Title: Sixteen miles to the Promised Land
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Characters: Jack, Owen, Ten (with some implications therein)
Rating: PG-13
Length: 4,800 words
Disclaimer: All belongs to the BBC
Spoilers: S2 of Torchwood, S4 of Who
Warnings: Character death, violence, angsting.
Summary: He walks forward, quick steps, and gets so close Jack can only see his feet in their white shoes. "What did you do?" Jack coughs, and sees the blood in his hand. "Nice to see you too."
AN: Completed for Finishathon on multific

The TARDIS materialises into the hub, the only noise to break through the oppressive silence. Jack shakes into wakefulness before he is conscious of the dream ending.

The Doctor – the changed version of his Doctor – steps out of the door and looks around. His movements are quick, and panicked, nearly hysterical. His eyes fall on Jack. He walks forward, quick steps, and gets so close Jack can only see his feet in their white shoes. "What did you do?"

Jack coughs, and sees the blood in his hand. "Nice to see you too."

"You're the only life-sign on the planet, Jack! This can't be right. This isn't-"

"No," Jack agrees, "but here we are."

"This isn't how it… You're still here! If this happens, you can't be… what did you do?"

"Nothing," Jack says, "I didn't do anything. I just stayed and watched them die."

The Doctor steps closer, and his expression turns shocked, and gentle, and a little afraid. "Jack," he says, and he's looking at Owen, at the way he is curled in against Jack's side. "Jack, you know that he's…"

Owen coughs, unnecessarily. "Yeah, sorry, mate. Still here. Mostly anyway. Helps when you don't need to breathe." His skin is cool to the touch, and he presses his undamaged hand into Jack's.

The Doctor is looking at Owen the way he looks at Jack – like something wrong, like he's an abomination. A flicker at the back of his eyes, the curl of his lip – disgusted. They are two side of the same coin, and Jack squeezes Owen's hand, very carefully. "Don't," Jack says. "It isn't his fault."

"No," the Doctor says, "it's yours, isn't it?"

Owen climbs, too quickly, to his feet. "Don't even fucking dare. He was here, and you weren't. We were here, when you were off gallivanting, and I saw him call you, a hundred goddamn times, and you didn't come."

"What. Happened?"

"There was a…" Jack's vision turns black-spotted and hazy. "A. Fuck. Owen."

Owen drops back down, catching Jack before his head hits the ground. "I've got you."

The world goes dark.

Owen isn't impressed with the Doctor. Not just because of the way he's looking at Owen like something he scraped off his shoe. Right now it's more the way that he's no help with moving Jack. Jack's taller and heavier than Owen – hard to shift even when he's not completely dead weight, and Owen's mostly carrying him alone.

They get him into the TARDIS, and through a maze of corridors Owen won't be able to find his way back along by himself.

The med-bay looks nothing like the console room. It's white and sterile, and doesn't look like something that's been grown under the sea. Owen likes it immediately.

The Doctor pulls a stethoscope from his inside pocket, and Owen snatches it from him.

"Hey," the Doctor protests. "Hello. Mine!"

"You're not a real doctor," Owen dismisses him. "And you won't find anything I don't already know."

Owen puts the stethoscope to Jack's chest just to check. No heart beat yet. At least that means none of the laboured shallow breaths that came near the end. He looks at the Doctor. "Plague."

"Sorry?"

"There was a plague. Genetically engineered, looks like, but we weren't ever sure whether it was meant to go down like this. None of ours admitted making it anyway."

"Ours?"

"Torchwood, UNIT, MI5, etc etc. And no one we know in the States."

The Doctor makes a noise at the back of his throat that sounds like tutting, like a professor admonishing errant pupils. Owen swears under his breath, then louder, in case the Doctor missed it. Jack still doesn't stir.

Owen lets the Doctor push him out of the way, and steal back the stethoscope. The Doctor listens for Jack's non-existent heartbeat, and pushes back his eyelids to see his unresponsive pupils.

"You want a mirror?" Owen asks. "He's dead, it'll take him a bit to get up and going again. Have you closed the doors? Whatever it is, it's airborne."

