Thanks for all the follows! Now can I get some reviews up in here? ;-)
Darkness had set in as they left the pub. During the short walk back, the Eleventh Doctor told them the streets had been quiet and empty when he ventured outside, and there was no sign of the man with the blaster. "And I don't feel him anymore," he admitted.
"No, I can't feel him either," agreed the Meta-Crisis Doctor. "He's hiding himself somehow."
They were near the TARDIS when they heard feet pounding the pavement and a man calling behind them. "DOCTOR!"
The three of them turned to see a tall, broad man in a long coat running toward them, abruptly stopping ten feet from them when he saw the group. "Rose!" he exclaimed in shock.
"Jack!" she said almost at the same time, and they rushed towards each other and into a tight hug, Jack lifting her a few inches from the ground and spinning before setting her back on her feet.
He stepped back and held her at arm's length, looking her up and down. "You look gorgeous," he said, before grabbing her cheeks and leaning forward for a kiss. Rose laughed.
The Doctor's had both walked up behind Rose. "Captain!" the Meta-Crisis Doctor said happily by way of greeting.
"Doctor," he looked up and nodded once, smiling widely.
"Mind not snogging my wife?" he asked casually.
"You-you're what? Oh, that's fantastic!" he shouted and grabbed the Meta-Crisis Doctor's cheeks and kissed him just as he had Rose. When he pulled back, the Doctor wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looking annoyed. "Married. Haha! I knew it was only a matter of time. You two had chemistry even when I first met you, all dancing about and flirting." He looked over and noticed the Eleventh Doctor. "And who is this?" he asked, eyeing him appreciatively and holding out his hand. "Captain Jack Harkness."
"Yes, I know who you are, Jack," the Eleventh Doctor replied cheerfully, taking his hand and shaking it eagerly anyway. "I'm The Doctor."
Jack furrowed his brow for a second, and then realization dawned on him. "Oh! You've regenerated again," he said. "That explains…that bar in Zaggit Zagoo. I thought you were saying goodbye."
The Eleventh Doctor swallowed and nodded. "Yeah, I was."
Jack nodded and looked back to the Meta-Crisis Doctor. "So you must be…the meta-crisis?"
"One and only," he said with a grin, holding his arms out to his sides.
"Huh. I'll have to tell Mickey he was right next time I see him," he said.
"You've seen Mickey? How is he?" Rose asked.
"I haven't seen him for about a year, but last time, he was good. Fighting aliens with Martha, on their own. Decided they could do a whole lot more without the bureaucracy. Oh, and they're married."
"Martha and Mickey are married? Oh, that's wonderful!" Rose exclaimed, tapping her husband in the ribs excitedly.
"Ha! How about that?" The Meta-Crisis Doctor grinned at Rose, and then furrowed his brow. "Wait. What about that Milligan fellow?" he asked Jack.
"Oh, he and Martha broke it off. Amicably. He was always off in Africa, and he couldn't really understand her work. And Martha thought she and Mickey had a lot more in common, anyway," he said. "You know, traveling through time, fighting aliens, past unrequited love in the TARDIS, all that."
"Oh, Mickey fancied me, too? I never knew," the Meta-Crisis Doctor quipped. Rose looked at him disapprovingly and poked him in the ribs.
Jack just grinned. "What are you two doing here, though? I mean, it's great to see you, fantastic really. But we thought, when we hadn't heard from Rose for so long, maybe you were back in the parallel world."
"We were," Rose said. "We got…pulled back in our TARDIS. It landed in his-"she turned to point to the Eleventh Doctor and realized he was gone. At least he had left the doors to the TARDIS open for them.
"You grew another TARDIS? So fast?" Jack asked, surprised.
"Yeah, come in and see it," Rose said. She led the way back into the TARDIS. She stopped just outside the doors, looking up and around the door frame. "Is it…bluer?"
"Huh," said the Meta-Crisis Doctor, rubbing a hand along the outside. "Yes, it is. Well, come on." He motioned them forward. "You could have said something," he said to the Eleventh Doctor once they were inside.
"Thought you might want to catch up," he shrugged from his spot by the console. "And I was bored."
Jack looked around him. "Wow, she's changed!" he exclaimed. "So…futuristic. You know, in a retro twenty-first century future sort of way, not real future. Still, it has a nice atmosphere."
"Well, I'm glad someone can appreciate it," the Eleventh Doctor said, folding his arms and leaning back with a satisfied smile.
