Hooray, emails are working again! XD And so I will finally update.
Was I the only one that felt Daleks in Manhatten was a bit... odd? They shouldn't mess with the traditional Dalek... if the Daleks want to live, they should concentrate on getting every other Dalek out of the void. That way the Doctor would get Rose back the Daleks would be alive again and everyone would be happy :P
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who.
xxx
The Doctor stared out of the train window at the station. Around him, people were shuffling around trying to find seats, calling to each other and trying to put luggage in the holders about the seats. It was all painfully domestic.
Next to him sat Rose, and opposite them sat Jack and Martha. They'd managed to find a ticket on a middle class train to Cardiff that left the same day. Martha and Rose had been amazed they'd found a ticket, but the Doctor couldn't see what was so amazing – who else would want to catch the train to Cardiff?
"We'd be there by now if the TARDIS was working," he muttered, still staring out the window.
"Yeah, except we'd probably be there 100 years in the future," Rose added. The Doctor sighed and leant forward on the small table in front of them, then decided that wasn't comfortable after all and leant back in his seat. He looked up at the clock in the station, then looked at his own watch.
"We were meant to leave 10 minutes ago," he complained.
"Stop whining," Rose said, as if she was talking to a small child. The Doctor sighed again. Moments later, people finished moving through the train as they all found their seats, and the train began to go.
"We're moving!" The Doctor exclaimed, "It's about time." Rose just shook her head. She still couldn't believe the Doctor had actually agreed to go with them.
xxx
An hour later, and the Doctor was nearly asleep. He hadn't previously thought it was possible to die from boredom. Rose and Martha were obsessing about something they'd seen in a magazine, and Jack was busy doing something on his wrist device.
He looked over at his friends from where he was leaning against the window. They'd shifted places from where they'd started sitting, with Rose and Martha on one side of the table now. He shifted his position and leant back in the seat.
"You're awake!" Jack laughed, looking over at the Doctor.
"Of course I'm awake," he said, his tone reflecting how bored he was.
"Ah come on, it could be worse," Jack said enthusiastically, "at least we've got a way back now." The Doctor looked at him in mild disbelief.
"Why are you so happy?" he asked. Jack shrugged.
"No reason," he muttered. The Doctor looked up and saw sitting opposite them was a bunch of pretty young women in low-cut tops and miniskirts.
"Yeah, no reason at all," he muttered back. Jack couldn't help but smile. "I'm surprised you're not over there flirting with them," he commented.
"I could be," Jack retorted.
"Go on then," the Doctor dared, and Jack stood up and walked over to them. With a quick smile, he easily flirted his way in and was already sitting in the middle of the group. The Doctor shook his head. Oh well, it had freed up the seat next to him. He put his feet up and looked over at Rose and Martha who were still gripped by the magazine. He watched them for a few minutes, until Rose looked up at him.
"What?" she asked, clearly knowing he'd been watching them.
"Nothing," he said innocently. She gave him a disbelieving look. "What are you two reading about then?" he asked. Martha turned round the magazine to show him.
"This new make up range is £10 cheaper in this universe!" she exclaimed like it was a life or death situation.
"And this range of clothes comes out two months before us!" Rose complained, pointing at another section of the page. The Doctor looked at them like they were lunatics.
"You know, if you want cheap designer clothes, I could take you to Paragon 6. It's got huge markets and shops with the cheapest prices in the universe. Much better than Earth."
"That's not the point," Rose said, turning the magazine back round. The Doctor sighed, as she and Martha starting muttering amongst each other again.
Then he felt it again, just like before. He looked out the window at the sky, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He lifted his feet off the seat and moved closer to the window, but whatever he'd felt was gone. But he'd definitely felt something, and whatever it was, it wasn't good.
xxx
Not long after, the four time travellers were walking through Cardiff. Jack had bid goodbye to his new friends, Rose and Martha had moved on from the magazine, and the Doctor was acting somewhat more alive now.
They walked across the Millennium Centre Square, looking over at the Millennium Centre and the huge water sculpture towering above them, water cascading downwards.
"Wow," Martha marvelled, looking up at the sculpture. "I've never been to Cardiff."
