Chapter 4: Rift-hoppin'
Author's Notes: This chapter is probably going to confuse, so I apologise in advance…
"We've got sparks again!" Martha yelled.
"Ignore them!" The Doctor called over the din the TARDIS was making on re-entry, grabbing a lever with one hand and the fire extinguisher with the other. Whoops.
"Um, no, sparks are usually bad!" Martha called back from somewhere behind him. He hoped she was hanging on to something bolted to the floor because-
THUD!
They landed. The shuddering stopped as quickly as it had begun. Martha rushed forward, grabbed the fire extinguisher from him and started spraying foam, just in case.
But the Doctor wasn't so quick to recover. For a moment there — just a moment — everything had tasted blue. He licked his lips. Yeap. Definitely blue, metallic blue. He slid on his glasses, and looked at his monitor, raising an eyebrow.
"Why do I feel like I'm always putting out your fires?" Martha called out in a cheeky voice. "Where'd you land us, then?"
The Doctor barely heard her. Eyebrow still raised, he angled his body so he could see around the centre console, and the door to the TARDIS.
He smirked. Well well.
The Doctor noticed Martha's sudden look of uncertainty. She'd noticed they weren't alone. Better say something!
"Welcome back, Captain Jack," the Doctor was all smiles, grinning from ear to ear, taking off his glasses and hurrying forward with his arms open.
Jack must have entered the TARDIS during their materialisation, just like Donna had done all those months ago! Clever boy. The Doctor hugged him, noticing before he did that Jack's eyes were slightly misted, but that he, too, was grinning.
"I've found you," Jack was all grins and laughter as he hugged back.
Good. It was always lovely to catch up with old companions again, the Doctor thought, particularly when they were just as happy to see you. This was a very welcome surprise-
"Martha!" he remembered. "Martha this is-" the Doctor started.
"Captain Jack Harkness, it's a pleasure to meet you," Jack introduced himself, still looking quite overwhelmingly happy, eyes sparkling.
"Still at it, I see?" the Doctor smirked again.
"Still just saying hello," Jack answered with another grin.
Martha took an uncertain step forward. Ah. Of course she'd be uncertain. Jack, as Martha had been made vaguely aware, had travelled with Rose and him. And the subject of Rose always made Martha ask more questions that the Doctor didn't want to answer.
"Pleased to meet you, Jack," she held out her hand. The fire extinguisher nozzle was still in it.
Jack and the Doctor laughed. Martha put the extinguisher down with a flush, and then laughed as well. The ice was broken, and the Doctor noticed Martha's eyes relax.
"So, how did you just end up in here?" Martha asked, always full of questions, never caring who she asked or where the answer came from, for that matter.
"The TARDIS must have missed him," the Doctor supplied knowingly, then dashed off toward the console to pick up his overcoat. "She'll pick up whoever she thinks we needs - when it's the right time of course — for them and for us — and here he is! Just as we left him — well, almost-" he waved his hand at Jack.
"Yeah, about that-," Jack started.
"Not the time," the Doctor interjected.
Jack mentally backtracked a little. "Play it your way, as usual. Any idea why the old girl picked me up, then?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Haven't the foggiest. But I can't wait to find out! Where are we?" he shouldered his overcoat and ran for the door.
Jack grabbed his arm. "Ohh, no. We're not going out there."
"Why?" the Doctor asked innocently. "Not even for a peek?"
"What's out there?" Martha asked Jack.
"I couldn't care less. But I've been looking for you-" he pointed a finger at the Doctor's face — the Doctor went cross-eyed focusing on it - "for a long time now. C'mon."
Jack started back toward the console. The Doctor followed, a little affronted, a little intrigued.
Please don't start asking me questions I can't answer.
"So, I gather you want me to take you somewhere?" he started conversationally.
"That's right."
"Where?" Martha asked.
"Where do you think?" Jack gave the Doctor a look. "Canary Wharf."
"But — well, why? When?" Martha fired.
The Doctor shook his head. I know when. "I can't go back there. Not then."
"You want to go back to the battle, don't you?" Martha realised. "My cousin died that day-"
Jack looked at Martha in disbelief, then back to the Doctor. "You've gotta be kidding me."
"Sorry, what?" Martha's questions were getting tetchier.
Which meant she was really getting confused, and the Doctor knew she didn't like not knowing what was going on. She'd pick it up. She always did. He didn't have time to explain, as usual.
"Nothing," The Doctor was firm. "It's finished, Jack. I can't mess with it."
"Don't you see what's happening?" Jack blinked. "All right, let me explain. The rift - it's never going to close, as long as junk keeps falling through it. You didn't close it, and Rose died on this world for nothing, sucked through like another out of place space junk, pulled into a world where she's not supposed to exist. Do you have any idea what that does to the universe?"
