Chapter Nine
Two years after arrival
The Doctor watched the peas float on the surface of the water, bobbing in the ripples of the gentle tide that tugged it downstream into the Thames through a network of weaving canals and thin passes. Ducks emerged from the hidden crevices of the river bank, their wet feathered bodies gliding to gobble the peas up, bills snatching them from the water before their brethren. He sprinkled another handful of peas down, raining them on top of their backs like fat droplets of water, and he watched as they scattered before streaming back in to swallow the soft peas.
Butter-yellow sunlight fell softly over the river, and the Doctor brushed his hands of pea detritus and leaned down on his folded arms to watch the ducks. It was early in the morning – too early for civilised people, or at least that was what Jackie told him. While not as bad as Rose who would sleep the day away if she had the opportunity, Jackie Tyler didn't enjoy early mornings. She claimed she had enough of them when her girls were little and up at the crack of dawn each day until they were old enough to appreciate the luxury of lazing in bed. But she grumbled only a little that morning when he woke her up with a cup of tea and a hopeful look on his face, needing to stretch his legs but also wanting company.
"Least you could do is buy the coffee since you got me up so early," Jackie yawned her arrival behind him, tapping his shoulder with the cardboard cup of coffee from Folgers. "Bloody rude is what you are."
"Forgot my wallet," the Doctor said, the novelty of having a wallet still fresh for him. He cracked open the lid and inhaled the heavy, bitter smell of a strong black coffee. Zoe, he thought, a memory of her curled up in bed with a cup of coffee in her hands, smiling at him over the rim. "Thanks though."
"Yeah, yeah," she dismissed, pressing a pastry into his hand. "They had that banana thing you like as well."
"Awesome sauce!"
The pastry disappeared from beneath his reaching fingers, and he looked at Jackie who stared back at him. "You can have this if you swear never to say awesome sauce again."
"I solemnly swear," he said, hands pressing over both of his hearts, mouth tugging at the corners. Rolling her eyes, she let him have his breakfast treat and he bit into it, pastry flakes decorating his thin jumper. "This is good, thanks."
"You're welcome." Jackie leaned over to look at the ducks, unwrapping her own pastry that she made methodical work of demolishing in a neater manner than his method of shoving as much into his mouth as possible. "You're a mess."
The Doctor smiled a pastry-stained smile at her, earning himself his second eye roll of the day and a napkin pushed into his face. He cleaned himself up and enjoyed the quiet peace that existed between the two of them. She was half-asleep still, evident in the way her mouth gaped in a yawn every few minutes, her shoulders hunched down inside of his NASA hobby that he got from Florida a year earlier before he and Fei realised they were in the wrong place.
"Better?"
He angled his face for her to check, and she nodded. "Good as ever, I s'pose. Reckon you need a shave though."
"Thought I'd give the beard another try," the Doctor said, rubbing the dark shadows on his jaw. "It might give a professional look."
"I've seen pictures of you with a beard," she told him. "Just shave."
"Hey!"
"D'you want to walk around lookin' like a pedo?"
"I do not look like a pedophile with a beard," he protested, uncertainty tickling at his chest. "Do I?"
Jackie cracked the lid of her coffee and took a sip, happy to let him sit in doubt for a moment longer. "All I'm sayin' is that a beard means a bloke's got somethin' to hide. An' it's normally somethin' gross an' sexual."
"Why does it have to be pedophilia though?" The Doctor asked. "Why couldn't it be a love for ducks that he's never told anyone about?"
"He's into duck sex?"
He huffed, eyes narrowing, and it was only when he saw the pull of her mouth behind her coffee cup that he realised –
"You're teasing me," he accused, delighted.
"Took you longer than normal," Jackie said. "Grow a beard if you want. It'd save me cleanin' up those little hairs of yours in the sink."
"Oh, yes, let's talk about hair," the Doctor shot back, leaning against the railing facing her. "I've never known a woman to clog a drain as thoroughly as you with hair and I shared a bathroom with Zoe who's like 90% hair some days."
"You don't have to share a bathroom with me now," she pointed out. "We have four bathrooms in our house. You could use one of the other three."
He scoffed and swallowed a mouthful of the bitter coffee that made him think of kissing Zoe, his gut clenching. "I like the one we use."
"You such a child," she said, giving him his third eye roll even as her words dripped with fondness. "An' don't think you can get away with not talkin' about why you've dragged me out of bed at this hour."
"It's seven in the morning," the Doctor said. "No, wait – twelve minutes past seven to be exact."
"That'd be impressive if I didn't know there was a massive clock behind me," Jackie replied, and he grinned. "C'mon, what's on your mind - nightmares again?"
He shook his head. "Just wanted some company that's all."
"Doctor –"
"Fine," he said with a huge sigh that lifted his chest and rolled his shoulders. "It's been two years."
She looked at him, blank. "Since what?"
"I thought you'd forgotten." A sad smile whispered across his lips. "And I wasn't going to make a big deal of it but, I don't know, I just needed to spend time with the only other person who knows what it's like."
"Wait." Jackie stared at him, still and taken aback. "Today? It's been two years today since –"
"Yeah," the Doctor said, kicking his heel back against the railing. "Remember how we marked the occasion last year? I'm surprised you're not still hungover from the amount you necked."
"Two years," she murmured, ignoring him. "God, it bloody feels like longer, doesn't it? But it also feels like no time at all. How'd I bloody miss this?"
"It's not exactly a date you'd want to remember," he said. "And you only remembered last year because Fei was acting weird around you."
She snorted. "Weirder than normal, you mean."
"He's got a crush, it's adorable," the Doctor smiled. "He's been better this year. I think you scared him gettin' as drunk as you did last time. Although, between you and me, I'm surprised he still fancies you after you threw up on him. It was a lot of vomit. We had to get rid of that sofa, remember?"
Red dusted Jackie's cheeks. "Yeah – well – was a difficult day, wasn't it? An' don't think I missed you puttin' away the ginger ale. Just because your stupid alien body handles a hangover better than mine doesn't mean you weren't pathetic either."
"Worse people to be pathetic with, yeah?" She shook her head, a soft laugh, and turned so that she matched his position, her head falling to rest on his arm. "Hasn't been a bad two years, has it? Not as bad as it could've been at least."
"That's true," she said, softly. "We've got a nice house, decent jobs, good friends. Better than most."
"And we still travel," the Doctor said. "I like our weekend trips. I wouldn't mind going back to Yorkshire at some point. We didn't have enough time to explore the differences between the Brontës here and back home."
"Apart from Branwell writin' a book."
"Apart from that," he agreed, looking down at the top of her recently dyed head. "We've been good, haven't we?"
