Jack had only just found the coordinates when he reappeared in the restaurant.
"He said, 'Whot's that on your – '"
"The coordinates are set for just out of the atmosphere," Jack announced, "Spaceship of some kind. Rose, you okay?"
Her eyes were completely dry, but from the slump of her shoulders Jack could sense she'd been crying. "'S nothing," she murmured, "He doesn't remember now."
"Who doesn't what now?" asked the Doctor, nonplussed. "Rose, what's wrong?"
Jack watched the Muerton behind Rose move in, and quickly ordered, "Theta Sigma, this is a time loop. We're all going to be fine if you don't fight. Understand? Don't fight."
"I – what?" The Doctor's shocked indignation did not make either Rose or Jack crack a smile.
As the bag cut off his vision and access to fresh air, Jack swore when they got out of this he was going to find the person who invented chloroform and sock him in the face.
In the cell, Jack and Rose wasted no time, barely skimming over the basics that they were in a time loop, the Doctor was causing it, they had an escape plan, and yes, they were very well aware of the fact that creating a time loop should have been impossible.
"So, this spot," the Doctor tapped at the wall, "This spot there is where I told you to resonate the Bilitane?"
"Yeah."
The Doctor ruffled his hair. "Well, that's rubbish. What's wrong with this spot here?" He pressed his ear to the wall and tapped experimentally. "Ah, never mind, suppose that is the best spot." He straightened. "Blimey, I really have done this before. And I don't remember a thing. Anyway, the wires…"
"The blue one electrocuted me," said Jack.
"Green one didn't work either," Rose admitted.
The Doctor hesitated. "It didn't…"
"I'm fine now," she replied, keeping her voice from wavering.
The Doctor's lips pressed together, but he returned his attention to the wall. "Jack, what shade of blue? Royal blue, light blue, more of a cerulean?"
"Er…light blue."
"Like the Earth sky?"
"Like your eyes." The words came out of Jack's mouth before he realised he'd thought them.
The Doctor stared at Jack a moment. "My eyes are brown."
He shrugged. "Last you." He decided not to mention that someday they would be green.
"Right, well…" The Doctor took out the screwdriver and handed it to Jack. "Setting – "
"458-B," Rose and Jack chorused together.
"Don't do that," the Doctor huffed. "Alright, bilitane for prison walls and green and light blue as danger colours, who uses that colour coding system?"
"Light blue's supposed to be locks in Galactic Standard," Jack pointed out.
"So they're not running on Galactic Standard…." The Doctor's hair was now so ruffled it stood nearly straight up. Suddenly he froze. "They're running on Sontaran standard."
"Sontarans?" Jack repeated. Words echoed through his mind, from his school days. "Those war-hungry potato midgets?"
This earned a grin from the Doctor. "I like that. Bit too accurate. Although why hire Muertons?"
"Potatoes?" Rose wondered. "Are they related to those lettuce-looking things with tentacles?"
"Rutans? Yeah. Been at war with them for ages. Millennia." He rubbed a hand down his jaw. "We've got to get you out of here."
"Yeah, but captured by potatoes?" said Rose. "Doesn't sound too bad."
"Sontarans are one of the most blood-thirsty races in the universe," the Doctor explained, running his hands along the rest of the room frantically. "And I think they want to cheat."
"Cheat at what?" asked Jack.
"Time," he snapped, "I'm a Time Lord. I know the histories of thousands, millions of races. And that includes the Sontarans. I know every battle the Sontarans ever fought, covering all of history. I know how they won, and how they lost."
Rose bit her lip. "So they want you…."
"To tell them how they lost battles they haven't fought yet so they can change history." He gave up his search and rubbed at his face. "It's Sarah and Harry and the Daleks all over again, and I hate repeats."
Jack choked, and the Doctor whirled on him angrily. "You know what I meant!" He took a deep breath. "Right, then. Light blue's deadly, green's deadly, but if they're running on Sontaran standard the purple one should open the door just fine. But don't touch it. Sonic it. Setting 22."
"Setting 22," Jack repeated obediently.
"And then both of you, get out of here. Run. There must be a teleport somewhere on board – "
"There is," said Jack, "But we're not leaving you here."
The Doctor looked from him to Rose desperately. "Look, it's impossible for me to make a time loop by myself, I mean, really, properly impossible, so if I don't manage it I want both of you off this ship."
"Funny, isn't it," Rose said exasperatedly, "How every time you've claimed it's impossible and yet you've managed to do it every single time. We're coming to get you, Doctor."
The Doctor's shoulders slumped in defeat. "Alright fine, just – fine. Just get yourselves out of here, and please, please don't let them catch you."
