Wow, it's been well over a month since the last posting... if you're still with me, thanks!
Last we heard, the crew (which is now the Doctor, Martha, Jack, Glenn, and two formerly-lost-in-time guys named Steve and Haroun) were figuring things out, talking about relationships and reform and whatnot. They were recopying documents, making plans, and generally getting everything ready to rescue all the folks who've been zapped by the Weeping Angels at Oystermouth.
At the start of the previous chapter, I warned that we'd be taking a science-fiction slowdown for a moment to focus on characters, friendships, and love. Well, that "moment" continues here, and I hope you enjoy the talkative natures of Ms. Jones and Captain Harkness. Martha has a come-to-Jesus moment, and the business of tying up all the loose ends of the story begins!
Enjoy!
EIGHTEEN
It was 1900, in Yakutsk, Siberia.
Haroun and Steve stepped out of the TARDIS in the togs that Martha had helped them find. In addition, they each had an old rucksack containing some provisions just in case, and of course, wrapped in plastic, the documents the Doctor had written out, according to the same documents they had recovered somewhere in time, and given to him.
Jack and Martha wished them luck, and shut the TARDIS doors. The Doctor materialised the vessel five miles to the west, almost literally in the middle of nowhere, Siberia. They could hear the wind howling outside, and bits of ice blowing into the sides of the blue box, every now and then.
With that, the Doctor and Glenn disappeared down the hall, set to do something incredibly esoteric with computers, quantum lock, and energy signatures…
"Well, Miss Jones, alone at last," Jack said.
"Indeed," she sighed, taking a seat.
"I'm going to call my people," he said. He dialled, and then docked his phone in the console, so that the call could be heard throughout the room.
"Jack! Where the hell have you been?" Gwen shouted.
"Well, excellent question," he answered. "How long since you've heard from me?"
"What do you mean how long? It's been five weeks, you wanker!"
"Oh, shit," he spat, looking at Martha, who shrugged, as she was not surprised. "Yeah… sorry. Ran into a bit of a rough patch."
"A rough patch? What kind of fucking rough patch takes five weeks? I mean, you leave us for months, then you come back for what? Two weeks? Then you're off again and it takes another…"
"Gwen, Gwen," he said. "I get it, I'm an asshole. I'm rootless and insensitive, and you're extremely hurt. Can we move on?"
"You're a right prick, you know that?"
"Look, I didn't do any of it on purpose," Jack said, conceding a nicer tone to his colleague. "Especially this last five-week bit. Gwen, you've got to believe me: it's only been hours from my end."
"What? Rubbish!"
Martha piped up. "Hey Gwen, it's Martha. The same thing happened to me."
"What do you mean?"
"I stayed behind in 1980 to help with a medical-slash-time-travel issue. For a while, I was keeping in contact with the Doctor and Jack, but then… poof! Nothing for three weeks, and when I finally did get hold of them, they said the same thing: it's only been hours. Weird things happen in the TARDIS, but I'm back now. We're back…"
"We went through the Rift," Jack said. "With Weeping Angels and a TARDIS, and yeah, time went wonky all around us!"
"Jack, is that you?" they heard from faraway on Gwen's end. It was Toshiko's voice.
"Yeah," he answered. "Hey, Tosh."
"Was I right? Was it the Rift that caused the radio silence?" she asked.
"Yes, it was," Jack said. "Gwen's having a hard time with that."
"I know, I know," Tosh groaned. "Trust issues, this one. Anyway, I've got the Rift Manipulator up and running again, so anytime you want to try again…"
"It was down?" Jack asked.
"Yep. For almost a month. I was really stymied – I even waited a few days to see if you'd come back with the Doctor so I could ask him what to do. And then it occurred to me the switch the temporal fields setting and the molecular compression modulator back to their factory settings, since the Angels going back to their home dimension or whatever, probably messed with both of those things. And if I understand them correctly, and they are sentient, and able to release their quantum lock while they're in a non-temporal state, then they were probably holding on for dear life, and ripping through the walls between channels. My work was definitely cut out for me! So, I did that, and then completely reprogrammed the refraction beam, and soldered the black thing back in place after the TARDIS melted it, and voilà. Easy peasy."