"We have," Jackie told him. "Livin' with you hasn't been as awful as I thought it'd be."
He huffed. "Charming."
"I wish –" she hesitated, careful of voicing her wishes for fear of them never coming true or for forcing her to stew in her disappointment at things that she couldn't change. "I just –"
"I know," the Doctor said, freeing an arm to put it around her shoulders. "I wish we weren't here too. I miss them all just as much as I did on the first day."
"How much time d'you think has passed there?"
"Six months, maybe," he replied. "Not as much here."
"Be Christmas then, more or less," Jackie said. "An' we've had two of them. Don't s'pose you can get us back in time for normal Christmas, can you?"
"Would that I could," the Doctor said, coffee flooding his mouth once more. Zoe. Zoe. Zoe. "It'd be a nice Christmas present for them all, wouldn't it?"
She patted his chest absently. "You'll figure it out, love. You always do."
"Thanks." Her support and trust still felt new and fragile to him even though she had had utmost faith in him since they first arrived, not questioning what he needed to and not pushing him. Jackie Tyler giving herself over to his hands without complaint was something he thought he would never experience. "We should do something today. Distract ourselves."
Jackie looked up at him. "You want to go to work, don't you?"
"No." Her eyebrows lifted, sceptical. "A little bit. It'll make me feel better to get some work done today, like I'm making progress."
"Go to work but be home by two then," she told him. "I'll pack us a bag an' we can go up to Yorkshire to poke around the Brontë museum again. Take a couple of days. How's that sound?"
His breath left him easier, marvelling at how well she understood him and what he needed when vulnerability wrapped him, a sensitive caul that threatened to shatter with the slightest tap. "That sounds perfect."
"Good," Jackie said, her arm squeezing his waist before she pulled away from him. The sun shrouded her in its soft light – soft, gentle, and so perfectly human, the Doctor's hearts expanded at the wonder of her. "Go on then, get to work. I'll go book us somewhere nice to stay. Luxury or cheap?"
The Doctor hummed, thinking. "Let's go old fashioned. Get a cottage if you can."
"We'll have to stop at a supermarket on the way," she warned him, putting her coffee cup in the nearest bin. "An' I'm not lettin' you empty out the sweet aisle again. Not unless Fei is comin' to help you eat it all."
"Do you want him to come?" He asked, suddenly embarrassed though he had no reason to be. "I was –" the words stuck in his throat and an awkward cough cleared the jam. "I was hoping it could just be the two of us."
Where once mockery would have spilled from her at such an admission from him, a soft smile turned her mouth up towards her eyes.
"Don't invite him then," Jackie said, hands tucked in the front of her hoodie. "We'll make it a family trip, yeah?"
Warmth bloomed through him. "Awesome sauce."
His fourth eye roll of the day kept him smiling all the way to Torchwood, parting ways with Jackie by the river.
Despite the shadow that slid through his hearts at the anniversary of one of the most awful days of his life – never the most, he had lived that already and nothing else would ever come close – he found himself entering Torchwood with a bounce in his step. The promise of a weekend away with one of his favourite humans, tramping across the rolling hills of Yorkshire and exploring the museums with a fine tooth comb, helped ease a small portion of the grief that climbed up through hollow chambers to pound an echo through him.
Travelling with Jackie was different to how he usually travelled, forced to use cars or trains to get to their destination – once a plane but Fei swore never again since the Doctor kept rambling about how unsafe they were, scaring those around him. It was slow and tedious once he understood the inner mechanics of it all, and people tended not to want to talk to him on public transport, preferring their books or phones to conversation. He missed planets where people were a little friendlier, more welcoming – he missed his normal Earth where he knew the humans and their quirks, not these pale shadows of the species he loved.
Though that was unfair.
He liked Ricky, Jake, Mrs Moore, Fei, and Angela more than enough. They were as real and as human to him as any other human he had met but the rest of them, stretched beyond the walls of Torchwood and living in a world that had forged a different path to the one he knew, he didn't know how to approach them. Trying to get them to like him, or at least engaged with him, was a constant struggle; he didn't know if it was because they were different, which he suspected, or if he was different, which he hoped wasn't true.
Either way, he missed travelling where he got to meet people to talk to and make new friends for however long he was there.
"Good morning, Georgiana," the Doctor sang, swiping his card across the automatic entrance. "That time of the week again, is it?"
"Sunday tends to sneak up on you, doesn't it, John?" A security guard only on Sundays as she was at university the rest of the week, Georgiana smiled up at him. "Shouldn't you be literally anywhere else?"
"On a beautiful day like this, where else would I be?"
She popped a grape into her mouth, bursting it between her molars. "You're an odd man, doc. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
"I'd be offended if they did."
Giving one of Jack's small salutes as farewell, he strolled into the lift and jabbed his finger against the button for the fifteenth floor. Humming a song by Meatloaf in his throat, the Doctor rocked back on his heels. His good mood turned him suspicious given how he hadn't been able to sleep, lying in bed staring at his ceiling and Zoe's picture in turn. Experience told him that he was in for a drop, plunging feet first into despair and uncertainty, but he tried to enjoy the lightness of his mind and the looseness of his chest while it lasted. He suspected Jackie knew that he was approaching a bad night as her suggestion of the trip to Yorkshire wasn't her usual way of dealing with him. Normally she tossed a banana or a Rubix cube in his direction, saving the promise of a trip for when he really needed them.
Like mother like daughter, he thought when the lift opened onto his office's floor.
"Whoa!" The Doctor careened out of the way, one long leg lifting up and over Dr Srian who was scuttling past on his hands and knees. "Isak, what're you doing?"
"Small issue with those robots I was testing," he said, lunging and sliding along on his stomach to grab the tail of a robot rat that was, officially, designed for espionage but seemed more suitable to mischief. "I've got it under control!"
He doubted that but nodded. "All-righty then. Good luck."
"Thanks!"
A cheery high-five with Claude the weekend janitor and his secret handshake with Victoria later, he entered his office. The cluttered space drove Ricky mad every time he swung by for a catch up and to rifle through the Doctor's drawer full of biscuits. Books hung off every shelf, haphazard in their order though it made sense to the Doctor; plants filled the room on the free surface space he was able to clear so that he had a touch of Zoe about him; the do-it-yourself shelving that was given as a Thursday gift – something he was disappointed to learn wasn't actually a thing – by Ricky to help him organise sat propped up against the wall instead of assembled. The Doctor found the box useful for extra height when he needed it, which, admittedly, wasn't very often.