"How many times has he…?"

Owen laughs. "What month is it? Never mind that, what fucking year is it?"

Jack coughs, and the Doctor pulls his hand back hurriedly, from where it had been lying on Jack's chest. Jack says, "Don't exaggerate, Owen. It's been-"

"Five months, eleven days. Since the last outside contact." Owen answers while stealing the stethoscope back, checking that Jack's vitals are back to normal.

Jack bounces to his feet. "Console room," he says. "We should check that none of the plague got inside."

"My ship," the Doctor says. "Nothing's got inside my ship."

Jack grins. "Hey, I got inside your ship. Let's just check anyway."

He leaves them in separate bedrooms – humans need so much sleep – but when the Doctor walks the corridors, he hears their voices coming out of the same door.

Jack's voice is low and smooth, with Owen's interruptions making sharp cracks. It has been a while since he did this – walked the TARDIS corridors listening for mingled voices. He was a different person back then, and it was Rose's laughter bubbling through Jack's. This is nothing like that.

The Doctor walks back to the console room, where it is suddenly quiet.

He runs another scan, and even the TARDIS feels confused. There is something wrong with Jack, still, though his rejuvenation has always been a reset.

The Doctor walks past Jack's – their – room again. Inside, Jack is choking. The Doctor shoves the door open, pushing past Owen to lay his hands on Jack's chest. Jack gasps for air. "It's too quick."

"It's all right, Jack," he says, "It's all right. We're going to take a little trip. We'll sort it out."

He watches Jack die, again, and lowers him to the floor. Then he nods at Owen. "C'mon. You're going to help me plot a course."

"Am I then? And where are we going?"

"Oh, you'll like this one, Doctor Harper. We're going to New Earth. Best hospital in the universe. If you're very good, I'll even stop them trying to throw you into the morgue."

Owen blinks at him, but is only discomfited for a moment. "If they're so good, I'm sure they'll notice the walking and talking thing."

"You're still dead, Owen. People don't like that."

"You don't like that."

"I'm not the only one."

"Yeah, well, Jack does okay."

They get to the console room, so the Doctor chooses not to respond to that one, instead pointing Owen to a spot on the other side, near a handle. Owen is clearly not a natural pilot, made worse by how determined he is not to reveal this fact. It takes all of the Doctor's efforts just to keep the TARDIS mostly steady. They land – abruptly, but in one piece.

The Doctor smiles. "Welcome to New Earth. And please try not to throw up on the floor of my ship."

Jack wakes up in a strange bed. There's nothing particularly new about this, though it's been a while. He doesn't like hospitals, even with the easy availability of pretty nurses (some who have whiskers and tails). Still, Jack pulls himself loose of the white sheets, and opens his eyes. "Two doctors was enough, you know," he says, "any more than that is overkill, even for me."

Owen glares. "Feeling better then?"

"Why? Should I be?"

He sees the Doctor leaning against the doorway. The Doctor says, "You're fine. Now, anyway."

"And the universe?"

"Still here."

"Good to know."

Owen ignores the discussion of the state of the fabric of reality, in favour of looking over Jack's chart. Medicine has advanced somewhat since the twenty-first century, but Owen runs his finger along the page as though he has no trouble understanding all of it. Either that or he's trying to avoid the conversation. Jack sympathises.

The Doctor looks at him. "You're fine. We can leave when you're ready."

"We?"

"Yeah. We." The Doctor looks away first – decision made, moving on to whatever he's going to do next. It apparently includes Jack and Owen, which would be flattering, if Jack wasn't so sure that they're here to be watched. Here because they have nowhere else to go, though this was once the only place in the universe Jack wanted to be. The Doctor doesn't look back at him when he speaks from the doorway. "The TARDIS is outside. When you're ready."

Owen sits on the foot of Jack's bed. "So we're just gonna stay here?"

"Yep."

"And do what, exactly?"

"Travel."

"For as long as he lets us? He doesn't like me, Jack."

"He doesn't like me either. He'll get over it."

"You sure? Because he seems pretty positive about it."