"Sure, sounds like a piece of very complicated cake," Jack said.
Martha chuckled. "Tosh, can I take lessons from you?"
Jack continued, "So, actually, you've just answered a huge question for me. The reason I'm calling is, we needed to know if we shorted out the Hub and/or the manipulator, because we're going to need it again. And I'm not a Time Lord, but I'm going to guess there's a good chance it will all happen again."
"Which part?" Gwen asked.
"All of it," said Jack. "Losing touch for weeks, melting down the manipulator…"
"Jesus Christ," Gwen spat. "What are we supposed to do for another fifteen weeks while you vanquish three more of these Angel things?"
"What you always do!" he said. "Mend things. Monitor the Rift, deal with whatever comes through it. Make sure Ianto doesn't date anyone better looking than me… the usual. It's not hard!"
"It's not going to stop us feeling abandoned," she sulked.
"Gwen, I'm not your mommy," he said. "You can function without me!"
Gwen made to protest again, but then Tosh cut across her with, "Will do, Jack, thanks! Just let us know when you lot are ready to fire up the Rift Manipulator again – we're here for you. We've got the comm system wired up so you can find us anywhere we go. Okay, be safe, bye!"
Gwen protested again, and just before the call was cut off, they heard Tosh say, "Oh, for God's sake…"
And then it went dead.
Martha sighed. "She fancies you. You know that, right?"
"Who, Gwen?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, I know," he sighed. "I've had my moments with her, too. It's been kind of the elephant in the room at different times. But she's engaged and thirty years old, and I'm… well, immortal, and…"
"Don't talk to me about an age gap, mister."
He chuckled. "Yeah, I guess you're the wrong person to complain to. But how did you know? About Gwen?"
"She's a smart, successful, strong woman, yeah? Tough as nails?"
"Yeah."
"And so is Tosh? Cut from the same cloth that way, yeah?"
"I'd say… yes."
"Then why else would Gwen alone be that pissed off and maudlin that you've been out of touch for five weeks? As you said, she can fully function without you – she's part of a team, for God's sake, that fights aliens! Is she really that hungry for your leadership and guidance?"
"Maybe," he smirked.
"You're a good leader, but her anger is personal," Martha said, as though he were being incredibly daft.
He sighed. "Yep. We got involved, which was a bad idea."
"Involved? So..."
"No, no. Nothing's ever really happened between us, at least not physically. Again, she's engaged. I don't get between a couple, if I can help it. Not unless they're both into it."
"Okay, good policy."
"No, our getting involved has all been innuendo and attraction and lingering glances – some of it has been out of our own control. But I have that with Ianto, as well, and he's single, so…"
"Not Tosh or Owen?"
"I find them both attractive, of course, but there's not the same chemistry."
"Interesting."
"And none of them is quite as fiery as Gwen. Girl's got a temper – can't discount that."
"Even so, Jack, I've been there… quite recently, as it turns out. And I can handle three weeks' silence from a time-travel standpoint, from the doing-my-job standpoint (as it were). But on the emotional end, it was torture." She sighed hard. "Thinking I'd been abandoned by the Doctor…"
"Stop right there," he said. "I can hear your tone going into wistful territory, and I'm telling you now, knock it off, Martha Jones."
"Can't help it," she said. "I know he's got a… past."
"Don't we all?"
"Well, yeah, but…" she began. Then she sat up straight and crossed her legs into lotus position, and went on. "Jack, what do you know about Rose's departure from the Doctor's life? I mean, all that pain, all the tears and self-loathing, and dodging questions… dodging me for two whole years…"
"Where's this coming from?" he asked, settling his bum against the console, crossing his arms.
