Chapter 10: The Packs Lament.

They were led down the long hall-way, upwards to the control room on the highest level.

All three were silent as the grave as they were frog-marched towards the seat of power. Martha straining under the rough hands of the guards, Jack mouthing silent curses as he stared, and the Doctor — well, Martha wasn't quite sure what the Doctor was doing.

To look at him, you might have thought he didn't even care. His face was completely blank, his eyes as cold and dead as two brown pebbles. But his hands gave it away, —they clenched and unclenched as a single tense line ran down his neck. Showing, beneath the stoicism, there was a fire, hotter than the surface of the sun, waiting for the Doctor's control to slip, just for an instant, and let it out. . . .

But she could also see grief in the bowed head and his quivering shoulders, as if he were holding back the waves of grief by sheer power of will.

Jack and Martha's gazes met for a moment, then broke as Jack was shoved forward, —but the moment was enough. There was pain in his eyes, pain and loss and a deep, grief. . .
It was like coming across someone naked , —physiologically, if not literally, and she found herself wishing she hadn't seen the bared emotions.

For the first time, Martha realised how deeply Rose must have been entwined in these men's lives. She had made her home in their hearts, and they were shattering now at the new loss of her.

Before, the Doctor could have drawn comfort that she still lived in the alternate reality, but now she was dead. Her life ended by her own will as she and the Aseroth had run head long off that cliff. Martha had no idea what the water was like on this world. Acid? Liquid Nitrogen? What?

From the soldiers reactions there must have been no chance of survival, which made Martha wonder why Rose had chosen to end her own life? To save the Doctor and Jack seeing her ripped to shreds by the things in the fog. Had she thought of them as she had made her decision?

Martha laid her hand on the Doctor's arm, as best as her captors would allow, but he didn't even seem to register the contact. He kept walking, blind to everything around him. His mind was in another place, replaying the same scene over and over before open eyes.

They were herded into a lift, the three of them in the centre so they could hardly breathe, let alone move. The lift ascended the mountain, the floor numbers nearly reaching triple digits.

Most of them found the wait negligible, but it never seemed to end for one lonely girl. She felt abandoned by the one she trusted the most, betrayed and lost, she could find no comfort in his eyes, they were hidden from her lost in the blazing pain he held within him.

Finally, with a ping the lift arrived on the top floor. Inside was a mirage of blinking lights almost looking like some over zealous Christmas decorator gone mad. They were prodded in the back by several gun barrels. They all stepped out, passing through, what looked like to Martha to be an airport metal detector. She passed through and nothing happened, Jack followed her with the same result. The Doctor however was a different story as always, as soon as he stepped through alerts started blaring.

"Alert, Alert. Alien detected!"

"Well, well. This becomes more interesting by the moment. To think she was hiding an alien under my nose. Naughty girl" A voice came from the command position, the chair turned to show Sinclair smug on his little throne.

He probably would have said more, but he didn't. Before another word could pass his lips, the Doctor growled and launched himself at Sinclair.

Before anyone could so much as blink, Time Lord reflexes had slammed the man against the chair, the Doctor's hand around his throat, timeless eyes alight with the madness of fury and grief.

His shoved his face in close, close enough to bite him, and as he looked into those timeless, ancient eyes, Sinclair knew fear.

"You are worthless," the Doctor spat, spittle on his lips in his rage. "You aren't worth the primeval ooze you crawled from. You have no idea what you have just done. The Storm is coming."

And then, it was all over. The Doctor was pulled off the Commander; it was as though no one else had even heard the Doctor speak.

Sinclair was ruffled. More than that, the Doctor had actually succeeded in frightening him. He had no idea what he was up against.

The Doctor was slammed back again by the guards that had accompanied them, this time his hands bound in sonic cuffs behind his back. His gaze never left Sinclair.

"Well, you're a strong one," he goaded, angry at himself for yielding to fear. The Doctor would pay for that. "Just like she was at the beginning. But I'll break you, just as I broke her."

"Shut up, Sinclair," Jack shouted, blocking Sinclair's taunting. He did not want the Doctor to know what the man had done to Rose, not now. He knew the Doctor would do something stupid in his rage. How could he not? Rose had had to sit on him to prevent him doing something equally stupid when he had found out.

"Oh, friend of yours, is he? Don't you want him to know what I did to your little flower?" Sinclair laughed and turned away. With a wave of his hand he spoke to the guards.

"Take them to the Interrogation room, I shall be there shortly. The Time Bubble needs another testing first."

"Sinclair, don't be stupid, you can't activate the bubbl…." Jack was cut off by a blow to the face from Sinclair's guard.

"You do not presume to order me around Captain. I am in control here. Not you!" With that, they were dismissed and pulled from the room….

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The deep hum grew in the centre of the mountain, as the Time bubble was primed once more. Oscillating blue light and arcs of white lightening shot between the machine receptors as quantum physics was bent to one man's will.

The bubble began to form, bright light as the power pulsed inside, alternating from blue to red as the Vortex tunnel was contained in this sphere. But time was not meant to be wielded like this and the continuum of time convulsed. It abhorred this abomination as the bubble expanded.

With a flash of gold the Bubble began to loose containment. Men and women fled from the lab, but it would do no good. The bubble exploded, shattering time in its wake. Men were turned to dust as time accelerated; others were turned into nothing but the most basic building blocks of life.

But this time there was also another side effect; this time it pulled creatures from different times and places to this point. The monsters of nightmares and things of the past and future. This was no longer the flow of time; this was shards of glass cutting into each other.

