seconds later lurch back as if he's been punched, and then lose his lunch, I brace myself for the worst. I've dealt with my friends being impregnated with aliens before. I've dealt with lots of things that would send most people screaming to the hills, and just called it another normal day at the office. But there is something about this that has shattered me, and I can see from the Doctor's face that he feels it more strongly. His face is white, and the eyes are almost black. He doesn't look at me as he tells me everything I need, but don't want, to know. I'm grateful that my own telepathic ability is so limited. There's only so much of someone else's pain that I can take. By this time I'm sitting next to the Doctor. We're both soaked to the skin, we're exhausted, and there's a great ragged tear in space-time just inches from where we are sitting, but we now know what we have to do.
THE DOCTOR
I can hardly look at Jack as I tell him, as emotionlessly as possible, what has happened, and what needs to happen next. Silently, he unstraps his vortex manipulator and it only takes a moment for me to buckle it to my right wrist, and a moment more to fix it with the sonic – enough to get me back to the Plass to retrieve the TARDIS. Much as I am loathe to bring her anywhere near the anomaly, we don't have a choice, and time is short.
I leave Jack and get a safe distance before activating the wriststrap. It's a crude enough piece of equipment at the best of times, and these aren't the best of times. Even with the nausea and headache that come with such a mode of transport, it's still a relief to be back near the TARDIS. I can feel her concern enveloping my battered psyche, and gladly return the warmth, basking in its healing effect, even as I run to her and set the controls.
She knows what must be done, because I know, and I can't keep this from her. She is afraid, but she trusts me. I wish she didn't.
It takes only seconds to get back to Jack on the hillside, and in those seconds everything has gone to hell.
THE WOMAN
Suddenly I'm awake and there's fire in my gut, it's burning, and the tidal wave behind me feels like it's about to crash down and crush the life out of me. I hear a scream, and realise it's mine, and when I open my eyes, there's a man there again, and his hand is on my arm. I thrash out, I roll and stagger upright, fall again, and scream. He's there still, behind me now, I can feel his hot breath on my neck and the wool of his coat against my bare legs, and he's holding my arms behind me, but all I'm thinking is that I have to get away. And it hurts, it hurts so much, and the pain in my gut makes me writhe. I twist my head down to bite his hand, and he curses, but holds on. He's shouting, but I can't make out the words, nothing makes sense any more, it's all just pain and fear and horror.
I twist again, and this time it's not me screaming. The hands holding me loose for a moment, and I turn back, landing heavily, and I'm horrified. The man is holding my legs, but it's like he's holding onto them for his life. He's being dragged back by something, and he's screaming, and there's terror in his bulging eyes. I panic, I kick my legs, and one hand lets go. Then it's all over, I'm pushed out of the way, and there's another man, and he's hauling the screaming one towards him like he's pulling him out of quicksand. By the time the screaming stops, I'm standing again. He's dead, the screaming man. Face fixed in a mask of pain and fear. And the other one just turns towards me and for a moment it's like looking at a god, all wrath and power and it's like he's the one fixed point in a hurricane.
Then he's just a man again, looking exhausted, and the only thing he says is, 'Sorry, I'm so sorry' as he steps carefully towards me. I don't even move as he raises his hands to my face and the last thing I see is two dark brown eyes. Then there is nothing at all.
THE DOCTOR
Jack's dead again. If I'd not pulled him out of the anomaly in time it might have challenged even his powers of survival. As it is, I don't know how long it will take him to get over this one. I'm careful to avoid touching the edges of the wound in time and space as I take the two steps that separate me from the woman. I don't need telepathy to see her exhaustion, her terror, and that helps me temper my features so that I am no longer the oncoming storm, but the sainted physician. My usual words of apology are empty, but she doesn't really hear them anyway. Knocking her out is a blessed relief to both of us.
I carry Jack to the TARDIS first. He is literally a dead weight, and I ache all over by the time he's safely in the console room. Then I prepare the TARDIS for what we are going to have to do. It's not going to be pretty.