"Just from the fact that I've never known. I'm in a relationship now with someone who has had a recent relationship-related trauma that he won't talk about, and I feel like I should know. I'm…" she sighed, giving in, knowing she was going to have to give up some control here. Her voice broke a bit. "Jack, I… I'm just helplessly in love with him. It is beyond all reason, which I guess… love is, isn't it? I look at him, or he looks at me… we kiss, we touch, we whisper to each other, and oh my God, Jack, I'm in it up to my neck! I want to just drift out into the sea with him, and cut anchor, and maybe drown. And not in the TARDIS – in each other."
"It's a great feeling, isn't it?"
"To feel all of that and know that he loves me, yes. But it's terrifying. Because I have all these questions. I'll never get all of them answered, but this one big, big question, looming over his life and mine… the Rose question. That one, I feel that I should have the answer. If I were his doctor, I'd need to know his medical history in order to know how best to proceed. Why can't the same be said about his romantic history, now that I'm his… what?"
Jack smiled. "Good question. Girlfriend doesn't sound quite right, does it? Not lofty enough for a Time Lord. Partner sounds like you solve crimes together, which you kind of do…"
"That, or manage a law firm. Anyway, I know I'm strong, I know I can survive – my brain knows that. But my heart and gut feel that if this thing with the Doctor doesn't work out, it will break me. This will be the thing that breaks me. And there's just no way it can work out in the long run. It can't."
Jack sighed. "Martha, I wish I could reassure you otherwise. But as a wise woman recently said, 'Grief is the price we pay for love.'"
"Are you saying, I shouldn't want to know more?"
"Not at all."
"When I wanted to be left behind in Connecticut in 1980, he invoked what happened with Rose as a reason for me to stay with him, and not toy with separation and time travel, and… I know some stuff, but not everything, and it grates on me."
"Martha, I just think I'm not the man who should tell you the story."
"Yeah, I suppose."
"It seems to me that if you reach a point where he tells you himself, it would be a relationship milestone, and it's something to strive for, and look forward to."
"Wow. Suddenly I feel very adolescent."
"You are, compared to me. But all humans are," he told her, with a friendly smirk. "I've been in more relationships than you've been in pairs of underwear. I'm very, very old, at least for a human, so don't beat yourself up."
"Fine, I'll take the mature road," she said, sounding intentionally immature.
"In general, the mature road can be overrated, but in this case, I think it's the best way to go."
"Great. I come to you for gossip, and instead, you give me great advice. Thanks a lot," she said flatly, but it was all self-deprecating sarcasm. She knew Jack had a point.
He laughed. "Besides, Martha, I don't even know the whole story, so I couldn't tell it to you, even if I wanted to. I know something happened when Torchwood fell at Canary Wharf, and that's the extent of it."
"Yeah, even I know that much," she said. She let a long pause lapse, and then said, "When he left you, were you pissed off at him, the way Gwen is at you? Did it break you?"
"Nearly," he said.
"Tell me."
He sighed. "Why?"
She tutted, exasperated, and spoke with her whole body now. "Because you two… you always avoid answering this stuff! Clearly, you're carrying some anger about it – you scoffed at him when he promised not to leave Haroun and Steve without a life-preserver. And we have already established, Jack, it's inevitable for me. One day, one way or another, it ends, and I break. Either that, or I die doing this running-and-jumping thing with him. But what about you? Did you break?"
The fear in her voice was evident now.
"I see why you wanted to help me in the console room," he said.
"Yeah, yeah," she sighed. "Are you going to answer the question?"
He paused, swallowed hard, adjusted his clothing a bit. Martha watched in awe – it was rare to see Jack Harkness uncomfortable.
"Okay, first, let me be clear about something: he had no choice," Jack said. "It took me a while to realise that."
"Okay."
"I mean, he did have a choice, which I know because I've seen him make different sorts of choices since then. But, with the information he had at the time, he did what he felt he had to do."
