Wolf Pact
Chapter Three: Broadfell Prison
by Lumendea
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.
…
The whole thing was burned out, it was a ruin of stone, wood, and ash with a strange smell lingering in the air. As they stepped out of the TARDIS Rose's nose wrinkled against her own will. She'd seen worse, but something here made her stomach try to turn. Something was off in the air as she followed the Doctor out of the TARDIS and into the burned-out ruin. He paused for the moment and looked around the ruin with a frown before moving forward as if drawn to something.
"What happened here?" Jenny asked in a soft worried voice. "Something…. Feels wrong."
"Yeah," Rose agreed softly with a nod. "I can feel it too."
Jenny stepped forward and part of the wall beside her began to crumble. Reaching out Rose tugged her back and wrapped an arm around her.
"Careful," Rose cautioned in a low voice. "This place is probably blocked off from the damage."
Ahead of them the Doctor was ducking down and looking at something further below.
"What's he doing?" Jenny asked even as she sniffed the air with a distasteful look. "And what is that smell."
"He's looking for something," Rose observed before she stepped forward to follow. "Mind your step."
Some of the stone was intact and Rose was fearful that they had landed on an upper floor. Usually, the TARDIS avoided anywhere that wasn't safe, but sometimes in an emergency, she took whatever she could get. Glancing out through the burned out remains Rose could see a chain link fence blocking off the site. Light from some old standing street lamps and what looked like security posts was still shining into the area giving them enough light to navigate by, but also casting strange shadows all around them.
Rose had enough experience to tell that this hadn't just been a simple fire. Sure it might have ended as a fire and been put out as such, but bits of stone and some of the walls had clearly been affected by a shockwave first. There had been some kind of explosion and whatever the cause it had left that odd smell lingering in the stone and debris.
The Doctor suddenly shifted and moved forward with both Rose and Jenny following him. He headed down a flight of stone steps into a half-collapsed lower cavern. Rose looked at the walls and frowned, this section looked more dug and carved out then it did build from stone. She wondered just where they were, but didn't want to ask.
There were strange burn marks on the walls in a strange circular pattern. In her time as a Torchwood agent in the other universe, Rose had seen plenty of burned out buildings and learned to recognise some blast patterns of common energy weapons. It wasn't the sort of thing that a fireman would know, but she frowned at the small burns in the wall. Not just an explosion then, something a bit more complex.
"Something exploded here," Jenny observed next to her as the Doctor moved to the furthest point in the room they could access. There was a pile of crumbled stone that was out of place with the rest of the debris from the collapsing floors above and Rose looked up towards what was left of the ceiling nervously. "And that smell is stronger down here."
"He always was clever," the Doctor muttered as he picked up one of the off coloured rocks and sniffed it. "And with his hypnotic effect, he kept hold of some of them even after death. Only he would build a cult in the event of his own death, why didn't I check?" The Doctor stood up and ran a hand through his hair in agitation. "He's back, we're too late. TARDIS couldn't get through into the energy distortion. He's caused major ripples with this stunt, but he never did care about any of that."
"Who, Dad?" Jenny asked as she stepped forward with a stubborn look. "What is going on?"
"The Master is back," the Doctor explained as he tossed the rock against the wall and watched it bounce with a tight frown. "He's been resurrected somehow," he sniffed at the air again. "But something's gone wrong. You can smell it in the air can't you Jenny, that odd touch of ozone and something else, something rotten."
"Yeah, Mum can too," Jenny informed him and the Doctor glanced at Rose with surprise on his face, but it vanished quickly. "What is that?"
"They pulled energy from the air and themselves, probably destroying their own molecular structure in order to rebuild his, but if it had been completed probably there shouldn't be that rotten smell." The Doctor nodded to himself, "But we can use that, we can track him with that." The Doctor swallowed and nodded to himself as he became to cross the room back to the stairs. "Come on."
"Dad?" Jenny called as she turned, but stayed in place. "What is going on?"
"Jenny we haven't got time-"
"I know only a little bit about the Master," Jenny reminded him as she crossed her arms over her chest. "And I'm a baby Time Lady, something that didn't exist last time you met him. Don't you think it's possible that I need to know a bit more about him."
"She has a point," Rose offered nervously with an uncomfortable glance between the equally stubborn father and daughter. "Doctor I don't know enough about the Master to guess how he might react to a female."
An odd almost panicked expression crossed the Doctor's face, but he calmed quickly and shook his head. Jenny looked more than a little worried about Rose's remark, but both could see the focus of her concerns.
"He's insane," the Doctor offered weakly. "I don't know how to explain him beyond that Jenny. He's brilliant, but looking into the Time Vortex as a child… well, it broke something inside of him. While I've lived my life trying to help others, trying to solve problems and leave things a little better he's always sought power. He's even threatened the safety of the universe on several occasions." The Doctor shook his head and sighed, "And he was the only other survivor."
"Dad," Jenny called to drag him out of his thoughts. "You- you don't talk much about the end of the Time War, is there anything I should know before I'm up against him. Just in case."
"Gallifrey…" the Doctor stopped again and took a deep breath, shoving his hands into his pockets. "It's gone from this universe, but it wasn't destroyed."
"What?" Jenny questioned. "But I thought."
"Gallifrey and the Dalek fleet are locked away," Rose said gently, coming up beside Jenny and putting an arm around her. "Your father used a powerful device to trap them in a… bubble to keep the war from continuing to affect the rest of the universe."
The Doctor looked at her with a strange heartbroken expression. Maybe it was too much for him to hear someone else explain, maybe it was the sudden reminder that his human self had told her everything or maybe it was hearing what he'd done from her lips. Rose gave Jenny a quick one-armed hug before she carefully crossed the burned-out building, stopping in front of the Doctor.
