Chapter 5: Translations and Transcripts
The Doctor's head snapped up with interest, his sore eyes growing wide and the faint ghost of a smile appearing on his face, for the first time in what felt like years. Martha let out a sound that was a cross between a relieved sigh and a laugh, and Owen, Ianto and Gwen rushed over to see what was happening. Jack's frown broke into a grin and he exchanged joyous glances with Martha.
"I'm not sure though!" she interrupted loudly, to stop the room becoming too excited. She was too late, as the Doctor walked round to see the screen in desperation.
"I don't care." he said, softly but urgently. "Anything will do." He looked at the screen, and instantly, a frown appeared on his face and he squinted, peering at the monitor.
"What the hell is that?" He looked to Toshiko with confused eyes as he saw the strange, foreign writing on the page. "The TARDIS is supposed to translate languages, but what's all that about?" He stared indignantly at Toshiko, Martha and Jack in turn, and Jack couldn't help but laugh at the Doctor's put out expression.
- - - - - - -
Toshiko stood confidently at the front of the room, pointing to the document being projected onto the wall. Everyone was sat around the oval desk, and their faces turned to the screen as strange symbols and letters appeared. Immediately, everyone's face turned to hers and the Doctors with confusion.
"Now, the reason why we can't read it," Toshiko began loudly, before anyone could ask questions. "Is because it's in code. Presumably, that's why the, uh, TARDIS isn't translating it for you. It doesn't need to be translated, it needs to be decoded." There were murmurs of "Oh, right..." through the room and the Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out his glasses. Shoving them onto his nose urgently, he glanced over the projection with curiosity.
"Where did you find it?" he asked Toshiko, frowning, whilst leaning forwards over the desk to examine the page that was being projected in the office.
"I, uh, hacked into the Ministry of Defence's blueprint files." she said proudly, smiling. The Doctor grinned back at her.
"Anyway, I was attracted to this particular file because when I decoded the title, it was "Communication Across Countries". It's basically a transcript of a conversation all the world leaders had, about the ways in which countries can communicate if there's some big, nuclear disaster, from what I can tell. I'm running it through the decoding program now, but I'm pretty sure I saw the words "universal travel" and "chair" in there somewhere."
The Doctor glanced around the table hopefully, and after a few moments, a loud beep was emitted from the speakers linked up to the computer. The entire room looked at the computer, then at Toshiko, in turn. Nervously, she opened the decoded file on the computer and it was projected to the screen for everyone to read in anticipated silence.
A short while passed, with no sound as everyone read through the document eagerly.
The Doctor was the first to reach the end of the page.
"Oh." his shoulders dropped. His face fell to a glare as he read over the last sentence, written in bold at the far bottom of the page, over and over again.
'Note that this device is extremely unstable and may cause injury to the user. It requires a great energy source, and must be used only as a last resort. Also note that although this particular design of chair can, on occasions, present the user with the ability to travel to the location he or she wishes, this requires energy of immense volume and is largely disapproved, as the process would require large amounts of dangerous and unpredictable alien technology.'
The rest of the room finished reading shortly, and the suspense was broken by Martha asking "Well, that's good, isn't it?" nervously. All eyes turned to her.
"I-I mean, we've got the TARDIS. You've said yourself how powerful it is; how its power is stored in the 'heart of the TARDIS', or whatever. Couldn't we just use that?"
"Well, we could, yeah." the Doctor began, but not sounding hopeful. "But to start with, the TARDIS is still recovering from all the energy we used to power the rocket to Utopia -"
"Still?" Jack asked, frowning disbelievingly. "But, that was months ago!"
"Exactly," the Doctor continued, scratching his chin in thought. "Even that boost to the rocket drained most of it's power, and we'd only just refuelled."
"Why don't you just refuel it again, then?" Owen asked, as if stating the obvious.
"Well, yeah, we could do that, yeah. But the TARDIS is old; she's wasting away, deteriorating. I don't think she'd hold as much energy as they're talking about. Still," he added indignantly. "Who's technology are they calling 'dangerous and unpredictable', when you can hack into UNIT's system and launch a missile with three clicks?"
Gwen, Jack and Martha looked at him curiously, not knowing whether or not he was joking. Toshiko studied his expression, trying to figure him out, but Ianto and Owen looked puzzled, shaking off the comment.
"Why don't we use the rift?" Ianto suddenly suggested. "Tons of power in that."
The Doctor nodded his head thoughtfully. "Well, sure, that's what I use to refuel the TARDIS, so I guess if there was a way to open the rift; harness the power -"
"No. " Jack interrupted. "We're not reopening the rift. Doctor, Martha, you probably missed it, but last time we opened the rift, hell broke loose."
"Ohh, that was you." the Doctor smiled, figuring out why the rift had been active when he and Martha had come to refuel.
"Yeah." Owen said, rolling his eyes upon remembering the havoc. "But that was before, Jack. Abaddon's dead, isn't he? So if we opened the rift again now..."
"We still don't know what could happen. Sorry Doctor; I want Rose back just as much as you, but it wasn't just Abaddon that came out of the rift. Time itself splintered. You remember everything else that came through the rift after you opened it?"
