A/N: I'm not quite sure how I feel about this chapter. I certainly didn't intend for it to go on for so long, but I think I needed to solve a few issues that were beginning to piss me off ... so this came about.
That said: Eight now knows where they are, and he's on his way...
Things are about to turn quite dark over the next couple of chapters. And by that I don't mean angst, I mean Stephen King kind've darkness. So that said, I hope you like this calm before the storm
Oh, and BTW ... Chicken Treat was literally the only fast food place in town back in the day... and it was very yummy. Soggy chips buried under a piece of BBQ Chicken loaded with Chicken Salt is the greatest thing in the world! I miss chicken salt...
~~oooOOOooo~~
The differences between the TARDIS he was used to travelling in and the TARDIS he was currently trying to wake up were two very different machines.
The deathly darkness of the older machine – the one he was in with Rose and the leather-wearing Doctor – was very cave-like. All metal grilled flooring that tinked with each footstep and towering arms of orange coral lended a very rustic, but not incredibly terrifying atmosphere. He could set up camp in here and maybe only have to worry about the arrival of a bear or some other large nasty animal… Both of which could be dispatched quite easily with a shot of his firearm.
This TARDIS? Well. With it's walls of book cases, tall unlit candelabras spread throughout, and a grand staircase underneath a monstrous Prydonian seal, it looked and felt more like an abandoned haunted house. It was eerie, and very spooky, and more than once he shuddered and looked over his shoulder to make sure there were no spirits watching him.
He didn't like ghosts. Nope. Not at all. Not in the slightest. Spirits and spectres were not so easily defeated. He couldn't use a firearm to kill them … they were already dead.
And of course it didn't help his heart any when an excitable little boy with floppy hair, sunken green eyes, and a playful attitude kept popping up with a loud "Boo!" to scare the life right out of him. The only reason he hadn't died of a heart attack to this point was because he was immortal and couldn't die – although he half expected that young Mark was trying to see just how immortal he really was.
He couldn't get mad at the kid. Adorable lad that he was. The thrill and laughter that the youngster pealed out each time made him grin and laugh himself. It took his attention off the fact that this dead machine lit only by a handful of strategically placed dull 1990's Everready flashlights actually scared the bejeezus out of him.
Several moments ago, Jack had sent Rose and Marth off on a food run with the promise to take care of the little scamp and not let him get into any mischief. They were headed to Chicken Treat, the only real fast food store in town, for a few barbeque chicken and chips boxes. Greasy food, really, but tasty. He quite liked the fried pineapple slice from the Hawaiian pack.
He was on his back underneath the console of the ship, his arms held up to tinker with the wires overhead, when a small white face moved in over his. He felt the fall of his light little body across his chest and shifted to give the kid room. He couldn't help but smile at the curious little gaze that looked at him, and then lifted to look up. Mark asked him a question in Gallifreyan, and while Jack couldn't understand a word the lad spoke, he took a guess that he was probably asking what he was doing, and so he responded in kind.
"Trying to see if I can force a reboot," he muttered with a wince as he wrapped the uninsulated ends of a pair of wires together. "Trying to give the old girl a kick start. Hot wiring it if you will."
Mark's eyes were wide and his lips pursed out curiously as he looked into Jack's face and then up to the wiring. He pointed at something as started to speak.
Jack pointed up. "You want me to do something with that?"
Mark purred a trilling sound in his throat and sat up. He started to speak rapidly and gesture with theatrical movements of his hands and arms. He then clapped his hands together and made a sound as he swept his arms up an around him, standing up and rounding his arms again in dramatic fashion as he skipped around in a twirl. He pointed to each one of the candelabras with a shooting motion, like a cowboy shooting off the hip. He then stopped, blew at his fingertips, and looked at Jack with wide, wide, eyes that begged him to have understood. He even nodded in that way that asked: "Did you get that?"
Jack could only lever one brow down over his eye and shake his head. "I'm sorry, kid. I wish I knew what you were saying. No doubt you've spent some time down here with your dad."
