A/N: Because this is taking so long to update, I feel like it's super big amount lame so I've started posting another one I had on backup called "The Debt", to help us struggle between these slow updates :P
Chapter 20 – Trouble On Gallifrey
They waited for an hour before Jack lost his patience. Yes, they had mainly come here to get the Eye, but also he had come here to get a cure for the Doctor. But if they couldn't talk to anyone without being recognised as humans, then how were they going to find it?
He voiced his concerns to Rose and Sarah, but was only met by shrugs.
"Maybe if one of us goes we won't get noticed. Or if we are, we could just run..." Jack mused aloud, pacing up and down in front of them. After a moment her stopped, and looked at them. "D'you think it's worth trying?" he asked.
"The Doctor told us to stay here," Rose said quietly.
"I don't care what he says!" Jack suddenly yelled, bristling with spontaneous anger. Rose and Sarah stared at him, shocked, but understanding every modicum of emotion currently coursing through him. "Sorry," he said quickly. "I just..."
"We know," Sarah said gently.
They all fell silent again. Jack resumed pacing.
"Jack!" someone suddenly yelled from down the deserted alley. All three jumped to attention... they recognised that voice...
"What the..." Jack began, rising to his feet just as the person seemed to appear out of nowhere and run, arms flailing, down the alley.
"Jack! Come back!" it was Rose. But Rose was sitting right next to Sarah... There were two of them? "JACK!"
Then she was gone.
Jack's eyes widened as he watched the running Rose disappear around the corner. He took one glance at Sarah and Rose sitting on the floor, and then began to run after the other Rose.
"Jack!" Rose yelled, on her feet within an instant as she began to run after him, her arms waving in full-blown panic mode. "Jack! Come back!" she screamed, and disappeared around the corner after him.
Sarah had no choice but to follow, already knowing this was going to end in disaster.
Jack ran after the phantom Rose, currently pushing her way rudely through the crowd of Gallifreyans, who were staring in horror as they quickly realised this woman was not Gallifreyan.
"Jack! It's not safe! Come back!" she was screaming, but it seemed to drown out under the alarmed yells of the Gallifreyans.
"Someone call the Chancellery Guard!" someone screamed, and suddenly Rose stopped dead in her tracks, as if she'd just run into something. He stumbled to avoid her, just about dodging before he too stopped dead in his tracks in front of a tall man dressed in an outfit that seemed to be a mix between Captain Scarlet and Gazoo from the Flintstones.
"Human?" he gasped in a deep, authoritative voice, staring at Jack with narrow, unforgiving eyes. "No... are you? What in the name of Rassilon are you? You're wrong!"
Jack opened his mouth, but was cut off as suddenly Rose's screaming was coming from somewhere behind him.
"Jack!" she yelled. "It's not safe! Come back!"
He spun around to find the woman crash almost headlong into him, managing to catch her at the last moment to stop her in her tracks. Next Sarah arrived, slowing to a halt and panting for air.
"Present yourself, aliens!" the booming voice yelled again, and the three turned to find the man in the strange outfit seem to have quite quickly multiplied into several men in the same strange outfit, aiming what seemed to be weapons at their heads. Jack, Rose and Sarah quickly put their hands in the air, very nervous indeed. "Identify your planet of origin and the method used to get to Gallifrey!"
"Um, well," Jack began, putting on his most charismatic smile. "Funny you should ask that, because..."
"Sir," one of the men urged the most important-looking one in a low tone of voice. "Perhaps we should move this commotion inside the tower..."
The important one considered this for a moment, then the crowd slowly gathering, and then nodded. "Take them inside for interrogation."
The three didn't even have time to think how much the Doctor would kill them before they were all simultaneously shot in the chest, and the world went black.
Don and Martha were lying back on the deep red grass, staring at the star-filled sky above them, just absorbing their surroundings in a totally serene environment. Luke had wandered off, though Don had made sure he wouldn't go too far. Gallifrey was dangerous enough, and even more dangerous fractured.
"Martha," Don suddenly began through the silence that had gripped them for a while.
"Yes?"
"... Do you know about the condition Twin to Twin Transfusion syndrome?"
"In pregnancy?" Martha asked.
"Yeah."
She thought for a moment. "I haven't had to apply it for ages, but I think it's where there's an imbalance and one of the twins in the uterus gets more nutrients through their twin. Why?"
He swallowed. "What if I said that something a little bit like that could exist outside of the womb?"
Martha looked at Don, and laughed. "Then I'd say you're mad."
He didn't look at her. "What if someone was unintentionally taking the strength of their twin? What if their existence was killing someone else, sucking the life out of them?"
"Conjoined twins?"
"No," he replied quickly. "Separate."
She laughed again. "Then that's impossible."