Jack laughs, and tugs Owen against his shoulder. They lie like that. Owen taps his fingers along with Jack's heartbeat, just like all those long months in the Hub. Jack smiles and closes his eyes. He extends his free arm to touch the walls of the TARDIS. "It's never quiet here," he says. "I loved that."

Owen gets that. He's not much of a fan of silence either. The Hub, at the end, had all the silence of the grave. In the times in between, with Jack's heartbeat stilled, Owen had been afraid he might go mad. It's possible that he did, and that he has borrowed Jack's dreams of escape to make himself this sanctuary. The Doctor's presence should stop this from being one, but Jack still smiles, and holds Owen between the ship and himself.

Owen's flying is no better on the second attempt, and Jack seems to be more of a distraction than a help. The Doctor watches themtussle over a set of levers, bumping into each other and getting in each other's way. There's no synchronicity, and no ease between them. They just tangle, and bang elbows, and brush skin to skin.

Jack says, "Tourmlaine? Interesting choice."

"Little peace and quiet," the Doctor answers. "Research."

"Yeah?" Jack ducks under the Doctor's arm. "How long's that going to take?"

"As long as it takes."

Jack's expression turns smug, as though the Doctor is lying but Jack knows it. The Doctor points him towards a spot on the other side from Owen. Jack reaches around the column to throw a switch, not looking, knowing the TARDIS well enough that he doesn't need to. Except that Owen doesn't know which switches move where, and his fingers would have been underneath it when it snapped close.

The Doctor moves faster, grabbing Owen's arm at the elbow, and pulling him clear. The varied species in the cosmos have all sorts of different body temperatures, but Owen's cool skin is a particular kind of unnerving. The bend he makes in the universe is brought into sharp relief – a dark spreading stain where there should be light. The Doctor drops Owen's arm.

Owen stares. Jack says, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Owen mutters.

The Doctor looks at Jack. "Be more careful. He won't heal if you break something. Look at what you're doing."

Jack nods, taking Owen's hand into his own to check that it's undamaged. The Doctor rests his hand on the back of Jack's neck, just for a moment, and feels the warm thrum of blood under his fingertips.

Tourmlaine doesn't stay quiet for long. Jack's kind of unsurprised by that. It's nice to see that some things don't change.

It's a small moon, orbiting an uninhabitable planet, in one of the most sparsely populated areas of the galaxy. It's mostly cold desert, all but its one university city – a dome planted in the middle of a sand basin. The city is built in circles, and in its centre is the eye, where they watch the universe.

Jack dodges the flying debris, sliding in through the doorway. Owen slams the door closed, and the Doctor aims the sonic screwdriver at it, sliding all of its locks shut.

Some of the outer ring of mirrors is cracked, and the reflections of the centre are twisted and fragmentary. Jack watches himself in them, at the way his shadow doesn't look like him anymore.

Owen is watching the eye. "What the hell is it?" he asks.

"A black hole," Jack answers, at the same time the Doctor says, "a telescope."

They turn to each other. "It's not a black hole!" the Doctor protests.

"It thinks it's a black hole."

"Just because it thinks it's-"

Owen interrupts them, peering into the thing's murky depths. "It doesn't like me. It wants me gone."

The Doctor whips his head around. "It's not alive. It doesn't want anything."

Owen, still distracted, makes his answer into the black hole. "Alive or not, it still knows how to want."

Jack catches the expression on the Doctor's face – startled, and thoughtful, and sad. As always, there is that touch of anger in the back of his eyes, like banked flame. And Jack knows that it isn't fair, because he is blamed for Owen, but Rose is not blamed for Jack. Then, he knew exactly what he was doing when he did it, and would do it again. Owen is-

Owen yells, and tumbles over the edge, into the hole. His fingernails scrabble for purchase on the smooth sides, and he catches himself on one of the narrow wires. He screams, "Jack!"

The Doctor is moving in the opposite direction, towards the side of the room, and the equipment they have been accused of tampering with. He is moving away, and Jack grabs his arm. "Doctor!"

"Not now," the Doctor says, leaning over the pile of broken equipment.

"He's going to fall."

"No he won't."

