Chapter Eighteen
At the sound of the TARDIS doors opening, the Doctor looked up from the screen he had been staring at.
"I need your vortex manipulator, Jack," he said with a brief glance in the direction of one of the two people that had just entered the ship, then went back to typing.
Jack raised an eyebrow. For some reason, something about the Doctor's demand annoyed him. Apparently the Doctor had known that the TARDIS had repaired his vortex manipulator, but that only was to be expected. After all, the TARDIS was his ship. No, what really irritated him was what the Doctor hadn't said.
"'Hello Jack, hello Donna. Nice to see you. I'm glad you survived the storm. Are you all right?'" he said, adopting a fake Northern accent that was dripping with exaggerated concern. He briefly shook his head and continued, this time sounding more like himself again, but unable to completely suppress his anger, "Honestly, Doc, some basic communication skills would do you a world of good. No wonder it took you an eternity to admit your feelings to Rose."
The Doctor finally turned around and glared at him. "You done?"
For Jack, the Doctor's demeanour only served to add fuel to the fire. "Actually, no. You leave me on a space station full of Dalek dust two hundred thousand years in the future because you can't stand to look at me. You leave Donna for a week in a slave camp on Skaro, and afterwards you don't even ask how she is. And now you basically kidnap us and strand us on a planet without as much as a trace of the Time Vortex, in a city about to be hit by a storm that could have destroyed it, where we have to stop a couple of bureaucratic evac officers from deciding who lives or dies based on how they like people's noses while you run off in a fit, and you don't even care how we are, just that I still have my vortex manipulator, because you need it. With friends like you, why would I need enemies?"
Jack fell silent as he realised only now that he still was angry at the Doctor for leaving him behind on Satellite 5. He had told himself, that it didn't matter, that the Doctor had, well, almost apologised to him, but that wasn't true. The betrayal he felt ran deeper than that. He had considered the Doctor a friend, and friends simply didn't leave each other behind on a space station full of Dalek dust and the bodies of people who had died to buy him time.
And this time, it had felt the same. The Doctor had simply stormed off and left them. Even if Jack rationally knew that the Doctor had probably been overreacting to the absence of timelines on this planet, it had felt like being abandoned again.
The Doctor took a breath and seemed to be counting to ten, or maybe ten thousand, to stop himself from shouting at him, even if Jack would probably have felt better if he had.
"Would you please lend me your vortex manipulator, Jack?" the Doctor asked, a slightly scathing undertone in his voice.
The Doctor's questions only served to raise his hackles. "And for what exactly would you need my vortex manipulator? I remember clearly that you told me only a stupid ape would ever use one of them to travel through time and space." Despite his attempts at keeping his voice even, Jack knew he had failed when he saw Donna wince.
"Because I can't take the TARDIS into the headquarters of the Meteorological Service to get the equipment I need to get Rose back." The Doctor was getting louder as well.
"Rose, yes. That's a good point, Doc," Jack bit out, completely ignoring the rest of what the Doctor had said. "Of course you'd do everything for her, which apparently doesn't apply to Donna and me. But tell me one thing: Why the heck didn't you think to secure her to that stupid magnaclamp? Or to the lever, for that matter. Nothing would have happened if you had thought of that."
The Doctor sent him a glare of such absolute fury that Jack wondered briefly why he hadn't dropped dead on the grating. "Don't you think I haven't asked myself that ever since? But we wouldn't have been there in the first place, if your employer hadn't thought it a good idea to play with the Void."
"I didn't have anything to do with that, and you know it. I'm not stupid!"
"Could have fooled me!"
"Oi!" Donna shouted, effectively interrupting the argument. "If the two of you want to behave like three-year-olds with a temper tantrum, I'm sure the TARDIS will find you a nice room where you can throw handfuls of sand at each other."
"No, she won't, because she is too exhausted to even bring us into the Time Vortex at the moment, let alone the headquarters of the Meteorological Service," the Doctor snapped.
"Oh, what did she have to do? Shock some sense into you?" Jack asked scathingly.
"No, she had to anchor me while I was busy saving every sorry ass on this godforsaken planet from a Time Storm," the Doctor gave back heatedly. "None of us would even be here if she hadn't established a connection with Rose to bring Bad Wolf into this universe."
The TARDIS had brought back Bad Wolf? Jack was confused. Did that mean…
"What is a Time Storm? And what do you mean, a connection with Rose?" Donna interrupted Jack's thoughts, looking about as confused as Jack felt. "Does that mean you can get her back?"