"And a good morning to you to, love," the Doctor said to Zoe's picture, her face smiling up out of the cheap frame Rita gave him early on. "Whatever you're doing, I hope it's fun. And not dangerous. Well...maybe a little bit dangerous. Like the tiniest amount of danger. This much."
He held his thumb and forefinger close enough together that an eyelash would have trouble fitting through. Zoe's smile stayed fixed on her face. His mouth tilted up on one side.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," he said, fondly. "I'm a hypocrite. That's not the point. The point is – I don't know what my point is but I hope you're having a nice day. It won't be much longer now, I hope. Just...keep being you while I'm working on it."
Pressing a kiss to two fingers, he brushed it over the glassy surface of Zoe's face – a poor imitation of the real thing but all he had at the moment.
He hooked his chair with his foot and pulled it out, dropping into it and opening the laptop that he had had to add bits and pieces to in order to make it work faster. He normally didn't mind human technology from the 21st century as he found it quaint and charming but even Zoe preferred using computers and phones from the 32nd century for a reason. The speed was enhanced, the storage capacity nearly limitless, the quality and longevity much better: the Doctor had gone through twelve laptops in three months before Angela thrust one into his hand and shoved him into research and development so that he could make it better.
It worked, and his rate of using laptops until they broke had slowed down considerably.
Since Jackie wanted him back at the house at two, and the Doctor was making the effort to be on time for her, he set an alarm on his phone. Cracking open the laptop where a smiling picture of his friends greeted him, his eyes lingering on each of them in turn, he got to work on fine tuning the subliminal tunnel.
After the unfortunate incident of his and Fei's trip to Syria – and after the bollocking he received from Research and Development for taking the suit without permission even though they were also excited about the data he gathered on its usage – there had been a few more trips. The Doctor was finding that entering the tunnel worked exactly as it was supposed to. The field extended around him, took him from where he was, and pushed him into the tunnel. But, the problem came from what happened inside the tunnel as it started to destabilise en-route and began to return to sender.
It took the Doctor and an unwilling Fei – and once a thoroughly startled Rita – five trips in the tunnel before they were able to pinpoint the problem. Because the it was created on their end, it supported matter of this universe being transported. Jackie and the Doctor were created of different star stuff that Fei and the others, and the confusion of how the different matter interacted with each other caused the tunnel to start to break down. The Doctor needed to figure out a way to either reprogramme the tunnel to accept his and Jackie's different matter or he needed to change him and Jackie.
Neither option offered an easy solution but, as Fei reminded him when he let himself get lost in his frustration and despair, he was significantly closer to a working solution than he had been months earlier.
The Doctor was really going to miss Fei when they left.
As if summoned by his thoughts, his office door opened and Fei appeared in it. Recently back from a visit home to China to see his ageing parents, he was making up for lost time with his work and in the building more days than not. He tended to only leave when someone made him and Jackie was particularly adept at getting him to put his work aside and follow her, much to the amusement of Fei's colleagues.
"I didn't think you'd be here today," Fei said, eyeing him. "Are you sure you want to be working?"
"I'm sure, don't make a fuss about it," the Doctor replied. "Neither Jackie nor I are going to drink ourselves stupid this year. We're actually going to Yorkshire later today. She's booking a cottage, we're going to go around the Brontë museum again, do some hiking. It's going to be fun."
Fei looked at him, assessing him carefully before nodding. "Good. How long will you be gone?"
"A few days," he said, crossing his legs at the ankles. "Pretty sure Angela told you not to come in today. Something about overtime?"
"I'm not really here." Fei lifted himself to sit on the Doctor's desk, pushing papers out of the way to do so. "I'm at home making breakfast."
The Doctor picked up a pen and through it at him. It bounced harmlessly off his chest. "Solid hologram."
"You're hilarious," he replied, dry. "How's the research going?"
"About as well as expected," the Doctor said. He picked up an elastic band and looped it around his fingers, pulling on it as he leaned back to chat with his friend. "Trying to trick the universe into thinking me and Jackie are something that we're not is hard. My people had this technology that could rewrite DNA. The Chameleon Arch. I suppose I could replicate it and change us just enough so that the tunnel would accept us and then change us back on the other side but I'm really reluctant to do that."
"For obvious reasons," Fei said, "but anything in particular?"
"The Chameleon Arch and humans, it's a little –" he wobbled his hand and pulled a face. "I told you about Zoe, right?"
"I've literally heard everything about Zoe from how she likes her coffee to the fact that you like it when she kisses you just below your ear," Fei replied, aggrieved. "The first piece of information, I'm happy to have. It's nice. She likes it black and incredibly strong. The second piece I would've preferred to live without."
The Doctor snorted. "Shouldn't have got me drunk then, should you?"
"You have an interesting metabolism," he argued. "Why does ginger get you drunk but typically alcohol doesn't? I wanted to find out."
"Well, as much as I appreciate you using me as a scientific experiment, I meant did I tell you about Zoe having to use the Chameleon Arch?" Even as the Doctor spoke, he realised he hadn't. "She was injured, close to death, and the only way to save her was to put her through the Arch. I thought it hadn't any consequences but then...it's what increased her lifespan. I don't want to put Jackie through something I've cobbled together when I couldn't even predict what would happen to Zoe under more controlled circumstances."
Fei nodded, bringing his legs up and folding them under him. His daily yoga sessions with Yasmin Perry, who no longer intimidated him as much as she once had, clearly benefitting his flexibility.
"Then you're going down the route of changing the tunnel," he said.
"Seems like it."
"We're not going to end up on the moon again, are we?"
The Doctor slid his eyes towards Fei. "I've apologised for that. But I maintain I can't be held at fault for where we end up."
"I was in the hospital for eight days afterwards," Fei reminded him. "I still don't think I'm breathing properly."
"You're breathing fine," the Doctor dismissed. "And I didn't see you complaining when Jackie was fussing over you."
Fei had got better at not blushing whenever the Doctor teased him, and his cheeks coloured only the lightest pink. "She made a better nurse than you. At least she didn't eat all my grapes."
The Doctor blew a raspberry at him. "I've been able to track down the crack I want to use too."
"You've been busy this morning," Fei noted. "Where is it?"
"Daleg Ulv Straden," he replied. "It's few kilometres outside of Oslo in Norway. Interestingly enough, when me and mine left this universe the last time we ended up in our world's Daleg Ulv Straden."
"That's...odd."
"A coincidence," the Doctor shrugged.
"Oh, don't give me that," Fei replied. "You're the one who says never to ignore a coincidence."
"Unless you're busy."
"You're not busy right now."
"I'm busy being content," the Doctor said, pointedly. "Don't ruin it."
Fei held up his hands. "Okay, so you've got a crack in Norway. How does this help?"