"I've only been once, with the Doctor," Rose said, leaning her head against the Doctor's arm as they walked hand in hand, "seems like ages ago now that we fought the Slitheen here. Well, I mean here in our universe. I keep forgetting we're not home…"
Martha walked away from the structure, and followed Rose and the Doctor towards the bridge. Jack was walking along, glancing down under the wooden floor, knowing that under there they were probably monitoring them on CCTV cameras deciding whether they can be trusted or not.
Then a thought struck him. He wandered over to a certain stone block as the others carried on walking past. He scanned the area with his wrist device, but it beeped negative. Disappointed, he sighed and walked off – he'd been rather fond of the invisible lift.
Jack quickly caught up with the others and led them round to the entrance to Torchwood. They walked through the doors into what looked like a small shop, but Jack knew better. He reached over the counter and pressed a button, and suddenly a wall lifted up, revealing a passageway. Jack grinned as he saw it, and led the others down the corridor. Martha looked around at the dark walls nervously, she knew she could trust Jack, but this all seemed very unnerving.
They walked into a lift, and waited as it descended through the floors. A few seconds later, it stopped and a door behind them opened. Jack smiled as he was met by the familiar Torchwood hub, but it didn't take long for him to notice the differences.
"Here they are!" came a voice from above. Jack looked up to see his parallel self walking down the steps to meet them. Scattered around the hub were Tosh, Ianto, Owen and someone he didn't recognise, but he decided it was best to ask later.
"Hello handsome," he said to the other Jack.
"Right back at ya," parallel Jack laughed.
As the two Jacks spoke, the Doctor glanced around at the alien artefacts, knowing instantly exactly what each one was. He glanced over at the table near the door, and was relieved to see that there was no hand in a jar there this time. When he'd seen his hand in the other Torchwood, he'd been a bit grossed out by it.
"Doctor!" he looked up at Jack who was calling for him, and walked over to them, "need you to check the TARDIS part's going to work," he explained, and the three of them walked up the stairs to Jack's office.
Rose and Martha looked around in amazement, Martha more so than Rose. Rose looked at the alien objects scattered around the hub, some of which she recognised, some she didn't. She looked around the hub in search of Gwen, but didn't see her. When she and the Doctor had found Jack they'd gone on their own little adventure with the Torchwood team, and she'd become quite good friends with Gwen. But now she couldn't see her anywhere, which disappointed her. She glanced up to Jack's office, hoping the TARDIS part here was enough to get their TARDIS working.
The Doctor inspected the lump of what looked like coral in his hands, turning it over and over as the two Jack's watched him. He put his glasses on and looked closely at it, ran the sonic screwdriver over it and even licked it.
"Yep, looks good to me," he said finally, putting it in his pocket.
"Great!" Both Jacks said at the same time, looking at each other slightly surprised, then walking out the office. The Doctor was about to follow them, when he heard a beeping noise from behind him. He glanced around at Jack's computer, as a light flashed on the monitor. He walked up to it and read the information that appeared on the screen, but just as suddenly as it started it stopped. Looking back to make sure no one was behind him, he pulled out the chair and sat at the computer.
xxx
"This is Toshiko, Owen, Ianto and Carys," parallel Jack said as he introduced each member of his team.
"This is Rose and Martha," Jack said, introducing his own friends. He then turned to his counterpart. "No Gwen then?" he asked.
"Who's Gwen?"
"Evidently not," he muttered. Both Jacks watched as the Torchwood team started talking to Rose and Martha. "So you've never met the Doctor?" Jack asked, lowering his voice slightly so the others didn't hear him.
"Nope, never even heard of him."
"So how did you get here?"
"Just travelling around, and I ended up here. Found out about Torchwood, and thought I'd help out."
"That's lucky."
"I take it you work at Torchwood in your universe?"
"Yeah, I do. Well, I did. I kinda left them to it when the Doctor came back. It was 'cause of the Doctor that I was working there actually, hoping that there was a way I could get back to him and Rose. If it wasn't for the Doctor I never would have ended up there," he looked at his parallel self thoughtfully, "did you really just happen to end up here?" he asked.
"Well… not exactly," he answered with a sigh. "If you must know, I'm here because I was drawn here."
"How?"