"No, Donna, that does not mean I can get her back. That means that she could have died helping me, and at the moment I can't even find out if she is still alive, because as I said, the TARDIS is exhausted."
Donna looked as if she was going to strangle him. "Well, since we are apparently not going anywhere at the moment, I suggest you explain to us why exactly we are not going anywhere at the moment," she snapped.
The Doctor raised his eyes to the ceiling and took a deep breath, apparently clinging to the last shreds of his self-control. Then he bit out, "We are not going anywhere, Donna, because a few idiots on this planet used the power of Time Storms to cross into other universes, and by doing so they almost ripped apart the fabric of reality. The storm warning you got was no ordinary storm, and it had to be stopped, because otherwise it could have ripped the planet apart. And I wouldn't have been able to do that without the TARDIS and Rose as the Bad Wolf anchoring me."
"I still don't understand, Doc. Does that mean, Rose was back in this universe, but is gone again? If she was already here, couldn't you pull her over completely?" Jack asked, trying to remember what exactly the Doctor had told him about that meeting between dimensions thing.
The Doctor shook his head, suddenly looking completely worn out. "It doesn't work like that. Our minds can meet between dimensions, but that doesn't mean that Rose can physically cross the Void. Not without some sort of equipment that could open a passage without harming the integrity of space and time in the process.
"Bad Wolf was only here because the TARDIS and I had been in distress, and the TARDIS decided that bridging the Void and bringing Bad Wolf here was our only chance of survival. But maintaining the connection through the Time Storm cost the TARDIS plenty, which means that until she's healed I can't find out if Rose is alright. I don't even want to imagine what this might have done to her."
"I still don't understand," Jack said. "Why should it hurt Rose? How this is different from what you've already been doing?"
"Because," the Doctor gave back in a tone that clearly indicated that he would have had to bite back a few insults if he hadn't been too exhausted to even think them up, "connecting properly bonded minds that are in the same universe and asleep is easy. But we are in different universes and the bond between us is still developing. Connecting our sleeping minds, even if we are in different universes, works only because both of us share a connection with the TARDIS, even if it is exhausting for my ship. But things get more difficult if we are awake. Connecting us while awake and in the same universe would probably render one or both participants unconscious, connecting us while at least one of us is awake and in another universe might kill the weaker telepath. It's not like using a phone, you know."
Not like phoning someone, indeed, Jack thought, suddenly worried. He just hoped that Rose was alright. Then his thoughts returned to the Time Storm. He'd heard legends about them during his time in the Time Agency, but as with Time Lords he had thought they were exactly that: legends. According to the stories he'd heard, the strongest Time Storms could rip planets apart, and even those who considered themselves the Lords of Time would rather let a Time Storm run its course than face one try to contain it.
And the Doctor had fought it alone. He had to be exhausted from what must have been an almost impossible task, and now he couldn't even convince himself that Rose was alright. Add to that that his beloved ship had suffered as well, and Jack knew why the Doctor was on edge.
"So what are you planning?" he asked, the anger suddenly gone. One day the Doctor and him would have words, but not today. Today there were more important things at stake.
"According to what I found out, the Xerian Meteorological Service still has their dimension crossing equipment, disabled, but most likely still functional," the Doctor said. "I'm gonna take it."
Jack nodded. "Two birds with one stone. Clean up this mess and prevent a repetition, and maybe get the means to get Rose back."
Donna grinned. "I bloody well hope so. More of your moping, Doctor, and I might not be responsible for my actions."
"Oi! Time Lords don't mope!"
Jack grinned. "For someone who doesn't mope you are not half bad at it."
Even the TARDIS threw in an amused, if weak, hum.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Fantastic. My ship and my companions ganging up on me."
"So, what's the plan?" Donna asked.
"As I said before, I need Jack's vortex manipulator. I make a jump, retrieve the equipment, and off we go!"
"Not gonna happen," Jack said.
"Fine. We can go over all of that again, and then I'm probably gonna lose my patience and…"
Jack shook his head. "You're not going into this on your own. You need backup."
"And who says you can carry your dimension-crossing machine on your own?" Donna added, crossing her arms to make her intention at joining them clear and apparently ignoring the existence of the anti-grav unit in Storage Seven.
The Doctor sighed. "Is there anything I can do to convince you to stay here?"
"Nope," Donna and Jack said simultaneously.