"Are you asking me because you don't know, or are you asking me to make sure I know what I'm doing?"
"Obviously the latter, mate, keep up."
The Doctor turned his eyes to the ceiling, fighting to keep the smile off his face. A Time Lord gets them temporarily stranded on the moon – barely fifteen seconds – and suddenly his capabilities as a scientist are called into question. It was discrimination or common sense or something like that, he wasn't sure.
"By using the crack in the universe, I can properly anchor the subliminal tunnel instead of creating an aperture myself," the Doctor recited in a droning voice, deliberately being as annoying as possible. "This means there are less variables at play when it comes to getting the tunnel to accept mine and Jackie's matter."
"Would it weaken our walls?"
"Shouldn't do." Fei frowned at him as every time the Doctor said shouldn't do or shouldn't be a problem then it meant that there was going to be a problem. Every. Time. "Don't go all frowny face on me. I'll cover my bases."
"You said that about –"
"The moon," he finished for him.
"And Syria, and Antartica, and Bonampak –"
"You enjoyed Bonampak!"
"Of course I did, they thought I was a god: it was fun for me." Fei pushed the sleeves of his grey jumper up his arms, resting them on his knee. With his straight posture and folded legs, he looked like a handsome Buddha sitting on the Doctor's desk. "But we spent three weeks in Bonampak and I got a tick on my penis."
The Doctor sighed. "One tick. And I got it off for you. I don't know what you're complaining about."
"You know," he began with an expansive sigh, "sometimes I think I'm going to miss you when you're gone. But then I remember what an ass you are and it really helps soothe the blow."
"No offence, of course," the Doctor said, amused.
"No, no, I meant to offend," Fei assured him. "Since you're leaving for Yorkshire later, want to grab lunch first? I checked the cafeteria and they're doing Rice Krispies balls."
"Sweets for lunch?" He spun on his chair and grinned, planting his feet firmly on the ground. "That's my sort of lunch."
Fei unfolded himself from the desk. "Just don't tell my parents."
"I haven't met your parents yet, sadly, but you're also forty-six."
"Do you have Chinese parents?"
"No."
"Then understand it doesn't matter how old you are, disrespecting your parents and your ancestors by having sweets for lunch just isn't done," he said around a laugh. "Although, I did disappoint them by getting divorced, maybe I should go all the way."
"That's the spirit," the Doctor said, patting his shoulder. "Be the best disappointment you can be."
"Well, if you're going to do anything, you may as well be the best at -"
Fei jumped and the Doctor swore in Gallifreyan, dropping the book he was moving from the desk to the bookshelf onto his toe, and Victoria rushed inside. Her cheeks were flushed with colour, her eyes blown wide with fear, and the Doctor ignored the pain in his toes as his body instantly shifted to danger is coming. Victoria's body shook like a leaf barely clinging onto its tree in a storm, her chest heaving. There was a long stretch of silence as they all stared at each other before the Doctor remembered himself.
"Everything all right, Tori?"
"There are men with guns," she whispered, her mouth forming the words even as her throat closed in around her. "They're in the building and going floor by floor. They've killed Georgiana. They just shot her. She's dead. Dead. Dead. I can't – what – I don't know – "
The Doctor pressed his index finger between her arms. "Calm."
The panicked, shocked words trembled to a halt and her breathing became easier. He gently took her by the arms and sat her down in his chair, brushing a hand over the top of her head, soothing and protective.
"Men with guns?" It was a testament to the weird and dangerous things friendship with the Doctor had introduced him too that Fei wasn't rendered insensible with fear at the prospect, marvelling at the fact that he kept his cool even as his bowels turned to water. "What? And why? I think that's more important. Why?"
"An excellent question," the Doctor agreed, pulling his laptop closer and sliding into the security system that Yasmin turned a blind eye to knowing he had access to. He pulled up the security cameras and drew in a sharp breath, Georgiana's leg visible behind her desk along with a terrifyingly large pool of blood. "Tori's right. Georgiana's dead. It looks like they're going floor by floor looking for something."
Fei passed a trembling hand over his mouth. "Where are they now?"
"The labs." The Doctor clicked onto another camera to watched a small, black-clothed private army question Dr Srian at gunpoint. "A couple of floors down. We have some time."
"Time for what?"
"To make a plan."
Fei swallowed hard. "Our plan should be to get out. Get as many people as we can and get the hell out. Where the hell is Yasmin?"
"I don't think she knows what's happening," the Doctor replied, fingers moving across the keyboard. "Someone's blocked the alarms. They haven't cut them but they've got a block in front of them. Check your phone, tell me if you've got a signal."
Digging his hand into his pocket, Fei pulled it out and squinted at the bar, his hand clammy. "I don't."
"That's what I thought." He angled his hips towards his friend. "Front left pocket. Get my phone. It works even without a signal. Send a message to Yasmin, tell her to get a team here now."
Fei reached in and pulled it out, tapping in the password quickly – easy to remember since the Doctor tended to mope on Zoe's birthday – and calling Yasmin who answered as though she had been waiting for the call. He spoke quickly and urgently down the line, reassured by the steadiness of her reply and the fact that he could hear her pulling on clothes and moving out of the door before he hung up. As the Doctor tried to divert the private army from the areas where people were hiding, locking doors and creating misdirects, Fei cracked open the door and peered out down the corridor.
"Doctor," Fei whispered. "They're on the floor."
"Yeah, I know," he said, backing up his research and sending it to Fei's private server. "I think they're looking for me."
"What?"
"All those kidnap attempts? Someone clearly wants my company and they've got tired of waiting to get lucky," the Doctor said. "If they're here, they might've gone to the house first. When you get out, go to Jackie. Find her and keep her safe for me."
"Of course, but where the hell are you going?"
"I want to see what's going on," he said. "Georgiana's dead because of whoever's behind this. And they clearly don't fear anything because they're storming Torchwood. This is going to be all over the news. They're desperate and that doesn't bode well for anyone. It's gone too far and stopped being amusing. The best way to deal with this is to give them what they want."
"What if what they want is to kill you?" Fei had a hand on the Doctor's chest, stopping him from leaving. "You're a bit short of regenerations from what I understand."
The Doctor covered Fei's hand with his and removed it. "They're not going to kill me. They wouldn't have tried kidnapping me if they wanted me dead. It's a waste of time and energy. No, they want something from me. And if I do regenerate...well, it's not ideal in any way shape or form but it'll confuse them enough for me to get away. In case I do, our code word is Bonampak. I'll say that to you so you know it's me."
"I really don't like this."
