Facing the Past
Joshua pushed open the TARDIS door and scurried inside, pausing to blow out a sigh of relief when he saw the other four still arranged around the console room. "Thank the stars you're all still here!" He walked straight up to the Doctor. "You blew it."
"I what?"
"When you saw Jordan before, you called him 'Jack', and that put him on alert. He's looking for you, and I don't think it's a good thing. Your image in his mind was colored like an enemy, surrounded by danger – danger from you to him, and violence back. I think he's going to try to take you out."
"Why? Slow down and tell it from the top."
"I don't have a lot of information; I only saw him for a few seconds, and that across a crowded room – lots of interference. He came in, looked around for you, and left. He's hunting you. Your image was the primary thing I could read. I got the impression that he IS here on a mission, but he's confused and unsure about it, and upset, trying to delay. He thinks you might have the answers. No, wait... that's not quite right." Joshua sat down on the jump seat, looking inward, sampling the flavors he'd picked up from the other man's mind. "He's feeling pressure from somewhere to finish the job, but he doesn't want to do it, and now he thinks that pressure came from you."
"Like a backup has been sent from the Agency, and he thinks the Doctor is that backup?" supplied Jack.
"Yeah... that could be it." Joshua nodded. "I don't have much more than that. I was trying to see what the mission was, but he left before I got anywhere." He saw the question in Jack's eyes, Jenny?, and shook his head slightly, I couldn't tell. Jack grunted softly in frustration.
Joshua turned back to the Doctor. "But what I could tell, is that I wouldn't want to be you if he catches you. It's as though..." he paused again, gathering impressions. "... as though all his anxiety and frustration about the mission has become focused on your head, since he ran into you earlier."
The Doctor sighed. "Jack? Do you think he'd help us, if we contacted him directly?"
Jack's eyes unfocused, staring off into the middle distance, as he tried to put himself back so many long years, into his old pre-Doctor, Time Agent mindset. Finally, he shook his head. "Any contact from somebody else claiming to be a time traveler, or having knowledge of him being a Time Agent, and trying to correct or guard history, would automatically be classified as being on the other side, and he'd not cooperate. And if he's suspecting people inside the Agency, or feeling intense pressure to finish the mission, he'll be even jumpier." He focused again, grimacing. "I didn't have a lot of what you'd call friends back then. Not any, in fact. Everyone was a potential enemy. Nobody was an ally." Sighing, he shook his head. "No. I don't think we can count on his cooperation, Doctor. We'd best steer as clear of him as possible, and try to figure things out ourselves."
He took a deep, bracing breath. "You know, I've been thinking, ever since you said it. If keeping the timeline on the right track requires the death of one Jack Harkness in six days, then why not me? I've been dying regularly for the past three hundred years."
"Three hundred? It's been that long?" the Doctor asked. "But, Jack... It's not like that, this time. It's a bomb. Jenny saw Jordan get literally get blown to pieces. That's not something you'll come back from. Plus, we can't be sure that the substitution would be sufficient. We just don't have enough information right now."
"Oh." Jack was thoughtful, which looked good on him, even if it was unaccustomed. "You know, there's been many times I've been ready to lay it down for good. Someday it will still come to that." He looked up at his good friends, the best he'd ever had. "If that's what it comes to, though, I can't think of a better reason to die than this." He gave them his old, rakish grin. "How many people get the chance to save an entire universe? More than once, even?"
The Doctor's voice was quiet, intense. "I hope it doesn't come to that, Jack. In spite of the differences between us." He left it then, and rubbed his face with both hands. "Let's table that for right now, and Jordan, too. The first event we need to worry about is the upcoming demonstration. In one scenario, the local constabulary keep the lid on, and it stays relatively peaceful. In the other, it becomes a riot, that spills out into the community and lasts for days. What's the difference? Where's the tipping point?"
