Chapter thirty-six: Caught in a crucible situation

"Whoa!" Jackie shouts, as they're jolted roughly out of the teleport. She doubles over and grabs a hold of her stomach "That is one hell of a way to travel!"

Jack fires his gun, instantly causing her to jump. Her eyes take in the scene before them in a flash. The Doctor is down on the ground, presumably wounded by the dalek. The Doctor's companion and a blonde woman are running towards his fallen body. Jack turns aside after blowing the dalek's head off to glower in exasperation at her. "God you're a stubborn woman."

"Yeah, so why'd you marry me?" she questioned as she carefully scurried towards the Doctor's, tightly clutching onto Jack's arm. "No one forced you into it!"

"Oh really?" Jack questions her with an arched brow. "You and those eyes of yours didn't really give me much of a choice!"

She ignored him. "Besides, the daleks are everywhere, even at Torchwood. I'm no safer there than I am here. Besides, at least with me here you can keep an eye on you."

"Oh, believe me," he said as he grabbed a hold of her arm. "I intend to keep both my eyes on you." she tightened her grip on his arm as they raced downwards. "Get him into the Tardis," he ordered the two women. "Quick. Move!"

"Jack," she grabbed a gun from him. "Help them!" He arched a brow from her, but did as he asked. She turned to the blonde-haired woman and asked. "Sorry, your name is?"

"Rose." She said rather distractedly. "That's Donna. God."

They headed straight into a blue phone box. Had Jack not told her about how the inside of the Tardis looked, she would have been shocked. Well, she was shocked somewhat, but more of an amazed shock. She closed the door behind the others with a gasp. "Oh, hello gorgeous." She looked around the Tardis interior in profound amazement. "Amazing." She spun around again. "Stunning. Too marvelous for words." For a moment, she almost felt the Tardis puff up with pride for a moment.

"What, what do we do?" Donna was all in a panic as she knelt by the Doctor. He was in pain, she could feel it; the sight of him thrashing on the floor was hear trenching indeed. "There must be some medicine or something."

"Just step back." Jack stated. Both the women refused to move. "Rose, do as I say, and get back." He gripped Rose's wrists and tried to get her to break her firm hold on the Doctor. "He's dying and you know what happens next."

Donna's head shot up. "What do you mean?" she stood up slowly as tears formed in her voice. "He can't." Jackie stepped towards Donna, who clearly knew nothing about what was going to happen. She let Jack reason with Rose. "What do you mean, what happens next?

"It's alright Donna." She assured her quickly. "It's alright. He's not dying, completely. Time lords can't die, when their bodies die, they get a new one."

"It's starting." They looked down at the Doctor as he held his hand up; it was starting to glow yellow.

"Here we go." Jack pulled all of them into a corner of the Tardis. "Good luck, Doctor."

Jackie reached for Donna who was still struggling to understand what was going on. The Doctor pulled himself up onto the console into a standing position. "I'm sorry, it's too late." He gasped out. "I'm regenerating." Golden energy suddenly begins streaming from his hands and head, marking the beginning of his regeneration cycle. With a tremendous amount of effort, the Doctor turns and points both hands towards the spare hand by the time console. She watches as the hand absorbs it and he is released. He staggers backwards, breathing heavily as everyone stares at him, completely stunned. "Now then. Where were we?"

No one answers as the Doctor walks towards them, they stare off into space. Jackie clears her throat and shrugs. "Well, talk about an understatement!"

The Doctor kneels down to check on his glowing spare hand. "There now." He blows on the jar and the glowing stops. He pops up from the floor, still totally oblivious to everyone's shock. "You see? Used the regeneration energy to heal myself, but soon as I was done, I didn't need to change. I didn't want to. Why would I? Look at me."

Jackie did so and shrugged. The Doctor was handsome, but he wasn't as handsome as Jack, but then, as Jack's wife, her opinion would be somewhat biased. After all, the Doctor was thin, a bit too skinny for her tastes. He wore a suit, had a great head of hair, cute glasses and a lilting accent. Ok, so he was looking more attractive by the second to her.

"So, to stop the energy going all the way, I siphoned off the rest into a handy bio-matching receptacle, namely my hand. My hand there." none of this was making much sense. Jack had pieced some of the info together, but not much. In addition, the Doctor had such a way of babbling! "My handy spare hand. Remember? Christmas Day, Sycorax. Lost my hand in a sword fight? That's my hand. What do you think?"

Jackie turns to Jack and mutters. "And I thought you were dramatic." He jerks his head to the side and arches his brow at her.

"I am not!" he hisses.

"You're still you?" Rose asks somewhat timidly.

"I'm still me." he assures her.

