Morgaine broke the circle. She cut the salt with her belt knife, and stalked out without a word to her brother. As she walked away, she turned once to Jack, her eyes flashing green. Then she was gone. Arthur, very quietly, followed her out. After they left, the sisters rushed in, checking over Jack and the Doctor. It was only then that Jack realized where the blood had come from. There were sticky trails of blood coming from his ears, his nose, his mouth, his eyes. No wonder that his shirt was drenched in the stuff- his brain must have started hemorrhaging as soon as he'd entered the link. That must have been... decorative, Jack thought.
The Doctor, for his part, brushed the sisters away and demanded tea. It was obvious that he was still weak, but they let him be. Jack noticed Ancelyn eyeing him from across the room, but the knight also kept his peace, for the moment.
"Good to see you up again," Jack said, looking out at the trees surrounding the courtyard. He sat down next to the Doctor.
The Doctor sipped his tea. "That was you in there, then?" the Doctor said. "That was a bit stupid, disrupting that kind of mind link. Could have burned your brain straight out. Still, you being you..." He stretched his neck as if working out the kinks. "Why can't I feel the TARDIS anymore, Jack?" His voice was low, and smooth.
"I think we cut the link between the two of you," Jack said, cautiously. "It's hard to say."
"You did what?" He said incredulously, his eyebrows jumping up. "That's impossible! There's no human psychic strong enough to interfere with the Rassilon Imprimatur on that level." He seemed to take notice of his state of undress for the first time. "And why am I naked?" he asked, suspiciously.
"I broke your ribs," Jack said. "Sorry about that. Didn't see any point to putting your shirt back on after we bandaged you." He paused. "One of your hearts stopped, and you were barely breathing. The TARDIS was almost dead. No power, no light at all. I think she was just managing to keep air in there, for our sakes." Jack picked his overtunic up off the ground, and offered it to the Doctor. "Here, if it bothers you."
The Doctor took it and pulled it on, wincing at the pain from his ribs. "You can't have broken the link altogether," he said. "The link can be transferred or weakened, but not just destroyed, not without consequences." It sounded to Jack as though he were reassuring himself. The Doctor looked around, taking in their surroundings. "Where are we?" he said. "Wait, wait, hold on. I know you!" Jack followed the Doctor's pointing finger. He was looking straight at Ancelyn, standing against the far wall of the courtyard. "You're... Aglovale! No. Anselm! No. Ancelyn! That's it."
Ancelyn looked confused. He pulled himself up and came closer. "Have we met?" he asked.
"Yes!" said the Doctor. "No, not yet! Your future, my past. I thought this future had been destroyed in the War," he said, speculatively. "No more travel between the dimensions. Wait! I remember! There was a storm, a gap in the vortex. Never seen anything like it; it shouldn't exist. We fell through, and then there was the Void. Nothingness, nothing forever, but the TARDIS- oh, clever TARDIS!- it found a way through." He looked over at Jack. "And here we are. Have you met Arthur yet? Or Morgaine?" He made a face. "She will not have been best pleased to see me, the last time I ran into her."
Ancelyn looked at Jack. "Have his wits been addled by his injuries?" he asked, tentatively.
Jack laughed. "No, he's pretty much like this. You just have to wait for him to take a breath, so you can get a word in edgewise."
"Oi!" said the Doctor. "I'm right here! This is me, right here, listening to you talking about me." He grimaced. "That got rather circular, didn't it?" He shook his head. "Now, where've you put my clothes?"
"They are in the infirmary," Ancelyn said, helpfully.
"Lead the way!" the Doctor said, standing up. Or he would have stood up, had his legs been capable of holding him. Jack caught him as he crumpled.
"Careful!" Jack said, shifting his grip on the Doctor so as to avoid his ribs. "You might want to take it slow."
"Clothes," said the Doctor, his face gone dark. "And then the TARDIS, and then you and I are going to talk, Jack."
Ancelyn and the Mother Abbess escorted them back to the infirmary. The Mother Abbess clearly wanted to ask questions, but Ancelyn deflected her. While Jack and the Doctor collected their clothes from the nun, Jack quietly asked Ancelyn if they could borrow horses. "I shall see what can be done," the knight said, looking at him curiously. Then he was gone.
Jack changed quickly and went over to the Doctor. The Time Lord was struggling with his clothes, wincing from the pain of his broken ribs. "Can I help?" Jack asked.
"You're not usually offering to get me into my clothes," the Doctor observed.
"First time for everything," Jack said, cheerfully. He picked up the Doctor's shirt. It needed mending, but it had been cleaned, at least. "Arms out." He carefully slipped the shirt onto the Doctor. Then he came around front and began buttoning. "I make an excellent valet," Jack said, his eyes twinkling. "Would sir like his tie and coat?" he said, in a very passable RP accent.
"Stop it," the Doctor said, in his customary warning drawl.
