I would also like to apologise for the little typos and mistakes in the first chapter. I hope it still managed to make sense.
Jack's day had gone from bad to worse. When he'd woken from his faint, he had been forced to drink something that Kim had insisted was coffee, although it obviously wasn't. Shortly afterwards he passed out again and woke up to find himself being dragged along a corridor on a metal trolley. He automatically began struggling but found that he was strapped securely to the trolley. Unable to think of anything else, Jack began to scream his head off. Where the hell was Rose? This was all her fault anyway - just because she wanted to go an a ridiculous mission to find her beloved Doctor, who had probably died years ago and his jacket leftfor them as a trick by these crazy androids. He dreaded to think what they intended to use the feather duster for. "Rose! Help! Help me, dammit. Heeeeeeeeeeelllllllllpppp!" Jack's throat was on fire from screaming, but he carried on, even though his hope was diminishing.
His stylised image of Rose coming to rescue him dressed in a skintight black leather catsuit and wielding an enormous machine gun faded abruptly as he was pulled into another dark room. Suddenly all Jack could do was think about the feather duster. Then the lights came on and he saw what was going to happen to him. All thought of Kim's feather duster flew out of his head in that moment and he started screaming again, despite his raging throat.
"We've lost him!" sighed Rose. She stopped running and looked behind her to see the Doctor labouring to keep up with her, wheezing with the effort. "Doctor!" She ran to help him. He leaned against her heavily for support and Rose realised how weak he was. What had he said about this regeneration thing? That he had died and had to rebuild his entire body. It made sense that he needed some time to recover from that.
She guided him to the wall of the corridor and helped him down gently, so his back was resting against the wall. "Rest, Doctor, just for a bit."
"I'm fine," he protested, but made no attempt to get up and instead leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. Rose was right - he was weaker than he'd ever been after a regeneration, and he thought he knew why. Before, he'd always had some kind of companionship - to help him get back on his feet and resume normality. But here, on Satalite 5, the Doctor had only had himself for company for all these weeks, trying to stay sane, and avoidthose wretched robots - especially the Trinny and Susannah ones. There seemed to be hundreds of them wandering around on the satalite, cropping up like bad pennies...or bad wolves. He shuddered, struggled to chase away the deep feelings of horror and pain that had accompanied his latest death.
He'd heard the TARDIS leaving, as the golden light exploded all around him, and it seemed that with every wheeze and groan the time machine was taking a piece of his heart with it.
The Doctor looked at Rose and smiled at her, thinking that he'd smiled more in the last hour than he had in the last 6 weeks. He reached out and took her hand, squeezing it, already feeling stronger no wthat she was back with him. "I'm fine," he repeated. He suddenly thought of suggesting that they just leave Jack and go away in the TARDIS...like before. But he saw the worry in her face and knew that Rose cared as much for Captain Jack Harkness as much as she cared for the Doctor. The old Doctor, that was, she obviously wasn't sure about his new self yet. He wasn't sure if he was either, for that matter. Rose squeezed his hand feebly. She was scared. Scared to trust him, and scared of her own feelings.
"Rose, I only look different - I'm still the same on the inside." She didn't look reassured. "It'll be alright, I promise. It'll get better." I hope, he added mentally.
"It's just a lot to take in...that's all." Rose's hair was overshadowing her face, and the Doctor wasn't sure if she was crying.
"Rose? Rose, look at me," After a few moments, she did. She hadn't been crying, but she looked like she was about to: her lip quivered, and bright tears glistened in he eyes. "I'm still the same, Rose. Trust me. You learnt to trust me when the Nestenes tried to take over your planet, you have to learn again."
"I want to," she whispered, "I really do..."
The Doctor suddenly broke into a grin - the same grin, just with a different mouth - and for an instant, Rose saw a shadow of the Doctor's former self flit across his face. Then it was gone again. "Then come on. I think I might have a plan..."
Rose grinned back. Maybe she didn't need to relearn how to trust him - maybe she was already there. "Fantastic!"
"So what are we going to do?" Rose bubbled excitedly. It had been a long time the Doctor had taken control and saved the day and she was struck with a feeling of reverence - this is how things should be, she thought happily, it was never meant to be me and Jack giving an improvised performance and messing everything up - it's the Doctor's job to fix everything, not ours.
"Shh. You'll see." The Doctor lifted a finger to his lips, the plan still hiding behind brown eyes. He still liked to be as mysterious then - that hadn't changed, and probably never would, unless he regenerated into Jim Broadbent...Rose stifled a hysterical giggle at this thought, while in front of her the Doctor suddenly swerved and shot through a door into a room that was surprisingly light and cheerful. "Welcome to my workshop," he announced proudly, before diving into a pile of what looked like a mixture of cooking utensils and bits of defunct robots.
"Wow!" was all Rose could think of to say as she looked around her. It was horrifically untidy, that was true, but it also reflected the Doctor's personality perfectly. Her gaze caught on something that looked familiar and she walked over to it, unable to resist reaching out to touch the eyestick, to run her hands over the round dome of the decapitated dalek's head. The smooth metal was bitingly cold under Rose's fingers, and she removed her hand quickly. "Doctor, what are you looking for?"
"This!" he said triumphantly, pulling a small device out of the pile of junk. It looked like a TV remote control. Rose was almost too astounded to say anything.
"Right. So what are you going to do with that?"
"You'll find out. Now just be quiet for a bit so I can concentrate." To Rose's horror, he whipped out the sonic screwdriver and began prodding at the remote control device.
5 minutes later she was getting quite agitated and began to pace the floor impatiently. "How long is this gonna take? Jack could be dead by now. Doctor?" He was standing and staring at the little gadget, studying it. Suddenly he snapped a panel in place and tightened a couple of screws. "It's done...come along."
"Will it work?" Rose eyed the device doubtfully as they walked out of the door and back out into the corridor.
"Of course it will work!" The Doctor seemed shocked at the very suggestion that his toy wouldn't work, and he glared at her reproachfully. Despite being so worried about the Captain, Rose had to giggle at the Doctor's expression, and when the Doctor held out his hand for her to take, she took it, trusting him. They ran, hand in hand, to rescue their lost team member.