Jack's fingers catch in the creases of the Doctor's coat. He whispers, "I know you think that he's- that we-"

The Doctor looks up, eyes wide and shocked, as though Jack has suggested something unthinkable. He holds out his hands mutely. The rope he has found swings between them. Jack takes one end. The Doctor says. "Stay up here. Don't drop us."

"I can-"

"I need to talk to it. It won't talk to you."

Jack twists the rope tightly around the leg of the nearest workbench, knotting it securely. The Doctor nods at him, and climbs over the edge of the hole. He lowers himself down to Owen, grabs his arm and says, "Don't let go."

Owen has grown used to the voices in the darkness calling him towards them. This one is a frantic many – a low humming like a swarm of bees. They call him wrong, and dangerous. They show him the world as it is and the world as it should be. Both look like an eternity of black to him.

The Doctor says none of the things Jack would. He doesn't say 'there's nothing wrong with him' or 'you can't have him'. He only says, "I'm looking into it," and "he's safer with me."

But he loops the rope in a harness under Owen's legs and around his waist. He says, "Jack, pull him up first." And when they are both on safe ground, he lays a tentative hand on Owen's shoulder and says, "Let's take a break. I know a little planet in the thirty-fifth century. You'll like it." He nods like he's unsure about that, and like it matters whether Owen agrees.

They land on Belta during a festival. The locals like Jack (but everyone likes Jack) and they whisk him away into the dance. The Doctor has to pay attention to keep track of him – he gets into trouble if he's left to his own devices.

Jack laughs (he always laughs) and allows himself to be led. They drape jewellery and ribbons around his neck, and make sure he is in the centre of the whirling mass of people.

But they are watching Owen with equal intent, if less warmth. Owen takes a necklace from a little girl – pale stone on black thread. He looks bemused, but hangs it around his neck. The girl smiles, and dashes away to tug on Jack's hand. Ah.

"Really need to start checking the calendar when we land," the Doctor murmurs.

Owen hears him. "Thought you said it was the thirty-fifth century."

"It is. To be more specific, it's the Vigil of All Saints, on Belta, in the thirty-fifth century. No wonder you two are the star attraction."

Owen says, "Yeah?"

"It's Halloween."

This is one of those occasions where human reactions puzzle him, with the instantaneous jump to offence, to angry flushed cheeks and clenched fists.

"And we're the main attraction," Owen repeats.

"Real Halloween. Not children and sweets and scary costumes."

"So…?"

"The night when the line between the worlds of the living and dead is thinnest. When the spirits walk the earth."

"You don't believe…"

"No. Stranger things have happened, but no."

"Still."

"Still," the Doctor says. "Life and death. And they can feel it, here. They're more… attuned."

"Like you."

"No, not like me. Well, a little like me, but only for this part. Yes, okay. So they can sense it."

"And what do they want us to…"

Jack appears beside them, panting from the exertion, grinning widely. "They want you to dance with me."

"Sorry?"

But Jack laughs again, and pulls Owen into the dance, as the music speeds up. As the strings break in, with fine dark howling. As day turns – too quickly – into dusk.

Life takes death by the hand, and welcomes him. Owen, slight and dark, disappears in the sway of Jack's coat, and reappears as he is spun out into the crowd again. He doesn't laugh, but his teeth show, sharp and fierce.

Jack looks at the Doctor over Owen's shoulder, and raises his eyebrow. The Doctor shakes his head, as gently as he can manage. There's no place for him there.

The Doctor works while they sleep, or while they eat, or play, or talk. He lies on the floor of the console room with screens on loose wires surrounding him.

Jack had thought maybe they were past this – that they could leave the problem for someone else to solve. But that is the old kind of thinking, not the Doctor's, and not even Jack's anymore. Something is wrong. It's just that Jack's not sure they want to know what it is. Once upon a time, the sole survivors of catastrophe were thought to be cursed.

Owen wanders in with two coffees and a tea. He slides the cup of tea near to the Doctor's hand, and is rewarded with a distracted smile. Jack grins, and accepts his own mug. The Doctor was a lone survivor too.

