A/N: Aww, little Cujo. Whoever remembers Cujo, you have an excellent memory. Or good guessing skills. Or psychic power. One of those things, I'm sure.
Chapter 14 – The Return of Cujo
A month after the fall, and the Doctor was still in the med-bay.
It was 2am, and once again Jack was sitting vigilant by the Doctor's bedside to wake him up before he went into one of his nightmares. He'd done this every night for two weeks whilst the Doctor was bedridden, and not once had the thought of complaining ever crossed his mind. He owed it to the Doctor. Sacrificing a few hour's sleep each night was of no consequence to Jack anymore if it meant the Doctor would be okay.
He was starting to doze slightly, so keeping his hand in the Doctor's he let it take him – until his manipulator started bleeping, waking him up abruptly. That was the silent intruder alarm.
He let go of the Doctor's hand to check his gun was loaded, getting up out of his seat and moving quietly up the stairs. He pressed himself back against the wall, peering cautiously around the corner.
Something black flashed near the Hub door. It could only be another bounty hunter. Jack took a cautious step forward, checking in absolutely every direction. He was the only one here. If the bounty hunter got him then the Doctor would be completely vulnerable.
He caught something dark in his vision, and using the steps for cover Jack silently watched as the black figure came into his direct line of sight, unaware of Jack's presence. The figure was checking something on its wrist, and kept glancing in the direction of the med-bay...
"Please don't scream, Doctor..." Jack pleaded in his head, shuffling slightly to get a better vantage position.
His shuffle turned out to be much louder than he thought. The grating under his feet groaned suddenly under his weight, and bounty hunter looked straight up at him.
Then all hell broke loose.
A voice suddenly screamed, and Jack turned in alarm to find the Doctor was standing up, leaning precariously on the med-bay railings holding his side and staring straight at Jack with wide eyes.
"Run, Doctor!" Jack yelled back, and took a shot at the bounty hunter. It was only meant to serve as a distraction and it did work long enough for the Doctor to get up the steps, but the distraction quite horrendously backfired when the bounty hunter took the distraction for himself and shot Jack right through the head.
"No!" the Doctor screamed as Jack hit the floor, and instantly the bounty hunter turned on him; barely metres away. The Doctor began to limp desperately away, but he was severely impaired by his injuries and the bounty hunter simply strolled after him, even taking the time to leisurely look through his weapons to find the most appropriate one to kill him – eventually settling on a shotgun.
The Doctor just ran. Every part of him was in pain but he tried desperately to ignore it, hurling himself down the steps so fast he tumbled over and ended up sprawled out on the floor, screaming in agony. He looked over his shoulder, panting with fear and pain, but the hunter was still there standing at the top of the steps, just staring down at him with a cool, measured gaze.
The Doctor scrambled to his feet again and limped urgently to the left into a corridor. He went left again into the cells, his leg screaming in so much pain he had to resort to hopping down the aisle... until he reached that creature locked in the cells again.
He stopped and hopped forward to the controls of the door, hammering in Jack's most likely combination. The door opened on the first try and he started hopping again as the creature came out of the cell, looking around with interest. The door burst open and the Doctor looked back just in time to see the bounty hunter enter and meet the creature head on. He watched as the bounty hunter faltered, yelping in alarm as the creature dived straight for the throat. The hunter managed a shot that caught the creature with pure luck more than anything, and it flopped to the floor redundantly.
The bounty hunter looked up, straight at the Doctor still standing, paralysed down the end of the aisle. The gun raised.
The Doctor turned and fled again, taking a right and running forward into a room he'd never been before. It was stacked high with redundant equipment and machinery on parcel shelves, files strewn across the floor that he nearly slipped up on in his haste. He grabbed every parcel shelf and threw it back to try to hinder his pursuer in utter desperation as he continued through the maze, through, around and up and down, until he reached...
A dead end.
He turned slowly, gasping for air as the hunter reached him, blocking any way out. The hunter already knew it'd won, even taking the time to check its wrist strap for a few seconds before it raised the gun to the Doctor.
"Please don't," the Doctor whined, squeezing his eyes tightly shut.
The hunter suddenly spoke, a strange deep voice that someone commanded completely authority. "I would like to know where Echo is, please."
"I don't know what you're talking about!"
