Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter Eight

Mickey, Lily, Rose and the Doctor were sat in the console room.

Lily, Rose and the Doctor were trying to relate on of their crazier adventures to Mickey. They laughed speaking enthusiastically, and not noticing how Mickey wasn't following, and how he didn't seem very into it.

The Doctor laughed, " And that weird munchkin lady with the big eyes - do you remember her? The way she looked at you two! And then she opened her mouth and fire comes out! "

" I thought I was gonna get frazzled! " Rose laughed.

Lily nodded, "Yeah! One minute she's standing there, and the next - rawwwh! "

The three of them mimicked fire coming out of their mouths, laughing ridiculously loud.

Mickey just nodded, not really following, "Yeah? Where ... where was that? What happened again? "

The Doctor shrugged and waved his hand, " Oh, it was on this um .. uh, this planet thing, asteroid. Long sotry, you had to be there. And ... what're you doing that for? "

Mickey had one finger on a button on the console, and looked back at the Doctor in confusion, " 'Cos you told me to. "

The Doctor just blinked, " When was that? "

" About half an hour ago," Mickey replied.

" Oh," the Doctor said, shaking his head, " Um .. you can let go now. "

He let go, and Lily stifled a laugh behind her hand, while Rose sniggered.

" Well," Mickey said indignantly," how long since I could have let go? "

Lily was th one who laughed and replied, " Ten minutes ... " she paused, " or maybe twenty minutes .... twenty nine. "

" You all just forgot about me! " Mickey said, pointing at them accusingly.

" No! " the Doctor protested, " no, no, no. I was just - just calibrating. I was just ... I know exactly what I'm doing. "

And that was the moment that the TARDIS console chose to explode violently. Lily watched in horror as the console shot sparks and flames everywhere. The Doctor rushed to the console and tapped into the screen, Lily coming to his side.

The Doctor frantically tried to work the controls, but nothing was happening. They looked at the screen and then looked at each other in shock.

" That's impossible! " Lily declared, as they watched the screen.

" What? What's happening? " asked Rose in a panic.

The Doctor shook his head as he looked at the screen and then at Rose, shaking his head, " The time vortex! It's just gone - it's impossible - it's gone! "

The TARDIS continued to smoke and flame, as it fell through fire and through what should have been the time vortex.

" Brace yourselves! " the Doctor shouted, " we're gonna crash! "

The TARDIS got faster and faster as they fell, and there was more and more noise, until the TARDIS hit something and crashed . They were all thrown in different directions and Lily hit one side of the TARDIS hard. She groaned and tried to sit up slowly, wincing and rubbing her back where she'd hit it.

" Everyone alright? " the Doctor called, " Rose - Mickey? " he called over his shoulder, reaching down and grasping Lily's forearms, yanking her to her feet and looking her up and down.

" I'm fine, Dad," she told him. He looked at her for a moment longer, and nodded in satisfaction, looking around the TARDIS. He looked at the TARDIS - which was now dark and lifeless.

" The TARDIS is dead," he whispered, walking around the console slowly.

Lily looked around, shaking her head - it couldn't be dead. The TARDIS was their home ... and it wasn't doing anything. It was broken.

" You can fix it? " asked Rose asked hopefully.

" There's nothing to fix," the Doctor replied, " the last TARDIS in the universe and she'd ead ... they're all extinct now. "

" We'll get help then," Rose said.

Lily shook her head," From who? We fell through the vortex. "

The Doctor sighed, " Through the void and into nothingness. We're in some sort of no-place ... the silent realm ... the lost dimension ... "

" Otherwise known as London! " Mickey grinned, through open the doors of the TARDIS.

" What? " Lily frowned, stepping towards the door. She, her Dad and Rose walked out of the TARDIS and found that they were right in front of the Thames, in what looked very much like 21st Century London.

Mickey looked around, pleased with himself, " London. England. Earth. Hold on ... "

He plucked a newspaper from a nearby dustbin and looked at the date, " 1st of February, this exactly far flung, is it? "

" So, this is London," the Doctor nodded.

