Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Part 1 The Interview

Author – Antimorph

Rating – 15 but not for sex. Sorry guys..

Summary – Dr Who/LoM X-over. Gene has questions that Jack can't answer, the Doctor has answers to the questions Sam just won't ask, and Rose has a sneaking suspicion (and a crush on Chris).

Part 1 – The Interview

Author's note – This is very slightly AU, just to make it work. Jack was rescued after the Xmas Invasion, and Sam never made that joke. Thanks for the interest and the ideas (I hadn't even thought about Genes reaction to the TARDIS!), comments and criticism appreciated, blah blah.

Oh, and this looks like it might be a long one. Sorry!

And now. Are you sitting comfortably?

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Shopping. Bloody, damned, blasted shopping. The Doctor glared at the TARDIS' doors and counted to three under his breath before shouting:"Rose! If you don't hurry up we'll leave without you!"

There was a muffled reply from the direction of the Doctor's colossal wardrobe and he sighed.

"Any luck?" asked Jack, emerging from behind the control room computers with a slightly guilty grin.

"No. This is all your fault, you know."

Jack shrugged. The Doctor was the one who'd thought it a good idea to take Rose, and Jack, somewhere they could relax and get to know each other without the threat of imminent death by aliens. He'd thought it was a good idea to take them out so they could get to know the new him, post regeneration. The Doctor who wore brown suits and liked a bit of a joke and had a slight Scottish accent rather than the leather-jacketed manic-depressive they'd come to know and, well, know. It never was easy, after a regeneration, and it always required time to adjust. He'd thought somewhere neutral would be a good idea.

It was Jack who'd suggested the 70s. The one decade where, he was certain, nothing weird and otherworldly had happened. The Doctor hadn't bothered to correct him, and Rose had continued to look sceptical until Jack had added that fatal word.

We could go shopping, he'd said. Genuine vintage clothes at genuine seventies prices. And, he'd added, the Doctor couldn't complain. Not in that suit he couldn't.

Rose finally emerged wearing – the Doctor sighed again – 1990's imitation 70s flares, her union jack t-shirt and a scarf. Well at least the scarf was authentic, the Doctor mused. It had been his after all, although he'd ditched it along with the perm.

"Can we go now?" he asked, still irritated. Jack cleared his throat in an ominous manner. "What?"

"I might have kind of upset the navigation system when I tried that upgrade. Only a bit!" he added hurriedly as the Doctor scowled at him.

"So when are we?"

Jack shrugged, still mostly cheerful.

"1973, but we're not in London. Doesn't look like Cardiff, though."

The Doctor pushed past him to stare at the screen.

"There's more to Britain than London and Cardiff, you know. We're in Manchester."

"Oh, the soccer team, I remember." The Doctor shook his head at a lost cause.

"Looks like the back of Tibbs Street. They do have shops in Manchester, you know." he added at Rose's dissapointed expression. She grinned back.

"Well then, what're we waiting for?"

Sam was having yet another bad day. In fact, he'd had so many now that he was beginning to forget what a good day looked like, but he was willing to bet that this wasn't it. A good day didn't start with an anonymous call saying that someone was being murdered round the back of Tibbs Street. It didn't start with DCI Hunt bursting into your crappy little bedsit to shout you awake to tell you this, and to hurry the fuck up. And he was certain that a good day didn't start after a particularly nasty nightmare about a certain tv non-personality, and people crying about how he wasn't going to wake up, not ever.

And, if he was even slightly sane, he could be sure that a good day, even an alright-ish kind of a day, didn't include Ray Carling at all.

Ray continued to glower at him from the other side of the van. Hunt had let him come out with them today, the first time since his 'accident' with the drug dealer, and he'd made a point of telling him not to fuck it up. In front of everyone else, just so's he knew where he stood on the social ladder i.e. Right at the bottom, under everyone, even that daft lad Chris, even the plonk. Everyone.

And he wasn't happy about it.

"Right, we're here." Hunt announced as the van skidded to a halt. "Chris, Annie, you're with me. Tyler, you run round the other side, if anyone's still there you can head 'em off. Ray, you have the vital and important job of makin' sure no one nicks the van. Got it?" Ray glared, Sam opened his mouth to object and Gene barked "WELL?" in an extra dangerous voice. No one was stupid enough to comment.

