The Ten Keys of the Moirai Chapter 7: The Killing Lake, a doctor who fanfic

Chapter 7: The Killing Lake

Jack thought for a moment, and then jumped up. 'I can go up.'

'You'll die.'

'Yeah, occupational hazard,' Jack dismissed. 'This breath aid will get me a bit up, then I'll drown, but I'll revive, go a bit further, drown, then revive, and just keep going to the top. I'll get there eventually.'

'No,' the Doctor said immediately, his expression serious.

'What? It'll work. Then I can get back to the Tardis and find Brax to get to you.'

'No,' the Doctor repeated.

'Why not?'

'Jack, I've already killed you once, and I'm not doing it again.'

'Are you serious? You're gonna suffocate and die down here. And I told you. I forgive you for that. You had to do it. If you hadn't slit my throat the Va'A'gnorns never would've believed you were subservient and you'd be dead.'

The Doctor ignored him. 'This cave goes deeper, maybe there's some way out through here,' he stated, and headed towards the skeletons.

'Long shot,' Jack said. 'Let me do this for you.'

'No.'

'Doctor!' Jack shouted.

'Don't shout, you'll lose your air quicker,' the Doctor said.

'Doctor,' Jack repeated, calmer. 'I can save you. Let me save you.'

The Doctor stopped, and turned to him. 'Jack, I've never forgiven myself for what I did to you on Sirrus. I'm fed up with you dying. I hate seeing you die. I don't care if you're immortal, it hurts you. I'm not going to ask you to die for me.'

'I want to,' Jack said firmly.

'It's not happening.'

'Can you just stop being a stubborn ass!?'

The Doctor ignored him, stooping down to look at the two skeletons. 'Wait a minute,' he said, and reached down to one of the skeleton's hands.

'Doctor, can you just –'

'Looks like our friends weren't accidentally washed up here,' the Doctor interrupted, holding up a strange circular box.

Jack faltered. 'What's that?'

'It's a key,' the Doctor replied.

'What? What does it open?'

'Judging by their position, manner of death, and this, I'd say it's a key to something in this cave. Something they couldn't find. There must be keyhole somewhere for this.'

Jack sighed. 'Right. Okay, that's it.'

'What?'

'I'm gonna get you out of here.'

The Doctor turned to him, his eyes wide. 'No.'

'I don't think you get a choice,' Jack replied, and started backing to the edge of the rocks to go back into the water.

'Don't you dare.'

'Watch me.'

The Doctor darted forward to grab his arm. 'Jack, out there is a giant man-eating eel, now awake, hungry, and annoyed. It's going to eat you.'

'I don't care.'

'It'll eat you alive, and then once you're dead inside it, you'll come back, die again, and just keep on dying. If you're lucky, you'll be too dead to feel the stomach acid burning you. By the time it's processed you, you'll come out the other side, resurrect, and I'd have died two days before.'

'It's your only chance.'

'It will eat you. It knows your blood. It's tasted you. It'll actively hunt you down. Jack, there is no chance that you're going to get to the surface before I suffocate. You can't save me. You can only save yourself.'

Jack stared at him. 'But … But I always save you. Leah and Rose first, then you. That was the promise.'

'Not this time,' the Doctor replied. 'I'm sorry.'

'You'll regenerate, it doesn't matter how long I take,' Jack replied.

'Jack, I didn't want to tell you this, but once this air runs out, that's it. Even if I regenerate I'll immediately suffocate. Right now, my life span with regenerations is about ten minutes. So you can either head up now, or you can stay here. I'm going to try and find a way out, because I don't want to die, but if I can't, I don't …'

He trailed off.

Jack stilled. He didn't need the Doctor to finish that sentence. 'Okay,' he said, and looked at the key in the Doctor's hand. 'Let's find this thing.'

The Doctor smiled, and nodded. He then turned back, and clearly feigned looking surprised. 'Oh, here it is,' he said, and put the key into a specifically-shaped hole. Half a second later, there was a rumbling sound as old as time itself, and a portion of the wall slid back to expose a tunnel within. The Doctor grinned at Jack. 'I love secret tunnels,' he said, and walked inside.

'Where's Theta?' Brax asked Rose, walking into the console room holding a book.

'Oh, um,' Rose started, pointing out the door. 'Next key.'

