Wish you were here? (Or The Great Torchwood Escape)
"Hold on." The Doctor screamed louder than he thought he ever could. His arm out-stretched in a futile gesture of help. There was a good fifteen feet separating him from Rose and even if he stretched out to his fingertips it still wasn't close enough. Rose was risking her life... Worse, risking an eternity in the Void – in hell - by switching the lever back on. The pull was so strong, so intense, his shoulder felt like it was dislocating. And there she was clinging by the tips of her fingers. Sheer force of will keeping her there.
And then the crushing inevitable happened. She lost her grip. Turns out he was wrong. He could scream louder. He could see the fear, the terror in her eyes as she was sucked towards the void. If there was any justice, the force of it would rip her body apart and she'd be dead. How desperate was the situation when a violent death is the preferable option?
Rose was hurtling towards the event horizon and he couldn't let her go in there alone. She was giving her life for him. Only fair that he do likewise.
He was on the verge of letting go when there was a flicker in front of the all consuming void. A figure emerging from it? Impossible! No… not emerging. Appearing in front of it. Pete Tyler managed to catch hold of Rose before she was lost … and with one last look, she was gone.
A second later, the pressure pulling him in abated. The void closed and all that was left was a sterile white wall. He couldn't speak. It didn't matter that there was nobody else in the lever room to speak to. He had no voice left, but the rawness of his throat was nothing compared to rawness of his hearts. She was gone. Saved from the void, but gone from him.
Every muscle in his body ached as he walked towards the wall. Maybe there was a chance. A tiny gap… a micro fissure, that's all he needed. The Doctor's plan, of course, had been brilliant, foolproof and finite. He touched the wall, leant into it trying to sense something, anything other than concrete, plaster and paint. But no. It was simply that - a wall. His hearts sank... couldn't even bring himself to cry. He was so far beyond tears. They couldn't do justice to how he felt.
The Doctor put his hands in his pockets and walked to the levers. He raised one of them in the vain hope that he might be able to create enough of a gap to follow through to Pete's World. But there was nothing... not even a flicker. He needed the TARDIS up here. Maybe if he hooked her up to the levers... control the power levels so that he didn't cause 2 universes to implode.
Somewhere in the back of his rational mind, he knew this was impossible, but the irrational mind was running the show right now, and the irrational mind wanted to break through the void and get to Pete's World... Rose's World.
The Doctor couldn't understand why his emotions were running so rampant? He sent her there! Put the stupid, ugly, yellow button over her head and sent her away, without even a proper goodbye, knowing he'd never see her again. Now he was mourning as if she had been sucked into the void. What had happened in the brief period of time between her return and now to change that? Companions had left him before... It's not as if she was even dead! Not like Adric or Katerina, or Romana, or Sara... Surely he should be relieved, happy, thrilled beyond belief that she was alive and not sucked into hell... but no. He's getting all emotional and irrational and illogical and... he needed to stop and draw breath or he'd do something galactically stupid.
Rational mind reasserted itself. He needed to get to the TARDIS and get the hell out of Torchwood for a start. Get a safe distance between himself and this godforsaken place.
While an excellent idea in theory, its execution just became much more difficult with the arrival of 3 well armed soldiers, blocking The Doctor's exit from the Lever Room. They pointed their guns at him, but kept their distance.
"Stay where you are and put your hands where I can see them." One of the soldiers, Corporal Daniels said.
"Or what?" The Doctor said quietly, his throat rasping painfully. Being the well trained soldier that he was, Daniels merely repeated the order but a little louder to show he meant business. The other 2 fanned out so that they were surrounding The Doctor. In no mood to be trifled with, he angrily squared up to Daniels. "You mightn't have got the memo yet, but I've just taken care of your Dalek and Cyberman problem. Remember all those metal monsters that were slaughtering you a few minutes ago?" Daniels stood his ground, keeping the gun trained on the Doctor's chest. "I. Stopped. Them." With each word the Doctor stepped towards the gun, almost like he was daring Daniels to use it. "So do you really think you're going to keep me from leaving?"
The Doctor was answered with the butt of a rifle to the back of his head from one of the other soldiers, causing him to drop like a stone. His last thought before the pain overwhelmed him was, "That'd be a yes, then".
o0o
The first thing The Doctor became aware of, aside from the pneumatic pain throbbing at the base of his skull, was gentle hands lifting the aforementioned sore head and placing a cold compress on the most painful area. It helped a little. The icy coldness stirred him further into consciousness and he became more aware of his situation. He lay on his side with his arms stretched out in front of him. When he tried to move, he discovered it was restricted due to his hands being cuffed around the railing of the hospital bed he had been laid on. The Doctor made an attempt to sit up, but the same gentle hands guided him back to the pillow and the cold compress.