"Right. Here's the plan…"
~o~o~o~
She was okay. She had to be.
After what had happened on the plaza, the Doctor had tried to keep himself together, to concentrate on the next part of his plan, despite what joining with the TARDIS to rescue him might have meant for Rose.
But Jack Harkness had wanted reasons he wasn't willing to give, because that would mean having to voice his worries, and then Jack had picked the one point that would shatter his façade, and he had snapped.
She was okay. She had to be.
Without the TARDIS being fully functional, their only means to travel in time or space was Jack's vortex manipulator. Even if time travel was completely out of the question on a planet that had been hit by hundreds of Time Storms during the last decades and barely survived them, they could still use the vortex manipulator to get into the Meteorological Service. But they were running out of time.
Soon the entire Meteorological Service would be alerted to his disappearance, if it hadn't already happened. And that would mean that they would increase the number of guards inside their headquarters, since he hadn't exactly been discreet when hacking them for the first time. Only an idiot wouldn't realise that he would try to steal the dimension-crossing equipment.
And Jack and Donna had decided to waste precious minutes by arguing with him.
She was okay. She had to be.
He clung to the mantra that kept repeating itself in his head. It had to be true, because if it wasn't… He didn't finish the thought, not willing to face even the possibility, and pressed the button on Jack's vortex manipulator.
The three time travellers materialised in a corridor that looked vaguely familiar to the Doctor. For a second he recalled the building plans he had hacked into earlier.
"That way." He pointed to the left.
"As soon as I'm no longer in danger of eating backwards," Donna said, holding herself upright by leaning against the wall. "Compared to this, the TARDIS's bumpy landings are actually smooth…"
"Oi! No insulting my ship!" the Doctor complained. "But you're right. Why take a scooter when you have a sports car?"
Jack raised an eyebrow. "For someone who desperately needed my vortex manipulator you're in severe danger of never using it again."
Eventually Donna had recovered enough to stand without needing support, even if she was still a bit pale. Not one to be stopped by something as trivial as a bit of nausea, she made her way to the next corner, but the Doctor snatched her arm just before she could turn around.
"Careful," he hissed as loudly as he dared. "Even if we know where the ready rooms of the guards are, we've got no idea if they're going on rounds. Besides, everyone working with the Meteorological Service is likely to gather at the headquarters to find out why exactly the Storm died down before it could fully hit the city."
There had been a reason why he had wanted to go on his own. Or better, a couple of them. What he hadn't said was that the Meteorological Service was most likely still looking for him. No government organisation he had ever encountered appreciated it if their prisoners suddenly vanished, having helped to avoid the impending apocalypse or not. Said government organisations also tended to being extremely curious as to why or how their prisoner had been able to do what he had done. Which with surprising regularity led to threats of dissecting him or killing his companions.
"Then why did you land us in the middle of a corridor if it is so dangerous?" Donna asked. "What about a supply closet?"
"Because a vortex manipulator is not exactly a reliable travelling device. I'm surprised we've hit the right part of the building." Otherwise they'd have had a problem because the building was a bloody maze with the main control room at the centre. If they had landed anywhere else, they'd have had to cross one of the corridors adjacent to the control room, and in that case avoiding the Meteorological Service wouldn't have been easy.
They carefully checked every corridor before they entered it, and eventually they were only one corridor away from their destination. Of course at that point they ran out of luck.
Jack was just approaching the corner, when two scientists turned around it and ran directly into the group of intruders.
The Doctor opened his mouth in an attempt to bluff their way into the storage area, but he had only gotten as far as 'hello', accompanied by a friendly wave, when one of the scientists shouted, "Intruders!"
The humanoid in the white lab coat turned around and broke into a run, dragging his colleague with him, shouting for help.
The Doctor didn't waste time. He nodded at Jack, jerking his chin to indicate that Jack should take the left one, and they lunged at the two scientists. Jack hit his target at the temple, caught his body and lowered him to the floor, while the Doctor used something that resembled a Vulcan nerve pinch. The result was the same.
"Sorry about the headache, mate," Jack said to the unconscious form of the scientist he had just knocked out. "Wrong place, wrong time."
"We can't just let them lie around in the corridor," the Doctor said after a short pause. "They'll inform security as soon as they're conscious again."
Donna grinned. "The door over there looks like a broom closet, don't you think?"
Jack laughed. "Oh, I knew I would like you!"