Brax nodded, and strode out of the door. He stopped on the edge of the cliff, stared for a moment, and then walked back in. 'Are you serious?' he asked.

'Yeah.'

'By Rassilon's beard,' Brax cursed, his head in his hand.

'Tell me about it,' Rose muttered. 'They should be back soon.'

'Hold on,' Brax said, frowning. 'What planet is this?'

Rose shrugged.

'Limax Minor 5,' Leah stated.

Rose thought about that. 'Why do I know that name?'

'Please don't tell me that's the Killing Lake,' Brax moaned.

'He didn't say it had a name,' Rose said, and then registered what he'd said. 'Wait. The Killing Lake? It's called the Killing Lake?'

'Yes.'

'... Please tell me that's one of those funny names like the Dead Sea or some kinda native tongue thing.'

'It's called that because there's a giant man-eating eel in it.'

'... You are kidding.'

'No.'

'Oh my god!' Rose cried. 'The bloody idiot!'

'Hold on,' Brax said, and went to the monitor. He tapped a few buttons to bring up the biorhythms.

Theta Sigma (registered passenger #1) biorhythms checklist

Infections: Unknown entity ID ERROR

Foreign substances: General sustenance / Drug compound(s) - B515-799-43-7/10, C728-001-91-2/7

Warnings: Unknown entity ID ERROR

Location: Limax Minor 5, 1.6670° N, 8.9137° W

-END-

Further information? Y/N

'He fine,' Brax realised.

'Of course he's fine,' Leah said positively.

The Doctor and Jack walked side by side through the tunnel. The Doctor was almost feeling more positive, as they were starting to ascend. Not by much, but at least they were becoming closer to the surface. He was keeping an eye on the amount of breaths Jack had left, and kept reminding him to maintain his breathing.

Although the Doctor now had plenty of air around him, he knew he wouldn't last long on it. This air barely qualified as air. A mixture of alien gases from the algae and the decay of organic detritus was thick enough to push back the water, but it was playing havoc with his aerobic system. His in-built filtration was under a huge amount of strain, working overtime to get some kind of breathable gas inside him, and garnering very little for its efforts. This kind of air was only breathable for him for a while. Soon, it would turn to poison inside him. But Jack didn't need to know that.

Finally, they reached the end of the tunnel, and emerged into a huge open expanse inside the cave, that was strangely warm. There was a pedestal in the centre, but it looked empty. Regardless, the Doctor stepped forward.

Immediately he felt a paroxysm of emotions smack into his head – fear, anger, hatred, bliss, joy, love, confusion, to name a few – all arriving in equal and unbearable amounts, raw and sharp inside his head, his memories attached to the emotions burning in his head. He screamed out and stumbled backwards, tripping over his own feet and falling back onto the rock.

'Jesus!' Jack exclaimed, stooping to him. 'What happened?'

The emotions had gone as quickly as they'd come. The Doctor gasped in air for a moment, before he managed to get his breathing back under control. 'Some kind of barrier,' he said. 'Emotional memory barrier.'

He got up with Jack's help, and tentatively reached a hand forward. His fingers brushed some sort of forcefield, rippling at his touch. He felt the emotions again for a brief moment, but quickly pulled his hand away. 'The Moirai must be creating a shield.'

'So what do we do?'

The Doctor swallowed. 'Just going to have to bear it,' he stated. 'Seems to take your memories and draw out the raw emotion to try and overpower you.'

Jack winced. 'God, we need someone who doesn't feel any emotion.'

'Should've brought Brax,' the Doctor joked half-heartedly.

Jack grinned. 'C'mon. Get this thing so we can get out.'

The Doctor nodded. He braced himself, and stepped forward again.

The paroxysm of emotions hit him again, but this time, he steeled himself against them. Feelings and memories were slamming into his head, a mixture of positive and negative. He could see Rose laughing, then crying, and then his own burning hatred for her when she'd told him she'd lost their baby.

'Even though we didn't know about it, I just ... I couldn't protect it, yeah? I couldn't feel it. I thought I'd feel it, but I couldn't. And I couldn't protect it from the creature. It died inside me and it's like it was all my fault.'

'Don't be stupid. How can it have possibly been your fault? It's biology!'

'Shut the hell up about your science stuff! You haven't even cried! You can't feel this!'

'Just because I haven't cried doesn't mean I can't feel it!'