Rose raised an eyebrow. "Wasn't planning on it."
Only the Doctor tensed when he could hear the Muertons nearing. He looked from Rose to Jack, resigned. "Well, this is it. I'll buy you some time."
"You mean let them torture you?" Rose glared. "Don't you even think about it."
"It'll be easier to save you if you're not a bloody pulp," Jack added.
As usual, the Muertons thundered through the door, but the Doctor paid them no heed, still focusing on his friends. "Alright, I won't. But please be careful."
"Take the Time Lord."
The Doctor whirled. "Yes, hello, big fellas – "
The Muertons swarmed over him and dragged him out. The door slammed behind them with a resounding clang.
Immediately Jack began resonating in earnest, Rose pacing impatiently behind him.
Half an hour later as Jack sonicked the purple wire, the door popped ajar with a click. Unwilling to exhale, Jack pulled the door open and stepped outside their cell into a white stretch of hallway that curved off in either direction.
"Left or right?" Rose asked him as she followed him out.
Before he could answer, three Muertons rounded the corner on their right. A second passed in which both groups stared at each other. Then Jack yelled, "Run!" and shoved Rose off down the left passageway.
The Muertons fired, blasts just missing them as they dashed down the hall. They slid around corners, barely managing to stay ahead of their pursuers. Jack's chest heaved and heart pounded, but there was exhilaration as well as terror; finally, it felt like old times. If they could just find the Doctor…
They rounded a corner and nearly stopped in their tracks, staring at the blue box parked in a large glass enclosure like a castle in an empty fish tank.
"They've got the TARDIS?" Rose exclaimed between breaths.
Jack yanked her forward as the Rorines behind them fired again. "No time, keep going!"
They darted down a side passageway with the Muertons on their heels.
"How're we supposed to find him?" Rose cried, ducking her head just as a blast zoomed by.
"There!" As they rounded another corner, Jack spotted a stairwell and yanked Rose down with him into it, crouching near the wall. The Muertons ran straight past them.
As soon as they'd passed, Jack started to pull Rose back up, but stopped before leaving the safety of the stairwell. The Muertons had obviously realised they'd lost them, because they were now doubling back. Soon they would reach the stairwell.
"Split up," Jack suggested when he had regained enough breath to speak. "You head for the TARDIS; I'll draw them off and meet you there."
Rose shook her head. "I should draw them off. Have you noticed they're not really firing at you? It's all at me."
Jack paused for a moment. She was right – almost all of the fire had been aimed at her, not him. But he couldn't dwell on that at the moment, not with scarce cover and the possibility the Muertons might notice them at any moment.
"I'm expendable; you're not. See you in a sec." He flashed her a quick grin, then dashed out of the stairwell before she could protest, calling at the Muertons. "Hey!"
The Muertons chased after him immediately. They fired, but Jack distantly noted all blasts were aimed at his legs. He didn't have time to think much more than that; they ran nearly as fast as he did. Ignoring the stitch stabbing into his side, Jack almost wondered if he was starting to show his age.
Hallways flew by as Jack ran in what he hoped was a roundabout way back to where they'd seen the TARDIS. Blast after blast rang in his ears, and one grazed his calf, but he managed to escape both injury and the rampaging Muertons. Still, Jack realised he was nearing his breaking point. His legs were ready to give out, his heart was about to explode from his chest, and the stitch in his side roared its protest.
Just when he was sure he could go no further, Jack spotted the TARDIS, and pushed just a bit harder off the ground with each step. He felt along the glass wall frantically until he found a section that opened and barreled through it. The key was already in his hand; he slammed it into the door and tumbled inside the console room, kicking the door shut behind him.
He lay there for awhile, sprawled on the floor, unable to do much more than struggle for breath. Eventually though, he managed to prop himself up, wipe the sweat off his face with his sleeve, and realise what was missing.
Rose was not in the TARDIS.
Groaning, he got to his feet. "Rose?" he called, but no one answered.
He cursed. Rose should have been here. He'd taken a much longer route to make sure she'd have enough time to reach it. The fact that she wasn't here was a very, very bad sign.
He reached for the door handle, determined to track both her and the Doctor down, but stopped before he could open the door. Instead he moved to the console and brought up the outer view screen. The glass case the TARDIS was parked inside was surrounded by the armed Muertons who had been chasing him. With a pang, he realised that if Rose found her way back to the TARDIS now, she'd be unable to get inside.
