"Doctor!" Jack called out, but was too late. The Doctor either didn't hear him — or, more likely, as Jack had to admit — just didn't care. The Tardis disappeared right in front of their eyes.
"Well, that was… different," Owen commented. "Does this mean life's finally going to become normal again round here?"
Martha already followed Jack towards one of the computers. "Do you think you can track him down?" she asked. "Do you have any sort of equipment for that — the vortex manipulator perhaps, I remember — "
"There won't be any need for that," Tosh suddenly commented — and pointed with her pen at the screen. And right there, through the CCTV, they could see the Tardis parked in the middle of Roald Dahl Plass, right above the lift. Jack raised an eyebrow at the two of them before taking the more practical — if somewhat less impressive — way out.
To his credit, he tried knocking first. But after there was no reply — including to Martha's "Doctor, it's us, can we get in for a moment?" — he inserted his key into the keyhole and opened the door, signaling the rest of his team to stay outside.
"Doctor?" he called tentatively. No reply.
"You don't think he passed out again?" Martha whispered behind him — she, of course, was exempt from the "stay here!" rule when it came to the Doctor, if only because Jack knew she would never listen, anyway.
"I'm perfectly fine, thank you very much, now if you could just leave," they heard his voice from somewhere below. Jack shot a glance at Martha and advanced further — and yes, there he was, the Doctor, deep inside his time machine, accompanied by the unmistaken buzzing of the sonic screwdriver.
"You were asleep for over a week," he pointed out.
"That happens."
"You're still not well, Doctor," Martha joined in, "we need to make sure you're alright before you take off again."
"I'm perfectly fine, it's just this stupid ship that keeps on breaking down, so if you could just leave, the telepathic field is low enough without the two of you here confusing her any longer," he ranted, still not getting up.
Jack and Martha shared another look. "Doctor… they didn't touch the Tardis. We checked. If there's a problem with the telepathic field it's not her, it's — "
The Doctor emerged from within, looking thinner than usual and despite his long sleep very, very tired. "I can't hear her, Jack."
X
"Ouch!" the Doctor looked up, defying his tormentor.
"If you don't sit still, I'm going to poke you a lot more!" Owen retorted.
Taking the most current tests from the Doctor didn't necessarily need all seven people present. The Doctor would have been fine with Owen as his temporary Doctor, Martha, who was indeed his first choice for temporary Doctor but refused flat out to do anything while he's awake, and Jack, just for good measure, or, as the Doctor put it, to make sure any curiosity about alien physiology from Owen's part would not be followed — and none of Owen's apathetic shrugs managed to communicate just how much he didn't really care to the Doctor. But Jack just couldn't deny all the fun from Gwen, Ianto and Tosh, especially after Owen's refusal to take the tests inside the Tardis, as was the Doctor's original intention, and they moved to the autopsy space.
The Doctor's attempts to remain dignified were failing magnificently, Jack noted quietly to himself.
"You're poking me as it is, no matter what I do, no wonder Torchwood found a sadist for a Doctor, the job you do — "
"He is more than 900 years old," Owen turned exasperatedly to Martha. "How can he be such a spoilt brat after 900 years?"
"Because he's used to getting what he wants," she smiled at the Doctor, who just squirmed again as Owen was having another go at drawing his blood.
"That's it! Enough! If you want me to do any more tests on him, you're going to have to sedate him, I'm no longer — "
"See? I told you! All you're interested in is doing tests on the alien and — "
"Doctor, stop it," Martha eyed him, and he calmed down.
"Sorry," he mumbled. "Not a lot of good memories of Earth doctors sticking needles in me."
She remained quiet, at a loss as to what to say. But to his credit, the Doctor sat as rigid as a statue for the next several minutes.
"There," Owen finally announced as the machine next to him stopped beeping. "You got your results, I'm out of here, Martha, next time, you do it and I'll watch the circus from up there with the rest of the innocent bystanders."