"Good to know."
"I know I've talked with you about this already…"
"All you said was that it was the far-flung future, and you were 'ankle-deep in Dalek dust,' and the Doctor left without you."
"You don't know why?"
"No! That's why I'm asking!"
"We were on a space station. There were these games, and if you lost the game… well, Rose played The Weakest Link and that was the first time we lost her."
"What?"
"The games are basically irrelevant. The point is, she eventually became the weakest link and was vaporised, and we assumed, killed, by this big laser beam. Because she not only lost the game, but rebelled against it. Which, in thinking about it, was unavoidable given the kind of person the Doctor chooses to spend his time with. But even knowing that, if you want to see the Doctor taciturn, and then go from zero to pissed-off in two seconds…"
"No thanks."
"Good choice. But, fortunately, Rose turned up later – turned out the vaporising death-ray thingie was actually a transmat beam into a Dalek ship," he continued. "Which the Doctor didn't realise until he was on a view-comm with the big Daddy Dalek or whatever, and saw Rose on the screen. So, long story short, Daleks attack the space station."
"Fantastic."
"But the Doctor, of course, figures out how to reverse the transmat, and bring Rose back to the space station. Then, the space station's destruction becomes imminent, which means he's got to get Rose out of there, so he does this emergency protocol thing in the TARDIS…"
"Oh, with a hologram?"
"I think so, yeah – I wasn't there. But it sent her home to the twenty-first century with her mother. However, you might not be surprised to know that she was not content to sit in London and eat chips and get on with her life. She had to help. Somehow, she and her boyfriend…"
"Her what?"
"I know, right? Don't get me started. Anyway, the two of them – plus her mum, I guess – open up the TARDIS console, and when she looked inside, part of the time vortex infused her."
"Oh! This is what made you immortal! Okay, I know this part. And it almost burned up her brain, so the Doctor had to take it on himself, and it caused him to regenerate."
"Yep. The Dalek-dust happened when she became omnipotent and literally divided their atoms with a wave of her hand."
"Wow! So the Doctor abandoned you, why?"
He sighed, and looked at her with a hint of pain and sadness. "Do you remember when you first met me?"
"Of course."
"He tried to do it then, as well. He saw me coming and fired up the TARDIS to try and leave me behind in Cardiff."
"Yeah, that was weird. I'd forgotten about that."
"I grate on the Doctor's nerves. And not because I'm cheeky, but because I'm a human being who is immortal. I've been infused with the time vortex, and…" he shrugged with both hands bared. "That was never meant to be. A Time Lord takes very seriously things that are never meant to be. Especially when the vortex is involved."
She nodded. "Indeed."
"At that time, back when it first happened, and he left me on that space station, the Doctor was dealing with his own imminent regeneration, Rose was unconscious, and he had no idea what my new infusion could mean. I could be a walking paradox. I could cause localised time swirls. I could magnetise with the vortex, which would jeopardise all time travel… anything was possible, and he just didn't know! All he knew was that I was a thing that made him sick, and he had to get the hell out of there, for his own good, and possibly everyone else's."
"But if there was a possibility that you could do any or all of those things, wouldn't it have made more sense to bring you with him, to monitor you?"
"Keep me for observation, says the doctor-in-training," he said. "I think, Dr. Jones, that the Doctor we now know and love would have tried to do just that. But he's a different man these days – almost literally. Not quite, but almost. And there's one last factor I haven't mentioned yet."
"What?"
"The TARDIS. Whatever sensibilities a Time Lord has, his TARDIS has them tenfold," he said, stroking the console, and looking up into the time rotor. He paused, thinking, then, "I'm an impossible thing, almost an insult to her. She and I are like repelling magnets or something. Even though she knows exactly how I got this way, and that she played a part in it, it's still hurtful for her – I don't know how, or in what way. The Doctor could probably give you a metaphor for frame of reference, as far as what the pain might feel like, but I can't. Anyway, she fired up faster than usual to get away from me at the space station, as well as in Cardiff when you were there."
