A/N: Two chappies in a day! Haven't done this in a long while.
I even managed to do it while playing Monopoly with my lads... and win the game at the same time...
My son is very mad at me right now... all pouty and stuff.
I do hope that you enjoy this next offering. We're almost there (the end of this arc) now ...
Thanks as always for your comments, they really do make my day.
~~oooOOOooo~~
The Doctor was seated on the jumpseat, with his child playing quietly on the floor below him, when Jack entered the TARDIS. He had red sparkling stiletto heels hanging from his fingers, and a sequined dress hanging off one arm. His wig was still on his head, though it wasn't seated as professionally as it was earlier in the day. It looked to have been placed there only because he had a lack of hands to carry it properly. He gave the Doctor a winning megawatt grin as he strode up the ramp, his boots clanking quietly with each step.
"Hey, Doc," he called out.
The Doctor didn't look up from the contraption he was tinkering with, and he only acknowledged Jack with a grunt.
Jack paused just slightly and set the dress over one of the coral arms. He stooped to put the shoes on the floor, and pulled the wig from his head. "Non committal greeting spoken as a grunt," he mused. "In a bad mood, then?"
"Not in any mood," the Doctor corrected shortly, leaning to one side to retrieve a small screwdriver. "Just very busy right now."
"Doing what?"
He lifted his eyes. "Building something," he answered with a chip in his tone. "What does it look like?"
"Definitely in a bad mood," he repeated with a sigh. He set the wig on a hat stand oddly located to the side of the console ramp. "Right. If you don't want to be a decent individual and show at least some reception to my presence, can I ask where Rose is?"
"You can ask." He put the screwdriver on the chair beside him and used his finger to tweak some wires.
Jack waited for the answer. When he got none from the Time Lord, he looked to Mark. "Hey little buddy, whatcha doin'?"
Mark looked up with a grin and blew his fringe from his face with a blow out the left side of his mouth. He held up a small train. "Just playing with a train," he answered. He made a choo-choo sound as he drive it in the air. "Mama went for a walk," he said, looking back down to the floor. He lifted his eyes upward with a frown. "A long time ago." He looked to his father. "She was supposed to give me a bath, papa."
"Your mother will be back soon," the Doctor assured him gently. "She just needed to walk it off."
Realisation hit Jack with that comment. "Oh, I see," he purred with a smile. "The reason for your bad mood is now obvious. Have a row with the missus?"
"Whether or not my wife and I have had a disagreement is our business,' the Doctor chipped. "Now if you wouldn't mind, I am quite busy right now, and don't have time for general conversation."
"When you decide to misdirect your frustration toward others, then yeah, it becomes our business," he countered with annoyance. "I haven't done anything to piss you off, so…"
He lifted his eyes. "Haven't you?" He rested the contraption on his knees and looked at the man, now certainly dressed as one in a pair of dark trousers, white shirt, and suspenders. He could certainly see the appeal in a fellow like this. He was rather handsome in that perfect Ken-Doll kind of way. If this man didn't make his skin crawl in the way that he was, he might actually take a moment to appreciate such perfection. He looked back down to his contraption and started to work on it again. "Why is it you make me feel incredibly uncomfortable, Jack?"
"Oh I see," Jack said with an indignant sniff. He crouched down to retrieve a golden bracelet from the grating. He set it in his palm and analysed it closely. "You won't answer my question, but you'll expect me to answer yours."
The Doctor shrugged. "My question is important."
"And Rose's whereabouts aren't?"
"They are," he breathed out. "To me it's very much important." He let out a sigh. "But I know she's just taking a walk, as she usually does when we have a disagreement."
Jack nodded. "I see. And it doesn't concern you that she's out alone, when there are aliens out to get her?"
"She's with Tiallu," the Doctor said with a sigh. "Who will come to her aid if necessary, which I don't expect to happen. She's wearing the bio-damper bangle that I picked up from the capitol." He held up his wrist to show off the one he was wearing. "The Cerulean and I are both wearing the same. She won't be detectable by any nefarious alien beings."
Jack held up the bangle he'd found with two fingers. The clasp was clearly broken as it held in one piece only by the hinge. "I really hope you don't mean this one," he said gravely.
The Doctor looked to the golden rounded W hanging from Jack's fingers. The tired expression he held suddenly sharpened into alarm. He moved off the jumpseat faster than he was able to set his contraption on the seat, and it fell to the grating with a loud clatter that startled the youngster on the floor beside it.
"Papa!"
"Sorry, Mark," he cooed almost distractedly as he crossed the floor and took the bangle from Jack's hand. "Rassilon," he breathed out with worry. "It must've fallen off when she stormed out." He turned and slid his hand into his hair through his fringe. There was concern in his voice as he clutched a fistful of the hair on the very top of his head. "She's been gone for almost an hour," he huffed out.
