Chapter 2
"You're not the Doctor." Jack stared hard at the man before him, a grim expression upon his face. He looked like the Doctor, he even had his eyes. But Jack had travelled in the TARDIS; he had been a companion once; he had lived for hundreds of years, weaving paths with the Doctor through time. And no matter if this man had the Doctor's face, or even his eyes, the sense was off. The man before him gave him a bemused grin.
"That's what Rose says," he answered, and if he were anyone else he might have sounded bitter. And there was pain, hidden behind years of experience in his smile. Jack eyed him warily. This was wrong. Rose was supposed to be locked away in another dimension with this man who was not the Doctor but was. Unless Jack had somehow, inexplicably, managed to cross universes, then this meeting shouldn't be possible. The not Doctor held out his hand. "John Alonso Tyler," he said, an odd quirk to his lips. At Jack's own look, he added, "She wouldn't let me call Jack Alonso, and she didn't see the point of changing her name when it wasn't real."
"John," Jack said, taking the others hand, feeling strange to grasp the look-a-like's hand without feeling the aura of time, "How did 'Jack' come to be like this?" Their hands stayed connected a moment longer, not shaking or even squeezing, before John pulled his away. Suddenly he seemed to need to be busy. Jack had seen him like this often, restlessly moving about the TARDIS, setting coordinates or fixing panels while he revealed the secrets of the universe, or at least the bits and pieces in his relevant to the situation. Now, far from any sort of control panel, he set about putting away the groceries while simultaneously setting up places for tea.
"Well," he said, "Mind you, I wasn't there when it happened, but she did tell me about it, well, I say I wasn't there, really I wasn't awake, so I can hardly know, but…"
"Doctor!" Jack cried, and then, belatedly he corrected himself with, "John."
"She didn't know what she was doing," he said, his movements momentarily frozen, focused upon Jack, "He was dying and she didn't want to lose him."
"What do you mean 'she didn't know what she was doing'?" Jack demanded, "What did Rose do? And why couldn't he regenerate?" Doctor John hesitated to answer, seeming caught. It wasn't often Jack saw him speechless when it came to explaining things; the Doctor, any Doctor, loved to explain even when no one in the room understood a word he was saying. When the silence was finally broken, it wasn't by Jack or John.
"He would have changed," Rose said suddenly from the doorway. She had fled with little Jack after only a quick greeting, but she was back now. Little Jack was nowhere to be seen. "I already watched him change once, I didn't want to lose him that way again."
"He's still the Doctor, no matter what he looks like," Jack answered, his eyes narrowed.
"And what he sounds like?" she demanded, "And acts like? And what about when the regenerations run out? He didn't need to die, not this time."
"Rose," Jack said, staring at her hard. Doctor John was busy about the kitchen again, his movements filled with energy, his eyes turning to look every which way but towards them. "What did you do?"
"I tried to fix him," she answered simply, "With the sonic screwdriver. I tried to heal him while he was changing, before he could change. And he didn't change, but he didn't heal quite how we expected, either."
"That's it?" Jack demanded, "The sonic screwdriver did that?" Rose shrugged her shoulders helplessly, turning towards John for an explanation, one he didn't have to give.
"Right, so…" John said, finishing setting the plates with a flourish just as the teapot began to whistle, "How about a cup of tea?" Before Jack could say anything more, little Jack walked back into the room, dragging his grandmother with him. Of course there were still a hundred things left unexplained, starting with why Rose and the not Doctor were here in the first place, and why Rose was in any position to be trying to heal the Doctor during a regeneration. But Jack felt at a loss to ask with the Doctor sitting in Rose's lap, telling her all about finding Jack and what happened on his walk just now and arguing whether or not he should get a biscuit. It was wrong, but it seemed equally wrong to destroy the child's innocence by tearing his simple world apart. So Jack let the surreal domesticity sweep over him and accepted his second cup of tea.
Later, as the sun set over the water and the household turned quiet, he stepped out on the porch alone and stared forlornly over the waves. It wasn't a comfortable place for him to be; he still got a dark ache in his lungs just staring over the vast expanse of water, an ache he hoped to get over quickly. After all, if he developed a phobia for every way he had died, he'd be afraid to do just about anything by then. And he didn't remember drowning, not really, just a sense of dark and icy cold. Nor could he remember what came before death, the reason behind it. While he stood there, in the quiet chill of the evening with the foreboding ocean swelling before him, he felt the comforting welcome of a friend. He turned away from the water and looked at the TARDIS.