~o~o~o~
The storage area looked like storage areas all over the universe look. There were minimal differences, depending on the technological standard of the relevant society, of course, but all in all, they looked the same. This one was no different, just another high-rise storage that could have been anywhere in the universe.
The storage area consisted of three parts, each with a separately controlled storage system. Unfortunately, the information the Doctor had retrieved from the network didn't tell him in which part the equipment was stored, so they lost almost five minutes looking for the right one. As the Doctor could have predicted, it was the last terminal he checked. Thankfully, the storage system was automated. A few minutes later, dozens of boxes with equipment piled in front of them, and Jack and Donna began to secure the first batch on the antigrav unit they had brought.
The Doctor had just entered the last item number of the dimension crossing equipment to take it out of store, and the system had already begun to move, when he heard something outside. The guards must have found the scientists. And apparently now they had found them. It was only a matter of minutes until the guards would break the locks they'd jammed as soon as they'd entered the storage area.
"Jack, you take the first half of the equipment and Donna back to the TARDIS," he said, keeping his voice even.
"Why?" Donna protested, predictably, while Jack grabbed the antigrav unit with the hand to which his vortex manipulator was attached and pulled it nearer.
"Because they have found the scientists. It won't take them long to realise they have intruders, and given the fact that they arrested me for using a bloody search engine to get information about crossing dimensions, they'll soon figure out what we're after."
"But why do I have to go?"
"Because according to the storage system, the equipment we are after weighs almost two tons," the Doctor explained, a slight strain in his voice. "There's no way Jack's vortex manipulator will be able to carry all of it and us in one go, not even with the antigrav unit we brought."
"Are you saying you think I'm fat?" Donna screeched, and the Doctor could see a slap looming in his near future if he didn't defuse the bomb that was Donna Noble quickly.
"No, Donna, I'm saying I didn't know how much equipment would be there, because that information was stored in a part of the network I couldn't hack without raising an alarm. Besides, three bio signatures are a lot to store for a simple vortex manipulator."
"And why exactly didn't you tell us that before we got here?"
The Doctor sighed. "I wanted you to stay in the TARDIS in the first place, didn't I?"
Donna rolled her eyes and was about to open her mouth in reply, when Jack brought his arm around one of hers. Nodding at the Doctor, he hit a button on his vortex manipulator, and they vanished in a flash of light.
The Doctor wasted no time. He quickly arranged the second part of the equipment in a large pile, covering the boxes with a transport net, creating one single unit to make transmat easier. Then he searched the shelves for equipment that should have been taken out of store but hadn't.
In the meantime, the banging from the doors got louder and eventually multiplied, when more guards reached the second entrance on the opposite end of the room. Unfortunately they'd been a lot less thorough with those locks than they had for the main entrance.
"Damn!"
He knew he was running out of time, but he needed to check the shelves. He'd never be able to come back to Xeriax, especially since his stubborn time ship was dead set against landing here ever again, even if Bad Wolf and he had repaired the cracks in the fabric of reality. On top of that, he had the feeling that acquiring spare parts for this equipment would be even more like looking for a needle in a haystack than finding spare parts for the TARDIS.
The sound of air being replaced by something else alerted him that Jack was back.
"Doc! We don't have time. They'll be through the doors in less than thirty seconds."
Unfortunately Jack was right. And even if the Meteorological Service had been rather polite when arresting him for the first time, he severely doubted they'd be as nice when discovering that he was currently stealing their precious dimension crossing equipment, even if it was useless since they had closed the cracks in reality. But somehow he doubted they'd see it that way.
He glanced at the shelves for the last time, and discovered a small datacube in a corner. He grabbed it and sprinted towards Jack, his eyes on the doors that had finally opened. In the corridor he could see a small army, one line of soldiers kneeling on the floor, the other behind them. And each and every one of them was pointing a weapon at them.
He sped up even more, ignoring the shouts demanding them to stop and surrender. They were going to shoot any second now. And Jack was standing in their line of fire.
Jack looked at him, a fatalistic expression on his face, certain what would happen.
At the last possible second the Doctor jumped, pushing Jack to the floor, effectively using the large pile of equipment to shelter them both from the burst of the guards, and Jack pressed the return button on his vortex manipulator once again.
They found themselves on the dirty ground in front of the TARDIS.
Jack grinned at the Doctor. "You know, if you wanted to get me on my back, you only had to say the word, Doc!"
The Doctor got up and dusted off his leather jacket. "Buy me a drink first," he grumbled.