"And it's dark out," Jack advised him. "And when I say it's dark out, Doctor, there's no moon, so it's pitch black out there." He walked up to the Doctor. "Now is a really appropriate time for you to teach me one of those really good Galifreyan swears, Doctor."
"Not while my son's within earshot," he breathed out, his hand still clutching at his hair. "How am I going to find her?" he muttered to himself. He paced and then dropped his hand and ran to the console. "Because of her bond with me, Rose has a very specific bio-signature. As this ship is older than mine, she'll have Rose's data from her time with me in her systems."
"The same way these fiends are tracking her, you mean?"
He shuddered. "The TARDIS search is more specific. The Family will be undertaking a more broad spectrum search criteria. Honestly, my Dahramas would have much better luck tracking her than they would."
"You better hope so," Jack warned him. "They've got an hour on you already."
He shushed him with a loud hiss. "Don't need the negativity right now."
Jack walked around the console to stand at the opposite side to the Doctor. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"If you can tell me where he's put the hyperspatial-mass detector is, that would be of a very great help." He huffed. "I know that the future me knows the location of each and every function of this console – despite it being cobbled together – but I have very little clue as to what functions as what."
"Fortunately," Jack drawled with a smile as he walked around and flicked up a switch beside the Doctor's thumb. "I know this machine as well as your future does. The Both of us work … well, used to work on it together." He sighed. "When you were in your last form."
"You're not a current companion, then?" he asked as he moved through a few items on screen.
"No," Jack answered with a sigh. "The Incarnation before the Human one, the one who first loved Rose." He smiled. "Arse over head for her, he was."
"I do know the feeling."
"We got caught up against the Daleks," he remembered with a wince. "On a space station above Earth."
The Doctor shifted his eyes to him. "Are you about to regale me with the story of the Bad Wolf?"
Jack's eyes lifted and he shook his head. "I have no idea what you're talking about, so no. I'm not." He blew out a breath. "But, I remember being up against a group of Daleks. I was sure I was going to die, I got shot by the Dalekand honestly, thought that I did. But then I woke up."
The Doctor gave him a stare of disbelief. The TARDIS was running through her scans right now, so he had a moment to give Jack his attention. "What do you mean, you woke up?"
"I mean it in exactly the way I said it," Jack said with a shrug. "I got shot. I died. I woke up." His lips pursed. "And I've been waking up from being dead ever since."
"Ahhh," the Doctor breathed. "You're an immortal."
"I'm human," he corrected.
"Who happens to be immortal," The Doctor added.
"And I don't know why that is," Jack said with frustration. "One minute I'm mortal, capable of dying like all the rest, and then in a blink of an eye…" He made an expressive "woosh" sound. "I can't die anymore. I want to know why."
"And you never thought to ask?"
Jack shook his head. "When I woke up, you and Rose were already on your way. You abandoned me, Doctor. Left me behind. I don't know why."
The Doctor shrugged and looked back at the screen. "I expect the Doctor who is currently Human would have the answer to that question. I can't help you with that at all."
Both men turned their attention to the door as it flew open with a bang. The Doctor tried to hide his disappointment in seeing that it was Martha and the Cerulean rather than his wife. "Oh," he muttered. "It's just you." He looked back at the monitor. "You certainly took your time."
Tom wheeled in a large dolly stacked with boxes. "Yeah, well I had a lot to pick up."
"And he had to pick out his new wardrobe," Martha sang with a smile. She looked to Jack. "I did well, didn't I? He Humans very well I think."
Jack lifted a brow, noting the way she stood that little bit closer to him. A smile tipped up the corner of his lips. "I don't know, Martha. You tell me." He lifted his head to an odd sound coming from outside. It was a high-noted sound, a ghostly howl of wind? "What's that sound?" he asked with a flick of his eyes to Martha. "Is that a dingo?"
"Dingo's aren't native to this area," the Doctor answered distractedly.
"Do they have wolves here?"
The Doctor flicked a look toward him. "No they don't, why?"
"Because there's one howling outside," Martha said to him with a flick of her finger over her shoulder.
The Doctor's face fell. He ran to the doorway, lifting his head as though it would improve his hearing. Almost immediately he heard the soulful haunting call of his female Dahrama. "That's Tiallu," he said worriedly. He looked to his child and held out his hand. "Mark. I know this puts my parenting skills into question, but I need you to come with me." He looked to Martha. "Unless one of you can stay with him?"
All three of them shook their heads, but Tom answered in the affirmative. "I will stay with the child," he offered. "As his and Rose's protection are my primary objective, it's my duty."
"Protect him with your life, Cerulean," the Doctor called out as he ran through the doors of his TARDIS. "Jack, Martha. With me."
