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Hit the Road Jack Part 4

"Great, you had to bring us to the worst neighbourhood in Mexico," Rex looked out disapprovingly from the TARDIS door.

"It isn't like I checked the realtor listings before I put in the coordinates," the Doctor pushed past him wearing his trench coat into the small alley. It was a chilly night outside that door.

There were no tall buildings around them, just poorly constructed one or two storey ones that looked as though they had been built over 100 years ago and not fixed up since. Few cars passed by, just a handful of shabby looking people either walking or riding past on bikes with no brakes. There were hardly any streetlights around them. Most of the light came from the moon above them and a few lit up windows.

"Well this place hasn't changed much since the 80s," Marty remarked. He had once gone to Tijuana with Jennifer for the weekend. She had hated it and made them turn back almost immediately. This certainly wasn't Tijuana though, it looked like a much smaller city. "What should we be looking for?"

The Doctor held up a small book-sized object, a flat screen on one side and wires and bobbles making up the other. "Maybe a warehouse. I'll know soon, I'm running a search."

"A search for what?"

"Anything that might help."

"Great, so in the meantime we split up then?" Marty suggested. Small city or not, he could see there was a lot of ground to cover, with a lot of winding alleys that could take days to search.

"That's probably not a good thing," Jack emerged from the TARDIS, closing the door behind him. "Crime has been one hell of a problem down here. Have you ever heard of the Cartel?"

"Sure," Marty shrugged, the word sounded familiar. "From movies I guess."

"Mexican organized crime," Rex explained, checking his weapon like a reflex. "They like grabbing naïve looking tourists to hold as ransom."

"Good luck ransoming me," Marty snorted. "They won't get much of a ransom off a dead guy."

"You what?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

"It's not like they ask for your life story kid," Rex said.

"We should split into twos, just to cover more ground."

The Doctor nodded, putting the screen into his trench pocket. "The time rift runs northeast to southwest, so that gives us two directions to search."

"And other than a warehouse, what the hell are we looking for?" Rex asked.

"Killer robots," Marty explained calmly.

"Oh I am so glad I get to do this instead of going back home to my bed," Rex rolled his eyes.

Jack smiled at Marty. "I'll go with-"

"The Doctor," Rex interrupted him. "Me and the kid'll go northeast."

The Doctor had a fleeting uncertainty about letting Marty wander off with a man he barely knew, but Jack seemed to trust him well enough, and having an immortal bodyguard wasn't the worst thing in the world.

"All right, but be back here by sunup if you don't find anything," the Doctor said hurriedly.

"Yes dad," Marty muttered sarcastically.

OOO

They couldn't just walk in a straight line. The roads kept veering off and buildings would get in their way. Marty had expected to be able to see the time rift with his naked eyes, like the aurora borealis or something, but the only way to see it was through the red and blue 3D glasses the Doctor had lent him. He would hold them up to his eyes for just a second to get their bearings every time they were driven off course.

"So how did a kid like you end up with the Doctor?" Rex asked after a while.

"He saved my life and, well," Marty made a wide gesture. "The only reason we're here is because of me."

"How so?"

"I just mean," Marty stumbled over his words, "if the Doctor hadn't saved my life that day, he would have never known these robots even existed."

"Then I guess it's a good idea he saved you that day. From what Jack tells me, this Doctor of yours can fix anything. At least, he better. I did not plan on spending my week in Mexico. Hey, what's this?"

The alley had turned into a dead end, houses on either side of them, a wooden fence in front of them. It looked new.

"Does the rift keep going on?"

Marty held up the glasses and nodded. "Looks like it."

"Think we can go around this thing?"

They both looked around. There was no immediate path they could see going along the fence and backtracking to find one could take a long time.

"Maybe we can go over," Marty suggested. "Lift me up."

Rex crouched down, cupping his hands so Marty could have a foothold. He lifted Marty until the teenager could grab onto the top of the fence, pulling himself up enough to peer over.

"It's just," his arms shook, struggling to hold himself up. He let go, allowing himself to fall back down. "It's just a field."

"Should we go back for Jack?"

Marty shook his head. "A field fenced off right in the middle of a city? Something tells me Jack and the Doctor will come to us."

OOO

"It's been awhile," Jack smiled at the Doctor, but his eyes seemed distant "When I saw you in that bar, I thought that was the last time I would see you."

"Bar? What bar?"

"Old Tolstoy on Alpha Century 3."

"Never been there."

"Maybe it hasn't happened yet."

"Well, timey wimey and all that," the Doctor grinned at him.

Jack nodded, looking away.

The Doctor cleared his throat, feeling the weight between them. "I'm sorry I haven't been around to help."

"I assume it wasn't because you knew I could handle these global crises on my own," Jack tried to smile, but it felt flat.

"They're fixed points in time. They had to happen and I had to let them run their course – but it made it easier knowing you were around."

Jack wanted to tell the Doctor all the things he had sacrificed, all the people he had let die – all the people he had murdered, but it wasn't fair to put all of that on the Doctor. "Thanks for the vote of confidence," was all he managed.

"Aha!" The Doctor said triumphantly.

"What is it?"

"Search is done," the Doctor pulled the screen out of his pocket.

"What have you found?"

"Tom Nor," the Doctor wrinkled his brow.

"What?"

"It's an anagram, for Morton."

"But what does it mean?"

"Tom Nor owns a huge track of land on the rift. I think we found our lead."

To Be Continued…

(I am so sorry for my week hiatus, but school really hit me like a wall in an F1 race and I really needed to step back from all my projects for a bit and prioritize. Hopefully everything has settled down and I'll be able to get through the rest of this story without interruption. I decided to switch this to a Torchwood fic, not just to get a wider audience, but mostly because this episode is really concentrated on the events of Miracle Day and I think some Torchwood fans would be into it. Okay, I better start work on the next chapter!)