Rose had flung open the doors to the other TARDIS. "We made our new TARDIS like the old, old TARDIS," she explained as Jack walked with her, both Doctors following behind them. "I'll be right back. I'm going to go get something for your head," she called back to her husband.
"What happened to your head?" asked Jack.
"Him," the Meta-Crisis Doctor said, pointing to the Eleventh Doctor.
The Meta-Crisis Doctor sat on the jump seat as Rose returned with a first aid supplies and a bag of ice. She walked up behind him and held the ice there for a few moments before lifting it and running her fingers through his hair, parting it to look at his scalp. "Not too bad. You'll have a good bump, but the bleeding has mostly stopped. And it's not too deep" she told him, blotting the spot with a cloth covered in peroxide. He hissed in pain. "Sorry," she said, with a sympathetic grimace.
"Oh, don't be such a baby," the Eleventh Doctor muttered.
The Meta-Crisis Doctor glared at him. "It wouldn't have happened if you weren't such a clown."
"You wouldn't mind it if you weren't such a dandy," the Eleventh Doctor retorted.
"Both of you, stop it!" Rose said, looking between the Doctors.
"Oh, you three are adorable," Jack commented with his cheeky grin.
"You, too," she warned, pointing at Jack. "Honestly, my little brother is less trouble than the three of you."
"Oh, that's right, you have a little brother!" the Eleventh Doctor said happily. "Tony Tyler, right? What's he up to?"
"Nothing, he's only six," the Meta-Crisis Doctor answered, still brooding. "He just goes to school, plays football, and watches telly."
"He stowed away on the TARDIS last summer, that's something," Rose pointed out, returning the bag of ice to the Meta-Crisis Doctor's head. He raised his hand to take it from her and hold it there himself. She brought a hand to his shoulders and rubbed them gently, and he instantly relaxed, kicking his feet up onto the console and quickly forgetting his bad mood.
"Oh, I bet Jackie Tyler loved that," the Eleventh Doctor teased.
"Are you barmy? We didn't tell her!" the Meta-Crisis Doctor bragged. "We were already in the Time Vortex by the time we noticed him hiding up in the gantries, so we swore him to secrecy and took him to Disneyland Mars in twenty-five-hundred. Had him back thirty-seconds after we left."
Rose walked around and hopped up into the seat next to her husband. "He likes dinosaurs now. Wonder if Mum would let us take him to see dinosaurs," the last syllable said with a large yawn.
"Sleepy already?" the Meta-Crisis Doctor asked her, lifting his arm over her head and settling it behind her. "It's not thatlate."
"I only got a few hours last night. Someone wouldn't let me lie in this morning," she smiled tiredly. "The same someone who kept me up late."
"Oh really?" asked Jack suggestively, leaning against the console and wiggling his eyebrows. "Doin' what?"
"Oh, stop it," the Meta-Crisis Doctor said to him. "You know very well what. And what are you doing here, anyway?"
Rose elbowed him. "Rude."
"Sorry, what I meant to say was, it's always lovely to see you Jack, but why were you running up to us like a madman?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Jack asked. "That commotion on Bute Street. When I saw a police box sitting by the Millenium Centre, I figured the Doctor must have something to do with it. So who's invading Cardiff this time?"
"We don't know, exactly," the Eleventh Doctor answered. "But I can guarantee that they're not from Raxacoricofallapatorius."
"Actually, now that you are here, maybe you can answer some questions," the Meta-Crisis Doctor said. "Rose and I were somehow pulled into this universe. Has Torchwood been mucking with toys it shouldn't have again?"
"What? No! You know that I changed Torchwood. And anyway…it's just me now," he said sadly, but recovered himself quickly. "And I wouldn't do something as stupid as messing around with trans-dimensional rifts, even if I knew where to start."
"Well, someone has," said Rose. "The Doctors think this world and our parallel world are connected, and without the void space in between."
"And you have no idea who is responsible?" asked Jack.
"We think it's the man who was shooting off the blaster on Bute Street. He's a Time Lord," the Eleventh Doctor said gravely.
Jack looked at him in disbelief. "What? But you two…I thought there were no other Time Lords left."
"Well, there weren't."
"So where's this guy now?" asked Jack.
"We don't know," the Meta-Crisis Doctor admitted. "He sort of attacked us, and then just disappeared. We have no idea why, or where he might have gone."