"You should stay lying down." It was a woman's voice that The Doctor was sure he'd heard before. He struggled to focus on her, but she moved out of his line of sight before the blur became a coherent image. She went to the other side of the bed, the opposite direction to the way the Doctor was faced. He didn't feel up to maneuvering himself around just yet so he listened to what was being said.
"… Look, he's going to be out of it for a while." The woman said. "Fisher nearly took his head off."
"I was ordered to stay with him." Sounded like the soldier who had confronted him in the Lever room. "The cameras are down. We won't be able to keep an eye on you."
"He's securely handcuffed to the bed. You don't have to stay here with me. Go back out and see if you can find any more survivors. That's far more important right now." She sighed. "And I'd still prefer to be out there, tending to people who actually need my help instead of babysitting him."
"You know why you've been assigned to him, Claire." The man's voice replied.
Claire? The Doctor's eyes shot open. No. Just no… not her! Not Claire Bailey?
"You're our resident expert on The Doctor."
Bugger! It would be Claire Bailey!
"Yeah. That's me." Claire sighed. "Seriously, Danno, get out of here, okay?"
"Okay. But I'll check back later." And Daniels left the room.
"Just when I think it can't get any worse!" The Doctor groaned, his voice still hoarse but not as painful.
"Oh don't start!" Claire shook her head.
He sighed. "I wake up tied to a hospital bed… I should have figured it out straight away, really." The Doctor gripped the railing and hauled himself up into a sitting position, finally getting a good look at her. Straight, dark hair, blue eyes that looked very tired. She looked older than their last encounter which was less than a year ago. She was dressed in pale blue medical scrubs with a white labcoat. Neither looking particularly pristine.
"Lie back down, please." Claire approached him. The Doctor wondered if he could manoeuvre himself to get a good kick in and start his escape master plan.
"Or what, you'll kill me?"
"If the soldiers outside think that you're well enough, they'll haul you out of here, put you in a research cell and you don't even want to know what they could do to you down there."
"Could it be worse than attempting to completely drain me of my blood and kill me, forcing a regeneration?" He snapped, reminding her of what she attempted the last time they'd met.
"Do you really want to find out?" Claire answered, daring him to make another smart answer. She adjusted the back of the bed so he could lean back against it and carefully placed the cold pack to his head without either saying another word.
"So you're the Torchwood expert on me?" The Doctor asked, breaking the brief silence.
"I'm the only person who's had first hand experience with you." Claire explained. "As limited as it was, that automatically made me a VIP around here."
"Well aren't you special." The Doctor didn't care how snide it sounded.
Before Claire could answer him, the door opened. It was Captain Fisher. She pushed the Doctor back down into a lying position and pulled a small torch out of her pocket. She shone it in the Doctor's eye as the soldier approached the bed.
"How's the patient, Dr Bailey?" He asked.
"Still unconscious." Claire lied. The Doctor took that as his cue to close his eyes, but he couldn't help but wonder what she was playing at.
Fisher went over for a closer look. "I found Daniels away from his post." The Doctor could feel Fisher's warm breath on his face. "He's supposed to be standing guard in the room with you. A commodity like the Doctor should not be left unguarded."
"And what's he going to do in the condition he's in? I'm not sure if he'll even wake up. You shouldn't have hit him like that. He's not human, remember."
"A Tazer wouldn't have worked if that's what you're thinking." Fisher shrugged. "You read the PM's report about the Sycorax. The Doctor, here, wasn't affected by the whip. And I was under orders to secure him."
"Cracked skull will do that every time." Claire muttered. She decided to change the subject, get Fisher away from the ever-unpredictable Doctor. "Did you find anyone else alive?"
"Not so far." Fisher replied. "We're still looking, though. It's a big building. The good news is we've found no more Cybermen or Daleks either"
"And that's why Daniels needs to be out there, in case there are some lurking in dark corners, not in here wasting his time watching me and an unconscious patient."
"Alright, Claire! Point taken." Fisher laughed. "But the second he comes around I want to know."
"Sure. No problem." Claire ushered him out the door. "Insufferable prat."
"Your pants are on fire, Dr Bailey." The Doctor said, still keeping his eyes closed.
"Well, I'm sure your fire extinguishing sidekick will be here in a moment to put it out."
Claire's comment was like a punch to the gut. Oh Rose. "No she won't." the Doctor said quietly. "Rose is… Rose is gone." It took every ounce of his resolve not to break down. He couldn't. Not in front of her.
Claire's face dropped "Oh no…" She rubbed her eyes and scraped her hair back off her face. "Too many people gone today." She sounded like she was speaking more to herself than to the Doctor. "Too many good people." She took a deep breath and turned to face the Doctor, the same emotional turmoil he was feeling etched on her face. " And it has to stop." She approached the Doctor, searching in her lab coat pocket. "I've had enough. No more… This ends now!"
The Doctor knew all Claire had to do was give him one injection and he'd be dead. He began to struggle with the handcuffs, but it was a futile exercise. There was no escape.