Owen nodded with clenched teeth, wanting to get off the subject. "Alright, fine. But there's got to be something the rift can do."
- - - - - - -
The rest of the day was spent reading through yet more ancient manuscripts and constantly fiddling with rift manipulators and energy source blueprints. Owen suggested once that they should "just rip it open", but his proposal was immediately dismissed and he was given a warning glance to keep him quiet, and several smirks from the females of the room.
"Here," Martha began, for the umpteenth time that hour. "It says that we can 'catch and store energy of large proportions using this efficient, easy to use capsule.'" Jack walked over to look at the catalogue page.
"You might want to take a look at the information page." he suggested casually, wandering back to his own research desk. Martha flicked to the back of the book and sighed.
"Oh." she said, sadly.
"What is it?" Toshiko asked, looking up from her computer screen.
"It's from the year 6459BC." Martha held up the catalogue, though no one could read the miniature writing. "And… Venus!" she added, surprised.
"There was life on Venus? In 6459BC?" Gwen asked, awestruck.
"Why don't we go there then?" Owen asked blankly. "You've got a time machine, right? What's the problem?"
"Have you seen it lately?" Jack asked him, pointing to the TARDIS, which had been moved inside.
"Oh. Right." he finished lamely, when he saw the many wires and cables leading out the TARDIS, linking its energy storage area with the rift manipulator in the centre of the hub. "Why's it doing that again?"
"It had hardly any power. And I need as much as possible." the Doctor said, looking up from the book he was reading and stretching his back and arms. "Leaving it out there to gather energy is fine, but it's a hundred times quicker this way." he jerked his head towards the door as he spoke, then returned to studying the book intensely.
- - - - - - -
The Doctor was thankful that the day was fairly uneventful for Torchwood. There were no weevils, no strange deaths or injuries, not even any weird or faked alien sightings. The group spent the entire day reading, translating, decoding and analysing anything from cartoons to classified government files.
Owen slammed shut the last book on his desk and sighed.
"Right," he began wearily. "I'm done." Toshiko glanced over for a second and smiled as Gwen turned round with a frown.
"You can take some of mine then!" she said happily, dumping a couple more books on Owen's table behind her, and turning back to her own desk. Toshiko returned her gaze to the computer screen as Owen scowled behind Gwen's back.
Now Gwen sighed. She looked up and stared around the room, seeing who had the least books left to read through. Jack was sat directly in front of her, facing her but with a computer screen blocking his face.
To Jack's left was Martha, who was blinking tiredly and rubbing her eyes, apparently taking a break from reading to rest her eyes. She glanced at the largest pile of books and was immediately was glad it wasn't her own pile, which, thanks to Owen, now only consisted of two fairly short transcripts.
Next to her was Ianto, who had joined in the researching after getting bored of making coffee every twenty minutes, but had regretted it when everyone had then given him a good proportion of their own pile. He had progressed well, considering this, and just had one Egyptian-looking scroll left in his pile.
Right at the back of the room was the Doctor, frowning at something and glancing between two blueprints furiously, as if searching for something that should be there but isn't. He has also finished his pile and was re-reading it, which Gwen assumed was something to do with the fact that every time any of the Torchwood team and Martha stopped to take a break for fresh air, get a drink, or go to the toilet, he refused to move from the desk.
Gwen looked down at her watch; it was almost nine o'clock.
"Whoa." she breathed, and Jack lowered the screen.
"What?" he asked, breaking the silence. She looked up, not realising she'd spoken.
"Oh, it's just a bit later than I thought it was." she said, not mentioning that she hadn't even realised it was gone six.
Ianto glanced up too, setting his magazine-like book down on the table to join in the conversation.
"I don't think we're going to find anything." he said quietly, so the Doctor wouldn't hear. "I haven't gotten close once."
Jack sighed. "It doesn't look good." he agreed, glancing over his shoulder at the Doctor, who had thrown the blueprints on the floor with annoyance and was now studying a miniature book with a magnifying glass. "Okay, we'll just finish off these piles, and carry on tomorrow." Gwen and Ianto exchanged glances.
"Tomorrow? There's more?" Gwen asked disbelievingly. "He can't have anymore books. We've read through thousands of them!" Martha looked up at Gwen's slightly raised voice, but the Doctor didn't respond, being too absorbed in the tiny text to hear.
"Look, I know it's hard on you guys, but we're not just doing this for the Doctor." Ianto frowned, and leaned in to whisper.
"Who else then, Martha? Sorry Jack, but she seems to regret ever finding out about the chair, and not just because of the non-stop reading."
"Not Martha. Me." Jack said, and Gwen and Ianto frowned slightly. "This is important to me. Yeah, she was in love with the Doctor, and he - even if he didn't admit it - was in love with her. But I want her back too. She was incredible, like a sister to me, and she -" Jack paused. Gwen looked expectantly at him and Ianto frowned. He continued quietly. "She's the reason I can't die." Gwen's eyes widened, and Ianto's mouth dropped open. "She brought me back to life; gave me a second chance. And I would do anything to give her and the Doctor the same."