"Maybe he went back to another universe," Rose muttered. She leaned her head on her husband's shoulder, closing her eyes.
"You should go get some sleep," he said, nudging her gently. "There's nothing we can do for now, not until we can figure out who this guy is and what his intentions are. If he even comes back."
"So you just want to wait?" the Eleventh Doctor asked. "I don't like waiting."
"We don't know anything about him, or even where to start looking. Do you have any other ideas?" The Eleventh Doctor looked unhappy, but said nothing. "Go on, Rose. I'm going to stay up with these two, but you should rest while you can."
"Yeah, alright," she agreed with another yawn.
"I could go with you, if you think you'll be lonely," Jack offered.
"Jack…," the Meta-Crisis Doctor warned. Jack held up his hands.
"And don't ask where her tattoo is," the Eleventh Doctor cautioned him with a mischievous smirk.
"Oh, a tattoo?" Jack laughed. The Meta-Crisis Doctor shook his head and rubbed his eye.
Rose sighed and stood, taking the ice bag from him and gently kissing the bump on the top of his head. "That's as good as ice will do. Take some paracetamol if your head starts to hurt. I left a bottle on the kitchen table. And come wake me if anything happens, yeah?" he nodded and smiled. "You boys behave yourselves," she teased as she walked from the console room. "Goodnight."
"Night," they all called after her.
"So, another TARDIS," said Jack to the Meta-Crisis Doctor. "How did you grow it so fast? Mine's taking forever!"
"What?" Both Doctor's asked at the same time.
Jack bit his lip. "Never mind that. But really, I thought it took a long time to grow a TARDIS."
"It does," said the Meta-Crisis Doctor. "But when we were on our way back to the parallel universe, Donna, with her brilliant human/Time-Lord mind, mentions out of nowhere how to grow one much, much faster."
"Then it occurred to me why she said it," said the Eleventh Doctor. "And I gave him a piece of coral before we landed."
"Well then?" Jack asked. "How is it done?" They both just looked at him like he was daft. "Right, worth a shot. That's fine, I have plenty of time. Anyway, hanging out with two Doctors at the same time. What do I call you now?"
"Doctor," said the Meta-Crisis Doctor.
"Both of you?"
"We both are," said the Eleventh Doctor.
"Yes, I know. But won't that get confusing?"
"Haven't you ever worked a job with two John's or two Emma's or something?" the Eleventh Doctor asked.
Jack grinned. "This one time, I slept with a guy Chris and a girl Chris. At the same time. It was a bit confusing…but I didn't hate it."
Both Doctor's rolled their eyes and shook their heads.
"Blimey," said the Eleventh Doctor. "I think you may have gotten worse."
The Meta-Crisis Doctor smiled and nodded his agreement as he stood and moved over to the console. As he was hitting a few switches, something on the display caught his eye. "That can't be right," he said, putting on his glasses and furrowing his brow.
"What's wrong?" the Eleventh Doctor asked, walking over and peering at the screen from behind his shoulder.
"The energy reserve systems have been refilling."
"Can't be," said Jack. "Not here. Not anymore. The Rift is closed."
"What?" asked the Meta-Crisis Doctor, turning to look at him in surprise. "Really?"
"Yes, well maybe it was closed," said the Eleventh Doctor. He ran back into his ship, checking things on his own monitor, before running back. "But it's not anymore."
"No, but it was sealed, I know it was sealed," said Jack looking baffled.
"But it's more than that. Even if the rift were open…this TARDIS shouldn't be refueling, not here," said the Meta-Crisis Doctor.
"Why not?" asked Jack.
"It was grown with the energy of the parallel world," he explained. "Different universes have different energies, and a TARDIS can only run on the energy from one universe. I grew and built the energy reserve system out of TARDIS coral as well, so it should have the same energy bias."
"Which means…energy from your universe is somehow…leaking into this one," the Eleventh Doctor reasoned, looking quite concerned. "And that would mean the universes aren't just touching…they are melded together." The two Doctors looked at each other slowly before both started rushing about, the Meta-Crisis Doctor around his console, and Eleventh Doctor into his own TARDIS.
"How bad is this?" asked Jack, looking between Doctors from the threshold between TARDISes.
"Potentially catastrophic," said the Meta-Crisis Doctor, grabbing a device from behind the console and running through the TARDISes to the outside.
"Probably catastrophic," the Eleventh Doctor corrected, as he followed with his own gadgetry.