The trio ran out into the shed, and then burst out into the Pilbara night. Tiallu's voice ghosted across the landscape, twisting and turning, and giving the Doctor no idea at all about how to find her.
Martha turned left, and then right, and then in a full circle. "I can't tell which direction that's coming from."
Jack shook his head. "Neither can I, Mar. God, she could be anywhere."
The Doctor lifted his head and let out a long call. A howl similar to the one sent by Tiallu. He stood in place, listening to the acoustics of the area to determine the shift of the breeze to determine possible sonar location points. There was a return call to his howl, and this time, the Doctor seemed to know exactly which direction to run. He waved his hand as he ducked and ran through a large hole in the cyclone link fence. "Come on you two. She's this way."
Jack and Martha shared a look, but the didn't argue. Jack let Martha lead the two of them through the fence, and quickly they caught up with the Doctor, who's attention was most definitely on the sound of his beloved wolf. He paused, and his head flicked left and then right in a very robotic manner. Then he took off along a road, not bothering to tell either of his companions to follow.
"We're getting closer," Martha panted out to Jack as they ran down along a dark and quiet street. "I can make sense of the sound now."
Jack nodded, but said nothing. He was more concerned abut the pain he heard in that howl than where it was coming from. If that animal was hurt and forlornly calling out to the Doctor, then that meant something had happened to Rose…
…and if this Doctor was anything like the version he used to travel with, then this was going to go so sensationally sideways. He knew he should try and stop the man, try to prepare him for what he may run into, but he knew it was no use. The man was on his way, and nothing was gong to stop him,
All he could do was make sure that he was there to catch the man if he had to fall, or stop him if he was going to explode and try to destroy all of reality.
They all burst into the parketts. Jack paused at the gate, spinning to stand guard, just in case. He knew that Marth would follow the Doctor, who would run immediately toward the pained animal. God, he hoped it was just the animal in pain and not Rose.
The Doctor bolted across the grass and toward a steel-pipe structure. He saw the luminous blue-white fur of his female wold and fell to his knees at her side. He choked at her condition; covered in blood and severely injured. Her howls shifted to pained whimpers when he cupped her head and looked into her eyes.
"Hello Darling," he cooed with a shaking voice. "What have you done to yourself?" He looked around, noting with horror, but without surprise, that Rose was nowhere to be seen. He shook his head as the wold whimpered apologetically.
"No, no," he said gently, shaking out his hand at his side hoping to trigger a small amount of regeneration energy. "You did the best you could. I know you did, Taillu."
Martha fell to her knees at his side. "Oh my God, Doctor…"
"She'll be okay," he assured her as his hand lit up gold. He half cheered as he stretched out his fingers and then looked down to his wolf. "I'm going to warn you, girl. This might tingle a little bit." He grit his teeth as he pressed down around the stick hanging out of her shoulder and let the regeneration energies curl around it. He held it firm for a moment, and then gave an almighty tug. The wolf cried, and he let out a yell of exertion.
And the wolf fell silent, a panting unconscious heap on the grass.
"Where's Rose?" Martha asked with worry.
"I don't know," the Doctor ground out through his teeth.
"They've got her, haven't they?"
He nodded his head and scooped his arms underneath the wolf. With a grunt he hauled her up against his chest. "I'll find her," he muttered darkly with a slow stride toward the fence and to where Jack stood on guard.
"Are you sure?" she asked with concern.
"I tracked her across all time and space, Martha," he muttered in reply. "I think I can find her in an area not much larger than my own orchard back on Gallifrey."
Jack looked at the state of the wolf with a horrified grimace. "She okay?"
"She will be,' the Doctor answered brusquely. "She took a beating, but I think she may also have been poisoned. Inhalation, but the looks of it."
"How do you know?" he asked.
"I can smell it on her," he replied. He then grinned. "Which might work well in our favour."
"How does that work for us? The TARDIS isn't able to analyse a smell as to use in her scanning sensors."
"No," the Doctor agreed. "But a Dahrama's nose is just as good a tracer as any TARDIS scanning system." His face fell and hardened. "I just need to put a call in to my brother to send across my male." He blew out a long breath. "Together, we'll locate Rose and the mongrels that took her, and I'll kill them. All of them. Nice and slow."
"I'll help," Jack offered.
Martha frowned and shook her head. "But Doctor," she started. "The Doctor, I mean that Doctor, the one who's Human…."
"Is an idiot," the Doctor said with a growl. "An absolute idot who should have known better what he was hiding from. I don't care what reason he had for hiding away from them like a coward. Those people, they've got my mate, my wife, the mother of my child and the holder of my hearts. That trumps any reason at all he may have had." He continued to walk. "And to be frank with you, Martha, I don't think he'd disagree."