"I would like it if you didn't waste my time, I'm on a schedule," the hunter continued calmly. "If you know nothing then I will have to kill you. For which I apologise, but I'm afraid it is company policy."
"Please don't! I just know that when I had my memory I got a note that said the reign of Echo would begin and then I lost my memory of who I am and I don't know what that means!" the Doctor begged, all in one sentence in a single breath.
"Hmm," the bounty hunter said, frowning for a moment. "You don't know who you are?"
"No!"
"Interesting," the bounty hunter muttered, and gazed straight into the Doctor's eyes. "You do not know of the Proclamation massacre twelve years ago, then? I must say, I was quite surprised to see you still alive."
The Doctor stayed completely still and silent, sheer force of will somehow keeping his eyes open.
"You must be feeling confused," the bounty hunter continued. "I do apologise. I'm just doing my job. You understand, don't you?"
The Doctor drew a breath through his terror and the pain in his battered body, still staring at the gun raised to him. He tried to speak but couldn't even manage a syllable as the bounty hunter steadied his aim.
"Do not worry. This will be an honourable death, Doctor."
His finger moved towards the trigger.
Jack came back to life, to meet with the sight of Ianto holding Cujo on a leash, who was licking Jack's face like an eager child with an ice cream. Almost immediately the memories hit him and he sat up bolt upright, eyes wide.
"Yan? What the hell are you doing here!?" he gasped, scrambling to his feet using Ianto as leverage.
"The silent alarm went off, I thought you might need some help," Ianto replied simply. "But you need to move."
"What?"
In reply Ianto pointed at the floor, and Jack followed his indication to see a pattern of blood forming a path from the empty med-bay and through his Jack's office towards the cells. Still slightly dazed Jack whipped out his gun and followed the trail, utterly terrified of what he'd find at the end.
Just as the hunter went to fire, there was a massive crashing sound from the entrance and they both looked up to realise the creature had returned. The hunter yelped in alarm again and tried to aim, but the creature had already launched on the hunter from behind to go for the throat. The hunter was overwhelmed, and the creature promptly began to tear the body apart in a cacophony of screams.
The Doctor couldn't take it. As the bounty hunter's insides became outsides, as blood flew everywhere and as he stood transfixed at the sight before him, he couldn't keep his breath under control. He began to hyperventilate, falling back against the wall as he progressively became more and more covered in the blood spraying everywhere.
The creature finished what it was doing very quickly, the bounty hunter now well and truly dead and in several places on the floor. It turned towards the Doctor, baring its blood covered fangs.
The Doctor's emotions went into overload. He tried desperately to get air through the incredible shock, overwhelming fear and excruciating pain, but he couldn't manage it. As less and less air got into his lungs he became more and more dizzy, things getting more and more blurry as the creature moved directly towards him.
Jack had heard the harrowing screams, and he had soon worked out why when he'd run through the cells and found Janet was out. This made him run even faster; utterly petrified that the Doctor was in grave danger. He followed the trail of blood from the wounded Doctor through a maze of corridors before finally reaching the archive room, and finding a complete mess.
Blood, files and pieces of equipment were everywhere. Body parts of the hunter were strewn out across the room and the obvious cause of it all was standing in front of the Doctor. He was hyperventilating and shrunk back into the corner, on the edge of passing out.
"Janet!" Jack warned, raising his gun to the weevil. The weevil immediately turned at the noise, blood caked down her front. Jack could see she was injured. "Janet, get away from him!"
She didn't move, just looking at him and twisting her head slowly to and fro. Jack boldly took a step forward, and she gave a warning growl that would've chilled even a block of ice. Jack couldn't quite believe it as he began to work the situation out. Janet wasn't attacking the Doctor. She had all the opportunity in the world to. So why wasn't she doing it?
"Janet, I need to help him, he's bleeding," Jack murmured quietly, stepping ever so slowly towards the Doctor. "Let me get to him."
There was a small 'pft' and Jack looked over to see Ianto standing there with a tranquilliser gun pointed straight at Janet. Seconds later she hit the floor, fast asleep.
Jack immediately put away his gun and turned his full attentions to the Doctor, running over to grab his shoulders and straighten him up. "Doctor, Doctor, talk to me."
"Jack," the Doctor breathed, unfocused eyes panning over him. "But you... you died... he... he shot you in the head..."