"The community itself," put in Jenny. She'd been trying her best to get used to this stranger wearing her lover's face, and thought that she might at least be able to work with him for the crisis - distantly, anyway. She could still see a lot of Jordan in Jack; the personality hadn't changed all that much, only the back story. She gave herself a mental shake, and returned to the business at hand. "In my memory, which we're trying to get back to, right? - in that, the infiltrators didn't get as much traction with the local populace as they wanted. They didn't have very many on their side of the march. From what Rose and I found in the reports while you guys were out earlier, that changed, and in the other timeline, there were hundreds of marchers. We had some bottles and rocks thrown at us. They apparently had guns of some kind, and the first to be killed were my guardsmen, who panicked and fired back."
"So what we need to do in the next three days," mused the Doctor, "is go out and try to keep the infiltrators from gaining converts, and also keep guns away from the demonstration. Who had the guns, do you know?"
Jenny shook her head. "There was no real deep investigation into the affair in the alternate timeline, but my guess is they weren't in the hands of the locals. It just doesn't fit with my knowledge of these people."
"You think the infiltrators brought and used them?"
She nodded. "That's the only thing that makes sense. Don't forget, too, that they were also busy making a crime wave at the same time, to destabilize things further."
"What about the police?"
"They were doing what they could, but they were pretty overwhelmed. This is beyond their experience. Serenity – and Crescent City, in particular – was always a peaceful, law-abiding place till now – at least that's what I was told when I came here."
"All right then. As of now, we're a counter-insurgency force of five. Find the hotspots, speak up or reinforce those speaking against the infiltrators, and also try to identify the leaders of those infiltrators, find the guns and get rid of them. And stay out of Jordan's way – and the old Jenny's." He blew out a breath, then grinned. "Ready?"
"No, sir!" came his wife's response, to his surprise. "You are NOT going out there with a Time Agent gunning for you. Jack may have become a pussycat after he met us, but I'm quite aware of how dangerous he was before that. Even he's wary of himself now." She put a hand on his arm, pleading. "Please, love. I don't want to lose you."
"She's right, Doc. It's too dangerous for you out there," put in Jack, while Jenny and Josh nodded support.
The Doctor looked wounded. "Do you really think I'd put myself in that kind of danger?"
"YES!" came the unanimous response, and he pouted harder.
"I'm not that foolhardy. There's other ways of doing things, you know, and we have one example right here!" He turned to Jack. "You think you're the only one who can wear a shimmer?"
A short search through the S crate under the grates netted them an old shimmer controller, shaped, like most, in the guise of a wristwatch. Jack checked it out quickly to make sure it was working, then the Doctor strapped it on.
"We need an image of someone offworld, but who won't arouse suspicion," began Jack, but the Doctor stopped him with a look. Then he turned and grinned mysteriously at Rose, drawing it out, as he pulled his trusty old sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and gave it a dramatic flourish, whirring it at the controller for a moment. Another last leer, complete with waggling eyebrows, and he tripped the control.
Rose and Jack exchanged mystified glances as the distortion field swept briefly over his face and body, then they both did double-takes and burst out laughing.
Standing before them was a face they hadn't seen in decades, but one with which both were, ah, intimately familiar.
The Doctor's ninth face, to be precise.
"How do I look?" he asked.
"Oh, ack!" Rose's reaction wasn't quite what he was hoping for. "Your new voice just doesn't go with the old look!" But she was laughing as she said it, even with tears in her eyes.
"Ah, hold on!" He buzzed the sonic again, and then, clearing his throat, the old northern accent came back. "How's this, then? Better?"
Jack shook his head. "If I didn't know it was a shimmer, I'd swear it was you, Doc!"
"Wait a minute. One last test." The Doctor cleared his throat again, then flashed his old wide toothy smile. "Fantastic!"
Rose stood still suddenly, her hand over her mouth, tears of a different sort starting. She sniffed, then turned to Jack. "You know what we said a while ago, Jack? Well, not only are happy endings possible, but every once in a while, so are second chances." She walked slowly up to the vision of her old Doctor, and reached up with both hands, wrapping them around his neck. "Come here, you. The one thing I never took the chance on doing." And she snogged him thoroughly, to his enthusiastic return.
"I loved you even with this face, you know," she whispered.
"And I loved you, Rose Tyler, from day one," he replied.
"And you two are still cute," put in Jack from the sidelines. "Enough of this. Put on some different clothes before you go out, Doc, but we've got a timeline to save, people!"