Owen is sitting by the console when the Doctor jumps up. "They live in the black holes!"

"Sorry?"

"They live in the black holes. They're-" He clicks his fingers rapidly. "Funny name. Latin name. Lacplura! Many-beings. Psychic link. They live off the energy in the black holes, they can travel without being destroyed by them because they exist slightly outside this reality."

"Slightly outside," Owen clarifies.

"Well if they lived the whole way outside it, they wouldn't care, would they?" The Doctor looks as though he might be expecting an answer. A stupid, human answer, because it's Owen, but an answer nonetheless. This is why he can't travel alone.

Owen obediently shakes his head.

The Doctor nods in satisfaction. "Exactly! So that's where we need to go."

"A black hole."

"Exactly." He pushes Owen's hand off the console, out of the way of the moving parts. Then he changes his mind, and points at a lever. "Once, up and down, when I say."

And then they're off.

This is where it starts. Or where it finishes – the future isn't exactly clear. But it is where they hold the line, the black-hole dwellers. Lacplura.

There are two timelines: one where Owen dies forever, and one where he doesn't. And at the far end of the one where he doesn't – the one where he stays to fight and question and scream – the universe ends. Death expands outwards from that one change. The only reason it hasn't been noticed is that it is being held apart from their reality – a little bubble of a dead eternity. The Lacplura have been doing what they can – acting as a living paradox machine – but there is only so much longer they can keep the timelines seperate.

The Doctor looks into the void and asks, "So. How do I stop it?"

The voice is not a voice at all. Gallifreyan has a word for it, this directed mind speaking that forms purpose as well as expression. It says, "You know that."

"Nope. Not me. My experience is more in stopping the paradoxes from being created. Resolving them was always someone else's problem."

"End the paradox. Prevent its creation."

"It's already been created."

"Then change that."

"The only way to do that is –"

"Yes."

"No."

"He is wrong. He shouldn't be."

"True. But I won't be the one to unmake him. I'll keep him anyway. My horizons needed some broadening."

"It is destiny." And there was the ring of necessity – not merely the statement, but the force behind it, that touch of compulsion. "He had no choice. He must die, or the universe dies."

The Doctor pointed at it, momentarily not caring that it had nothing like eyes. "Or. That's a choice right there."

"You cannot imagine-?"

"There's a choice. Don't ever forget that." The Doctor walks away from them.

Choice had a weight all of its own; a value and burden immeasurable. Owen had not chosen before – that had all been Jack. This time would be Owen's alone, no matter how unthinkable the other option. The crucial thing was that the other option existed, to be picked between with eyes wide open. He wasn't required to choose nothingness.

The Doctor already knew what Owen would say, at least eventually. That was why the choice mattered – it was not the right of the Lacplura to diminish that sacrifice. In the short, immediate timeframe that humanity existed in, choosing others over even a little personal happiness was incredible. And they did it so often. Would do it again.

Jack watches, as the Doctor says, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," and Owen shakes his head.

Owen says, "No."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor says again, and he means it. Jack can tell.

"I don't want to-" Owen says. "I'm not ready."

"I don't think the Lacplura can hold it off much longer."

"So it's me or the universe." Owen slams his hand onto the console, and comes to a rest against it. The breaths he doesn't need rush out of him sharp and fast. He leans his head against the TARDIS, and seems to take some comfort from the humming. Owen shrugs. "Not much of a choice, really, is it?"

"It's a choice," the Doctor says. "No one's going to force you."

"Hang around here, there won't be anyone to force me."

Jack interrupts, looking straight at the Doctor. "I'll make the choice for him. No. Find another way."

"There isn't-"

"There has to be." Jack is the one shaking his head now, stopping the Doctor from speaking if all he's going to say is this. This which has to be lies because the universe can't work like this. It can't demand a blood offering, one half-life in exchange for all the others. It doesn't make sense.

"Jack," Owen says. "There isn't."

The Doctor looks at the walls. "After Owen- Torchwood gets a medic assigned to them. You're the one that figures it out in time to stop her. If she's not reassigned to Torchwood, no one notices in time. The virus is released, and everyone dies. I'm sorry."