"Concrete, remember?" Jack grinned, knocking his head with his fist. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," the Doctor replied, clearly not.
"No, you're not," Jack told him firmly. "Let's get out of here and have a clean-up. Yan, get Janet secured and call Martha."
"You're certain that's what he said?"
"Yeah," the Doctor replied, lying on his back on the bed, well aware of everyone staring at him in stunned silence. "And he said he was surprised to see me alive."
"I wonder what happened twelve years ago... This massacre I mean?" Martha mused as she restitched his reopened wound.
"No idea," Jack muttered. "But sounds like you only just about got out, Doctor. Maybe this memory thing is a good thing. Maybe you were just lucky to get out."
"Maybe," the Doctor muttered. He'd calmed down in a very short amount of time after Martha had given him some painkillers; his chaotic head dulled a little by the drugs. "Can you teach me something?" he suddenly asked, looking up at Jack.
Jack looked at him. "What?"
"I want to know how to fight."
Jack frowned. "What?"
"I... I was looking at that bounty hunter when he was shooting you thinking... I could do something. But I couldn't. I... I didn't know what to do. I need to know how to fight. For the future."
"What's the future?"
In reply the Doctor drew out the photos he'd kept with him from under the pillow – the ones Jack had given him of his family. "I need to find them."
"Really?" Jack asked softly, staring at the dog-eared photos.
"Yeah. I might not be able to remember my family but I'm not abandoning them."
Jack spread a smile at his words. "I just heard the Doctor. Okay, you're on. But when you're healed. Do you..." Jack suddenly stopped, really having to psyche himself up for his next words. "Do you still want to... regenerate?"
"No," the Doctor replied.
Martha and Jack simultaneously sighed in relief.
"Jack." Ianto entered with Cujo still on a lead.
The Doctor's eyes widened immediately, sitting up with a wince and backing up on the bed. "What's that?" he asked, pointing.
"Dog," Jack replied, patting Cujo on the head. "He's called Cujo. I tried to train him up to be the Torchwood dog but he's too much of a big softie so Yan keeps him at home. What's up?" he asked Ianto.
"I was wondering..." Ianto paused, clearly not wanting to say his next words. "... If you wanted me to... you know. Clean up."
Jack shook his head immediately. "No, I'll do that. You two be okay while I'm gone?" he directed to Martha and the Doctor.
"We're fine," Martha assured him as the Doctor continued to stare at Cujo. Jack noticed.
"He won't hurt you," Jack said, laughing. "Not a single unloving bone in that dog's body. Give him a stroke."
"Umm..." the Doctor said, slightly apprehensive.
Ianto took Cujo off of his lead, and the happy dog bounded straight to the Doctor, jumping up and down continuously with his tongue hanging out. The Doctor looked a little terrified but incredibly bewildered at the same time.
Jack just laughed, and left.
Jack returned to the scene where the ex-bounty hunter was still strewn out across the room.
The Doctor must've watched every second of it from where he had been standing.
It was almost sickening Jack that the sight of this wasn't actually sickening him – he was clearly far too used to seeing bodies like this. He simply stepped through the mess to get to the main area of the body, and knelt down to rummage in the pockets. He wasn't really expecting to find anything but he was praying all the same. He was about to give up when he finally happened on a piece of paper, and he pulled it out and opened it.
By order of the Shadow Proclamation
The Shadow Proclamation hereby orders the capture of the individual known as 'Echo', to be executed under article 3.4 for offences of serial homicide for SP 3,000,000,000 currency and universal equivalent.
'Echo' may be captured dead or alive.
It concluded with the seal of the Shadow Proclamation and eight signatures of the surviving hierarchy.
This didn't make any sense. The Doctor wasn't Echo, but the bounty hunters were tracking Echo to him. It was probably via the tracking chip they couldn't extract. But who was Echo? Why were they killing the Shadow Proclamation? What exactly was the link here that he couldn't see? What identity was on the tracker chip? What had happened at the Proclamation twelve years ago?
At least Jack was getting pretty certain about one thing. Whoever Echo was and whatever reason they had to kill the Shadow Proclamation one by one, they were most likely the one that did this to the Doctor. They had him cornered, wiped his mind and stuck the tracking chip in him to divert the bounty hunters. They'd destroyed his mind without a care and used him as pawn in their grand plans.
By no means was it the right explanation, but it was the best Jack had.