"Yes but she's not dead, she's with her family-" the Doctor started, not at all liking Jack's multiple references to Rose as junk.
"Wait. It gets bigger than Rose," Jack continued. "Stuff that isn't supposed to exist is falling through to our world all the time, swinging the balance of the universes. More so since the Canary Wharf battle."
"Well! That's probably because of Torchwood breaking it open for their own amusement, I hardly think Rose-!" the Doctor crossed his arms.
"What kind of stuff?" Martha sounded interested, cutting in. The Doctor wished she'd not asked.
Jack pointed somewhere that the Doctor supposed was indicating outside the TARDIS. The Doctor couldn't tell if Jack's expression was one of excitement, of horror, or of anger. "This week, I fought Abadon, out there in the streets of Cardiff."
"Abadon?" the Doctor asked, perking up. "Did you beat it?"
Jack gave the Doctor a look and indicated his clearly-still-in-existence self. "Do I look like the living dead?"
The Doctor opened his mouth, raising a finger.
"On second thoughts, don't answer that," Jack cut in.
"What's an abadon?" Martha turned to the Doctor.
"You don't want to know," Jack supplied. "But that's beside the point," he continued. "You have no idea how many people died out there today."
"I'm sorry, Jack. I'm so sorry. But interfering with Rose's future in the past — I tried it with her once before, by accident, did she tell you?" he huffed at Jack, remembering how Rose and he — well, the previous incarnation of he — had visited Pete Tyler in the 80's. Nearly caused the end of the world there that day. He'd been so angry with her. Rose had been all emotion, no sense, those first few weeks.
"We can't go back," the Doctor stressed. He noticed Martha back away a little in the corner of his vision.
"Can't, or don't want to? Why the hell not?" Jack threw his hands up.
"The same reason we couldn't go back to Satellite Five and find you!" the Doctor replied angrily. "We cannot interfere with a timeline that has already had its path determined," he had Jack and Martha's full attention.
"You do it all the time!" Jack retorted.
The Doctor couldn't help but grate his teeth as he continued, trying to control himself. "No. We set things straight. That is all. Otherwise we'd be just as bad as those we fight to stop. Messing with time for my own gain - how dare you suggest such a thing? I could turn this universe upside down to bring her back to me from the past, but I'd destroy you and Martha and your world and Rose's world in the process!"
"But you're missing the point!" Jack started eagerly.
Martha huffed. The Doctor turned to her, his eyes flashing. "What?" he snapped.
She shrugged. "It's...just like you told me, isn't it," her eyes fluttered, as she recited. "Crossing into established events is strictly forbidden."
"Exactly," the Doctor grumbled at Jack.
"Except for cheap tricks..." she finished quickly.
Bugger. I really shouldn't have said that. Why did I say that?
Jack shook his head, then started to laugh. "Martha, you and I are going to get on famously, I can already tell."
Martha was smiling, looking pleased with herself, like she'd just trumped him.
The Doctor considered. It took only a fraction of a second.
Jack had been brought back on board the TARDIS for a reason unknown to them, and the first thing he wanted to do was jump back to the Battle of Canary Wharf. Should they follow him? What did he think he could do?
As he considered this, he kept coming back to the inevitable conclusion:
I can't go back there. That time, sure, but not Canary Wharf. What's the point of going back to the time of the battle, if I can't go to the battle?
"Of course!" he realised, a grin dawning as Jack's point became clear.
He couldn't go back to the battle. But Jack could.
The Jack-shaped hole in the Doctor's life was filling with a renewed, energetic, exciting life. And if this was what Jack had been brought back for, the Rose-shaped hole in his hearts...well, he didn't want to jump to too many conclusions.
"That's more like it!" Jack grinned. "I stop Rose going through, we might just stop all these weird creatures from dropping through the rift."
"You know, it might not work that way at all," the Doctor looked up at Jack. "And I can't interfere if something goes wrong."
"Hey, it's me," Jack grinned. "I've gotta start somewhere. I'm sure - so sure - that London rift, and our rift in Cardiff are connected, and always have been. Just leave it to me. Get me as close as you can to that rift and I'll do the rest," Jack exuded confidence.
Martha shook her head. "Can someone tell me what it is we're rushing off to do?"
The Doctor grinned over the controls. "Save the universe."
"Save it, or blow it up, by the sounds!" Martha's eyebrows crossed.
"Nothing new for us, eh?" the Doctor, full of energy, flipped the necessary dials and levers to move the TARDIS into the time vortex.
A/N: How can Jack be in two places at once? I've been messing with my timeline.
The question to ask is, is this Jack pre-Pete's world? Or after? I promise, it's all going to make sense soon…