Author's Note: Wooo, another update! Y'all are gonna get used to this and expect it all of the time. XD
Enjoy!
Chapter Thirteen
Stunned silence filled the room following Jen's request, as everyone turned to stare at her. "Excuse me, what?" Rose finally asked faintly.
"You heard me," Jen replied, her gaze fixated on Rooney's bodyguards. "Shoot me!"
Jack was the first to completely recover, and he stepped forward to take Jen by the arm and lead her away. "Excuse me just a moment," he said, flashing a grin at Rooney. When he had Jen back and away from the rest of them, he hissed sharply through clenched teeth. "Are you crazy?!"
"I'm perfectly sane," Jen hissed back, annoyance simmering in her eyes. "Now trust me and let them shoot me!"
"Look, I know you can regenerate and all, but from what I've heard that's not exactly a pleasant experience. Now are you just that suicidal?" Jack retorted.
Jen heaved a short, annoyed sigh, and looked over at Rooney. "Please, just tell the men to shoot me," she asked.
"Ignore her," Jack spoke up, and turned Jen back towards him. "What are you doing?"
Jen's eyes flashed again as she glared at him, annoyed at having to explain herself. What Jack received was a brief yet powerful telepathic image that had his eyes widening, and recognition dawning in them as he released his comrade.
"You know what?" he said to Rooney. "She's right. Shoot her. Better, yet, shoot me!"
"What do you mean shoot you?" Jen asked, incredulous. "I asked first."
Jack lifted a brow and shot her an invitational look, one that piqued Jen's curiosity. She delicately accepted the invitation and delved briefly into his mind, accepting the telepathic image that he offered. This time it was Jen's face that reflected recognition, and she then turned to their would-be captors. "Yes, he's right. Shoot him."
"You've both gone daft!" Rose suddenly cried, bewildered by her companions' behavior. "Really, I mean it. Off the deep end!" she added.
"No, really, Rose," Jen replied. "I think they should shoot him. He's done nothing but get in our way during this investigation, and if they'd just shoot him we could be rid of him."
Rooney and his men looked completely baffled. Hesitantly, they glanced back and forth at one another, completely unsure of how to even begin to respond to this situation.
"Shoot me!" Jack demanded. "Shoot me you sorry sonofabitch! You low-down, good for nothing—"
His string of insults and expletives was abruptly cut off by a series of large, sudden explosions that echoed through the room, sending Rooney's girls scrambling away in terror as fast as they could. When the smoke cleared, each one of his bodyguards was lying on the floor, their guns a mangled mess in what was left of their hands.
Startled, Rooney glanced behind him over the back of the couch. "How the—?" he asked, stunned by the sight that greeted him. Enraged, he turned back around to face the trio still left standing by the door. "What did you do?!"
Jack grinned over at Jen. "Nice idea," he said to her. "I can't say that I would have thought of it."
Rose, by this time, had stepped forward and retrieved her own gun. "What did you do?" she asked, training the weapon on Rooney once more.
"I locked up their weapons," Jen replied, finally withdrawing her hands from behind her back and revealing her wrench. "As I approached each one, I locked up the weapon so that it would explode back on them when they fired it."
"And I had them fire on me in case that failed," Jack added, retrieving his own weapon. "If I'm shot, it's not major loss. I can't die."
By this time, Jack and Rose flanked Rooney, each with a gun pointed at his head. "Right," Jen said, planting a foot on the couch beside him and leaning close. "You're going to tell me what you've done with him, one way or another." She grinned devilishly. "And I promise that the 'or another' will be very, very unpleasant."
"Was the gag really necessary?" Jen asked as she, Jack, and Rose made their way through the underbelly of the Club 48.
"If we'd left him ungagged, he could have called for help and created a lot more trouble for us," Jack pointed out, reasonably. "Someone will find all of them eventually, and let them go. Hopefully by then, we'll be long gone."
"Let's just find him and go," Rose spoke up, peeking into the window of each cell door that they passed. "The faster we get out of here the better."
"Split up," Jack suggested. "We can cover more cells that way."
Wordlessly, the women agreed and set about peering into each window that they passed in the long corridor of cells. The whole place gave Rose the creeps. Dank, dark, and damp, it was certainly not comfortable accommodations. It infuriated her that the Doctor had been forced to stay here for the last few days.
"Found him!" Jack suddenly shouted. In a split second, both women had reached his side. Jen whipped out the sonic screwdriver that belonged to her father, which had been "liberated" from Rooney's office before they left. It took only a moment for the lock to click and the door to swing open.
"We gotta have a talk with Rooney about how he treats his houseguests," Jack muttered when they caught sight of the Doctor. He was unconscious and shirtless (a sight that Jack normally would have been appreciative of; under the circumstances, it only infuriated him), and firmly secured to the wall behind him. Jen and Rose pushed past him, each falling to their knees beside him.
"I'll have him loose in just a moment," Jen muttered, pulling out her wrench. She released the wrist closer to Rose, who immediately slipped herself up under his shoulder to catch him. When Jen released the opposite wrist, the Doctor pitched forward directly into Rose's waiting arms.