"There will be no next time," the Doctor muttered quietly, but grabbed the paper to have a good long stare at it.
"Anything catches your eye?" Jack tried, but the Doctor only answered with a "hmmm" and then was already walking thoughtfully towards his Tardis, oblivious to the people around him.
"So, what do you say, three days?" Jack looked at Martha, slightly exasperated.
"Four," she answered.
X
In the end, it was five days before the Doctor emerged again and pronounced the records incomplete and that he needed more information. "I've got quite enough knowledge about my own species' anatomy, I'll have you know," he added, annoyed, when Jacked dared suggesting otherwise — as he would. He was, after all, the foremost expert on Time Lord physiology in the universe. Jack tried to point out he was also the only expert on Time Lord physiology in the universe, but the Doctor wasn't having any of that and instead sat down and refused to give Tosh her computer back for a whole day. Jack knew he had to do something, if only to stop Tosh from complaining none of her projects were getting anywhere this way and she has very important deadlines — she had, of course, Jack knew better than to argue with that. But in the end it wasn't Tosh's pleas but the Doctor's frustrated, quiet sigh that made Jack mention what he never meant to — that little bit about the scientist in the cells.
No. Of course the Doctor wouldn't like it. Jack was enjoying the lecture even less when the Doctor suddenly stopped mid-sentence, turned around and asked, almost violently, "What else have you got there then?"
This time of the year — weevils. Not a lot of weevils, mind. They had Janet, of course, who's become some sort of a regular resident in the Torchwood cells — even when they let her go, she kept on coming back. Well, coming back and trying to eat people, of course, but coming back all the same. Owen kept on threatening he'll start a research on Weevil Housebreaking when Jack snapped back that he's a doctor, not a xenobiologist, and Tosh said something about watching too much Star Trek. It was an annoying, unproductive, and somewhat creepy conversation when it happened, but Jack would rather have it again than listen to the Doctor's present rants about Torchwood, inhumanity, Torchwood, cruelty to the universe's intelligent and semi-intelligent species, Torchwood, how this could all have ended peacefully had Jack called him about it in the first place and no, he doesn't care it was back when Jack was abandoned by him and searching for him anyway, and Torchwood.
Jack simply stopped listening at some point and led on, opening the cell — the one with Janet in, first. He knew the Doctor was more than capable of dealing with a murderous weevil, even if he was a bit out of shape now — and whatever it was that ended up with him allowing himself to be captured by Copley — but he had an anti-weevil spray, just in case.
"All yours," he still told the Doctor, and the Time Lord shot him a dirty look before entering the cell.
"There, there, it's alright now," he murmured towards the weevil.
Jack expected silence, Janet freezing in her place, growling, jumping at the Doctor — anything but what actually happened. Because instead of acting like a normal, proper weevil — and you know you're in the wrong job when this becomes an acceptable sentiment — Janet just edged towards the end of the cell, as if afraid of the Doctor — and then she knelt in front of him.
"So they are time sensitive!" he couldn't help but say, finally happy at proving some theory about these weird creatures right, and Ianto behind just murmured, "King of the Weevils".
"Nah, it's death they're afraid of. It's alright, I'm not gonna hurt you, you're safe, all alright now," the Doctor advanced towards the weevil, trying to calm it down before catching its head and listening.
"They're a wandering species. Like birds. Sensitive to the rift. When their world is suffering — well, winter, I s'pose — they go through the rift to someplace warmer, and then go back in the summer."
"Huh," was Jack's best reaction. "And how long does this take, exactly?"
"Oh, about 50 years? Something like that. The rift would open automatically when it's time for them to go home — don't stop them," his fingers lost contact with the weevil as he turned back to Jack.
"Wouldn't dream of it — now, shall we?"
"Yes, although I would prefer you not locking them up in a cage like that," the Doctor said severely.
"She keeps on coming back," Jack shrugged. "Maybe she likes it."