"Papa," Mark said with a grin and a nod, excited to think that Jack had understood him completely. He then ducked underneath the console again with Jack. He pointed up to the wires again, looked back down and gave the former Time Agent a wide toothy grin.
"Okay, kid,' Jack breathed out with a shrug in his shoulder and a tip in his head. "I'll play along with you." He took two wires in his fingers and held them close, but not touching, as he looked to Mark with question. "Are you sure?"
Mark's beaming grin and the eager nod of his head told Jack that he was fine to proceed. "Okay, if you're sure," he murmured with worry. "You might want to move back a bit, though, if you've got this wrong and this things goes boom, then.."
Mark huffed with impatience and lifted up onto his knees. He grabbed Jack's hands and forced the two wires to touch. His head lifted with a smile as the TARDIS began to hum, and all of the candelabras in the room flared to life. "Tada!" he called out triumphantly.
Jack smiled broadly and fastened the wires to hold the connection. He then jumped to a stand, reached down to pick up the child, and spun the two of them around in a twirl of victory.
"You. Are. Brilliant!" he cheered, grinning at the peal of laughter that squealed throughout the room. He stopped them spinning and looked into the child's face. "Just like your dad. Brilliant!" He set his little feet back onto the floor and quickly jogged over to the communications bench. He pulled down a monitor with both hands and actually took a moment to make sure it was at a position to capture his best look before he dropped his focus to let his fingers fly across the keyboard. "Okay baby, let's reach out to Gallifrey." He looked at Mark with a coy smirk. "And that gorgeous Time Lord father of yours. Tell me what I'm going to do with two of them down here."
Mark looked at him with confusion and non-understanding in his expression.
"Yeah," Jack muttered as he looked to the monitor as static snow showed on-screen. "Good thing you can't understand a word I'm saying, kid … and that you can't read minds." He shot him a smile. "You really don't want to know what goes on in there."
The pretty face of a young Asian woman appeared on screen. Disinterested in looking into the camera in favour of looking down at her keyboard, she spoke in emotionless and purposeful Gallireyan. Jack waited until she paused.
"This is Captain Jack Harkness. I'm looking for the Doctor." He grinned when she lifted her head to look at both the camera and her monitor feed. "Yes, that's right. Look up here."
She spoke again, still in an untranslated language. Her face was emotionless and possibly tired. No doubt nearing the end of her shift.
"Yeah," he drawled with a scratch at the back of his head. "This isn't going to work, now, is it?" He looked down to Mark as the woman kept talking. "Got any ideas?"
Mark held up his arms with a flicker of his fingers in a request to be lifted up. Jack answered the request, stopped, lifted, and then sat his little butt on the console. Immediately the child began speaking to woman on the other end.
Initially, there was a shift in the emotionless façade. A short moment of aww. But then business returned, and she spoke what appeared to be instructions to the youngster. Mark listened intently, his eyes wide and his jaw open. He then nodded and looked down at the console. He pressed his fingertip to his lip as he scanned the array of lights and switches, and then dropped his hand to activate a switch.
"Was that the one?" he asked curiously with a look toward Jack. "Can you understand me now?"
A wide grin spread like rapid fire across his cheeks. "You bet I can!" he cheered. He cupped the boy's head and kissed him with a big "mwah" in the hair. He bent at the knees to look into his face. "Never before have I though English to be a beautiful language, kid. But from you, it's heaven!"
"Translation matrix online," the woman on the other end droned almost robotically. "Language: Mutter's Spiral, Sol 3 English." Her eyes were now downcast. "You've reached Gallifrey Transduction Traffic control. Your transponder is squawking an older traffic code. Please hold in pattern until I've identified your flight capsule and can grant you materialisation privilege."
"Yeah, well…"
She lifted her eyes. "You're communicating from an unregistered T-40 capsule." Her head shook. "You are not allowed access to Gallifrey flight space without permission from our Lady President. Do you have the necessary permits?"
"Oh honey," he purred. "We're not looking for flight clearance."
Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Then please state your reasons for contact."