"I'd be surprised if you did," he replied. "Get Jackie to the safe house and look after her. Tell her that I'll see her soon and not to worry."
Fei shook his head. "She's going to worry."
"Of course she is," he said. "The only thing that matters to me is that she's kept safe. Please, Fei, don't let anything happen to her."
"I promise you, nothing's going to happen to her," Fei told him, sincerely. "Just make sure nothing happens to you too."
The Doctor dragged his fingers around his chest. "Cross my hearts."
And, with that, he ducked out of the office to face whatever was coming.
She was nervous.
Such a silly thing to feel nervous when she had spent two years imagining this very moment, but she was. Her palms clammy, her mouth dry, her fingers shifting to her hair on a loop as she tried to smooth out her appearance. She had got her hair done for the occasion, spending hours in the chair as box braids were put into her hair. It was longer than she usually spent with her stylist but well worth the effort as she felt more confident feeling the braids against her back and heavy over her shoulder. Leaning into her Ghanian heritage – some generations removed by now since her great-grandfather had come over to Britain during imperial times – she felt powerful and in control.
Feelings that she needed as she waited for the Doctor.
"This is a bad idea," Joan whispered, thumb rapidly depressing her pen over and over again, the clicks punching through Abigail. "This is a bad idea."
"Please put the pen down," Abigail requested, calm. "Your nervousness is off putting."
A flash of rebellion flared in Joan's eyes, fading as it always did, and she set the pen down, fiddling with her skirt instead. Abigail let her eyes linger on her for a moment, wishing that she wasn't there but needing her for reasons that she needed to make clear to the Doctor. It was a shame. She would have preferred Pete there. Pete who had had some sort of unsatisfying meeting with Jackie six months ago and had delved deeper into supporting her work, leaving his morals at the door, which was both appreciated and required.
He was at Torchwood though, making himself comfortable behind the desk that had once been his. To her surprise, everything had happened exactly as they planned it – a rare outcome. Darrell told her time and again that as long as everything was planned carefully and all variables were accounted for, plans would work. She hadn't shared his confidence, pushing him out of her bed when she was done with him – or he was done with her. Conceding to a sexual relationship with him had been born out of a need to keep him on side, to keep him happy, and he seemed more malleable with the new arrangement, less likely to slip away from her and leave her floundering.
He was too close though. She needed someone to replace him so that she didn't have to debase herself with his hands on her body and the weight of him between her legs. Sadly, he remained the best at what he did.
Perhaps now that the Doctor was in her hands, his use was at an end. Sara, though not as accomplished as her boss, would be good enough in the role, and Abigail was confident she could grow into it. As always when thinking about getting Darrell out of her life and her bed, her muscles loosened and tension unknotted itself in her chest, giving her the briefest moment of calm before reality set in again.
"They're here," Joan said, words trembling as she stared out of the window even as the phone rang to let Abigail know. "It's not too late to stop this."
"Joan, shut up." Abigail picked up the phone to receive confirmation and she waited, hands folded over her stomach, staring at the picture of her parents on what used to be her father's desk. "I'm so close. I can taste the success."
"Abby, please –"
She raised a hand, sharp and cutting in its speed, and Joan choked on her words. "Not – another – word. Understood?"
A small whimper slipped free and Joan swallowed, throat bobbing, before she nodded, falling silent and edging to the back of the room, tucking herself in against the bookshelf. No matter how small she tried to make herself, Abigail knew that she was there.
Heavy boots sounded in the corridor. Abigail straightened in her seat. Eyes fixed unblinkingly on the door.
Three.
Two.
One.
The door opened and Darrell entered. His hair was dishevelled and face flushed from the heat of his full helmet that was tucked under his arm. Eyes gleaming with success, his mouth curved upwards. She thought that if he moved forward to kiss her in front of everyone, she would shoot him herself. Fortunately, he stood in the middle of the room and grinned so widely at her that she saw the dark flash of his filling at the back of his throat. Behind him, Sara and Tania had a tight grip on each of the Doctor's arms: the source of her greatest hope stood between them, hands bound together with a zip tie, a thick, heavy bag over his head.
He was here.
"As requested, ma'am." Darrell bent slightly at the waist, eyes locked on hers, and her stomach clenched at how unbearable he was going to be later, demanding rewards that she didn't want to give him. "The drug's working just as we hoped it would. He's as weak as a baby."
Abigail nodded, relieved.
Sara and Tania thrust him into the chair waiting for him. A snick of a knife didn't even make him twitch. Hands freed only to be bound to each arm of the chair, ankles meeting the same fate, Sara and Tania left to stand guard outside as the rest of the private army remained at Torchwood to help Pete take complete control. There were enough security officers on the grounds to provide an obstacle to any escape attempts the Doctor would try to make, and Abigail breathed in slowly. She hesitated, not knowing whether to stand to meet him or remain seated. She tossed the advantages and disadvantages of both before choosing to remain where she was.
Let him see that she was in control.
Once Abigail believed herself to be ready, she nodded to Darrell. His hand grasped the hood, and he pulled it free. The Doctor didn't flinch from the light or turn his head away in an attempt to get his bearings. He locked eyes with her immediately and smiled.
"Hello," he said, pleasantly. "I'm the Doctor."
"I know who you are," Abigail said, regretting her decision to remain seated. She felt small and childlike under the sharpness of his gaze, dwarfed by her father's chair like a child playing dress up. "The Doctor, alias John Tyler. An alien from another universe."
"Not the hardest information to get your hands on," he told her. If he was bothered by the drug coursing through his system, suppressing his strength and lowering his energy, he didn't show it. "I don't know who you are though. Are you going to introduce yourself?"
The cold barrel of a gun pressed against the nape of his skull, Darrell cold and warning behind him. "Speak respectfully."
"Do you mind?" The Doctor asked, faintly annoyed. "Putting a gun at people is just rude and not conducive to positive communication."
"Darrell." Abigail nodded at him, and he lowered the gun, holstering it. She looked at the Doctor who gazed back. "I'm Abigail Naismith. I'm sure you've heard of me."
He shook his head. "Can't say that I have. If you're an actress, I don't really watch TV or films. Don't have the time. Or the interest, to be honest. I love a bit of EastEnders but you don't have that here, which is a damn shame. Victoria Street just isn't the same. Too much family not enough drama."
"I was told you like to talk," she noted, and he grinned at her. He might be handsome if he wasn't so alien. "It doesn't matter if you've heard of me or not. What matters is that you're here now. I've been wanting to talk to you for some time."
"I assume you're the person behind the multiple kidnap attempts over the last two years," he said. "Whoever was in charge of that, you need to replace them. They were laughable. The closest you got to getting me was when you tasered my friend, and that wasn't close at all."