The Doctor said nothing, just waited for Jack to open the cell holding Copley. The scientist has apparently heard nothing of the conversation — he turned white as a ghost when he saw the Doctor. The Doctor, for his part, said nothing, just stood there, in the doorway, his arms crossed across his chest. Jack didn't have to look at him to know exactly the expression he was wearing — and boy, was he glad he wasn't at the other end of this stare.
"What — what do you want, then?" Copley finally managed, rattled by the Doctor's gaze.
"These experiments," the Doctor said coldly, not sitting down — or moving his hands away, for that matter — "what did you leave out?"
"I — I don't understand," Copley swallowed, trying to stabilise his voice.
"You left something out. Out of the records. Out of what you told Jack here. What was it?"
"I told him everything!"
"No," the Doctor said softly. "You didn't."
They weren't even sure. He had to understand. They only started experimenting on telepathy — telepathy, damn it! — several months before. That solution has done wonders with each and every alien species they gave it too, they could almost see their thoughts, right there, shown on the computer! And he was so human, looked so human… they weren't ready to start human experimentations. Would he have given it to humans when the only basis of comparison was aliens? And regular laboratory animals were no good either, not enough intelligence. They had to try it on something else… and he was so human. How could they have known he'd react so badly to it — yeah, he wasn't doing all that well before, but he was almost comatose after they gave it to him, just three days before Torchwood barged in and ruined everything.
"I was afraid," Copley gestured at Jack. "Afraid of what he might do."
The Doctor nodded once, betraying no feelings. He had his answer, he didn't have to spend a single minute more in that cell. He turned to leave.
"What will you do with me?" Copley dared asking, at last.
"I'm going to let you go," the Doctor said quietly.
"Jack!" Ianto looked shocked, but Jack didn't override the Doctor's word, just turned to him in question.
"Doctor?"
"But we'll be watching, Torchwood and I. You won't go back to what you were doing before," and they all could hear the threat in this statement. And then the Doctor just turned and left.
Near Torchwood's entrance, after Jack and Ianto half led, half dragged their prisoner above the vaults and into the fresh air, Jack stopped. "Now the Doctor might not always remember to check on you, or wouldn't want to. But you can be rest assured we will. And I don't have the same problems the Doctor does with hurting bastards, so you better remember his warning," he said. "And just remember this — that alien there — he's more of a human being than you. Or me," he added, whispering in his ear. "I would have killed you. Go."
And Aaron Copley did.
X
It's incredible, the impossible things you get used to. The members of Torchwood — and their now new attaché — found themselves not even blinking when they walked into the hub in the morning and saw a big blue box in front of them. The Doctor himself wasn't a problem — he rarely left his box. He did come out, every once in a while, showed up to grab something to eat or say something to Jack or Martha, and these were the awkward moments when none of the others knew what to say.
It sometimes got even more awkward than that. Gwen didn't even see him coming out of his box until he stretched a hand and took a slice of the pizza next to her.
"Oh!" she jumped.
"Sorry," he mumbled. "Didn't mean to startle you, just smelled the pizza and remembered I was a bit hungry — you don't mind, do you?"
"No, no, of course not. Uh — Doctor?"
"Yes?" the alien was already halfway back to his spaceship, but turned around to look at her, puzzled. This must have been the first time she actually started a conversation with him by her own initiative.
"It's just that — I don't want to offend you, you know — I know you've been here for a while — but we've sent the invitations ages ago — it's a small church, you know, not a lot of space — and Rhys' parents, they're not really — "
"Oh, the wedding?" he looked almost terrified at whatever it was she might be trying to say. He's met Rhys once — bloody disaster, that was, Rhys immediately took the defensive — "who the hell is he?" he demanded, and Gwen had just mumbled something about an alien friend of Jack's, which ended with Rhys muttering he doesn't really want to know — but the idea of the wedding has never actually sunk in, apparently.