So many times she had dreamed of holding him again, but never had her fantasies included such a situation. Rose closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his forehead, holding him as close as she dared. He felt so familiar, and yet so unfamiliar at the same time. She bit her lower lip and fought back tears. Never, ever did she want to let go of him again.
"Rose," Jen said softly, an undercurrent of urgency in her voice. "It's only a matter of time before someone finds Rooney. We need to get him out of here."
"Yeah, right," Rose replied. "Of course." Reluctantly, she released him to Jack, who had removed his own jacket to wrap around the Doctor. The only one of them strong enough to lift the unconscious Time Lord, Jack scooped him up and looked at the ladies. "Ready?" he asked.
"Let's go before we have company," Jen replied.
They somehow managed to reach the Tardis without altercation. Jen was thankful they had taken the time to gag Rooney; he hadn't yet managed to raise alarms, much to everyone's relief. "Bring him through here," Jen instructed, pointing to a medical room off of the main console room. "Let me take a look at him."
Jack gently lay the Doctor down on the rather comfortable bed in the medical suite and stepped back to allow Jen room to work. Rose was instantly at his side, tenderly smoothing his tousled dark hair away from his feverish forehead.
Jen eyed her with a mixture of annoyance and amusement. "While I appreciate your need to be as close to him as possible," she said to Rose, "do you know anything about Gallifreyan physiology?"
Rose sheepishly grinned up at her. "You've got two hearts?" she replied, helpfully.
Jen chuckled and jerked her head. "Out of the way," she instructed. Rose did stand, but hovered nervously nearby, chewing on her nails.
"Alright," Jen said, sitting down. She took a deep breath and then reached out towards him. First she rested a finger on either side of his neck. "Pulses good and strong," she murmured, "though he is running a bit of a fever." Her eyebrow quirked with concern as she ran a fingertip along his shoulder blade. "And a dislocated shoulder," she then muttered, annoyance in her voice. His ribs, she could see, were a mess of bruises. Gently, she pressed a palm against one side of his ribcage and was rewarded with a soft groan of pain from her patient. "Oh, very nice," she muttered.
"What's the verdict, Miss Doctor?" Jack asked from his position leaning against the doorframe.
"Cracked ribs, dislocated shoulder, and I'm fairly certain that he's been drugged," she replied, disgust evident in her voice. "We'll find that out in a moment," she added.
"How?" Rose asked.
"Because if he hasn't been drugged, he's going to be in a very large amount of pain when I reset that shoulder," she replied, dryly. She glanced over her shoulder. "Jack, I'll need some help with that."
It was a long, painful process with Jen positioning, Jack shoving, and Rose holding the Doctor against her, but they soon had the shoulder repositioned. "Well, now we at least know that he has been drugged," Jen said, wearily, as they settled him back down on the bed.
"How long do you think he'll be out?" Rose asked, sitting down next to Jen on the bed.
"I have no idea," Jen replied, softly. She reached out to smooth the hair back from the Doctor's forehead. "It depends on what they drugged him with." She stared at the sleeping face next to her. It wasn't a face that she recognized. She had seen it in Rose's memories, but not in person. Her father looked not much older than Jen herself, which was a strange sensation. "Do you have any idea how odd it is not to recognize your own father?" she suddenly asked, softly. "Inside, I know he's the same person. But I've never seen this face before in my life," she chuckled softly, and carefully wiped a tear from the corner of her eye.
Rose slipped an arm around her and hugged her. "I saw my dad for the first time when I was nineteen," she said, softly. "In a way, I know how you feel." She reached a hand over and rested it on the Doctor's leg. "Will he be alright?" she asked.
"I think so," Jen replied. "He's had quite a bad time of it, and I imagine that he'll be sore for a few days. But, really, I won't know how bad off he really is until the drugs wear off."
Rose patted her shoulder. "I'm gonna go get a cup of tea," she said, softly. "You know, the English cure for everything," she added with a slight laugh. Squeezing Jen's shoulder, she rose and then slipped from the room.
As she exited the room, Jen went to work trying to find something to dull the pain that she knew the Doctor would be suffering when he came to. After a moment, she heard a small, muffled groan from her patient on the bed. Her head snapped around to look at him, just in time to see his large, dark eyes slide blearily open.
He stared blankly at her for a moment as if trying to place her face. Gradually, his gaze slid down and rested on a pendant around her neck. Jen smiled. It was a necklace that he, himself, had given her the day she had finished at the academy. A flat, silver oval with a circular pattern of blue sapphires. Carefully, the Doctor lifted a hand up and picked up the pendant, turning it over in his fingers. His brow lifted in surprise when he read the inscription on the back, one that he'd hardly dared to hope he'd find.
"May time keep you safe always, my precious daughter."
His still-cloudy gaze drifted back up to her smiling face. She could see that he was once again fading fast, but he still brought a hand up to rest on her cheek. "Are you real?" he managed to ask just before he slipped into unconsciousness once more.