Donna turns to Jack as the Doctor and Rose hug. "You can hug me, if you want." Jack laughs. ""No, really, you can hug me."

Jack chuckled tightly, but ignored Donna's request. "Oh," Jackie elbowed Jack lightly. "go ahead and hug her once. Give her the thrill of her life."

Jack rolls his eyes at her and chooses not. "Married?" The Doctor stared at Jack in disbelief as he pulls away from Rose's embrace. "Who or what would be crazy enough to marry you?"

"Oi, watch it time lord," Jackie snapped. "or else I'll send you flying out of here on your skinny backside!"

Jack laughed at the look on the Doctor's face. "Here she is," Jack said as he stepped forward, arm around her waist to present her properly. "Doctor, my wife Jacqueline."

"I prefer Jackie though." She said as she studied him more carefully. "Pleased to meet you though Doctor. I've heard so much about you."

The Doctor hesitated for a moment. "Jack and Jackie Harkness?" she nodded as he burst out laughing as if it were a joke, then he realized no one else was laughing. "Seriously, you married him?"

"Yes." Jackie smiled as she ran her hand over her stomach. "We're expecting our first, twins actually, a boy and a girl."

"Noo!" The Doctor drew out with a grin. "No way."

Rose shook her head in wonder. "Amazing." She grinned at Jack. "She must be a special woman Jack to tie you down."

"Tell me about it!" the Doctor reached out to shake her hand. The moment they touched, it was as if magnets bounced off each other. Jackie gasped and pulled her hand away. The Doctor frowned as he glanced at his hand. "That was odd."

"I'm part alien." She explained cautiously. "We're not certain what I am though." She gestured to her belly. "As you can see, I've got a sort of force field that I can manipulate, but for now, I'm protecting these two." Actually, controlling her contractions and slowing them down. Fortunately, for her, the first labor period for a woman could last for 24 hours, so she had plenty of time.

"Believe me," Jack said over her shoulder. "those two were hard to come by. Took a lot of work," she turned to glower at him. "which I thoroughly enjoyed."

"Jack!" she shrieked in embarrassment.

"Shutting up now." He said as he placed a hand on her side. "Sorry honey."

"No, you're not!" She snapped. "You do this every time I'm introduced to someone new! God, you're irritating!"

"Are we," Rose asked slowly. "seriously witnessing this?"

"Yeh." The Doctor nodded, totally focused on the scene at hand. "Truth be told, never thought I'd see something like this though." He crossed his arms. "I think I'm actually enjoying it."

At that moment, the power goes out. The Doctor jumped and began pressing a few buttons on the Tardis's console. "They've got us." He declared. "Power's gone! Some kind of chronon loop."

The Tardis tilts with a jerk. Jackie goes flying backwards, but manages to catch and steady herself. Jack opens his mouth, but she cuts him off. "I'm fine, but at the moment, there is a bit of a situation on our hands. We need to discuss what's going to happen and what we need to"

"There's a massive Dalek ship at the centre of the planets. They're calling it the Crucible. Guess that's our destination." He glowers at her. "I told you to stay at Torchwood!"

"The daleks were there," she pointed out to him. "what makes you think I could help there when I'm clearly needed here?"

"You said these planets were like an engine." Donna questioned, breaking up their argument. "But what for?"

"Rose, you've been in a parallel world." The Doctor pointed out. "That world's running ahead of this universe. You've seen the future. What was it?"

Rose hesitated for a moment before saying solemnly. "It's the darkness."

"The stars were going out." Donna said quietly from behind Rose.

"One by one….we looked up at the sky and they were just dying." The Doctor's face grew more serious. "Basically, we've been building this, uhm, this travel machine, this, this uhm, dimension cannon, so I could." Rose began to stammer slightly. "Well, so I could-

"What?" the amusement on the Doctor's face was too obvious.

"So I could come back." The Doctor began to broadly grin at the playfulness in Rose's voice. "Shut up." Jackie rolled her eyes. The two of them were quite the couple. "Anyway, suddenly, it started to work and the dimensions started to collapse. Not just in our world, not just in yours, but the whole of reality. Even the Void was dead. Something is destroying everything."

"In that parallel world," Donna reminded her. "you said something about me."

"The dimension cannon could measure timelines, and it's, its weird, Donna," she frowned slightly. "but they all seemed to converge on you."

"But why me?" Donna asked in confusion. "I mean, what have I ever done? I'm a temp from Chiswick."

Jackie shakes her head. "Things are never as they seem. I mean, I thought I was a normal human being until I started shooting energy."

At that moment, the scanner beeps on the Tardis console. The Doctor scurries over and views the screen. "The Dalek Crucible." He announces grimly. "All aboard."