"We succeeded in the end, when we needed you the most," Abigail said. "You're here now."
"I'm here because I choose to be here," the Doctor informed her. "Believe me when I say that if I didn't want to be in this room at this moment in time, I wouldn't be."
He was almost amusing. "Then thank you for your cooperation."
"I wouldn't thank me yet, Abigail Naismith, because I am very, very angry with you," he said. "You killed a woman that I liked. Georgiana was twenty-three years old. She was studying to be an aided education teacher, and your thugs in boots shot her dead."
Her eyes flicked to Darrell who shrugged, unapologetically, and she looked steadily at the Doctor. "Sacrifices sometimes need to be made."
"A sacrifice, by its definition, is the act of giving something up," he said, words taking on a sharp, crisper tone. "You gave nothing up today. Georgiana was murdered because you wanted to accomplish something. I will have you face justice for that."
"You can try," Abigail said, lightly. "I think you'll find that things are already changing in this country. I regret to inform you that Angela Price is no longer in charge of Torchwood. She's been arrested and replaced."
His face lost its pleasant demeanour, a cold, hard mask that was impossible to read stepping in. "On what charges?"
"Accounting fraud," she said, and the Doctor scoffed. "It's quite shocking. Millions of pounds funnelled into an offshore account under the name Angela Moore. The British public take a dim view of the misuse of taxpayer money."
"I'm sure they do," he said, shaking his head. "So you set Angela up to get her out the picture. You just don't want me then."
She smiled at him, her eyes cold. "You're still very important to me, Doctor, but I've learnt that it's important to cover all basis and make sure that everything is in order – even if takes longer."
"Patience is a virtue," he agreed. "You want me and you want Torchwood. Why?"
"I need your help."
His eyes rolled, the humanness of the act taking her by surprise. "Funny way of asking me for it. You could've just reached out and asked for help. You didn't need to do this."
"I couldn't risk you saying no," Abigail said, honestly. "I've been told that your help isn't the easiest thing to gain."
His eyebrows went up. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You didn't want to help this universe to begin with, or do I have that wrong?" She pinched at his thigh, keeping herself focused. "Something about letting this universe burn in order to save yours."
The Doctor stared at her with such intensity that her eyes dropped to his throat, unable to hold his gaze for long. Her stomach flopped, her chest tightened, and the urge to pee squeezed at her bladder.
When she was sixteen, she had jumped off the back of her family's yacht to swim in the clear ocean. She floated on her back, legs and arms star-fished around her, eyes closed against the sun. By the time she grew board of floating, she turned over to swim back to the yacht only to realise it was far away – too far away for her to easily swim to. The sensation of being in the ocean, her feet unable to touch the ground, the consciousness that she was adrift and lost slamming panic into her as she started screaming for help.
Being under the Doctor's stare made her wish for the safety of being cut loose and alone in the sea again.
"Pete." The name fell from the Doctor's mouth wrapped in anger that burned the edges, ash dripping from it. "He's working with you."
"He's returned to his position as Director of Torchwood," Abigail replied once she found her voice. Darrell cut a sharp look over the Doctor's head, and she delicately cleared her throat to bring strength back to it. "Technical interim at the moment while Angela's trial takes place, but I imagine it'll be made permanent again. There are questions about how she came to be director in the first place."
"Questions I'm sure you've been whispering into the ears of the right people," he said. "Clever."
"Thank you."
"I mean, it won't work, of course."
"Why not?"
"Because of me," he said, smile returning. "Because you've dragged me into this. Because you killed an innocent woman that didn't need to die. Because whatever you're planning, whatever it is you want, I'm positive it's nothing good."
Her torso expanded with her deep breath, chin tilting up. "Depends on your definition of good, I suppose."
"When you're forced to define the labels your behaviour gives you, you know you're already lost," the Doctor said. "But, since I'm here and at your mercy –" the smile turned mocking, Darrell's hands curling around the fingers of his gun just in case. "Why don't you enlighten me what all this is for?"
Abigail looked into the shadows to Joan who shook as she clicked a button that lowered the blinds and plunged the room into a darkness that was broken by the large TV clicking on, showing Joshua Naismith on his bed. The work Dr Gulshara Alieva had done worked in the fact it eased the pressure on his internal organs and took away some of the extra technology that normal surgeons and scientists hadn't been able to remove. However, he was still sleeping – or comatose. Nothing they had tried worked in waking him up, and his body was beginning to fail again. Skin grey, puncture wounds from the IV and nutrient bags not healing, worry clawed at Abigail's chest and finally forced her to make the last step she had been putting off.
"What in the world?" The Doctor murmured, staring at the TV, bewildered. "That's a Cyberman."
"My father," she snapped. "Not a Cyber."
"Why wasn't he transported with the others? Why did he stay here?"
She straightened. "I was able to have his connection to the other Cybers broken. I believe that's why he didn't disappear when the others did."
"It might've been kinder for him if he had," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "Rassilon, the poor man. What have you done to him?"
"We have undone the damage that Lumic did," Abigail replied, sharply. "I'm trying to save him."
"You're mutilating his corpse," he said, mouth pulled back in distaste. "I'm sorry, Abigail, but your father died eight years ago. That's just his shell. You're keeping an empty shell alive."
"That. Isn't. True."
"Yes, it is." The Doctor turned his head from the TV to look at her. "He had a full conversion. That means that everything that made him human – emotions, memories, pain – it was scooped out of him and replaced with cybernetics. Even if you were successful in removing every piece of technology in him, you can't replace the organic parts that were taken. His mind...it's beyond repair."
"People survive with only half of their brains at times, they –"
"Are completely different cases," he interrupted. "The Cybermen take very specific parts of the brain. Their operation is delicate. Imagine it like someone is working on your computer's hard drive. You want to take out the connections that will create problems with the new software so you pull them out, leave it empty, or replace it with new wiring. Same body, different hardware."
Her chin wobbled, and she pressed her molars tightly together. "You can fix him."
"If Pete told you that, he's lying," the Doctor said. "I can't fix this."
"You're the Doctor."
"That's just my name, it's not actually indicative of a medical degree," he replied. "Has all of this been for saving your father? Oh, Abigail, I'm so sorry."
"I thought you might say that," Abigail said, refusing to let his sympathy affect her. "We need parts of my father's brain that we can't get from anyone else."
He winced. "Why do I get the feeling you've tried that idea? How many have you killed in pursuit of this?"
"Enough."
"Too many," he corrected. "What have you done to yourself?"
"I've become the woman I need to be," Abigail replied. "But we're not here to talk about me, Doctor. I brought you here to talk about what you're going to do for me."