So that was how Sam found himself running down the other end of the alley on his own. If he'd been concentrating more on what he was doing there was a wealth of interesting clues he could've picked up, but he was still practically asleep and it was only the muffled swearing coming from the other end of the alley, accompanied by Gene's angry shout that caught his attention. Obviously someone in the alley didn't want to be caught there.

Sam hurriedly flattened himself against the wall and grabbed one of the blokes as he ran past. The other skidded to a halt and ran back to help his mate but, fortunately for Sam who'd gotten a little worried at this point, by that time Gene and Chris had arrived, albeit out of breath. Sam let Gene grab the other guy and tell him he'd been arrested for suspected murder, at which they both protested, and hauled his off to the van. The little guy, the one Gene had ended up with, didn't struggle, although Gene hauled him anyway on the principle that if you've been arrested you may as well look like it. The other one stopped struggling once his mate was being taken away, for which Sam was pretty grateful.

"Present are D.C.I. Hunt and D.I. Tyler, also D.C. Skelton, that is, er, me-" Chris trailed off and gave the guv a pleading look.

"Enough, Chris. Go on." Gene added, nodding at the door. Sam suppressed an eye roll as Chris nearly walked out with the tape recorder, then remembered. The suspect, the short one in the suit, was lounging back in his chair looking altogether far too comfortable for Sam's liking, and he could tell it was only a matter of time before Gene started shouting again. Sometimes he wished that just one day, one bloody day could go by without Hunt slamming some poor sod against a wall.

"So." Gene intoned ominously, glaring at the suspect the whole while. "Name?" The suspect tried a disarming grin, always a mistake with Hunt around, and shrugged.

"Most people just call me the Doctor." He was fairly well spoken, enough of a rarity around here for Sam to start paying attention, with just a hint of Scot. A bit middle-class, Sam decided.

"I asked for your name." Hunt was getting irritated. Sam steeled himself to interrupt if things started getting out of hand. The 'doctor' looked a bit too thoughtful for a moment before answering;

"Oh, right. Um. Howard."

Gene's eyes narrowed dangerously.

The Doctor swore mentally as the copper glared at him from across the table. He wasn't used to this! Well, alright, he'd been in similar situations, but not in this body. And he couldn't think of any names. Of anybody. Except for aliens with unpronounceable names that would just make him sound mental, or tv personalities that would be far to obvious.

The guy was still glaring and the Doctor mentally calculated how long it would take before the guy snapped. From the look of things not long at all.

"Right, yeah. Howard. Ah..." he tried to think of a name that didn't sound utterly insane, but still ended up with; "Uh, Howard Moon." he tried the grin again, but it wasn't working. The chain-smoking copper with the glare looked like he wanted to hit him, and was a gnat's arse from just reaching across the table. The younger one still looked like he'd been drinking too much coffee lately, only now he had an expression of irritated disbelief. Which quickly changed to puzzlement. Interesting, but probably not relevant, the Doctor decided. Except... Someone had said something important. He felt the familiar little nudge of intuition, a reminder that here was something odd he should be paying attention to, and dutifully paid attention.

"Well, Ah, Howard," Gene began, still to Sam's amazement pretty calm about the whole thing, "I expect you know why you're here." This was 'standard procedure' for round here, mused Sam. Let them know they've done something wrong then wait for them to tell you what it is. The annoying thing was that it worked so often.

"Not really." 'Howard' was doing quite a good job of winding the guv up; Gene now looked positively murderous, but he continued with exceptional patience;

"There was a murder, Mr Ah Howard."

Sam just hoped the guy would spot the signs before it was too late.

"Doctor." the cheeky schoolboy grin didn't fade as he corrected the near incandescent Hunt. That was it. Sam had seen the guy was stupid but he hadn't expected him to be suicidal. D.C.I. Hunt's chair screeched backwards and clattered to the floor as he leaned over the table and pulled 'Howard' out of his seat.

"I don't care," he hissed in a fury "if your name's Mickey fuckin' Mouse, but if you don't tell me what you were doing in that alley when that man was being murdered you-"

"What man?"

Sam decided that now was the time to intervene, before Gene actually ruptured something, and stood up, photos in hand.

"Kevin Donner. Tallish, blond hair. You know him?" Sam spread the photos on the table, allowing Gene a reason to dump the suspect back in his chair without making excuses. 'Howard' obediently looked down at the photos, then back up at Sam.

"Nope. Not a clue, sorry."

Hunt stood up sharply and strode out of the room, Sam following behind.

"Bloody useless. He's not letting anything go that one." the guv remarked, shutting the door. Sam shrugged.

