A/N: As if it weren't official already, I am now officially evil. Bwahahaha.
Chapter Three: Decapitation
"He said, 'Whot's that on your – '"
Whipping out his blaster, Jack whirled around and shot the Muerton behind him. With a high-pitched howl, it collapsed to the ground, followed shortly by the Muerton next to it as it, too, received a hole to the chest. Instantly the entire restaurant was doused with screams and chaos as other patrons scrambled for the exit.
"What're you doing?" Rose cried, leaping out of her chair, eyes wide in shock.
"Jack, STOP!" the Doctor roared, lunging at him. He latched onto the arm holding the blaster, and Jack barely stopped himself from firing.
"They're going to kill us!" Jack shouted back in his face, flinging the Doctor off and readjusting his aim at the Muertons behind where the Doctor had sat. The Muertons dropped their bags and reached for their own blasters, but Jack was faster. Another one down –
"DON'T!" The Doctor shouted again, hurling himself at Jack.
Then several things happened at once. Jack aimed his blaster at the Muerton closest to Rose, Rose reached for both of them and screamed something intelligible, the Doctor yanked Jack's arm down so the blaster fired harmlessly into the ground….
And the Muerton behind Rose fired. The blast sailed past Rose and towards Jack, and slammed straight into the Doctor's head.
The Doctor's body dropped to the floor, gone from the neck up. The slightest trail of smoke wafted from where his head had been.
"DOCTOR!" Rose shrieked, dashing towards his fallen body without any concern for the additional blasts zipping over her head.
One of the blasts hit Jack's gun, and it crumbled to ash in his fingers. He couldn't watch the remaining Muertons advancing towards them; his entire world had been reduced to the Doctor's headless body and Rose clutching fistfuls of his overcoat.
"No, no, no, no…" Rose sobbed, gaping at the spot where the Doctor's head should have been. "You can't!"
The remaining three Muertons reached them, and one yanked Rose away from the Doctor's body by the arm. "No!" she screamed, thrashing wildly. "Regenerate! REGENERATE!"
Jack snapped from his stupor. "Let her – "
A second Muerton smashed a fist into Jack's jaw, which broke with a crack. He reeled, blinded by the pain, and didn't even feel the Muerton yanking his arms behind him.
As Jack's jaw crunched itself back into place, he stared at the glow spreading over the Doctor's curled fingers.
"He heals quickly," the third Muerton remarked, looking Jack up and down. "This must be – "
The Doctor exploded in a swirl of gold. Light burst from his hands and feet and radiated off where his head should have been. Jack, Rose, and even the Muertons gaped, frozen for a moment as the Doctor's fingers morphed and wiggled, as the seams of his suit strained, as his shoes bulged, and as a mound of flesh blossomed from his neck. The head bubbled and shaped like molten rock before hardening into chin, cheeks, nose, eyes, ears, hair…
The light vanished, and the new unconscious Doctor did not move. Jack stared, marveling at him. He'd never seen a regeneration before. This Doctor looked positively young, almost like a sleeping child. The overcoat was now too long for him; had he been standing, it might have dragged on the floor.
"Doctor," Rose whispered, face wet with tears, "Wake up, please wake up…"
"Are the non-Time Lords required?" asked the Muerton holding Jack.
"Orders say they are not, but they are preferred. Take them to the teleport."
Jack jerked uselessly as he and Rose were both dragged from the restaurant. The third Muerton followed close behind, the Doctor's limp form tossed over his shoulder. The Muertons took them to the building across the street and up two flights of stairs, then shoved both Rose and Jack into the round opening of a large machine. The third Muerton flung the Doctor's body at them, and pressed several buttons on the side of the device.
Rose hugged his body to her, still pleading. "Please wake up, please, please…"
Purple lights flashed on and off inside the teleport, and Jack's stomach churned as he felt it activate.
The second they arrived in their cell, Rose stumbled under the Doctor's weight, and Jack quickly snatched one of his arms and helped her lower him to the ground.
Rose rested her head on the Doctor's chest. "Hearts are beating," she said breathlessly, closing her eyes and nudging his overcoat aside to hear the thumping better.
Jack gripped the Doctor's wrist and felt the double pulse for himself. He breathed a sigh of relief, then froze when the Doctor's fingers wiggled.
The Doctor's green eyes flashed open so suddenly that both Rose and Jack leapt back.
"Doctor?" Rose whispered, eyes wide.
The Doctor didn't seem to hear her. He blinked, then snapped to his feet.
"Legs!" he announced, holding up his thigh for inspection. "I've still got legs!" He kissed the leg. "Good!"