"Well, colour me curious," the Doctor said. "Go on then, what do you need? I mean, I should tell you now I won't do it but, for curiosity's sake, let's here it."
"I need the parts to fix my father's brain," she told him. "We can't grow them, we can't replicate them, but we can graft what was taken by the Cybermen onto his brain. It won't be perfect, I know that. I know he won't be the same, but he'll be alive and he'll be with me."
"If you can't grow them or replicate them from someone else's brain, where do you plan to get them from?"
She smiled. "Don't you know?"
"Clearly not." The Doctor stared at her, and she enjoyed the feeling of being in control, of knowing more than he did. "Come on, tell me your grand plan. Don't leave me waiting in anticipation like this."
"I'm going them from him," Abigail said. "Or, rather, the alternate version of him."
The Doctor froze, processing, before he started laughing. The sound of his laughter rolled through the office and her pleasure turned to ice in her veins, the smile dripping from her face, colour climbing up her neck and into her face. She wanted to hide under the table and scream at him to stop. The mockery of it, the sheer delight he felt at hearing her plan, mortified her. Sensing her distress, Darrell removed the baton from his side and flicked it open, whipping it across the side of his face. His laughter stopped, blood flooding from the welt on his cheek and up his forehead; the brown of his hair grew damp with it, trickling down the side of his face.
Despite his injury, his eyes remained bright with laughter.
"Well..." he said, working his jaw, tongue licking the blood from the corner of his mouth. "That's certainly an ambitious plan. I wish you the best of luck with it."
"You clearly misunderstanding me," Abigail told him, fingers knotted into fists over her stomach. "You're going to take me there. I know you're working on a way to get back to your universe. The sublumal tunnel."
"Subliminal," he corrected. "You are remarkably well informed."
"Thank you."
"But you're not coming with me."
"I wouldn't be going, of course not," Abigail replied. "You'll take Darrell with you."
"He's definitely not coming with me."
"Doctor." Her legs twitched, the urge to stand flooding her, and she did, rising to her full height and letting her hands steeple on the desk in front of her. "Let me put this into words that you can clearly understand. Darrell, it's time."
"Excellent," Darrell said.
He stepped around the Doctor, gun pulled from its holster, and he pointed it. The echo of the gun shot vibrated through the room followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting the ground, blood leaking from the back of Joan's ruined head.
"What the hell did you do that for?" The Doctor raged. "She worked for you! She was one of yours! Why would you do that?"
"She'd outlived her usefulness, and in her death, she was able to provide one very important lesson to you," Abigail told him. "I want you to see how serious I am."
"I see how mad you are," he said through clenched teeth. "I'm not going to help you."
"Yes, you will," she replied. "Because the next time I give the order for Darrell to teach you a lesson, it'll be with the gun pointed at Jackie Tyler."
Cold fury burned up from his toes, racing up through him, bringing the storm in its wake. The Doctor levelled such a glare at her that she wanted to run and hide from him, remaining in place only through sheer terror. At Joan's side, Darrell remained unbothered and unbowed by the crackle of energy and rage in the room.
"Give me what I want," Abigail said, "and Jackie lives."
The Doctor let his gaze fall to the floor before slowly lifting back to her.
"You have no idea who you're dealing with."
"Neither do you," Abigail said. "Take him to his cell. Let him think about our conversation. Keep him drugged. Keep him under guard. Doctor, when you're ready to see sense, we'll talk."
The Doctor snarled, "go to hell."
The only thing that kept him from trying to break his wrists to free himself of the restraints, the drug in his system refusing to be metabolised as such things normally were, was the thought that Fei was with Jackie.
He would keep her safe or die trying.
Of that he was certain.
London far behind them, the landscape of the motorway streaming past the windows as Fei's beat-up car hurtled down the road, overtaking at speed, the speedometer vibrating with the force of their flight. She hadn't been overly worried when Fei burst into the house yelling her name. Rather like the Doctor, he viewed a closed door as a suggestion rather than anything serious and he had received a key to stop him waking Jackie in the middle of the night when he appeared in his pyjamas to talk something over with the Doctor. Finished packing for their trip to Yorkshire, Jackie had been in the kitchen making some sandwiches for them to snack on in the car, knowing the Doctor wouldn't be bale to handle the unfriendliness of a train on their unpleasant anniversary.
Now, hours after Fei's fractured and panicked explanation that the Doctor had been kidnapped – of course – she was sitting in the passenger seat of his car, wondering what was going to happen next. It seemed fitting that he would let himself get kidnapped on the anniversary of the date that they arrived, as though a trip to Yorkshire wasn't enough to mark the occasion. She pressed her fingers to the hollow of her throat, twisting the necklace her sister had given her when Rose was born, and her knee started bouncing.
The silence beginning to weigh down on her, she looked around at him. "Where are we goin' again?"
"A safe house." Fei pulled out to overtake a lorry, foot pressing harder against the accelerator. "With Torchwood down, hopefully there'll be other people there. If not, I guess we're on our own."
"To do what?"
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. "I don't know. I've never done this before. I was hoping you might know what to do."
"Not really," she admitted. "I'm not my girls."
"No, but you raised them." He glanced at her, pale and a little sick. "There's got to be something in you that knows what to do."
Her knee bounced harder. "You're overreactin'. The Doctor'll have this sorted in no time. It's what he does. We didn't need to leave London."
"He told me to get you to the safe house so that's what I'm doing," Fei said, fingers flexing on the steering wheel. "He wants to know you're safe. Worrying about you isn't going to help him do whatever it is he's doing."
Jackie remained silent at that, letting her mind replay all the times the Doctor's everything dragged her into chaotic situations. The most useful example she could bring to mind was of when Lorna appeared in her flat in the middle of the night, scaring the shit out of her, though that was Jack's situation more than the Doctor's. And it wasn't like she had known what to do then. All she had done was get herself and Lorna to Sarah-Jane and hope that that was safe enough. Since Sarah-Jane didn't exist in this universe – or rather she had but she had died in a war zone when she was reporting on a story, getting caught in an IED, dying two weeks later in a hospital in Germany – Jackie wasn't sure who to turn to for help.
The reminder of how reliant she was on the Doctor made her knee bounce harder.
They travelled in taut silence for another three hours, speaking only when a thought passed through their minds that they needed to share, before Fei turned off onto a slip road in Devon. Following winding roads through pastoral land and passing through smaller and smaller towns until they entered Tiverton, Jackie sailed through the five stages of grief. She wanted to be in Yorkshire, listening to the Doctor potter around the cottage, talking a hundred miles a minute, shouting jokes to her through the walls of the house. She worried, even as she felt silly doing so, that she wasn't going to see him again.