I carry the woman – she's little more than a girl – to the TARDIS doors. I can't bring her inside. I daren't. Already my ship is suffering the effects of being so close to rift creature that inhabits the unconscious woman. I collect what I need from the TARDIS infirmary, and a quick search of Jack's body yields a pair of steel handcuffs. Hating myself, I handcuff my injured right hand to the woman's. It will be up to me to make sure neither of us gets pulled into the rift when the time comes.
I take a deep breath, and make my first incision. There's lots of blood, and the rain can't wash it away fast enough. My eyes flick to hers, and she's still deeply unconscious. I know exactly where the rift creature has tethered itself to her flesh, and as long as she stays insensible, it should be dormant. I cut away at the woman's flesh, and because I have no choice I keep cutting until I can reach in with one gloved hand, and grasp the creature's physical form, living within her abdomen. It takes me a long three minutes to cut through the flesh around it. I have to be sure I've got it all out. I cut, I pull, I suture, all left handed. My right hand is still useless. The sonic helps to slow the bleeding. I blink back tears, and pretend it's the rain that's collecting on the inside of my glasses.
The last thread of the creature's hold on her is snapped, and it wakes with a jolt of what feels like 50000 volts running through my body. I convulse, and cry out in agony. The medical tools slip through my numb fingers, and I roll to the side, trying to avoid the creature's flailing tendrils. Dimly in the background I hear the TARDIS' engines whining and straining to stablise the fabric of space and time. Groping fingers find the doorframe and I cling to it, as the handcuff cuts brutally into my wrist and the woman is gradually dragged further into the anomaly. I have only moments. Using the last of my strength, I haul the woman's still bleeding body, through the TARDIS doors, and throw myself inside after her. I'm only barely aware of the doors closing before I fall back and hit my head on them.
JACK
Air rushes into my burning lungs and I sit up, pulse racing and just trying to breathe through the pain of resurrection. I don't know how long I've been dead, but I'm in the TARDIS, and the Time Rotor is pulsing up and down, but there's a strange note to the engines. My eyes scan the console room for the Doctor, and I'm on my feet in an instant when I find him, unconscious, on the ramp. He's pale and still, but the shallow rise and fall of his chest reassures me he's alive.
Beside him in a crumpled heap, the woman is quietly bleeding out all over the floor.
THE DOCTOR
Jack wakes me up with a shout and a shake of my shoulder. He's only just come back to life himself by the look of it. His wrongness is always so much more difficult to process when he's just come back to life. I blink, and wince at the knot forming at the back of my skull, then I'm up on my knees, and only swaying slightly as I bend down to check whether our guest is still with us. She is. Barely. Absently, I trace a finger along the inner wall of the TARDIS. She's OK, and I'm more relieved than I care to admit. Jack picks the woman up, and it is an anxious half hour in the infirmary before we're sure she's going to survive.
I leave Jack with her to finish the cosmetic work while I head back to the console room. It's all a bit anti-climactic in the end. The old girl does a wonderful job of sending the creature back into the rift, and between us we do a damage limitation and clear-up process on the delicate space-time landscape. This is what I do. It's what I'm for. I work on automatic, my brain in overdrive making systematically sure that everything is back in place, while my emotions continue their circling anguish at what we've all just been through.
By the time I get back to the infirmary, Jack has already put retcon in the woman's IV. I don't know whether to be angry with him, but I'm too shattered to be anything but relieved. It might be all we can do for her. She's still unconscious as Jack and I dress her in some of the clothes that Rose left behind. By the time she wakes up there'll be no trace on the outside of her physical injuries.
There's nothing even the TARDIS' medical equipment can do about the fact that she'll never be able to have children. I scan her again to make sure there's little or no evidence of my rushed surgery, and feel guilty relief that even if she investigates her infertility, no one will ever be able to tell her why.
JACK
I do a good job on the woman. I try not to think too much as I wash the grime and blood off her skin and even wash her hair and clean her teeth. I use the very best that the infirmary has to offer to remove the bruises and regenerate the skin to heal cuts and grazes. The Doctor has already done the difficult internal work. I try not to think about that either. It only takes a minute to decide to add the retcon into her IV fluid, and less than that to actually do it. I tell the Doctor, and expect him to the angry, but I don't think he has the energy. We dress the woman in some clothes the Doctor has brought. I don't ask whose they are, because I can guess.