"I was in my ship, when suddenly something happened and I was thrown through time and ended up crashing in Cardiff. Turned out it was because of the rift. My ship was destroyed in the crash, and I was found my Torchwood. That was years ago. Since then I've been working for them, hoping to find a way back off the planet so I can go travelling again. But I don't know any more, I kinda like it here." Jack nodded as he took this in. It was very different to his own story of how he ended up at Torchwood, and he wasn't entirely sure how this Jack could have ended up with the part of a TARDIS that he did. Had it have been in his universe in his Torchwood, he wouldn't have let anyone have his TARDIS part so easily. But then again, he guessed that this Jack didn't have the emotional attachment to it that he did. He looked back down at the people below, then glanced round behind him, wondering where the Doctor had got to.
Before he could go and find out however, the Doctor suddenly appeared at his side.
"Right! Are we going?" he asked, clearly eager to leave.
"We just got here!" Jack complained.
"Yeah I know, and we've got what we want and we should probably be getting back." The Doctor began to run down the stairs, and the two Jacks followed him down.
Rose was talking to Owen and Carys about the differences between each Torchwood when the Doctor suddenly interrupted them.
"Hello, we're going now," he said cheerfully, "Come on."
"But we've only been here a few minutes!" Rose protested.
"And we've got what we want, so let's go," the Doctor said quickly. "Come on Martha." The two women sighed and said goodbye, as the four travellers left Torchwood.
xxx
Two hours later, they were finally back in London and heading for the TARDIS. As they reached it, Rose looked up at the sky, slightly worried about the fact that it was dark already.
"I should probably be getting home," she said, "Mum's probably mad at me for leaving Aurora with her all day." The Doctor was tempted to go with her and see his daughter again, but he had to take care of the TARDIS first.
"See you later then," he said, giving her a quick kiss on the lips before walking into the TARDIS. She quickly said bye to Jack and Martha, before heading back to her house.
Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor pulled some wires out from the consol and attached them to the piece of coral he'd taken out of his pocket. There was a small spark as the coral started glowing, and he grinned.
"It works!" He announced happily, "Brilliant! We'll just have to wait for about 24 hours for it to recharge…"
Just as he said that, the lights suddenly came on and the background noise came back. "That's interesting…" he muttered, quickly looking at the screen.
"So much for 24 hours," Martha said as the Doctor watched the screen.
"Ok, wasn't expecting that," the Doctor said thoughtfully.
"What happened?" Jack asked.
"While the coral had been in Torchwood, it had been getting energy from the rift, and all the energy had built up and up and so as soon as it connected to the TARDIS it released it all," he smiled at the screen, "that's handy."
"So we can just go now?" Martha asked, but the Doctor shook his head.
"The TARDIS may be alive, but we can't actually go anywhere, she still needs some time to charge up," he explained. He smiled to himself, stroking the side of the consol. Martha watched him oddly as he did this. He often did things like that with the TARDIS, and it really creeped her out.
"So how long do we have to wait?" she asked, and much to her relief he stopped stroking the TARDIS and looked at the screen.
"About a day," he answered, "but we can't do much till then. She hasn't even got enough power to perform a scan," he said the last sentence quieter, more to himself. "But till then," he said suddenly, "dunno about you two, but I'm going back with Rose," he looked up at them, "coming?"
"Might as well," Martha replied, shrugging. The Doctor walked towards the door with a grin on his face.
"Let's go then."
xxx
Rose sat on the sofa with a cup of tea in her hands. Jackie had given her a yelling at for leaving Aurora with her then disappearing for the rest of the day with no word as to where she was going. Rose said that she'd texted her, but Jackie insisted that she didn't get it. Rose couldn't be bothered with the argument.
Suddenly the doorbell went, and she put her tea on the table, stood up and went to the door. She was pleasantly surprised to see the Doctor there with Jack and Martha.
"That was quick!" she laughed, standing aside to let them in.
"I know," the Doctor said, "the TARDIS powered up better than I thought. We can't go yet, but should be able to within about a day."
"It's powered up already?" Rose asked as they walked to the living room.
"Yeah, but like I said, we can't leave yet." They walked into the living room, and each found a seat. "Now that it's powered up, I could bring Aurora onto the TARDIS," the Doctor said excitedly.
"I'm sure you could," Rose said, "but not now." The Doctor looked downcast.
"Why not?" he asked disappointedly.
"She's in bed," Rose said with a laugh.
"Oh, I see."