"But say it was possible," Don persisted. "Say it existed. What would you do?"
"I've got no idea," she said, still laughing.
"What if you were the twin sucking out the life of the other one? What would you do?"
"I don't know," she said again. "I guess I'd feel guilty."
"Then what?"
She paused, thinking. "I don't think I'd be able to live with that."
"You'd kill yourself?"
She frowned. "No... but... I dunno. I think I'd try to find a get-out before I considered anything like that."
"A get-out," he repeated slowly. "Like what?"
"I really have no idea," she said, and laughed again. "You don't know what the get-out is until you find it. It would probably have to be surgery or something. And you'd have to find it fast. Why are you asking me this?"
Don quickly put on a smile. "Just testing your doctor ethics. It happened to a friend of mine. He was a Prydonian, strange species."
"Oh," she said, smiling. "Did he find a get-out?"
Don opened his mouth to reply, but it came out as a whisper. "He's still looking."
"I hope he finds it," Martha said, turning to look back up at the sky.
"Me too," Don replied, but it was barely a whisper.
Rose woke up to the feeling of being dragged.
She struggled on instinct, quickly pulling out of her dragger's grip and stumbling to her feet, trying to get her sense of balance. She managed to focus just in time to realise about six guns were pointing straight at her.
"Where are you taking me?" she demanded to know, with a sense of confidence she was pretty sure she didn't have. "Where are my friends?"
They didn't bother answering her, merely jabbed their guns into her back, forcing her forward up some stairs and along a thin suspended path where Rose could clearly see a prison cell at the other end...
She was about to protest again, when suddenly her ears popped, and pressure in her back vanished. She'd passed through another fracture... And she could see a man in the cell now, restrained with his arms hanging above him.
"Oh, you've returned. Did you bring something even worse this time? I suspect not, since you've not put much thought into your prior visits." The man pulled against the restraints, testing them once again. "And I shall reiterate... I did not kill him."
Rose moved forward slightly, somewhat apprehensive. Jack suddenly stumbled into existence behind her, and breathed a massive sigh of relief.
"Thought we were done for then," Jack muttered, looking back at the invisible wall that denoted the time fracture.
"Jack..." Rose whispered. He finally looked at her, and registered what she was staring at. He quickly put himself in front of Rose, shielding her.
"Unless the Chancellery Guard uniforms have gone Earth retro, early 20th century, World War II, if I'm right and I always am, then you are not them. I also deduce that you must be human, since you are presumably escaping from the Guard. So tell me, am I right? You are both human?"
They both fell silent, glancing at each other nervously. Well, the enemy of my enemy...
"Yeah, we are," Rose said nervously, peeking out from behind Jack.
"I see." He paused. "And how, may I ask, did you manage this feat and arrive on Gallifrey?"
"Enough about us," Jack dismissed, nervously glancing back at the invisible wall. Where was Sarah? They could hardly go back through now... "Why are you here? Who are you? Can we trust you?"
The man suddenly grinned a very disarming grin, his teeth practically perfect. "Why am I here? There is an on-going debate regarding that, but apparently someone believes I killed the President of the High Council. I know I didn't do it, hence the debate. Who am I? Really? I would have thought you, being humans, would have been accused of being my companions. I'm the Doctor, a Time Lord, and more trustworthy than any other person you will find here in the Capitol and possibly the whole of Gallifrey."
Jack and Rose's jaws simultaneously dropped.
The Doctor was making his way through the Chancellery Tower, trying desperately to remain casual with the markings on his face and the now very severe limp he had. It was a hopeless thing, people were staring as if he had accidentally regenerated with two heads, but retained their impeccable politeness. He knew it could only be a matter of hours until he lost complete function in his left leg... and as if to add insult to injury, why did they have to put so many stairs in this place?
He had heard a commotion a few minutes ago, something about humans. Jack, Rose and Sarah had been found, then. He could only hope that he'd find the disguises before anything massively severe happened to them... Or the Gallifreyan timeline.
Not to mention the slight anticipation that he'd walk through a time fracture where the tower didn't exist and he'd plummet 100 feet to his imminent death.
But he was trying not to think about that.
Marching boldly forward, he rounded a corner, and his ears popped. He was going through another fracture. He emerged on the other side, taking a quick glance around to try and fathom his new place in the timeline. But it looked exactly the same. He couldn't have moved far.
Shrugging it off, he moved forwards, and walked straight into someone coming out of an adjoining corridor.
"Oh!" they both exclaimed, bouncing back.
"Excuse me," the Doctor said.
"So sorry," a blond-haired man apologised, straightening up his celery and making to move off again, as did the Doctor... and then he stopped, turned... And realised.
"Oh blimey," he whispered.