He grinned his most disarming smile and leaned an elbow down on the console in a coy and suggestive manner. "My primary motive is to reach out to someone specific. But if you're available later, perhaps we can arrange…"
"We're looking for my papa" Mark chipped in, effectively railroading Jack's efforts to shine on this pretty woman.
She looked to the youngster with a soft expression. "And who's your papa?"
"That would be the Doctor," Jack cut in. "If you would be a darling, can you please patch me through to the old man?"
Her eyes flicked to Jack. Her voice became guarded. "The Lord Doctor is unavailable," she bit out. "If you can explain the nature of your contact, then I can transfer your communication to the Cardinal's office, where you can attempt negotiations."
Jack's face tightened with incredulous confusion. "Negotiations for what?"
"For the release of the child," she answered flatly.
"Release of the…?" realisation dawned, and he held up his hands and shook his head. "Oh. No. God, no. You think I've kidnapped the lad?" He stepped back from the monitor as though stepping back from a police officer. "Not a chance in that. Do you have any idea who the Doctor is?"
"I am aware of his reputation," she answered with a smirk.
"Yeah, then you'd know that the only man fool enough to go after his family would be…" He scratched at his head. "Well. No one. No one's that mad. Except maybe him, and even then I think he'd have a second and third thought about that." His eyes widened and he blew out his breath to calm his mind.
"Transferring you to the Cardinal," the woman said finally. "Hold for connection."
The screen went momentarily blank and Jack looked to Mark. "Is it just me, or did she not like me very much?"
Mark shrugged, but didn't say anything.
The darkened monitor blinked and blipped. A small ray of light, a laser beam, shot out of a small pencil-tipped hole underneath the monitor. Jack rounded to follow the light as it quickly built a 3-D image of a man, from feet to head. Jack's brows were high as it crafted a pair of tan-coloured wing-tipped shoes, a pair of grey pinstriped trousers, a matching blazer and waistcoat, and then the angled, moustached face of a proud – but very impatient and irritated looking fellow.
"Be quick," Braxiatel demanded. "I'm very busy."
Jack's eyes widened. Well this was a much more proper and well put together man than he was used to seeing as the Doctor. He walked around the image and then brought himself to face him. "Doctor? Is that really you?"
Braxiatel looked absolutely horrified by that suggestion. "I most certainly am not, and I will thank you never to make any such comparisons to that man ever again."
Mark squealed with glee and leapt off the console. "Uncle Brax!" he cried out excitedly. He skidded to a halt in front of the holographic image and skipped form foot to foot. "Me and mama went on an adventure!"
Braxiatel dropped into a crouch, his eyes wide with relief. "Marktrukketatoctra," he rushed out worriedly. "Are you alight? Your mother?"
Jack stepped forward and put his hand on Mark's shoulder. The youngster smiled and leaned against his leg, his head against Jack's hip. "They're both fine," he assured firmly. "Both Mark and Rose are with me. I'm Jack, by the way. Captain Jack Harkness."
Darkness crossed Braxiatel's face as he drew himself up to a stand. "Well then Captain Harkness, I will warn you," he growled. "That to bring harm to either of them will result in punishment and penalties that will make you wish you were never born." His eyes narrowed. "In fact, I am quite capable in making sure you were never conceived om the first place."
Jack's brows creased with indignant confusion yet again. "Why would you need to make a threat like that?" He then slumped and let out a moan. "My God, you're all a suspicious bunch, aren't you? I didn't kidnap them. Rose is a very good friend of mine, as is the Doctor. Well. A future version of him at any rate."
"Why are they with you?" he asked. "And why has it taken so long for you to contact us?"
"How about you find the Doctor for me, and I'll make explanations then," he snipped in reply, beginning to tire of the suspicion and accusations coming out of Gallifrey right now. But, gee, if they weren't all able to sound scary as hell when pissed off. He let out a sigh. "I mean no harm to either of them, I just want to help them come home."
There was a nod in his head, his aggression fleeing as he finally noticed the way his nephew leaned against Jack's leg in the comfortable way he was "I've sent notice for him," Braxiatel stated. "But I warn you. Thete's been, shall I say, a little more out of his mind and out of control than is usual for him these past couple of days." His eyes lifted to look at something over Jack's shoulder. "The TARDIS isn't operating at full power, is she?"