"Rose," he whispered as she brought her hand over to his and twined their fingers together. "I-"
"It's okay," Rose whispered as she leaned up on her tiptoes. "I know Doctor, you had to. For the sake of everything else you had to."
The Doctor pulled her against him and wrapped his free arms around her, tightening his grip on her hand. Rose brought her free hand up to his neck and brushed gently at the hairs at the back of his neck. They stood there for some time with Jenny remaining silent behind them. Then the Doctor turned his head and caught her lips. It began as a simple brush of mouths, but he released her hand, cupped her chin and deepened the kiss. Rose groaned as the Doctor attacked her mouth and shifted her hand into his hair. There was a small squeak behind them that some part of Rose's brain remembered was Jenny.
Then it was over and the Doctor pulled his lips away from her. He was staring at her face with a soft, but unreadable look. Rose began to say something, but the Doctor leaned forward and kissed her forehead in an achingly gentle kiss. He took her hand again and squeezed it tightly for a moment before releasing it. Then he stepped away from Rose and turned his attention back to Jenny who moved towards them, stopping just in front of her father.
"There's a prophecy that I'm going to die," the Doctor informed Jenny calmly in an almost cold voice that made his daughter flinch.
Jenny looked at him in a painful blend of confusion, disbelief, and anger. Before he could say anything else, Rose stepped over next to the girl and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. It seemed to do the trick as Jenny swallowed and took a deep breath.
"Do you think it's true?" she questioned in a soft voice that reminded them both of just how young she really was.
"I normally don't put much faith in prophecies," the Doctor admitted before his eyes travelled to Rose. "But I've come across far too many that proved to be real to dismiss it." He kicked at the ground but didn't drop his eyes away from Jenny's wide blue ones. "And I've received the prophecy from a few places. This is… whatever is happening on Earth with the Master is the trigger."
"And you don't think you're going to make it," Jenny whispered with wide eyes. Then she leapt away from Rose and threw her arms around her Dad. "I don't want you to go," she whispered. "I don't want it to be true."
Swallowing thickly, the Doctor looked over at Rose who was watching them with a sad and tender look. He thought back to their earlier kiss in the TARDIS, his lips had still been carrying a hint of her warmth even as he'd explored the ruins. And now he could still taste her, feel the ghost of the feel of her against him and he was quite certain that the memory of it was part of why he was staying so calm. He didn't want to go either, not now, not that he and Rose finally had found some peace with each other. He didn't want this to be the end of his story of his song. He didn't want to write yet another tragic story with her even if it gave him hope that whatever he began next would at least have Rose Tyler.
"I don't want to go either," the Doctor admitted as he brought his arms up around Jenny, grasping his daughter's shoulders. "I don't want to lose this life and body."
Then he hugged Jenny, pulling the girl tight against him. She hesitated, but then brought her arms up, grasping at the back of his coat tightly. He looked back at Rose and allowed himself to get lost in her eyes. She was waiting for something he realised; waiting to see what he would do here. Suddenly he felt so very young and small compared to her. She'd lived out a whole life and been facing her death, her only human death with calm clarity with her family around her. Rose might have been younger than him, but he suddenly felt that she was so so much wiser in the ways of the world. It was frightening and humbling, especially teamed with the aching certainty that his time was coming to an end.
"It will be okay Jenny," he whispered to his daughter. He took his eyes off of Rose and pulled back so he could look down into his daughter's face. "Even if this is the end of this life I want to you to remember what I told you about regeneration."
"But you'll be different," Jenny whined in a pained voice as a few tears escaped her eyes. She sniffed loudly as she struggled to control herself and added, "We're happy now, even you and Mum are happy. I don't want it to change."
"Change is natural," the Doctor forced out even if part of him just wanted to whine and pout along with his little girl, but he had to be her father right now. "It's scary for me too," he admitted to her with one of the most honest expressions Jenny had ever seen on his face. "But you are a part of me Jenny, you carry a part of so many different lives of mine," he whispered as he toyed with a strand of her blonde hair and looked into her blue eyes. "I won't abandon you, I promise you that. If I do regenerate then please be patient with whoever I become next. It's always an adjustment, always a process of discovering how all the pieces fit together."
"I'll do my best," Jenny promised softly.
The Doctor nodded and leaned forward to kiss her forehead gently. "I love you, Jenny," he told her softly only to get a surprised look from her. "I'm rubbish at saying it, just ask your Mum," the Doctor said with a sad chuckle. "But I do and I'm proud of you. You're so clever and determined and you're a better person than I am."
"No, I'm not," Jenny argued, shaking her head. "You're amazing, Dad."
"It's a struggle for me," the Doctor replied with a huff. "I'm not half as good as I wish I was, not half as good as my girls deserve," the Doctor added with a glance towards Rose.
"Is it better to be naturally good without struggle?" Rose asked from behind Jenny as she moved through the wreckage with a soft expression. "Or better to struggle against the darkness to be a better person?"
"We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are," Jenny added with a watery smile. "I'm proud of you too Dad."
"Finally finished Harry Potter then," the Doctor observed with a small smile.
"Yeah, figured I could put aside the history books for a bit," Jenny replied with a shrug.
"So," Rose said as she walked over to join them, leaning up to kiss the Doctor's cheek in a soft lingering kiss. "Any idea how to track the Master."
"He's burning up, whatever Lucy did to him while he was being recreated it caused things to go horribly wrong," The Doctor explained with a shudder. "Ugly and twisted, but I can track it."
"Right then," Jenny muttered as she reached up and brushed away some tears. "Let's go, Dad."