"It's a good thing you're awake again," Jack said, grinning. "Without you to stop me, I went and slept with half the castle. Fortunately, now you'll be around to save the virtue of the other half." Jack picked up the tie, pulled it around the Doctor's collar, and tied it expertly in the Doctor's customary half-Windsor.
"Let's hope you weren't sleeping with people's wives, at least," the Doctor muttered. "The last time we got run out of a place for that was quite enough."
"Doctor," said Jack, mock-wounded. "I never go for just the wives if I can help it. Husbands are so much fun, too!" He helped the Doctor into his jacket. "You know Ancelyn, then. Have you been here before?"
"Not exactly," said the Doctor, all seriousness again. "We should talk later. Timelines. But first, we need to get to the TARDIS. I still can't feel it. Whatever you did to the link to get me awake, we have to fix it."
"Or what?" Jack asked, seriously.
"The TARDIS will die," the Doctor said, bleakly. "Or it'll manage to survive, but I won't be able to fly it anymore. Or, if I'm unlucky, I'll die when the link finally snaps completely." There was real fear in his voice.
"Then we'd better get moving," Jack said, holding out a hand to the Doctor.
The three of them- Jack, the Doctor, and Ancelyn- rode through the undercity, and out into the countryside. The Doctor had walked out on his own power, even if he was still a little unsteady. The nuns had tried to protest as they left the infirmary (the Mother Abbess was particularly vehement about the effect of trotting on broken ribs), but neither Jack nor the Doctor was willing to yield. When they'd gotten to the stables, Ancelyn had had three horses saddled.
"I thought you might need help finding your way," Ancelyn had said, with a sideways glance. "And besides, you still have the king's hospitality. If anything more were to happen to you, he would be most displeased."
Jack was unsurprised to see that the Doctor knew his way around a horse, though he'd never seen the Time Lord ride. It was a handy skill to know, and a thousand years was a long time. Jack considered trying to get some information out of the Doctor while they rode, but he saw Ancelyn pull his horse up close to the Doctor's.
"Sir Jack tells us that you are called 'the Doctor', and naught else," Ancelyn said. "Is that how you wish to be addressed?"
"Yes, just 'the Doctor'," the Time Lord answered, his gaze fixed on the road ahead.
"Have you truly no other name?" Ancelyn's tone was one of polite curiosity.
"'Course I do!" the Doctor answered. "I've got lots of names. But just 'the Doctor' will do for right now."
"Then, Doctor," Ancelyn started, and stopped. "You knew me, though I know you not. How can this be? Are you gifted with knowledge of the future?"
Jack expected a flip answer. Instead, the Doctor turned and looked hard at Ancelyn. "I live out of order," he said. "It's not that I'm a soothsayer. I've just literally met you before, sometime in your future. It was years ago for me, though."
Ancelyn was quiet for a moment. "How can this be?" he asked. "How can a man live out of order? A moment passes, and is gone. It does not come again."
"It can," the Doctor said, contradicting him. "I'm sorry, but you're wrong. It's not that simple." The Doctor cocked his head. "And I have a ship that can revisit those moments."
"A ship that travels through time?" Ancelyn sounded dubious. "I have seen ships that travel through the air, or the water, or the land, or even the heavens themselves. But I have never seen a ship that travels through the hours." He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded wistful. "I should like to see such a thing," he said.
"You'll get your chance," the Doctor answered. "Provided the TARDIS is still standing."
It took them another hour of riding to get to the spot where Ancelyn had found Jack. It was dark by the time they got there, and the moon was starting to rise. Jack started to retrace his steps from there back to the TARDIS.
"That's a long way to go, carrying someone," the Doctor noted as they walked their horses, looking sideways at Jack.
"It's a good thing you're so skinny," Jack agreed.
A few moments later, they entered the clearing where the TARDIS stood, shaded by the surrounding trees. If Jack hadn't known better, he would have said that it looked much the same as it always had. Jack heard the Doctor's breath catch in his throat.
The Doctor went to the time ship, approaching it slowly as if it were a wounded animal. He reached out his hand, and brushed the door with his fingertips. Jack, watching closely, saw the Doctor flinch. The Time Lord pulled his hand away for just a moment, and then moved closer, putting his palm flat on the door. He continued, slowly, until his cheek rested against the door, his right hand still flat on the blue paneling. The Doctor closed his eyes, as if listening to something.
And then he pulled away, suddenly, reaching for his TARDIS key. "Right," the Doctor said. "In we go." He unlocked the door, and pushed it open. Inside, Jack could see only blackness. The Doctor poked his head in, and looked around. "Blimey!" he said. "It's dark in there."
"I have torches with me," Ancelyn offered, helpfully. He reached into his saddlebags and pulled out something that looked like an actual torch- the kind that you light on fire. It took Jack a moment to realize that the knobby part on the end of the stick was actually an electric light.
"Very literal," the Doctor commented, taking one. "Alright. Allons-y!"