He shook his head. "Unfortunately no, which is why I can't pilot her back to Gallifrey."
His eyes flicked back to him. "You know how to pilot a Capsule?"
"Taught by the best," Jack answered with a smile. "Like I said I'm a good friend of his."
Braxiatel had to laugh at that. "Then you weren't taught to pilot that craft by my brother," he quipped. "Never was there a worse navigator." His jaw opened and he flicked his hand. "And speak of the Devil. Hello Thete."
The Doctor's image walked across the console room floor with a rigid gait. His shoulders her hunched and his fists clenched. He strode until he was nose to nose with his brother and snarled his greeting. "What is so important that you had to take me from my search," he seethed. He held his finger and thumb close together. "I'm close. So damn close to finding them, Brax. IF you and Romana would just leave me alone for a minute to get it done, but no."
Braxiatel lifted his eyes and let out a long suffering sigh. The Doctor lifted up his head and onto his toes in an attempt to maintain eye contact with his brother.
"But no," he continued. "It's all: You have to sleep, Thete, and eat, and stay away from the capsule cradles, you can't take a new TARDIS, and no, pissing into bottles is not an acceptable way to relieve yourself when you don't have time to walk a mile to the toilet."
"Well it's really not,' Braxiatel said quietly with a sigh and a shake in his head.
"I'm looking for my mate and my child. My family, Brax," he advised him with a rise of his finger into his chest. "I think I can be afforded some considerations, don't you?" He slumped and spun in place as he let out the words "but no" in a long moan than ended when the obviously exhausted Time Lord ended his spin with a stumble. "Why would you give me that, Brax? Huh? Why?"
Braxiatel's expression remained neutral as he pointed to behind the Doctor toward a youngster that was giggling into his hands. "There are times, Thete, that you really do have a maturity level lower than your own youngster." He looked to the child. "Marktrukketatoctra, stop laughing at your father."
The Doctor's eye pinched just slightly in question. His body stilled, too scared to hope. "Mark?" he breathed out finally. "You found them?"
"More like they found you," Braxiatel practically announced as he walked around his brother and toward the hologram of the child. He looked down at Mark with a wink, and then up at Jack with a stare of warning. He was aware that his brother's eyes were on him and spun around to speak before he could. "This fellow claims to be a friend of yours and of Rose. From your future if I'm not mistaken." He looked at Jack. "I'm not mistaken am I?"
The Doctor finally broke position to rush toward his son. The name of his beloved boy burst through his lips as he stooped to pick his child up. He was stopped short by Braxiatel holding a hand against his chest. "He's just an image, Thete. No touch."
The Doctor lifted his head as he stumbled backward. Any hope and relief he had in his eyes faltered almost immediately. "Holographic communication? But from where?"
"Earth," Jack offered. "Pilbara region of Australia, the Western part, specifically. 1992 AD."
"Nineteen-nineties Australia doesn't have the technological capabilities to engage a holographic telecommunication." He huffed in reply as he walked toward Jack. The Doctor's eyes were slightly hostile to look toward him, but they softened when he crouched down in front of his child. "Are you okay?"
Mark grinned widely, and a fast bob of his head was his frantic nod. "Oh yes! This place is amazing!" He started to bound around like a Kangaroo. "We saw these funny animals that jump like this." He stopped. "Oh, and we went to a pool, and stayed in a tent!"
"Sounds like quite the adventure," he said softly, almost sadly. "Where's your mother, and why isn't she with you?"
"Rose is fine," Jack assured him. "She and Martha just stepped out to get something for us all to eat." He yawned without covering his mouth. "We've been in the TARDIS trying to get her operational since we got back to town a few hours ago. Mark was hungry, I was hungry, Martha was hungry..."
"Martha?" the Doctor remarked with a lift of his eyes to Jack. "As in the companion to my elder self?"
Jack nodded and one side of his mouth lifted into a smile. "Gorgeous medical student? Yep, that would be her."