Jack gawked, his mouth open in a perfect 'o.'
The Doctor dropped his leg and felt his bicep. "Arms, hands, fingers…ooh lots of fingers." He wiggled them in front of his eyes, fascinated, before touching his palms to his cheeks. "Head! I've got a head! I do like having a head…Look at me, I grew it back!" His forehead crinkled a moment. "I hope I don't grow another one. Imagine me with two heads!…Hair." He felt down to the tips of his longer hair. A look of pure panic crossed his face. "I'm a girl!" He felt his throat, fingers prodding at his Adam's apple. "No, no, I'm not a girl!" He sighed in relief, then seemed to notice Rose. He snatched her by the shoulders and shook her as he exclaimed, "Rose, Rose! Am I ginger?"
"N – no," Rose stuttered.
"Still not ginger," the Doctor mourned, releasing her and moving on with his checklist. He explored his face with his fingers like a blind person. "Ears? Yes. Eyes? Two. Nose…eh, I've had worse. Lips." He pressed his fingers to his lips and paused for a moment, face once again split in horror. "Lips? Lips are for kissing! What if I'm a rubbish kisser? Rose?"
Before either Jack or Rose could react, the Doctor once again seized Rose's shoulders and yanked her forward, snogging her deeply. They snapped apart after a long moment, Rose quite shell-shocked, the Doctor smacking his lips together thoughtfully. "Still got it. Too much chin, though. On my part, not yours, Rose. And now I'm thinking about apples. Apples, apples, apples. Maybe I'm having a craving! I've never had cravings before. Rose, you're a girl, you have cravings, what do cravings feel like?"
"Was he like this last time?" Jack finally asked, caught somewhere between disbelieving shock, overwhelming panic, and sheer amusement. Rose gaped wordlessly at the Doctor, apparently unable to respond.
"Captain Jack Harkness!" the new Doctor whirled to face him. "I am very, very cross with you! Cross ol' crossidy codger! But I'll remember why in a minute." He shrugged his overcoat off and tossed it to the opposite corner of the cell, followed by his suit jacket. "There's something very important here, something I'm missing…" he mused as he yanked his tie off and flung it away to join the coat and jacket. "Something really important!" he paced past Rose and Jack, spun on his heel, and paced back, hands tapping on his head. "Oh!" Rose and Jack both jumped as the Doctor smacked his hands off the side of his skull. "Yes!" He threw his arms up in the air. "I was going to buy a fez!"
"A…fez?" Rose said faintly.
"Yep," the Doctor tried to pop his p, and frowned. "Don't think these lips do that anymore. Blimey, my head hurts. Suppose that's from getting it blown off…" He rubbed the back of his new head, resuming his pacing. "I liked that head. Had a gob and hair and teeth and everything. Wasn't a good head for wearing fezzes though. And now it's gone. Rather violently too. Still, better than falling off a tower….quicker than poison…less painful than radiation….certainly less humiliating than hitting my head on the console…"
He gagged suddenly as if unable to breathe. More of the golden light escaped his lips, and he staggered, barely keeping any sense of balance.
Jack reached over and steadied him. "Doctor, listen, I know you're sick, but I'm stuck in a time loop. What do I do? How can I fix it?"
"Time loop?" the Doctor wondered, nudging Jack away. "Rubbish. That doesn't make sense. You don't make sense. And neither do apples, come to think of it. 'An apple a day keeps the Doctor away,' ha!" He reached out, one hand taking Rose's, the other taking Jack's. "Come along Rose, Harkness, we're getting me some apples!" He strode straight towards the wall, and bounced right off it. "Ow!" He dropped his friends' hands and rubbed at his nose, glaring at the offending wall.
"Doctor," Jack tried again, "I said I'm stuck in a – "
"Shut up, Harkness, thinking!" the Doctor snapped, pondering the wall.
Rose put a tentative hand on his shoulder. "Doctor, you need to rest. Last time you regenerated…"
"Rest? I can't rest. I just remembered!" the Doctor exclaimed triumphantly. "Muertons!" He jabbed a finger at Jack and gave him a withering look that would make anyone else tremble. "You shot them."
"They blew your head off!" Jack retorted.
"And now we're in a cell!" continued the Doctor, surveying their cell. "And the Muertons are coming."
Sure enough, Jack could hear stomping approaching outside their cell door.
"Right, I'm the Doctor, and I will get us out of this," said the Doctor confidently. Jack wondered just who he was supposed to be reassuring. "You trust me right? Jack?"