"Yes," Gwen nodded now in response to his question. "It's just that we didn't know you'd be here and there isn't a lot of room, and you see, my parents don't exactly know what I do, so I'm trying to keep the number of aliens in the wedding down to a minimum, so — "
"Oh, no no no no no no no no! That's fine! That's perfectly fine! I wouldn't want to get in the way, it's alright, don't worry!" he said with very visible relief.
"Oh, you don't mind! That's great! I mean, we don't want you to feel — but then you don't know anyone but Jack and I'm not sure he's coming either and — "
"It's okay, really, Gwen, it's okay, I need to fix her up some more, I'd love a bit of peace and quiet here, really, don't worry about it, seriously, it's nothing, it's — " and he escaped into the safety of the spaceship, allowing Gwen a sigh of relief. There was no way she would have an alien in her wedding day.
Reality, of course, turned out to be a bit different, what with the shape-shifting alien who's turned her into an incubator a day before the wedding. Jack ran into the Tardis when he got the phone call, hoping the Doctor might actually prove to be some help, but the Doctor was nowhere to be found and frankly, Jack didn't have the time to search the entire Tardis for him, so he left with Owen on their own when it turned out things were about to get messy. Gwen still didn't seem to mind, though — she was positive the wedding would have ended with retconning the entire guest list had the Doctor been there anyway — and added a scathing comment to Jack that his alien friend would have probably been the reason for the usage of the amnesia pill. When they came back, bloodied, tired, but happy, the Doctor was out of his box, going through something on Tosh's computer. He sniffed them for a bit, made a dry comment about Torchwood's methods, and once again retreated into his own box.
Jack tried asking him every once in a while why wouldn't he come out to help them a bit, after all, they could use his expertise and maybe the encounters with the riff-raff of the galaxy would end up a little less bloody if he were there. But it wasn't much use — the Doctor just answered that staying inside the Tardis and tinkering with his ship will be faster. He never said faster than what, and Jack already started to suspect it wasn't faster, only easier — but kept that observation to himself. The Doctor never chose to be there, after all, and Jack knew him well enough to know what he would choose to do, if he could.
But somewhere in the back of his mind, the Doctor's uselessness — or rather, refusal to be useful — was starting to get to Jack. Especially when unfortunate mishaps could have been avoided — it was only a miracle Owen survived an encounter with the Night Travellers, for example. After that whole incident, Jack was making a mental note to try and talk to him about antisocial behaviours and showing some gratitude. And perhaps being around for a bit when they needed him. But he never managed to work up the courage to do so.
"What's so funny?" Gwen asked.
"What? Oh nothing, just thinking out loud."
"What about?"
"Aren't you supposed to go home and have some fun with Rhys now?"
"Jack."
He sighed, then looked at her. Might as well talk — it was an innocent question and, in all honesty, maybe having him around was a good reminder of what Jack should never become.
"I was just thinking how funny it is that he can still intimidate me into not beating some sense into him."
"Yeah," she nodded for a bit, "he does seem to have that gift, doesn't he."
"He's not always like that," Jack felt compelled to defend his friend.
"It's okay, Jack. I know he's been through a lot — I'm just thinking you've been, too. And anyway, I'm not going home now, Rhys is meeting us in the pub — you're coming?"
"Nah," Jack smiled. "Still got paperwork to catch up with."
"All work and no play makes Jack a — alright then," she gave him a kiss on the forehead. "Be good. We'll send Ianto early enough for you two to have some fun," she giggled and called for Tosh and Ianto, as Owen and Martha had already left work a couple of minutes ago and were now waiting for the rest of them up by the water tower.
"Night, Jack," called Tosh from the door.
"Good night," he replied.
Near the water tower, Owen whispered to Tosh, "Weren't we supposed to go on a date?"
Tosh looked at him miserably. "I kind of mentioned it to Martha and she got the wrong idea and then — "
X
In the Hub, Jack looked at the wooden box for a little bit longer, and then sighed and turned to his paperwork.
And Jack was going to give him all the time he needed, he really was, even if his patience was wearing a bit thin. He kept on throwing glances at the Tardis all evening long, in between paperwork, but never went up there and knocked on the wooden door.