He scans her again, and I know what he's looking for. But he's done well. We don't comment on the very obvious issue that the scan shows, but I can see the moment when the Doctor is sure that she will never know how it happened.
Whether it's the relief, or just everything we've been through catching up on him, but it's at that moment that he finally starts to sway on his feet, and I catch him before he can hit his head again as he falls. He looks so very young when he's out cold. He's pale, and the double-pulse flutters visibly in his neck. I want to reach out and touch it, but I don't.
I don't put him on a bed in the infirmary, but carry him to his own room, and lay him gently down. I return briefly to gather medical supplies, and then sit down on the bed so as not to wake him. For a moment, I just look. Then I double check the hypospray I've found, and press it to the side of his neck, before gently shaking him awake.
'Jack...' he mutters, voice gravelly and eyes unfocussed. I've given him a sedative – one of his own, and mixed with a mild painkiller that's safe for him, and a drug that should soothe his battered psyche. Because he needs it. And because he wouldn't do it for himself.
I can tell he knows what I've done, but doesn't have the strength to argue. I reach out and take his unresisting injured hand. Through the dried blood, I can see that the fingers are a swollen mottled purple. He knows what I'm about to do, and I'm glad I gave him the painkiller as one by one I reset his dislocated fingers. He swallows convulsively and his eyes roll behind the eyelids. Cold sweat stands out on his grey-tinged skin, and he drapes his other arm across his face, as if to hide the pain from me. I try not to think about it too much as I wipe the blood of the fingers and clean the bite marks. They're full of dirt and blood. Very carefully I stitch up the most gaping parts, and neatly bandage each one, taping it to the next to act as a splint. I've done this sort of thing before for my team at Torchwood, but it's different caring for the Doctor. I feel guilty seeing him at his weakest, and I try not to imagine a world in which he might bring himself to want to need me.
I finish strapping up his hand, removing the vortex manipulator and replacing hit on my own wrist, and then I leave him to sleep.
THE DOCTOR
It's an hour before I am awake and alert enough to get out of bed and look for Jack. I don't thank him, but I know he doesn't expect me to. The painkiller has worn off, and my hand feels about how you'd expect, but I'm good at dealing with pain. My mind still feels raw and bruised, but that will pass. I feel sluggish and blurry as I pad out of my bedroom. The sedative lasts longer than the painkiller. I should really adjust the dosage on those hyposprays, but I never really use them. Jack's not in the infirmary. Our Jane Doe is still there, sedated, but otherwise looking the picture of health. I tuck a stray hair behind her ear, and almost regret for a moment that I'll never know her name. But it's better that way.
Jack is in the console room. He's on the phone to his team, making arrangements for them to collect the body of the tramp and create a cover story for his death, and another one for reintegrating the woman into her life. Torchwood seems to be good a hiding evidence, and I don't know what to feel about that. He rings off, and I follow him back to the infirmary. Together we unhook the IV, and Jack lets me carry her back through the TARDIS. The Torchwood team are waiting for us, and it's the work of moments to load her into the back of the SUV.
We watch them leave in silence.
JACK
I can feel the pain and grief radiating off the Doctor. Even though this was one of the ones we saved. I wish I could give him a dose of Retcon just to give him some peace. But I know he wouldn't accept it, even if it would work on him. And I know I couldn't do it myself, either. I don't object as he uses the sonic to disable my wriststrap again. I console myself with the knowledge that he trusts me more than I trust myself.
All either of us can do is damage limitation. I tell the Doctor I'm going for a drink, and I know he won't follow me. As soon as the doors are closed, I can hear the TARDIS dematerialising.
THE DOCTOR
Nine hundred years, and it doesn't get any easier. My hand is throbbing, my head's still a mess, but the rest of me feels numb. I watch Jack leave, almost wishing I could join him for that drink, and both of us forget, for a while. But I don't. I shut the door on the world and slip into the vortex. It helps. I feel more distant from the events and traumas of the day, and descend into my comfortably familiar existence. On the edge of my consciousness, I feel the TARDIS' concern for me. But for now, all I can do is damage limitation.