No matter how wrong the Doctor was, how wrong this situation was, she still felt perfectly normal. It was easy to forget she was there, sometimes, that she was more than a way of getting from point A to point B. Her touch was subtle, easing in behind the scenes, yet suddenly you can talk to people you couldn't understand before, and find rooms inside her four walls that seem made just for you. And when she was displeased, her tantrums could disrupt your dreams, lead you astray within her corridors, play on little annoyances like a gnat buzzing in your ear. Jack had learned early it was best to be on good terms. She called to him now.
He still had his key, a miracle when he thought about it. In fact, it occurred to him that he was lucky he hadn't washed ashore naked. It wouldn't be the first time his death had led to the loss of his clothes, and if he had been in the ocean for as long as it felt like, surely his clothes should have long since deteriorated away. A memory came then, a brief conversation after a series of rather unfortunate incidents that led to his shirt being full of holes.
"Made from the thread of a capara from Clyptho," the Doctor said in an exited manner, "High temperatures, horrid climate; regular clothes would be destroyed within a week." Had he gotten clothes from there? They looked like regular, Earth design yet there wasn't so much as a hole on them. Still, he couldn't remember. Deciding to ignore that mystery for the moment, he took his key and stepped into the TARDIS.
There was nothing drastically or obviously changed about her. No tell-tell signs of the barbaric monstrosity that created the paradox machine, no drastic change in color scheme. But something was wrong.
It wasn't with her, exactly. But she was upset, unhappy, beseeching for Jack to set it right. Jack found himself reaching out to stroke her side, much as he had seen the Doctor do a million times before. Then he walked around to look at her settings, suddenly determined to know exactly where he was.
It was Earth, as far as he could tell; Earth's coordinates were familiar and the TARDIS tended to fall upon them like a billiard ball rolling into a well worn groove. The timeline was a different matter to detect, the TARDIS was notably temperamental when it came to time. She had a tendency to go where they needed to go, rather than where they wanted. The setting seemed almost double set, one timeline on top of the other. He was sure the Doctor would have understood, but he sure didn't. It looked almost as though it was set for the distant, prehistoric past and a few centuries past the 21st at the same time. He gave it up.
"What is going on here?" he whispered, looking over the instruments without touching them, "What happened to the Doctor?" As though summoned, the door to the TARDIS suddenly flew open and the boy ran in.
"Hello, Jack, I just knew you were here!" he cried by way of greeting, "She likes you, you know."
"Does she?" Jack asked, absently touching the panel again though most of his attention was on the Doctor. He looked so innocent it was hard to say how much he knew of what had happened. Did he even know who he was? Or did he think he really was just a boy named Jack, son to Rose and John Tyler? It wouldn't be the first time he had lost his memory, through alien machinery, head wounds, or once because of the TARDIS herself had taken the memory away. Jack was never certain whether he was thankful to her for that, or jealous that he couldn't forget that memory as well. For one, brief moment he was lost in the abyss with the screaming, before that thought was slowly, gently eased away, and it was only little Jack's high pitched chatter.
"Are you alright?" he was saying, "You look a bit white there. I know she can be odd, but she does like you, really."
"What's not to love," Jack answered reflexively, his eyes studying the child. The boy's eyes were old, old in ways the clone's weren't despite the weight of ancient memories shared between them. They were also innocent, both of them, an odd thought when said about the elder. The boy studied him in return, a look of deep concentration upon his face.
"Mum and dad knows you," he said after a moment, "Dad said the TARDIS brought you back when you died and she wasn't supposed to."
"No," he agreed, deciding it better not to explain, not about the woman he called mother or the vortex. He almost felt it wasn't his place, even knowing those two had no real claim to call him their son. Maybe because John was still the Doctor, even though he wasn't. And Rose always did seem to have a bigger hold on the Doctor than he could manage. Perhaps there was some jealousy there too.
"Well, I'm glad you aren't dead," the boy declared firmly, after another long bout of studying him, and Jack couldn't help but grin in response.
"I'm glad too," he answered, and he was, most days. Except when he wasn't. The boy came closer, running his small hands over the panel, before he came to a stop next to Jack.
"Have you come to take me away?" the boy asked suddenly, "Are we going home now, Jack?" Jack froze for a moment before leaning down to look the Doctor in the eye.
"Where is home?" he asked. The boy looked puzzled for a moment, then blinked and smiled, the guileless smile of the very young.
"On the beach of course," he said, "You saw it! Mum and dad went shopping and dad said he'd bring back chips, only mum says they aren't healthy." Jack blinked his eyes and straightened up slowly. And the boy turned and ran out the door, back to his family. Jack followed slowly.
He slept on the TARDIS that night.