"SCANNING-AREA. SENSORS-IN-DI-CATE-HU-MAN-LIFEFORMS-IN-THE-AREA" a voice from the past or was it the future, the white casing of this being glinting as the light caught the gold nodules.

Then more forms in the shadows, silver men, with sightless eyes. Their metal bodies shining bright silver. These were of the past. Old forms that would be upgraded soon.

Still time fractured, in the interrogation room the Doctor howled in pain as he felt Time scream her horror. Beyond hearing another voice joined him, hidden in the depths of the base another being was ripped from his place in time to this point. He was alone without direction, his mind splintered as he tried to realise whom and when he was.

With a glow of blue he left the place he found himself, the narrow air ducts his only escape….

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The Doctor became aware of someone calling his name. The pain that had seared through his mind was now just a dull ache. He blinked open his eyes and waited for the room to stop spinning.

"Hey Doc, you all right?" he focused on Jack.

"Don't call me Doc. Makes me feel like I have just stepped out of Back To The Future," he mumbled. His mouth felt like sand paper. "What happened?"

"It was like you were having some kind of Seizure," that was Martha's voice. He turned to see her bound in a chair,—looking down he saw he was similarly restrained, as was Jack. The three of them looked like they were about to be electrocuted. Their hands and feet were held in place by metal straps.
They could move their heads and torso, but that was about it.

"It felt like Time was being ripped apart! Just what were you guys playing with here?" The Doctor snarled at Jack, making the other man blink a moment at the anger in it.

"They called it a Time Bubble, I never got a good look at it. But I assume it's a quantum bubble. Sinclair said he was trying to contain the fog in it, but now I'm not so sure."

"Never assume Jack, thought you would have learned that by now"

"I know, I know. Assumptions are the mother of all fuck ups," Jack replied in a deadpan voice, Martha giggled and the Doctor gave a shadow of a smile.

"Very good, Captain. Now we have to get out of here. Stop whatever Sinclair is doing. Find Rose. Then leave."

"Doctor. . ." Jack tried to interrupt, a sad note in his voice.

"She's not dead, Jack. I won't believe she's dead, not after all this!" If Jack could, he would have put his hands up in a placating manor.

"Okay, okay. But first we have to get out of here"

"Are we tired of my hospitality already?"

They all looked up to see Sinclair standing in the doorway. He smiled a moment, then nodded to the guards. They began to un-strap Martha and take her from the room.

"Hey, what are you doing? Let me go!" she struggled in their grips.

"Let her go!"

"Oh come now, this is no place for a lady. . ." he smiled.

"You brought Rose in here," Jack snarled.

"Bad Wolf was no lady. She was a thing to do with as I pleased. Surely you can understand that?"
He smiled at the Doctor. "So, just who and what are you?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" the Doctor looked to the wall, ignoring Sinclair as though none of this, —the cell, the restraints or, the man in front of him —were real.

""I would, that's why I asked." Sinclair pressed a button and Jack screamed in agony as electricity pulsed through his body.

"Stop it! I'm nothing important, I'm just a traveller!"

"Yes but what's your name?" He pressed the button again.

Prepared this time, Jack fought back the cry of pain as the pulse of energy ripped through him. He bit his lip until a drop of blood splattered the floor, but he refused to make a sound.

"A higher setting, maybe?" mused Sinclair.

"I'm just called the Doctor, now stop it!"

Sinclair lifted his hand from the button, and Jack collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

"Doctor? Now why does that ring a bell? Wasn't my Bad Wolf involved with some Doctor," his gaze turned inwards as he tried to remember.

"She wasn't yours."

"Oh but she was. Shall I tell you exactly how I broke her, how she pleaded?"

Sinclair was right in the Doctors face now, close enough to see his pupils shrink, close enough to hear the tortured, barely audible sound that passed his lips.

"Don't…listen . . . Doctor" Jack gasped.

"What Captain, don't you want your friend to hear this?" Oh, Sinclair was loving this.

"What do you mean?" The Doctor asked, unable to even picture his Rose in such a position.

"Surely you can't be that alien…or perhaps you are. But I'm sure you know what rape is." Sinclair was talking as if he was relishing a fine wine, not telling of someone's despair and loss of hope.

"No…" the Doctor whispered, the word ripped from his throat without his volition.

"Oh yes. She pleaded, begged me to stop, to let her go. But oh she was so sweet, hardly used. I couldn't let such a precious thing go."

"Shut up!" the Doctor snarled.

"What, don't you want to hear my tale?" Sinclair pouted in mock disappointment. "Don't you want to know exactly how I broke her?"

"When you die, I will be there to savour every moment of it, no matter how long it takes!" the Doctor shouted in cold rage.

"We'll see —" Sinclair was interrupted when a small screen lit up, showing a picture. Clear in the centre was the TARDIS.

"Wait….Doctor? The Doctor, of course. Oh this is priceless; you have no idea how happy that makes me. You can help me with a little problem, and I will be heralded as the man who captured the alien the Torchwood was founded for."

"Well that is not much incentive to help you," the Doctor replied sarcastically. But even though his words might have been light, his eyes still showed the darkness. You could almost hear the denial ringing around his mind.

No, no no no. Not Rose. Not Rose. No.

"Well if you don't, I'll kill our good Captain here." With that he pressed the button once more, causing Jack to scream….

And no one saw the bright blue eyes blazing with rage, as they looked through the air duct at the scene……

KITG:oooooh such a twist :) see you in time :)