"We could try the other one, he didn't look so ... difficult" Impossible, is what he nearly said. Like talking a blank brick wall. Gene raised an eyebrow at him.

"What, the poofter? If you want, Tyler." Sam strode off to the cells in grumpy silence. It wasn't that he couldn't think of a reply, just that he couldn't think of only one. And Hunt would only say it was instinct anyway.

Jack shifted uncomfortably in the interview room seat. Apparently 70's design hadn't included ergonomics or comfort. They certainly hadn't allowed for Jack, anyway, and his oddly concealed secret arsenal. He shifted position again.

"What's the matter, want me to fetch you a cushion sunshine?" Jack glared right back at the bulky, grumpy looking cop and tried to remember his training. He'd been a cop himself, admittedly a time cop, admittedly not for long (that he could remember, at least) but still, he knew a little about interviews.

"Right, what's your name?" the younger, tired looking one gave him a little resigned smile. Jack smiled back, relieved to know that he had an idea of the script. It was going to be the good cop, bad cop routine. Well, that was simple enough.

"Jack Harkness. And you?" Jack caught the flicker of annoyance that crossed the older man's face, but 'good cop' answered anyway.

"I'm D.I. Sam Tyler, this is D.C.I. Hunt. We're investigating the murder of this man." he spread some photos out on the table. "Have you seen him before?" Jack stared obediently down at the photos, then back up at the young guy's face.

"Well no, not really. Not unless you count the body in the alley." damn, damn damn. Why wasn't he concentrating on what he was saying? The older cop grinned at him nastily.

"What alley was that, Jack? Would that be the alley we caught you running away from?" Jack shrugged non-committally and tried to concentrate on the interview. Angry cop lit a cigarette and Jack watched him as he made a big show of putting the filter to his mouth. Damn. In Jack's book the only thing more attractive than the guy you can't have is the guy who knows you want him.

"Um, well. You know, we just happened to walk through." Damn that sounded lame. Even the younger one, Tyler, looked disbelieving.

"You might as well come clean. Your mate's in the next room, spilling his guts." Ah, now that was the oldest trick in the book, as far as Jack knew. And from Tyler's expression, he knew it too. And he knew that Jack knew.

Oh well, best to play along.

"My mate?"

Sam tried to keep his expression blank and resist the temptation to tell the guv he was wasting his time. Only complete idiots fell for that.

"My mate?" The guy put too much effort into sounding innocent, and Sam wondered if perhaps Hunt was actually onto something here. Certainly his instincts had been right, anyway. Jack's eyes hadn't left Hunt since the man lit his cigarette, he seemed to find it fascinating. Sam would've been insulted, but... No, don't go there. Just be happy Gene hadn't tried to rough the guy up yet.

"Yes, your mate. What was his name now..." Hunt trailed off thoughtfully, snapping his fingers. Sam shrugged, and Jack chipped in with;

"Oh, the Doctor? Doesn't sound like him." Gene gritted his teeth in frustration, and Jack decided to focus on the table instead. No, wait, that looked guilty. Try looking at the other one?

"Yeah, well, I'm pretty good at getting information out of people." Gene continued with a sidelong smirk at Tyler. Jack glanced up at the ceiling – anything to avoid Hunt's stare. The guy was way too suggestive for Jack's liking. Or rather, he did like him. That was the problem. And any more suggestions like that...

"Ah, go easy on him, guv, you know what happened last time." Tyler added, straight faced.

No, that was it, cold water time. Jack tried to concentrate on something else.

"True lad, true. But this one looks a bit sturdier than the last one. Well?" Hunt barked suddenly, making Jack jump. "What's it to be? Are you going to tell us what you were doing in that alley, or" he leaned a little closer across the table "Are things going to get ugly?"

Jack swallowed and allowed himself to glance across at Tyler. Who looked a bit like he wanted to laugh. That made Jack feel a little better. The burly cop wasn't coming onto him, he was just trying to get information out of him, to see how uncomfortable he could make him. Well, two could play at that game.

"What, me and my mate? You want to know what we were doing in that alley? Together?" Jack grinned, Hunt's eyes narrowed. This was it, the little bit of leeway Jack had left before the guy just hauled off and punched him one. He took it. "Well, uhm..." Jack looked at Tyler. He wanted to see the guy's response, and there was no way he could say this one to Hunt with a straight face.

"We were having sex."

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End of part one, part two soon-ish! What d'you think?