Jackie looks at Jack and mutters. "Why does now seem like a good time to break out Darth Vader's theme?"

He rolls his eyes and faces the Doctor. "So tell me, do we have a plan?"

"No." The Tardis lands, jostling everyone around a bit. The Doctor shakes his head. He walks towards the doors and gazes at them for a moment. "We'll have to go out. Because if we don't, they'll get in.

"You told me nothing could get through those doors." Rose says in slight confusion.

"You've got extrapolator shielding." Jack reminded the Doctor.

"Last time we fought the Daleks," he explained. "they were scavengers and hybrids, and mad. But this is a fully-fledged Dalek Empire, at the height of its power. Experts at fighting Tardises, they can do anything. Right now, that wooden door is just wood."

"What about your dimension jump?" Jack questioned Rose, worry creeping into his voice.

"It needs another twenty minutes." Rose shook her head. "And anyway, I'm not leaving."

The Doctor turned to Jack. "What about your teleport?"

"Went down with the power loss." Jack let out a groan. "Damn."

"I could try to create a force field around the Tardis." Jackie offered. "I think I have enough energy."

"No." Jack shook his head. "You're not strong enough." He glanced down at her stomach. "You're a few weeks away from delivery and I don't want anything to stress you out. I'll be lucky if you don't go into labor here and now!"

Jackie could only stare at Jack in mute amazement at his hysterically timed words. Rose smiled softly at her. "She seems like she can take care of herself Jack."

Jack chuckles. "She can…but she enjoys making me sweat!"

She kisses him on the nose, wincing slightly at a small twinge. "Believe me Jack, I don't let you worry about me that much."

He rolled his eyes. "Ha, ha, ha." He said dryly. "And you've wound up in the hospital how many times since I've known you?"

"I'll answer that when you let me know how many times you've died since I've known you!"

The Doctor faces all of them with a smile on his face. "It's been good, though, hasn't it? All of us. All of it. Everything we did." He turns to Donna, who's still standing further away from the group. "You were brilliant." He faces Jack. "And you were brilliant." He smiles so gently at Rose. "And you were brilliant." He turns to her. "You, I know were brilliant…because you got him to settle down!"

"Well, since all of us are so bloody brilliant," she crossed her arms over her stomach. "let's think of a way to get out of this mess!"

The Doctor turns towards Jack who shrugs. "She's feisty, what can I say?"

The Doctor nods. "Blimey." He turns towards the Tardis door and advances slowly towards it. He gravely opens the door and leads his companions out of the Tardis. Rose and Jack follow, for some reason she notes Donna is lagging behind, so she pauses and turns towards her. Donna appears to be concentrating on something else.

She can hear the daleks chanting, "Daleks reign supreme. All hail the Daleks!" multiple times as the Doctor opens the door. Donna moves towards the door, pauses and hesitates again. Jackie reaches out and hears a heartbeat thudding in Donna's head. She watches as Donna turns curiously towards the Tardis console.

"Donna!" the Doctor shouts, his voice jarring both of them to attention. "You're no safer in there."

Jackie frowned before saying. "Did you…feel something just now? Like something…pulling at us."

Donna nods mutely. "Yeah."

At that moment, the Tardis door slams shut, trapping them inside. She frowns and Donna pushes at the door, but it refuses to budge. "Doctor?" Donna calls as she pushes on the doors. "What have you done?"

"It wasn't me." the Doctor sounds as perplexed as Donna does. "I didn't do anything."

"Oi," Donna shouts as she pounds on the door. "I'm not staying behind!"

"What did you do?!" the Doctor demands, she assumes to a dalek.

This is not of Dalek origin. A cold, mechanical voice says.

"Doctor!" Donna shouts.

"Stop it! She's my friend." The Doctor's voice turns firm. "Now open the door and let her out."

"Here," Jackie moves Donna to the side. "let me try." Energy flows from her hands, but fizzles out upon contact with the Tardis doors. She frowns and looks at her hands. "Jack? I can't open it."

"Damn it!" He snaps. "Why couldn't you have just stayed home?"

Nevertheless, the Tardis is a weapon and it will be destroyed.

At that moment, a trapdoor or something's opens under the Tardis and it drops. Jackie barely is able to catch onto the rail. She and Donna start screaming in terror as they fall rapidly. As they fall, she hopes that Doctor is all he's cracked up to be because she wants to give birth to her children in a safe environment. Above all, she wishes that she'd done what Jack said….for once. And if they did get out of this alive…he was going to kill her!

Sorry about the delay, but things haven't been going well for me. My boyfriend broke up with me. And then, my instructor/dance partner got deported back to Russia. As you can imagine, this news was rather hard to deal with.