Time Lord Fugue
Chapter Four- Refuge
"Out-dated? You bought those clothes in the 21st Century!"
"Yeah I know, but I didn't actually manage to get straight here. I had to live through the Victorian era while I waited for the teleport to recharge- hence the out-dated clothes- and even then the closest I got was World War One. I lived and died through both the wars, got turned into one of those Gas Mask Zombies whilst trying to evade you guys and finally ended up in London around the right time to watch Rose grow up. After Canary Wharf, I decided something had to be done, so I started up Torchwood 3 here in Cardiff using my connections to the original torchwood from the 1800's." Jack looked across to The Doctor. "You do remember all this, right? I told you when we met at the end of the universe."
The Doctor looked puzzled and Jack sighed, "Ok, so what's the most recent thing you remember, other than being here and now?" The Doctor's brow furrowed as he closed his eyes, lips pursed in concentration.
"I remember Canary Wharf and Rose being in Pete's World. I blew up a sun just so I could say goodbye to her- we were at Darlig Ulv Stranden and she told me," he swallowed, "she loved me." His eyes opened and he looked at Jack tearfully. "I'm missing so much. I know there's other stuff that happened between then and now, but it's like a whacking great padlock has been stuck in my mind and I can't find the key…" Jack looked at the older man sympathetically,
"I know the feeling," he said with a grimace," from the sound of it, you're missing about two linear years' worth of memories- between the time you lost Rose, to yesterday when you found her again."
"Two years?" The doctor cried, alarmed at the full extent of his amnesia. "How can I lose two years?" He grabbed jack by the shoulders and shook him slightly as he lost control and began to really panic.
"Well, after Canary Wharf - and I know this 'cause you told me- you kinda went on a semi-suicidal rampage. You met a woman called Donna Noble and sorted out the Empress of the Racnoss at Christmas by setting her on fire and drowning her kids under the Thames." He held up a hand to stop The Doctor's question, "here's the suicidal bit. Instead of getting the Hell out of there while you still could, you decided to stay put. The only reason you weren't drowned or ripped apart past your regeneration capabilities was that Donna told you to stop. You went on to meet Martha Jones in a hospital on the Moon. She spent a year helping you get rid of The Master while we were his prisoners." At the mention of his old friend and enemy, The Doctor jerked forward.
"The Master? How could I meet him? I'm the only Time Lord left- the rest died in the Time War! Even if he was in a parallel universe I'd be able to sense him up here." He tapped his temple. "There's no one."
"Not anymore, no, but he was still alive. He turned himself into a human and hid at the end of the universe, until we found him, blew his cover and he made it to Prime Minister of Great Britain. We stopped him, but his wife shot him and he died in your arms, refusing to regenerate." He continued to describe the year that followed, from Donna's sacrifice in a parallel world made by changing a decision, to his Human-Time Lord Metacrisis resulting from his brush with a Dalek bolt and finally the destruction of Davros. Once he had finished his tale, Jack sat back and licked his dry lips as he waited for The Doctor to process the information.
Needing a drink, Jack bade The Doctor follow him out of the room. They walked in companionable silence until they reached the main Hub, where Jack strode over to the abandoned coffee machine to fix the drinks Ianto had promised and for some reason, forgotten. As he did this, The Doctor wandered over to the nearest work station where Gwen and Ianto were frantically trying to turn off the video feed before he discovered that they had been spying on the pair. Several photo's were knocked over and delicate models destroyed before they managed to get as far as turning the monitor off to hide the image of Jack's room that was plastered across the screen.
"Enjoy our little nosey did we?" The Doctor asked sweetly, eyebrows raised as he looked down his long nose at them. They both squirmed like schoolchildren caught pulling a prank on their teacher, but whereas Gwen hardened her face into an unreadable mask; Ianto broke under the stern, cold gaze easily.
"I'm sorry Sir! I did tell Gwen we shouldn't watch, ad it was breaching your privacy, but she wouldn't listen." He trailed off as The Doctor's jaw clenched, his eyes growing grey with anger.
"So you decided to watch anyway? To make sure she," he glowered at Gwen, who was now visibly shaking under his scrutiny, "didn't see anything useful, or did you not want to miss out on the action?" he finished, voice raised to almost a shout now. As he took a menacing step forward, Jack scrambled over and gripped his arm.
"Leave it Doc'." He growled. "We just lost two members of the team, and you picking a fight with the others is not going to help!" The Doctor sighed heavily and looked away. Apologetically he held out his hand to first Gwen and then Ianto;
"Friends?"