Martha frowned and looked up at the time rotor, and said, "Oh, I'm sorry."
Jack shrugged. "Over time, the Doctor has acclimated to the idea of me, and has learned more about who I am and what I'm doing in the world, and his churning guts have calmed… now I'm no more to him than maybe an allergy."
"So you make him sneeze?" she joked.
"Figuratively, maybe. But he keeps me around anyway. And the TARDIS, I think, has done the same. When she was all trussed-up because of the Master, she had bigger things on her mind, and didn't seem to notice me… ever since then, things have been okay. I haven't heard her wince at my presence in a while."
"Small victories, I guess."
He nodded. "Listen, Martha, I know why you're asking these questions. I understand why you want to know what happened to Rose, and why he left me behind. And whether it broke me. And you may break someday too, but I broke, and I'm still here. And I'm better for it."
Martha nodded. "Okay. Thank you for telling me the story."
"You must know in your gut that he would never walk away from you on purpose, if he had any choice about it. He loves you, but more importantly, he values you. You were a part of him even before you were his not-girlfriend-not-partner. And he doesn't take that lightly, nor abandon that sort of thing on a whim."
"So I should try not to become immortal?"
"If you can help it, I don't recommend it."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to be alive most of the time. I'm grateful that the Doctor restored my life force, or whatever, after Glenn tried to steal my immortality – I wasn't ready to die then. But it's a long, long life, and it's hard finding new things to look forward to. I feel like eventually, I'll have done it all, and then what?"
"Meet new people?"
He smiled. "Yes, definitely."
"And try to get them out of their clothes?"
"You do know me well."
Though they were both aware that this little innuendo was a signal that things had reverted to form. Jack was finished being vulnerable for now, and he was internally thanking Martha for giving him an "out."
Several hours later, Steve and Haroun rang, saying they'd done their duty and were ready to leave. The Doctor and Glenn returned to the console room, and the TARDIS was moved to pick up Steve, Haroun, plus two extras: Kate and Lucas, who had been zapped from the early twenty-first century Swansea to early twentieth Siberia. They had been knocking about in fur-trapping Russia for almost a year, and were incredibly relieved to be rescued, though were sceptical about whether they could be restored to their own time…
…until they entered the TARDIS, and seemed to see that the impossible could be achieved. They were quite concerned about their friend Liam Detton, who, as the Doctor had predicted, simply volunteered to stay behind.
"Why would he do that?" Kate asked, tears coming to her eyes.
"Because someone's got to," Steve explained to her. "And as he said, you and Lucas have each got spouses and kids. He's only got a flatmate and a dog. He knows he'd have an easier time starting his life over than you would."
"He's also better equipped to walk across Russia and into Japan than either one of us, Kate," Lucas pointed out. "I'm fifty-three, and podgy. He's a strapping lad of twenty."
And then Kate and Lucas were reassured that Liam would live happily ever after in Hokkaido, and that his actions would save others from having to live out their lives far away from their loved ones, hopeless and clueless.
The Doctor then moved the TARDIS to Hokkaido, where there had been a predetermined (according to the documents) meeting place for those folks who had been displaced there, and then to Junín, Argentina. Once the seeds of the plan had been planted in Siberia, the rest of the rescues took less than an hour to complete, and they all found themselves back in 2007, at Oystermouth Cemetery, everyone responsible for finding their own way home from there.
But before they could be allowed to leave, the Doctor held court to issue warnings to all of those who had been rescued, and were now champing at the bit to get home.
"You need to know that some of you will have been reported missing, and/or will simply have been not heard from for a while," he said. "It is vitally important to have a cover story that will work for you, and your loved ones. Give it some thought before returning home. I would urge you not to show your face until you have got a satisfactory scenario, one that you can live with, and stick with, forever."
"What do you mean?" one of them asked.