Ianto swallowed and his mouth snapped shut. Neither him nor Gwen spoke, but returned to their books guiltily.
Jack froze for a second. Ianto had a point about Martha.
"Hey," Jack whispered, so quietly that Ianto only just heard, and had to lean in to meet Jack's gaze.
"Yeah?" he asked, just as quietly. Jack leaned in too, his face inches from Ianto's.
"What did you mean just now, about Martha?"
"Well, you know, how she's... you know." Ianto replied unhelpfully, and Jack shrugged his shoulders to show that he didn't. Ianto leaned in even further.
"You know, how she's in love with the Doctor!" he whispered, almost silently. Jack's shoulders dropped with surprise and his eyes met Ianto's questioningly.
"What?" he mouthed, disbelievingly.
"You didn't notice?" Ianto mouthed back, as if it was the most obvious thing on Earth. Jack shook his head slowly.
"You think so?" he whispered, and Ianto shrugged, then nodded.
"It's pretty clear. And she obviously doesn't want him to find this 'Rose'."
They stared into each other's eyes for a moment, Jack trying to figure out Ianto's mind, and Ianto purely admiring the swirls of greeny-blue that were Jack's eyes. Jack pulled back slowly, thinking about Ianto's suggestion, and Ianto cleared his throat awkwardly and looked down at his book.
- - - - - - -
Ianto finished working through his books first, and got up to stretch and get some air. Gwen finished minutes after, and headed outside to join him. They were shortly followed by Toshiko, and finally, Owen, who dragged himself outside whilst muttering about "Bloody Gwen..."
About half an hour later, Jack stood up, stretched, and switched the computer off with a sigh.
"Nothing there." he said quietly, just loud enough for the Doctor to hear. Martha looked up; she still had two books left to read, and Jack thought back over the afternoon. Each moment he had looked up, he had found her staring into space or biting her lip worriedly. He thought back to Ianto's comment, wondering whether he might have had a point after all. With the thought in his mind, Jack turned around and left Martha and the Doctor reading, heading up to his office.
- - - - - - -
Martha finished a while later, and slammed her last book shut with a sense of achievement.
"Finished." she said cheerily, turning to look at the Doctor. He looked up with no expression, and Martha's smile faded. "Sorry." she added. "There was… nothing."
The Doctor nodded gravely and returned to the book. Martha realised that his pile of finished books had somehow become smaller than the books he had left to read, and Martha realised that he must have gone to get more during the day, though she hadn't noticed when he had.
When the Doctor showed no signs of getting up to follow her back to the TARDIS, Martha cleared her throat.
"Are you… coming in?" she asked tentatively. The Doctor looked up with faked energy.
"No, I think I'll probably finish these first." he replied, knowing full well that it would take him the entire night. Martha sighed.
"You need to rest." she walked forwards to sit opposite him. He looked up, and Martha saw his tired, aching eyes.
"No." he argued wearily. "I need Rose." he added simply, looking back down, and Martha opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again uselessly.
"You're no help to anyone when you're this tired." she insisted quietly. "Just a couple of hours of rest. Please?"
The Doctor looked up again, like a child being told what to do by his parents.
"Fine." he stood up, leaving the book he was reading open, face down, on the desk. "Fine." He followed Martha to the TARDIS, admitting defeat at last. Martha gave him a small smile as they walked in and paced to their rooms in silence. They said goodnight quietly as they reached their doors, and Martha went in and closed her door softly, falling onto her bed and drifting off to sleep almost immediately, still fully dressed.
The Doctor sighed as he leant his back against the cold metal door, pushing it closed with a soft click. The TARDIS hummed softly, happily, upon seeing him back in his room, and he smiled weakly. Knowing that he wouldn't sleep, he went to lie down on his bed, before seeing the open shoebox lying on it. He sat on the edge of the bed gently, picking up the closest photo. In it, he was grinning madly, hugging Rose from behind. She, in turn, was smiling madly and laughing, and the Doctor looked back to the moment with a faint smile lighting up his weary face. They had only popped back for Rose to visit Jackie, but it seemed to have turned into then staying for a cup of coffee, then for the afternoon, and before they knew it, they were staying for dinner. On the reverse, it read "The Doctor and Rose, 2008" in the Doctor's scruffy style, and at the bottom, in Rose's small handwriting, it read "(and Jackie!)". Smirking, the Doctor flipped over the photo again, and there, indeed, was Jackie Tyler, popping her head round the corner to laugh at her daughter's joy. The Doctor sniffed, blinking the tears out of his eyes, and then sighed leisurely, placing the photo gently back inside the box. He picked up some others and looked through them slowly.
No, he definitely wouldn't be sleeping tonight, he thought, as he lay back onto the bed to flick through the memories of the shoebox.
Sorry guys, I know I said that chapter 5 would be the last chapter, but I promise, there's just one left!
I'm really sorry that it was so uneventful, but hopefully it created a better atmosphere for the last chapter. Hope you enjoyed it anyway, and you know the drill: Review please!