Furious with himself, Jack pushed what he vaguely remembered being the buttons to bring up the scanner he wanted. If nothing else, maybe he could find the Doctor. He studied the flashing screen intently. The Gallifreyan symbols were as foreign to him as ever, but he recognised the waving lines as a sign that the scanner was searching. In the meantime, he reached for the rarely-used TARDIS telephone on a neglected corner of the console panel. Maybe he could get a hold of Rose and warn her about the Muertons surrounding the TARDIS.
It rang a few times before someone picked up. Clutching the phone to his ear, Jack kept one eye on the scanner screen. "Rose?"
His heart sank as he heard a garbled sounds, as if the speaker was not next to the telephone. He jammed the phone harder next to his ear, straining to pick out words.
"What is the meaning of this device?" came a harsh voice. "Why did it stop?"
"Rose?" Jack tried again.
"It's just a communication device." He picked out the faint but familiar tone of the Doctor's voice. "Absolutely harmless, out of range, no threat whatsoever…"
"It made a noise," insisted the first voice, who Jack realised must be a Sontaran.
"Jack!" Rose shrieked. A torrent of words flooded Jack's ear as both Rose and the Sontaran yelled over each other.
"Third hallway from the stairwell – "
"The female will be silent!"
"They don't know his face!"
"SILENCE!"
"They want him to – "
Jack recognised the zing of a blast, and Rose's voice cut off. His hand felt glued to the phone as he listened in horror to sounds of a scuffle and a single, faraway cry. "Rose! ROSE! No, please!"
Jack's hands shook, and the phone tumbled from his fingers. He did not pick it back up.
He sunk to the TARDIS floor, head in his hands as absolute hopelessness set in. Was he doomed to an eternity of reliving his failure over and over? Attacking in the restaurant resulted in either the Doctor or Rose dying. Staying in the cell resulted in Rose being threatened, if not killed. Escaping the cell resulted in Rose dying. And in every situation, the Doctor was forced to tell the Sontarans something horrible.
The scanner beeped, and Jack looked at it despairingly. He had the Doctor's location now. Three hallways down from where he and Rose had crouched in the stairwell, just like Rose had said. Just like what she'd died to tell him.
He doubted the Doctor wanted to be saved. If Rose was dead, he was probably doing anything possible to reset the time loop and bring her back. No doubt the Doctor would manage it – as Rose had said, he'd managed to do it every other time…
But when time reset, Rose would have forgotten everything. She was too close to the epicenter. Jack would have to solve this on his own.
Solve it how? Nothing he'd tried had worked. He still didn't know anything.
Alright, that wasn't true. He knew they'd been taken by Sontarans. He knew they were on a ship hovering over Warren Delta Three. He knew that the TARDIS was onboard. He knew how to escape the cell, that Muertons were standing guard just outside the cell, and where the Doctor had been taken. What he didn't know was how he was supposed to get Rose and the Doctor to safety.
Suppose next time, he escaped the cell with Rose, ran straight for the TARDIS? He could draw the patrol's fire while Rose got inside the TARDIS, and then…Well, he'd be dead, followed by alive and helpless. He still might not be able to save the Doctor. And even if he could persuade Rose to leave him, he doubted she'd stay in the TARDIS.
Getting them all back to the TARDIS would be so much easier if the Doctor didn't have to leave the cell in the first place. He needed them all in one place to save them.
Unbidden, Rose's dying words echoed in his mind. Third hallway from the stairwell…but that's not all she'd said, was it? They don't know his face.
They don't know his face.
Jack sat up as something clicked. The Doctor changed his face. He was effectively a shape-shifter, and Jack knew from experience shape-shifters were hard to track down. How had the Muertons identified him? Jack strained to remember.
But the Muertons had never actually identified him, had they? The first couple of loops, Rose and Jack had tried to protect him and given him away. And it would have been pretty obvious that the exploding glowing guy was the Doctor. They'd hurt both Jack and the Doctor when Rose had died, until the Doctor had revealed himself. And then…well the Doctor had basically walked up and introduced himself, hadn't he? Even in the restaurant, when they'd first arrived, it wasn't until the Doctor had introduced himself that Urzen approached them.
Rose had figured it out. They'd shot at her and not Jack because the Muertons weren't sure whether he or the Doctor was the Time Lord the Sontarans wanted. The Sontarans probably wanted the Doctor alive, so the Muertons had kept Jack alive just in case they'd gotten the wrong person.
Jack grimly returned the phone to its cradle. He felt the hollow emptiness of the TARDIS, and thought he heard echoes of the Doctor's babbling and Rose's laughter.
He knew what to do. This time, he was going to get them back.
A/N: Two more chapters left.