"Who is it, Rose?" Jackie asked as she walked into the living room, "Oh, it's them."
"You sound disappointed," the Doctor remarked.
"You couldn't have come back a couple of hours earlier, could you?" Jack complained, "your daughters been crying like there's no tomorrow! She wouldn't be quiet, I don't know what's wrong with her…" Jackie's voice seemed to fade away to the Doctor as his attention was taken to something else. It was that same feeling again. Now he knew that he couldn't be imagining it.
Suddenly he jumped off the sofa and ran through the room and out of the house.
Rose, Jackie, Jack and Martha stared after him bewilderment.
"Typical," Jackie muttered, "I start talking and he runs out of the room." Rose sighed and ran out after him.
xxx
Outside, the Doctor was staring out into the sky. He reached into his jacket and pulled out the sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the sky, then lowered it, frowning. Reluctantly, he put it back in his jacket and shoved his hands in his pockets, still looking upwards.
Rose walked up to him, careful not to surprise him, as he seemed to have all is concentration on the sky.
"You ok?" she asked, expecting him to be surprised she was there, but he just shook his head.
"There's something… I don't know," he replied. "I keep feeling something, and the feelings getting stronger and stronger."
"What do you think it is?"
"No idea," he ran a hand through his hair. "The sonic screwdriver can't pick it up, the TARDIS can't do a scan… I've got no way knowing."
"We can go to Torchwood, they might be able to do a scan, find out what it is," Rose suggested, but the Doctor shook his head.
"The computers in Cardiff's Torchwood picked it up at first, but when I tried to find out what it was, they denied its existence. Whatever it is, I think it's got some sort of device that erases any data of it from other machines that might pick it up. I'm just hoping that the TARDIS can pick it up because chances are it's going to have better technology on it."
"But if you can sense it, doesn't that make it… Time Lord?" Rose asked carefully, but once again the Doctor shook his head.
"Could be from any telepathic species. It could be sending out signals to the species that sent it, and I'm just picking up stray signals, but I can't make out what it's saying because it's not meant for me."
"Hang on… your saying you're telepathic?"
"Oh yes," he answered with a grin, "Which means I could be picking up stray signals from it if it's from a telepathic race," he rubbed the back of his neck, "it's probably just a piece of space debris… but it never seems to be that simple." Rose had to agree with that. "Oh well," he said, facing her, "I'll worry about it in the morning."
"That's not like you!" Rose laughed.
"No it's not, but there's nothing I can do about it now, is there? Besides…" he took her hand and placed a kiss on it, "I think there's something much more important I should be concentrating on tonight." Rose smiled as he put his free hand around her waist and pulled her closer, placing a kiss on her lips.
xxx
Martha looked out the window as the Doctor and Rose talked, both looking to the sky.
"Having fun?" Jack asked as he leant against the wall, glancing out the window.
"Do you think we should go out there?" she asked, still watching the couple outside.
"Nah, knowing them they'll start snogging any second now," Jack replied. Just as he said that, the Doctor took Roses hand and put his arm round her waist. "Oh look, what did I say?" Martha looked away as they began to kiss, and walked away from the window into the room. Jack followed her as she folded her arms and rubbed her upper arms with her hands. "You ok?" he asked, walking next to her.
"Yeah," she said quickly.
"What's wrong?" Jack asked in a no-nonsense tone.
"I just… I dunno. I feel so out of place here," she replied, looking around the room nervously.
"Aah, don't feel like that," Jack said, putting his arm around her. She smiled as she leant into him. They stood like that for a few silent moments.
"Jack?" Martha asked quietly.
"Yeah?"
"Who are Eta and Deb?" For a moment Jack didn't answer.
"Where'd you hear about them?" he asked.
"When we were outside Canary Warf. You mentioned them."
"Oh yeah," Jack remembered, but didn't answer at first. "They were a couple, human and a Time Lord, they had a son," he answered finally.
"What happened to him?" Martha asked, thinking that maybe if he was half human he wouldn't have been in the Time War.
"He… died in the war," Jack answered quietly. "Anyway come on, we'd better be getting back to the TARDIS," he said quickly, trying to change the subject, "I expect the Doctor and Rose are going to want to be left alone." Martha sniggered as they both walk through the room and he lead her out the back door, so that they didn't interrupt what was going on outside.