" Yep," Mickey nodded.

" Your city," the Doctor said.

" That's the one," Mickey nodded.

"Just as we left it? " the Doctor asked.

" Bang on," Mickey agreed.

" And that includes the Zeppelins? " asked the Doctor.

Lily and the others followed the Doctor's gaze, and saw that exactly as he'd said, the sky was filled with Zeppelins.

" They're beautiful," Rose said.

Mickey raised his eyebrows," Okay, so it's London with a big international zeppelin festival."

" This isn't your world," Lily said," right, Dad? "

" But," Mickey said, confused," if the date's the same ... it's parallel, right? Am I right? Like a parallel earth where they've got zeppelins and that? I'm right, aren't I? "

" Must be," the Doctor said.

" So," Rose started, " a parallel world where - '"

" Oh come on! " Mickey cried, " You see it on films. Like an alternative to our world, where everything's the same but a little bit different, like - I dunno. The traffic lights are blue, Tony Blair never got elected ... "

" And he's still alive," Rose said, distant.

She was gazing at a poster, and they all turned to looked at it. It was a huge poster of Pete Tyler, a succesful businessman, holding up a bottle of Vitex.

Rose sighed, " A parallel world where my dad's still alive. "

" Don't look at it," the Doctor said sternly," Don't even think about it, because this is not your world. "

" But he's my Dad," Rose said, shaking her head.

She moved forwards and touched the poster. The poster sprang to life and the poster Pete said " Trust me on this," and winked while give her the thumbs up. Rose stepped up and laughed, " Oh that's weird! He's real! "

" Trust me on this," the poster Pete said.

" He's a success," Rose said happily, " He was always planning these daft little schemes, health food drinks and stuff. Everyone said they were useless but he did it. "

The Doctor moved forwards and gripped Rose but the shoulders suddenly, bending slightly to looked in her eyes, " Rose, if you've ever trusted me, then listen to me now. Stop looking at it! "

Rose reluctantly met his eyes and he nodded before continuing, " Your father's dead. He died when you were six months old. That is not your Pete. That is a Pete. For all we know, he's got his own Jackie - his own Rose. His own daughter, who is someone else, but not you. "

Rose's eyes started to wander back to the poster, but she stopped herself.

" You can't ever see him," the Doctor told Rose, " Not ever. "

Rose nodded and looked at the floor.

The Doctor sighed, " Now then. How about you got for a walk and get some fresh air? Nothing's going on here. "

Rose was gone before the Doctor had finished, and the Doctor rolled his eyes and turned to Mickey, " Keep an eye on her, will you? Don't let her do anything stupid. "

When Lily and the Doctor were left alone, Lily sighed and looked around.

" D'you think .... " she trailed off and shook her head.

" What? " the Doctor asked.

She chewed her lower lip nervously before saying quietly, " If this is all parallel, and people who are dead can be alive, right? "

" Oh, no," the Doctor said, shaking his head at her, " no, no, no, no, no. You can get that thought out of your head right now. Didn't you hear anything I said to Rose? "

" You don't understand," Lily said, " if there's a chance that I could see him again ... just to see him one last time. "

" You can't," the Doctor said.

Lily looked at him, pleading, " Dad, I have to. Just go see him, and see how he is, and how he's doing. It might be good for me ... closure or something. I just ... I love that man and he's no longer part of my life. If there's a chance that I can see him again, I can't let that go. "

The Doctor folded his arms and looked at her sternly, " I am not letting you go anywhere. You heard what I told Rose - if there is a Jack here, he's not your Jack. He'll have his own life, and he won't know anything about you. He won't know who you are. You can't just go find him and live happily ever after with him. "

" Don't," Lily said, swatting at him with one hand, " I know I can't be with him, I don't need to to tell me that. I just need to see him. "

" There's no guarantee that there is a Jack Harkness on this world. "

" But - "

" You can't," the Doctor said, shaking his head, " now come on ... let's just go for a walk for something. I need to look at the TARDIS, but we'll get some fresh air first. Try not to think about it. "

Lily huffed and folded her arms as they started to walk. The Doctor tried to cheer her up by talking about anything and everything, but she wasn't listening.