He tried desperately to force the memory out of his head, but it stayed resolutely inside. The memory they had spent so long running from was now overriding every sense he had.

'Just because I haven't cried doesn't mean I can't feel it!'

The memory persisted, repeating over and over in his mind.

'Just because I haven't cried doesn't mean I can't feel it!'

He stopped, and began to cry. The overwhelming emotion was killing him inside. The mere thought that he could have treated Rose so badly was ripping him apart. He forced himself to step forward again, but it was like stepping through tar. Just as he thought his brain might burst, he finally emerged out of the other side, and feelings and memories disappeared. He gasped, taking a few moments to steady himself before he looked back at Jack, who looked very anxious.

'Jesus, Doctor, you okay?'

' Y-yeah,' he stammered out. 'Don't do it.'

'Wasn't planning on it,' Jack confessed. 'Grab the key and let's find our way outta here.'

The Doctor nodded, and turned to the pedestal. He checked, double-checked, and then triple checked. There was no sign of the key whatsoever. 'It's not here.'

'What did you say?'

'It's not here,' the Doctor told him, louder. 'It's gone.'

'Maybe we're in the wrong place?'

'It was here, definitely here, I can feel its power. Residual energy. I can probably get a vision if I used my hand, but that would be a bit stupid right now.'

'You mean someone's got here before us?'

'Looks like it,' the Doctor confirmed.

'Forget it, then. Come back.'

The Doctor nodded, turning back to Jack. He was about to step back, but then he stopped.

'What?'

'Jack ... I don't think I can.'

'What d'you mean?'

'I can't … I can't do it.'

Jack's eyes narrowed. 'No. Come on. I'm not interested in your goddamn self-sacrifice stuff. Staying here isn't gonna make a blind bit of difference whether I live, and I couldn't care less if I die anyway. Get the hell back here.'

'No, Jack,' the Doctor croaked, and disconnected his gaze as he summed up the courage to say something he rarely said. '... I'm scared.'

Jack fell silent for a moment. '... That bad?'

The Doctor nodded.

'It's okay. But you gotta get out.'

'I know, but … ugh,' the Doctor moaned, dropping to his knees. 'Jack. We lost a baby and I took it out on Rose.'

'You didn't understand what had happened. That was a completely new area for you. You forgave her, and she forgave you.'

'I was so angry …'

'You're not him anymore,' Jack stated firmly. 'That Doctor's grown up. You can take it. C'mon. You gotta get back to Rose, Leah and Theo.'

'But I …'

'Doctor, you're an alien. Even humans can't magically emotionally deal with a miscarriage. You didn't stand a chance. But you got through it. You and Rose. You're out the other side, now.'

The Doctor swallowed, nodded, and stood up. He rolled back his shoulders, gazing at the space between him and Jack. 'Right. Here goes nothing.'

He temporarily leant back on the pedestal to try and propel himself. He realise just half a second too late that he'd used the wrong hand, just as the bullet train slammed into his head.

'Doctor!' Jack yelled, panicking as the Doctor collapsed. 'No, no, no, not now!'

There was nothing he could do but breach the barrier. He started to run, expecting all of what the Doctor had described, but absolutely nothing happened. He reached the Doctor, and could do nothing but stare, horrified, as he realised the repercussions of this. The Doctor would be unable to speak or move for at least ten minutes.

Jack swore, not only for the situation in general but also at the Time Lord himself for being so utterly stupid. This was it. He had to find a way out.

He ran off again, scouting the area for something that could constitute an escape. He eventually found an opening back to the lake, and dived in. The water was warm, and as he emerged back into the lake he realised why the cave and water were so warm. They were close to a volcano, and several geysers were firing up jets towards the surface. A mad plan came into his head. It was insanity, but now it was their only chance.

He returned to the Doctor. The blue glow had faded, and the Time Lord's eyes eased open.

'Inoomahdodooda,' the Doctor said, lying supine and useless on the ground.

'Doctor, I've got an idea. There are some geysers out there. If I ride the edge of one I might be able to get to the surface before I run out of breaths. I'll get back to the Tardis. Just stay breathing, okay.'

'Ahooehamahka,' the Doctor said, looking very unhappy.

Jack very quickly made sure he was comfortable, adjusting his limbs and pulling his wet hair away from his eyes. He gave him a quick kiss on the forehead, and darted back to the exit. He got into the water, took a deep breath from his breath aid, started to swim.