"Well, imagine what will happen if you say you'd been kidnapped," the Doctor said. "What will your spouse, or your flatmate, or your best friend, or your child, or your parent, say?"
The same person answered, "My wife would encourage me to call the police."
Someone else said, "My mum would want me to get help for PTSD or something."
"Right," the Doctor said. "And you'd have to come up with satisfactory reasons not to do those things, or be all right with committing police fraud, and making up a story to tell a psychiatrist. So again, I say, think hard before you go back to your lives."
"What about a fugue state?" someone asked. "Could I say that?"
"Yes, but people generally come slowly out of them, over time," the Doctor said. "Are you prepared to tell a story gradually, without contradicting yourself?"
"What if I say, I just needed some time to myself, without any contact with the outside world?"
"Why wouldn't you have let them know in advance, so they wouldn't worry about you?" the Doctor asked.
"What if I said I hit my head and got amnesia?"
"Shouldn't you be getting medical and/or psychiatric care for that?" Martha asked.
"Could I just tell them the truth? Would that be so bad?"
"Who the hell would believe you?" Jack said. "You'll find yourself in a mental ward somewhere. Trust us – we've seen it happen."
A din rose up as people worked through it, and the Doctor's warning did cause everyone to give pause, and wait a while before leaving the TARDIS. Some said they would check into a hotel for a few days before going home, but eventually, they did all leave, grateful and relieved.
Last to leave were Haroun and Steve, who thanked the Doctor, Martha, Glenn, and Jack profusely, not just for the rescue, but also for allowing them to be part of the solution. The ability to help had been huge for both of them, in coming to terms with it all, and getting past the stress of it all.
The Doctor smiled. "And now you see why I do what I do."
They left, and then there were three humans in the TARDIS, and one Time Lord, once more.
"Now what?" Glenn asked.
"Well, I hate to say it," the Doctor sighed. "But we've still got three more Weeping Angels to strip of their powers."
"Erm, I hate to say it," Martha countered. "But it's been a long day. Can we rest before we jump into that?"
Desperate for some routine and normalcy to cling to with the Doctor, Martha went through all nightly ablutions before crawling into bed. Even though she was exhausted, her insecurities made her feel, rationally or irrationally, that something mundane like taking off her makeup with a cotton ball, then swallowing a vitamin on her night table might give them some stability.
It was daft, she knew, but for the moment, it felt right. The first full night back in the TARDIS after having been "abandoned" in 1980, she was damn well going to play house for all it was worth.
The Doctor, to her mild surprise, had actually changed into sleepwear as well, and seemed prepared to truly settle in for the night.
"Did you and Glenn get everything done that you needed to?" she asked sliding between the sheets beside him.
"Yep," he answered, putting his book aside, and looking at her through his adorable, but unnecessary, glasses. "There's a 'vaccine' stored on a flash drive in my coat pocket, just over there." He indicated his suit jacket draped over his desk chair.
"Cool. Now what?"
"We just need a way into… like, an internet mainframe of some kind, on Earth."
"That sounds absurd."
"I know, but I don't know how else to describe it."
"Can you do it?"
"I'll work it out. I think Torchwood could be of help to that end. Speaking of Torchwood, did you and Jack get done what you needed to?"
"Yes. Both at Torchwood, and… not at Torchwood. I'll tell you all about it later," she responded. And then she sank down onto her back, and he did the same, switching out the overhead lights with the sonic screwdriver.
And sleep, simple, dark, deep, and much-needed, overtook them both, seemingly within seconds.
It is official: this story is to be twenty chapters. It is now finished! As such, I will try to post chapters 19 and 20 within the next week or so, while working on a new thing I've got in mind. The plot bunnies are back, for better or for worse!
And as always, if you are reading, only fair to post a review once in a while! Let me know your thoughts, and/or just that you're OUT THERE, so I know I'm not screaming into the void! Howling into the Howling, if you will... ;-)
Thank you for reading!