He slowly rose to a stand and incredible sadness crossed his face. "So does that mean I am there with you as well?"
Jack winced and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Well that's a tough one to answer and it does come in two parts."
Braxiatel gruffed. " Oh don't tell me there's two of him in your timeline right now" He looked to his brother. "I swear by our Father's grave you are impossible, Thete."
The Doctor held up his hands in innocence. "I'm not part of this."
'Not yet, anyway," he snarled. He looked back to Jack. "You have multiple incarnations of this fool with you right now?" He looked to his brother. "Well, that would explain the difficulty we're having in accessing their location and being able to fix any navigational protocols to it."
Jack levered up a brow and shook his head. "If there was more than one here, do you think I'd be having to fix a TARDIS by myself?" He didn't give either of them a moment to continue before he held up his hands to ask for silence to continue. "The Doctor.." He looked to him. "Your future self, that is. Well, he's here. Sort of."
The Doctor folded his arms across his chest. "I'm listening."
Jack huffed. "He's here, but." He frowned. "But he's turned himself into a Human."
"I'm sorry?" the Doctor gaped in disbelief. "He's done what?"
"He used what I believe might be the Chameleon Arch and turned himself into a Human."
"Why would that damn fool do something so incredibly stupid like that?"
Braxietel rubbed at his brows and let out a moan. "I want to remark on how very amusing it is that your incredulity to something such as this is lends to you suggesting that you've never done anything foolish before in any of your lives, Thete. I'd even like to say I'm surprised by it, myself. But for the love of Rassilon, Omega, and the Other, Brother…" He raked his hand down his face to loosely cover his mouth. "I'm going to hope here that this change was done because of a catastrophic emergency, and not just because he woke up one morning and had some form of existential crisis…" He looked to the Doctor. "Rassilon, Thete."
"The family of Blood," Jack cut in before Braxiatel could continue. "And if you'd let me finish." He paused a second and looked between them both. "The Family of Blood, he called them…"
"We're familiar with the species," the Doctor offered. He then waved to him. "Do continue."
"They caught scent of him after an adventure. According to Martha, the Doctor decided – rather than dealing with them head on and risking them escaping to find new hosts – that he would turn himself into a Human and let them die off as they searched for him." He frowned. "And it really isn't as halfway foolish in my head as it is when I said it."
Braxiatel lifted a brow. "Are you quite sure about that?"
Jack held up his hand. "Anyway. So The Doctor – now John Smith – and Martha are here in the Australian Pilbara hiding out until the family die off, and the Doctor can return to his regular foxy Time Lord self." He blew out a breath. "So while he is, indeed, here. He's actually not."
The Doctor seemed to take it all in. He considered it a moment with narrowed eyes and pursed lips. "I think I'm caught up," he drawled out. "However, I can't quite see how Rose and Mark factor into the equation."
"An accident," was all Jack would say as he looked down to Mark, who shuffled his feet guiltily on the floor. "Just an accident."
The Doctor looked down to his child and his face contorted into regret. "I left it unlocked, didn't I, the TARDIS?"
"How it happened is irrelevant," Jack reminded him. "What is important is that your wife and child are in danger here. With the Doctor being Human, and the Family caught onto the scent of Time Lord, that puts Mark in danger."
The Doctor shook his head. "Not necessarily. Mark's not a Time Lord. He's had little to no exposure to the Time Vortex nor time travel at all. Rose, on the other hand. She carries me inside her, a Time Lord soul connected with her Human one." He blew out a worried breath. "She's as much Time Lord as I am." He lifted his eyes and winced to correct that. "Except for the lack of regenerations, of course. But aside from that, she's me as much as I'm her."
"And that puts her in extreme danger," Jack warned. "Worse is that she believes that you are in danger."
"As a Human, I wouldn't be."
"Tell her that." He took a step closer to the hologram of the Time Lord. "I need you to talk to me and tell me everything I need to know about the Chameleon Arch. Why he's having memory seepage…"
"Memory seepage," Braxiatel asked curiously. "His consciousness should be in a Bio-Data module provided by his capsule. There shouldn't be anything left in his mind to remember anything beyond the story that the TARDIS created for him."