"Stop saying that!"

There is a long silence. Then Owen looks at Jack, and talks to the Doctor. "My decision. Let's go."

Deja-vu doesn't even begin to cover what this is. Owen has discovered that time-travel could really do with its own vocabulary. He stands in the doorway of the nuclear station's control room, watching himself save Cardiff.

Down the corridor, the door of the TARDIS is open. Jack leans against the outside, and Owen can see the Doctor at the console, through the doorway.

Owen says, "Get inside, Jack."

"Not going to happen."

"You're not meant to-"

"And I won't, when the timelines collapse together. I won't remember. Maybe you will."

"Don't think there'll be much of me left to remember."

The Doctor steps outside, and nods towards Owen's other self. "It's nearly time."

"Are you going to-"

"No," the Doctor says, and hands him the sonic screwdriver. "It has to be your choice, Owen. Setting sixty-five."

Owen nods and steps away from them. Jack follows him, and takes his hand. "Not alone." They walk together to the door controls, using the sonic screwdriver to force it into a lockdown in thirty-five seconds. Long enough to turn around, and toss the sonic screwdriver back. The Doctor stands in the doorway of the TARDIS, holding onto its frame. His knuckles are white, clenched around the wood. Owen nods at him, and Jack salutes with his loose hand. The Doctor opens his mouth to speak, but the door slams shut before he gets the words out.

The other Owen cannot believe his eyes, and instantly goes to the worst option. He raises his gun, but he is too close, and still disbelieving, and Owen punches him out.

Jack laughs. "I could have done that."

"You would have enjoyed it too much. Give me your headset." When Jack looks like asking too many questions, Owen reaches inside the pocket of Jack's coat, for the communicator he had stopped wearing, but never abandoned. Owen puts it in his ear. "Jack?"

The Jack in front of him raises his eyebrows in question. The Jack on the other end of the line says, "Owen? Where are you?"

"Doesn't matter. Listen, Gwen and Ianto are in the cells and they're fine. Get Tosh. She's been shot. She's down in the autopsy bay, bleeding badly. Get her first, do you understand me? She needs help now. Go!" He can hear the other Jack start running before the communication cuts off.

The alarms in the room start wailing. This Jack looks at him fondly. "Better hope that doesn't change the universe too."

"It'd be worth it."

Jack nods, and opens his arms wide. Owen steps into the embrace, closing his eyes against the noise and the rising heat. The world outside his eyelids burns all in white, but Jack doesn't let go.

He stands in the trees to watch the funeral. Jack's team looks battered and bruised, though it should have been a while now since the attacks. There is a woman that the Doctor vaguely recognises, being held up by Jack and another man. She holds her hand to her stomach when they pull too hard.

Martha is there too, and he steps further back. She carries less of their blank grief, and if she sees him she will want to know why he's here. He's not sure enough himself to explain to Martha's perceptive gaze.

There is a minister, which the Doctor had not expected. It could be the family's wishes. They are standing apart from Jack and his team, and the Doctor wonders what story they have been told. The minister says something about eternal life in the hereafter, and Jack's mouth tightens.

Afterwards, Jack hands his wounded team-member into Martha's care, and stands alone by the graveside. The Doctor walks to him.

Inside one of his pockets, he has the string of beads Owen was handed in Belta. He runs them through his fingers, and takes them out to lay at the base of the headstone.

Jack flinches. "What are you doing here?"

"Paying my respects."

"You shouldn't. You wouldn't have liked him."

"Oh, I'm not so sure."

"He was like me. One of my team."

"I know." The Doctor settles his hand between Jack's shoulder blades.

Jack sighs, and leans back into the touch. He looks down at the grave. "Aren't those-"

"Yes."

"Where did you-?"

"I'm just returning them to where they belong."

Jack doesn't understand; he doesn't remember. His eyes are red, and there are cuts on his hands. The Doctor moves his own hand, and lets it hang loose alongside Jack's. Jack takes a shaky breath, and uncurls his fist. His hand is warm in the Doctor's, and he holds on tightly.

FIN