"Friends." They answered, taking his hand and gripping it in a shake. Silently they marvelled at the rough, calloused fingers and palm- he looked a bit of a brute on the outside, but from what they had seen and heard, he hadn't been wielding a sword regularly. The Doctor raised an eyebrow, amused when Ianto took longer than necessary to release his hand.
With an abrupt clap of his hands, The Doctor span around. His eyes lit up at the sight of Owen's medical bay-come- autopsy room and he vaulted easily over the railings to land comfortably beside the long table occupying the middle of the room.
"Right then, lets get this sorted out!" He rubbed his hands together in glee as Jack led the other two in a more sedate fashion down the stairs to see The Doctor eagerly riffling through drawers and cupboards with the enthusiasm of a magpie in a dragon's hoard. As the team joined him on the same level, he looked up and grinned his most manic grin.
"What exactly are we sorting out?" Queried Ianto, finding his arms full of a tangled bundle of cables and equipment. As The Doctor crouched to fiddle with the settings of Owen's computer, he half turned to face them,
"Gwen. You saw me last night and you say I look different now, yeah?" She nodded the affirmative. "And Jack, you know the me you saw last night is the man I will become when I regenerate next?" Well that implies that there's either two different versions of me running around Cardiff at the same time, which I know isn't possible 'cause I'd sense the other one, or somehow I degenerated back to this body from the newer one. That is impossible, so we need to find out how I'm here."
Taking stock of the equipment he had loaded onto Gwen and Ianto, he told them to dump it all and help him set up some tests. Setting the computer to reboot and install some clever new medical software, he hopped onto the examining table, pulling off his battered leather jacket and maroon v-neck jumper to allow Gwen to stick sensors at strategic places on his body: his temples, the insides of hid biceps, and over both hearts. As Ianto helped connect the attached wires to the pc, Jack took hold of The Doctor's right arm and deftly slid a needle and catheter into the vein inside his elbow. The doctor flinched and glared, the machine next to him emitting a loud beep to announce his pain. Quickly securing the offending instrument to his friend's arm, Jack added a blood bag which quickly began to fill with a deep reddy-blue liquid. The Doctor frowned slightly as he watched. "S' not supposed to be that blue…" he murmured before looking to check the rest of the machines were doing their jobs.
An hour later, fully clothed again, The Doctor wandered around the Hub with the results of his tests. Everything seemed to be normal, but he was still waiting for Jack to finish mucking about with the blood sample.
"Uh, Doc? I think I've got something." The Doctor ceased pacing and strode over to use the microscope Jack had just vacated for him. "See? I know you said your DNA was clever, but there is no way it should be changing that quickly! I mean, your cells are practically imploding." The younger man studied his friend. "What's going on?"
"No idea, though when you say imploding… That seems to ring a bell for some reason." He pinched the bridge of his nose between two long, slender fingers and closed his eyes to think. "Why did I come back?"
"Well Rose is marrying," Jack didn't get to finish his sentence as The Doctor clicked fingers,
"Oh you stupid, soppy fool, that's it!" he looked at Jack, "Fugue State." As his hand flew over his head in imitation of his understanding, Ianto chipped in to help his boss,
"Fugue State, it's a way of the mind dealing with extreme trauma- it sort of shuts down and blanks out the bad bits, creating a new persona to fill in the gaps."
"Exactly!" The Doctor nodded, "except because I'm a Time Lord, my version is a bit more physiological than that. Instead of just blocking bad memories, it forces me back to a previous body, one probably more suited to cope with the effects of rediscovering the memories that were hidden. I finally accept that Rose loves me, and that I really do feel the same way, I manage to get back to her again, despite telling them all it was definitely impossible this time and then she tells me she's marrying the half human me and that she never wants to see me again…"
"No offence, but having Rose move on with her life is kinda insignificant compared to the Time War. How come this Fugue happened now and not after that?" The Doctor nodded in acquiescence.
"As a whole, the Time War is more important, much more traumatising, but I suppose it comes down to morals. I can deny that Rose has moved on for as long as I like, the only person going to get hurt is me, but to murder my own people and destroy my planet is one thing; to forget the victims of such genocide is even more unforgivable. I destroyed them Jack, and as I'm the only one left to deal with it, it is both my punishment and duty to see that their memories and knowledge live on- I can never forget what I did."