There was no Zoe to rescue him from evil clutches this time. No Jack to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him.
He was alone.
All he had was her, and she was no help at all.
Fei peered through the windscreen, muttering to himself in Mandarin, until he found the road he was looking for. The car moved carefully through the town, down the main street and past the library, around the back of the train station before pulling up to a battered looking garage that started to open when she input a code into his new phone – a burner in case anyone was tracking them by their phones, which meant she had had to leave hers behind on the kitchen counter. She watched the doors retract and darkness engulf them as he pulled the car inside and applied the handbrake. The engine fell silent, and Jackie could hear the beat of her heart in her ears.
"This is the safe house?" Jackie asked, looking out of the window. "It's not the TARDIS, is it?"
"Sorry," he apologised. "I'm fresh out of alien space ships."
A smile crept onto her face. "You gettin' to sound like the Doctor, you are."
"Worse people to sound like," Fei said. His face caught the thin beams of dying light that came through the slats in the roof, falling across the sharp features of his face, dark hair swept back. She was glad she wasn't alone. "Come on. We should get inside."
"Inside where?"
"This is a private safe house that the Preachers used back in the day," he explained, opening his door. "They vamped it up a bit."
Jackie didn't know what that meant, but she climbed out of the car. Taking her bag from the boot, the Doctor's packed bag useful for Fei who had only the clothes on his back, she let him carry it over his shoulder. Their arms brushed together when he fumbled through the dirt and rust to find an old lift shaft that looked recently disturbed. In her mind, Jack Harkness whispered to her, telling her to be on her guard: friend or foe could be down there, check your corners and doors. Tentatively, she stepped into the rickety cage, the door screaming as Fei pulled it shut, and she yelped, startled, when the lift started to descend.
Mouth dry with the tacky taste of adrenaline, she reached out and took Fei's hand.
The Doctor talked a load of nonsense 82% of the time, but he was right about one thing: life was always better having a hand to hold.
Fei swallowed and looked down at their joined hands, squeeing her fingers lightly. "We might be the only ones here. But we can figure out what's going on from here."
"We're not," Jackie said. "Someone else is here. Don't know if they're good though."
"How do you know that?"
The explanation of the carefully distributed dust and dirt, the strategically arranged items intended to clatter when the lift was approached, and the fingerprint on the lift's button was too long for her to find the energy to explain.
"Just do," she said instead. "Don't do anythin' stupid."
"I'm not that much like the Doctor," Fei assured her, and she smiled.
The lift opened and, through the rusted grating, guns were pointed at them. Ricky Smith swore, relief evident in the furious avalanche of blue words he released that earned him a slap around the ears from Rita, and Jake pulled the grates open, dragging Fei into a hug that included a strong pound on the back and a cupping of the face. Jackie went straight to Rita, embracing her tightly, letting herself sink into the familiar smell of her, pretending for a moment that she was visiting her for the Sunday dinner they had missed that day.
"It's real good to see you both," Ricky said, hugging Jackie once Rita released her. "Yasmin sent the word out, said that shit was going down. The Doctor?"
"He's been taken," Fei replied, stepping back and reaching for Jackie's hand again, their fingers brushing, before he pulled back, embarrassed. "He let himself get kidnapped to find out what was going on. He was angry. Really angry. They – whoever they were, they killed Georgiana."
Jake hissed, furious. "Bastards. Sorry, Gran."
"I'll allow it," Rita said. "Where's the poor dear now?"
"I don't know." Fei opened his palm and Jackie's slid against his, their fingers linked loosely together. "He had to leave his phone behind. They gave him a proper pat-down that he seemed to enjoy."
"Wherever he is, he's fine," Jackie said, hearing herself speak but not feeling it. "He's been taken prisoner before. It never sticks. Not with him."
"Good," Ricky nodded, eyeing her for a moment before gesturing around the room. "This place is secure. It's one of the old Preacher dens we used to have when London was too dangerous to stay. After Lumic started wiping us out, we were stuck in London but these places remained hidden. It was Mrs Moore's idea. She thought we might need them again one day. I thought she was being paranoid, but I guess she was right."
"We heard on the news," Fei started, "about her arrest. It's nonsense, right?"
"Without a doubt." Jake led them over to the centre of the room where multiple computers were set up and linked into each other. "This is a right bloody stitch up is what this is. They haven't announced it yet but guess who the new Torchwood Director is?"
Jackie's heart dropped into her stomach. "No."
"Sorry," he apologised, grimacing. "It's Pete."
"Are you serious?" Fei squeezed her hand and stepped closer to her. "He was removed for a reason."
"And now he's back," Jake said. "Don't know the why of it yet, but we'll figure it out. Whatever today was about, it's clear they've been planning it for a while. How smoothly everything happened – a private army came into our home, killed Georgiana, and took the Doctor. And instead of it being front page news, what we've got is Mrs Moore's arrest. Whoever organised this, they've got connections right up in government and the police. Just like Lumic."
"He's dead, right?" Jackie asked, worried. "I mean, you checked that he's properly dead, didn't you?"
"He's definitely dead, Zoe killed him." A full-body flinch ripped through Jackie, colour draining from her face and Jake stared at her. "Er – you didn't know that, did you?"
She opened her mouth to agree but nothing came out.
"He was already dead," Fei assured her, voice low and soft. "Zoe disabled the system control in his system. She deactivated the thing inhabiting his body. She didn't kill the man."
"You knew?"
"It's in the files of that night," he said, thumb rubbing over her knuckles. "I didn't think you didn't know."
Jackie swallowed and passed a hand over her face. "Things don't always stay dead."
"He did," Ricky told her. "The building blew up after Zoe kil – deactivated him. We found fragments of teeth that belonged to him during the cleanup. He's definitely dead."
"Which means it's someone else," Jake said. "There's someone else out there pulling the strings and doing this. Someone who wants the Doctor for something that we don't know and who wants Pete back at Torchwood. We need to figure out what it is."
"All the work you lot have been doing," Rita said, sadly. "They're going to ruin it."
"We'll not going to let them," Ricky replied, looking at the small ragtag group around him and deciding he had done more with worse odds. "We're going to rescue the Doctor and break Angela out of prison, dethrone Pete, and find out who's behind this mess. And then, when we're done, we're going to get the Doctor and Jackie home. The Preachers are back up and running."
Jake drummed his hands against the desk and stood. "I'll put the kettle on then."
Turning away from them, letting her hand fall from Fei's, Jackie clutched her necklace in her hand and thought she was further away from home than ever.