"It's been known to happen," the Doctor offered glumly. "If the transfer wasn't fully completed before he detached from the Arch." He looked to his Brother. "The strongest emotions and memories are the last to be removed." He looked to Jack. "What is he remembering, specifically?"
"Rose," he answered simply. "The love he has for her. Your marriage."
The Doctor winced. "Yes, I would imagine they'd be difficult for the TARDIS to remove in its entirety. They are memories that no man would ever want to part with." He looked at his brother. "I could lose it all, Brax. The whole existence of me, who I was, who I am, and who I could ever be … but the one thing I could never lose is her." He looked to Mark. "Or him.'
"Can it break him," Jack asked. "I mean, if everything comes back to him?"
Braxiatel sighed hard. "If he regains his full Time Lord awareness in a Human brain?" He nodded. "He'll burn. Completely. A human mind can't handle it." He looked to his brother. "If the one he loves is put in danger and threatened, Thete. If he sees his mate in peril, the Time Lord will emerge."
"And my future will burn."
Jack swallowed. "For now he thinks it's all dreams and fantasy. But the more he sees her, Doctor, the more he remembers. He's so sure right now that he's in love with her. It won't take much more for him to remember it all."
Braxietal spun to look at his brother. "I'll apply for clearance for you to travel to Sol 3. Take Captain Tomiwtraximery with you." He narrowed his eyes at his brother. "And don't argue with me. You can't fly two capsules at once, so you'll need another Time Lord with you."
"The Cerulean," he groused. "Anyone but him. He has a thing for Martha, and I'm not putting that brilliant woman back in his peripheral." He wriggled his fingers in his brother's face. "So he can try to imprint on the poor girl again. All touch and imprint that lot, not good for much else."
"You shouldn't be there long enough for him to get close to her,' Braxiatel ordered. "Fly in, collect your family, and dematerialise out of there. Head back home, and for Rassilon's sake lock up the damn TARDIS."
There was a squeak as the doors opened, and then a shrill squeak of shock. The two solid-body presences, and the tow holograms looked with shock to the doorway, where Martha and Rose stood frozen. Both of them carried plastic bags with food boxes in them.
"Doctor?" Rose ventured wit hope. "Is that you?"
His face lit up at the sight of her. "My hearts."
Rose dropped the bags in her hand and launched into a run at him. "You're here," she called out as her arms opened wide to run into a bone-crushing hug.
His eyes flashed open wide, and his hologram took a step backward. "Rose. No. Wait!"
Too late. Rose wasn't listening. All she knew was that the man she loved was near, here, and she had to get to him as quickly as possible. She leapt at the last second, hoping to swing and hook her legs around him as they engulfed each other. There was no mass, however, to stop her run, and as she leapt to him, she flew through his hologram completely. She yelped as she landed, stumbling into her knees, her shoulder, and then to her back.
"What the Hell?" She looked up at him. "What happened."
There was a smile on his face, one that he was trying desperately to hide. Pride in her excitement for him, and just the amusement of it made suppressing it entirely impossible. "My" he sang as he crouched down beside her. "Graceful, aren't we?"
Behind him Braxiatel spit in laughter, joined by Jack, who bellowed out his amusement. Mark looked between the two of them and, seeing them both laughing, felt that he had to do the same.
Rose didn't get up off the floor, although she did lean around the Doctor's image to glare at them. "I hate you all," she growled.
The Doctor tried to reach out to her but winced on realizing he wasn't actually able to touch her. "Are you okay?"
"Embarrassed more'n anything," she admitted. She looked up at him with confusion and lifted a hand to touch at his projection. "Why are you a ghost?"
"I'm still on Gallifrey," he said softly. "Worried. Desperate. Trying to find my way to you."
"Have you found us now?" she asked him as she lay back onto her elbows and looked up at him crouched so close to him. "Are you coming?"
His projection moved over her, his hands pressed down into the floor, one either side of her breasts. His face lowered to hers, and although they couldn't physically touch, he shifted his lips to hers. "I'm on my way."
