A/N: For this chapter, I did create a picture to go with it. It is on my pinterest account. If you would like to see it go to pinterest dot com /killasshandra/she-knew-too-much/ remember to remove the spaces and add the dot.
River was pissed. She had stormed out of the Tardis and went for a "stomp". Most would say a walk, but that was clearly not what her feet were doing. Small nameless animals scattered from the field ahead, and it took everything in her soul to not open fire on the moving targets.
Jack had seen her leave, had felt the Tardis shudder as she had flown open the doors. Whatever he had missed out on was, apparently, the beginning of some intergalactic feud. He got up, and decided it was safer ground to find out from the Doctor what was going on, then to chase down a hot-headed woman packing heat.
He slowly opened the door, swearing it felt like the hinge was loose. He knew it wasn't, but it still seemed like it to him.
"Jack! Good man! Just in time!" This Doctor was excited and child-like over something, but Jack knew better. His little facade. "I need your help." Jack smiled and nodded, not letting on, and they went down to the sickbay.
The Doctor had needed some help moving some electrical doo-dads from all over the ship to Sickbay. Jack learned a long time ago to never ask the Doctor about any items he worked with. Once you hear "Timey-Wimey" or "Wibbly-Wobbly" there just really isn't a need to ask. He makes it up as he goes along.
It hadn't taken long to gather the items, and bring them all to where Shana and the Doctor lay. He looked at them now, and realized how small the two actually look. Though, the Doctor always was a bit skinny. They had joked it was from all the running, one night, as they had scarfed down pizza and beer. Jack smiled at that thought. It had been awhile since he thought about the non-exciting days in the Tardis; Better known as Sundays. "I never land on Sundays. Sundays are boring," He had once said. Rose had liked the quiet days. One time she even asked for three solid days of Sundays. Said the Tardis had needed a thorough cleaning, especially with him and the Doctor hanging around. He could hear her voice now, "It's as bad as a frat house and there are only two of you!"
He looked down at his unconscious friend, and he felt a tug at his heart. If he missed Rose this much, he could only imagine the pain the Doctor went through. And to have gone through it twice...
The Doctor walked in behind him wires glued to his head. "Thanks Jack. Now, I will need your help on something else. But, before I ask you, I should probably warn you that if you help me, River will probably kill you. Repeatedly."
"Not a problem," Jack grinned. "Immortal, remember."
"Oh yeah, I didn't forget, just giving you the heads up." The Doctor began plugging in the dangling wires into a console near Shana. "Jack, behind you is a skull cap... Could you please put it on her, and hand me the cables?"
"So, what's the plan?" Jack adjusted the cap on her head, and handed the wires, one at a time to the Doctor, who plugged them into the same console as his.
"Well, I am going to attempt to scan her mind. Normally it would be quicker and easier if I could touch her, but for the fact that he touched her and is now... well... like he is, thought we'd go the old fashion way." He watched him tinker and twist the cables, scan with the screwdriver every now-and-then, and hum a little tune.
"Can I ask you something," Jack said, a bit amazed he had decided to ask.
"Sure. Anything," and the goofy Doctor grinned. He was so different then the other two he had known... "
"What happened... to you and Rose? After the Earth was returned? And, how many Doctors between him and you?" He saw the Doctor's hands stop moving when he asked, and knew he had still hit a sore note for him.
"None. I am his next regen." Jack was a bit in shock about this. He knew of the regens, and knew it was a full change... But he was so much more different. His face doesn't seem to be able to hold the sadness on it that his Doctor wears so often. "I sent her back," the Doctor said quietly.
"You... sent her back? To the other universe? But... Why?" The Doctor looked at him then, and he saw it. There, on his face, in his whole substance. The weight of the universe and that decision sitting on his soul.
"So she would live," he whispered, and then went back to the wiring.
Jack sat there, quietly, watching his watch. A time machine, and not a single clock in it. Go figure. The Doctor had him sit there, and watch the monitors. Keep track of time. Watch for anything bad. Or good. "Good would be better," he had said. "Bad would be... well then you will have to deal with River alone." Then he flipped the switch and collapsed in the rumple of a passed out man in a chair.
All the monitors were green, and River was still MIA. It had only been 30 minutes. Nothing to worry about. Two hours he said, three maximum. Jack checked his watch again and sighed. Time moved so damn slow when you watched it. He heard a sound and looked up at the monitors again, but they were fine.
"He did NOT do it while I was gone," He heard River's shrill yell from behind him. Jack flinched at it, and now wished it was the slow progress of time by himself and not this... this... mess he was now in the middle of.
"Don't look at me! I am Switzerland." River looked at him, hand on her holster.
"Turn it off now." He knew her current favorite weapon. He'd been killed by it a few times in a few bar brawls. This was going to hurt.
"River, we have to let him stay there. For now," He added, as he was now looking down the barrel. She had a upgrade. Great, he thought to himself. It was ugly before, and now it will be just plain messy. Atomic de-stabilizers were horrendous to clean up. "I give you my word that in less then three hours, he will be back."
She slowly approached him and placed the muzzle of the weapon on his chin. "He better be, or you are going in there to get him." He couldn't nod, with that cold metal pressed against him, so he did the next best thing.
"Of course, my lovely dear River. Anything for you," He winked at her, and grinned his best grin.
He opened his eyes to a to brightly room, and a cloud flowed around him and through him. He felt dizzy and disoriented, but that wasn't bad. As he looked for the wall of the room he was in, he soon realized there wasn't a wall. Nor a ceiling. He could sense someone nearby, so he tried to trudge his way there. It wasn't a walk, as his feet seemed to want to stick to the "ground", but he was willing to work for it, so on he went.
It was like a dream. The way that when you have to run, your feet can't move. At least he was dressed, he thought with a laugh. The soup (that's what he choose to call it, cause it was too thick to be considered fog, even by British standards) seemed to be thickening as he moved further away from where he began. He hoped it was further away, and not that he was walking in circles.
Suddenly, he tripped over something, and fell down on it.
"Oi!"
"So sorry about that," he said as he untangled himself from whoever it was he tripped on. He looked and saw Shana holding her arm.
"Ya about broke it! Who the hell are you?"
"He's the Doctor," the other Doctor said. "You okay Shana?"
"Yeah," she said as she flexed her arm back and forth. "But I thought you were the Doctor."
"I am," both Doctors said.
The Doctor she knew smiled at her and said, "He is my future." He then looked at his newer self and mentally laughed. "So, how the hell did you get here, where are we, and any idea how to get out?"
"Linked into Shana's head, don't know, and not yet, but working on it." The Doctor looked around at the surroundings and adjusted his bow tie. "I am on a timer, if I disappear. Wasn't sure what I would find when I linked in, and am, rather at a loss cause I certainly wasn't expecting this. What about you? Any ideas, or better yet, what do you know?"
The first Doctor looked around, and scratched the back of his neck with his left hand and made a weird face. "Not much, I am afraid. if we try to think about it... we get..." He shut his eyes, trying to calm the pain he could feel was beginning. He inhaled deeply and tried to clear his mind, but it wasn't helping.
"Pain," Shana said, through gritted teeth. The second Doctor could feel a prick of something at the back of his neck. He reached back to rub it, and it began to grow stronger. He saw the Doctor and Shana now gripping their heads and rocking back and forth. He watched as his pain grew, that they were folding into the fetal position, and a sound began. They were screaming now. His pain was becoming unbearable, and his eyes couldn't focus. He realized, as he found himself on the floor that he was screaming like they were, and this horrible, torturous pain burned into his mind.