All she wanted to go was get away and see if she could find a Jack Harkness in this world. He probably wouldn't be hard to find - he was a flirt, so someone would have heard of him, if he lived around here. Then again, he wasn't open about his past or his life, so maybe he'd be some sort of elusive secret organisation that was hard to find.

But this was parallel, so if Jack was secretive in her world, then maybe he was open and high profile here. And if the real Jack was a flirt, then maybe Jack here would be settled down.

The thought of Jack settled down with someone who wasn't her, made her sick.

She knew she had to find out if there was a Jack here, and she knew her Dad wasn't going to let her.

So while they were standing looking out over the Thames, and the Doctor was rambling on about something she wasn't listening to, she took a step backwards. He was too busy talking and waving his arms around to notice where she was going.

She managed to slip off un-noticed. She watched from around the corner of one wall as he turned to his side, and realised she was no longer there. She watched him grasp at his hair and shake his head in annoyance, and as he shouted her name, and looked one way and the other, she realised she had to move, before he came after her and found her.

She ran down this street and that, and the next, until she was sure that she was out of his way.

She then walked slowly down the street, wondering where she was going to start.

She looked up at the skies and watched the zeppelins overhead. One was much bigger than the others, and had a logo on the underneath: Cybus. Lily vaguely wondered who Cybus were - must be someone important, judging by the size of the zeppelin.

The mobile phone - her "superphone" thanks to some tampering with - beeped and she reached into the pocket of the long black trench coat she had taken a liking to. She knew she liked it because it reminded her of Jack's long navy coat, but she tried to ignore that fact.

She looked at the screen of her phone. It read " Welcome - free trial period. "

She selected that option on the phone and a news feed appeared, while footage of the news started to play.

The Newsreader was shuffling papers whilst talking, " And it's good news for Great Britain, as John Lumic returns to the country of his birth. Mr Lumic, the inventor of high-content metal, has denied allegations of ill health. "

There was an older man with greying hair, who must be John Lumic, " We're all flesh and blood, but the brain is what makes us human. And my mind is more creative than ever. "

The newsreader continued, " With shares in Cybus Industries doubling in prices, Lumic -"

Lily turned the news report off and looked at what was on her phone: It was the internet. The Cybus Network. You could find anything on the internet. She sat down on a wall and searched the name Jack Harkness through the search engine.

She found his name easily.

The first search result read Jack Harkness - Wikipedia. The second was Jack Harkness in latest Government Policies. The third was Captain Harkness as vice-president for second term.

Confusion, Lily clicked on the first option - he was on Wikipedia? Humans had everything on that stupid website.

After 15 minutes of digging around to find out more about him, she found that there was definitley a Captain Jack Harkness in the parallel world. He was an MP - he was the vice-president, no less. It seemed that there were presidents, not prime ministers, here.

She found out that Jack was a very well educated man who'd served in the army before turning to politics. But there was no wife, and no children. What shocked her the most was that Captain Jack Harkness had a husband.

Her Jack was married to some other guy. She knew he wasn't exactly straight, but he'd loved her so much, even if she'd never heard those actual words from him. And here he was, married to some guy. She sincerely hoped that Ianto bloody Jones was worthy of Jack.

Angrily stuffing her phone back into her pocket, she made her way back to the TARDIS. She still wanted to see him, but she hadn't found an adress, and she didn't want to run into his husband. She hoped they were happy together, she thought bitterly. She knew she was being ridiculous, but Jack belonged to her, even if this Jack didn't know it.

***

Author's Note: Just a bit of the episode, because I wanted to get something uploaded today, and might not have time to write the rest.