Jack's throat went dry. "Yeah, Doc."
"Rose?" the Doctor asked with slight hesitation, sounding a bit terrified of the answer. "Trust me?"
Rose gave a small smile. "Yeah, I do."
"Good, good," the Doctor murmured, wrapping an arm each around Rose's and Jack's shoulders and pulling them in so that all their heads almost touched. "That's all I need, really." He let them go as the door crashed open and stepped forward as the Muertons filed in. They aimed the enormous guns they carried at Rose and Jack.
"What do you want?" the Doctor demanded.
"You will come, Time Lord."
The Doctor scoffed. "Or what?"
"Or your friends will die."
"Thought as much," the Doctor said darkly. His eyes glinted with authority and danger and sheer power. "Alright, I'll come. But can I ask you something? Ever heard of the Cybermen? Sycorax, Autons, Slitheen?" His lip curled. "Daleks? Well, let me tell you something. They've all run from me at one point or another. They're all scared of me. And they have good reason."
The Doctor strode out with a Muerton on each side, his head held high.
The door slammed shut, and Jack's knees gave out. He crumpled against the wall and sank his head into his hands. What had he done? He'd killed the Doctor. He'd killed the Doctor.
Rose scooped up the Doctor's discarded clothes and knelt next to Jack. "He must hate me," she murmured, hugging the overcoat to her chest.
Jack's head snapped up. "Hate you? I'm the one who got his head blown off!"
"He's gone through three bodies just since being with me. That's got to be some kind of record."
"If I hadn't done anything – "
"They were trying to kill him. You were only trying to stop them."
"They didn't blow his head off last time."
"What do you mean, 'last time?'"
Jack's fists clenched. "I mean, I'M STUCK IN A TIME LOOP! I'm living this over and over, and there's nothing you or the Doctor can do about it!"
Rose flinched as if he'd hit her, and Jack immediately regretted yelling.
"Fine, go on and blame yourself," said Rose pointedly, "But I'm getting out of here." She stuck her hand in the Doctor's suit jacket pocket up to her elbow, and fished out the sonic screwdriver. She fiddled with it experimentally.
Jack bit back a remark that it was pointless. They didn't even know if the stupid thing was on the right setting this time. They were still trapped. The Doctor had regenerated and was probably being tortured right now, and it was all his fault. He had only made their situation even worse.
Rose was right, though. There was no use sulking. What had she said to him, last time? That he'd been given another chance?
He could try again next time. He closed his eyes and mentally went over the positions of the Muertons in the restaurant. He replayed the earlier fight in his mind over and over, replanning his moves. His chest felt almost light again. He could fix it. He would fix it.
While he composed his battle plans, Rose busied herself with escape attempts. She ran the screwdriver over the door, flicked it to a different setting, and examined the door again. Her features were fixed in a determined grimace, her brow scrunched in concentration as she tried again and again to get any reaction from the door, and then the walls. The Doctor's tie was wound around her bicep like some sort of armlet.
An hour and a half slowly ticked away, and Jack expected the Muertons to return for Rose, but they didn't. Then fleetingly he recalled Rose telling him how the Doctor had grown his hand back after his last regeneration. Leftover residual energy, she'd said. He wondered for a dark moment if the new Doctor was using that energy to heal faster, giving his torturers more fresh material.
Rose must have tried over a thousand different settings on the sonic screwdriver before the sound of marching Muertons emerged from beyond the cell door.
Jack sprung to his feet. "Get behind me," he ordered, "They're coming for you."
Rose's grip tightened on the screwdriver. "If they're coming for me, hiding behind you's not going to do anything."
Before Jack could answer, the door burst open.
"Where is he?" Rose demanded. "What have you done with him?"
"Take the girl," a Muerton ordered.
"No," Jack said desperately, trying to pull Rose back, "Take me, you don't need to hurt her – "
But the Muertons merely punched him in the gut, sending him to the floor, and yanked Rose out of the cell, struggling and screaming for him. Jack rose from the floor, but stopped himself from fighting any further. It hadn't turned out too well last time.
Rose's screams echoed in his head far longer than they echoed in the empty cell. Jack took a deep breath, leaned against the wall and waited. It didn't matter that the Doctor had regenerated, didn't matter that they'd taken Rose, because he knew where he had gone wrong and he was going to fix it.
He had to.
A/N: Every time you review, Three remembers how to fix part of his TARDIS, Four gets a jelly baby, Five gets to play cricket, Seven gets unlimited rice pudding, Ten gets a cookie, and Eleven gets a new fez.