At half past two it was obvious Gwen was wrong — they weren't going to bring Ianto back early. Might as well go to sleep, he thought and rearranged the paperwork in a neatly piled column on his desk. It was a random glance at the security screen, though, that showed him the delivery boy at the office door.
The third time this week. He was going to kill him.
"You ordered Chinese?" the kid — he was definitely a kid — said, bored, when Jack finally answered the door.
"A… friend did." A soon to be dead friend, but one nonetheless.
"That would be 13 pounds sixty," the kid said, looking bored.
"Thirteen — what's in this? Gold?"
"Don't know, don't care, that would be 13 pounds sixty please."
"Fine, fine," Jack dug into his pockets to get out his wallet and came up with a 20 pound note.
"Got any change?"
"No. good night," the cheeky kid took the note and disappeared.
It wasn't knocking on the door of the Tardis as much as banging loudly.
"No need to shout, I heard you just fine — ooh!" the Doctor's face lightened up. "Chinese is here!"
"You know," Jack started as the Doctor snatched the bag from him and started rummaging through it, "at least you can actually pay — or answer the deliveries!"
"No money. 'Sides, I got some for you, here," he handed over a heat-saving package to Jack and started nibbling on his egg roll.
"I'm sure it can't be healthy for you to eat junk food all the time," Jack pointed out, "and especially at hours like 3 a.m."
"Nah, different physiology, my body knows how to deal with this just fine."
"Listen, Doctor, can I ask you something?" Jack sighed, accepting the inevitable — and deciding to at least have his noodles and sit down while he tried extracting information from the Doctor, always a hard, laborious job and most of the time unsuccessful.
The Doctor nodded in a mouth full of egg roll.
"It's just that — I've been thinking about it ever since that business with Copley. How come you let them capture you? Usually you're the first one to find a way out."
"They just caught me unprepared, that's all."
"You're always prepared. You're prepared in your sleep."
"Jack," the Doctor swallowed the rest of his egg roll in an attempt to make his answer as dignified as possible, "really. I was just not careful enough. These things happen. It's over, I'm out, it's alright. I'm alright, really, I'm fine, you know me," he gave the Captain his biggest smile and started working on the noodles.
Oh yes, Jack knew him perfectly well, which also meant he knew he was far from alright and that something really horrible must have happened for the Doctor to find himself in that mess, but that the chances of the arrogant Time Lord actually telling him anything of that were close to zero.
Better attack it from a different angle then.
"Why do you keep on working on the Tardis then? It's fine. They didn't touch it. But you keep on locking yourself inside as if staying there and fixing her is going to change anything."
"Your noodles are getting cold," the Doctor pointed out in what was no answer at all, and a rather clumsy way of avoiding the question.
"Doctor," Jack said, refusing to look at the noodles but instead staring at the Time Lord.
The Doctor just sighed. "I keep on hoping. You know, if I spend a long enough time with her it'll come back. They messed with my telepathic abilities, you heard him, now I can't hear her anymore — but I've never heard of anything like that. Maybe if I spend a long enough time with her, we'll be able to compensate — I mean, some of it is fine, you saw I was still able to connect with Janet. But with the Tardis…" he looked longingly at his spaceship and turned silent.
"And if that doesn't work?" Jack insisted.
But before the Doctor could answer, six people burst into the room. Rhys looked completely drunk — and Gwen must have been drunk to bring him in. Ianto looked anxious, Owen and Tosh breathless, and only Martha confused.
"What's going on?" Jack and the Doctor were both on their feet in a second.
"It's him," Tosh breathed.
"We saw him. In the pub," Owen continued.
"He looked at us, Jack, just looked at us and waved," Gwen added.
"What? Who? What are you talking about?"
"I'm afraid I'm to blame," the old voice was slow, and pleasant, and creepy at the same time. "I gave them quite a scare," Bilis Manger smiled, appearing behind them from out of thin air.