Chapter 4
The doctor, as he stepped forward, was joined by Captain Jack Harkness. The two brave men, though scared beyond imagine, stood stone-faced in front of this advancing creature. To them, it didn't matter so much that they were scared as it did that they were doing this for their friends and family.
'What do you want with us?' The Captain bellowed at the creature. At first, everyone thought it would not reply, but then it spoke in a raspy, almost floating voice.
'I am the Abrosmin. I have come… I have come for… for the girl.' The doctor looked at Rose, while the rest of the team tried to figure out which girl the smoke meant.
'Why do you want her?' The doctor said protectively, worried for the sake of the woman he just got back.
The smoke paused before answering. 'I want her… because she smells good. She smells like… like time.'
Nobody answered for a moment, but wheels were spinning in the doctor's head. He was remembering things, events from long ago in his childhood. When he was merely nine years old, he remembered learning about something like this in school. 'No…' he murmured as he was engulfed by this memory.
The small child walked into class distracted. The previous day, they had learned about nice aliens that were quite friendly, and today they were to begin their unit on dangerous aliens. He had loved learning of the friendly aliens, but he was scared of the more dangerous ones. He had never known some of his family members, as they had been taken by aliens.
He sat down in his normal seat and prepared for class. He was excited about this lesson too, to know where to avoid and where to go often when he one day became a traveller of time and space. His teacher walked in right on time and all of his fellow classmates turned to her and watched, all eager to learn about this particular topic.
'Class, today we will be learning about the single most dangerous of all aliens. Once one time-travels, these beings will hunt them down until they are captured. I'm talking about the Abrosmin. These creatures look quite harmless on the outside, but they're very dangerous to time-travellers, or really anyone who has touched the time vortex in any way.
These beings, they take the form of a common gas found on whatever planet they're invading. If they're on Earth, they will show in the form of smoke. Here, in the form of a yellow gas like our clouds, on other planets they may be blue or clear or any other colour. And these creatures travel with one purpose: they travel because they survive on the flesh of time.
They've killed many Gallifreyans before you, and they will most certainly kill many more. I'm telling you this so that none of you will be those unfortunate souls. They have been known to dislike the flesh of time-lords, however there's not yet any other time-travellers in the world, and therefore no other flesh of time for them to eat.
When Earth finally creates time travel, they will most likely shift their focus to humans, but we have not reached such point yet. But let me tell you, if one ever sees you, it will kill you and it will eat you.
Now, what makes these so dangerous, you may wonder? Well, they are s dangerous because they are almost impossible to kill. To kill these creatures, you need to trap it in place alone, without the presence of another, so that you can infect it without infecting someone else. That's the hardest part- getting it alone. From there, you need to fill up its container with pure, undiluted water, more specifically, H20. That should get rid of the creature. Just remember, if you do run into one of these and can't get it alone, run. Just run. If you can get far enough fast enough, it'll lose you or give up. Always remember that, class.'
The doctor looked up as he focused from out of his memory, rejoicing internally that he had remembered how to destroy this creature.
The creature floated closer to him. 'I want… the girl. And I want… you… time lord.' It rasped.
'Well why don't you want Jack then?' The doctor replied, truly curious as to why the third time-traveller was unwanted.
'Because… he smells wrong… smells… bad…' it replied, and the doctor was momentarily baffled. He recovered quickly, then turned back to the dark floating creature.
'If you're going to eat us… can I at least have a moment to say goodbye to my friends? You've trapped us here, so there's no way we can escape. Please?' The doctor replied to the gaseous monster. Rose, Jack, and the Ponds looked at him like he was insane, knowing that their doctor never gave up. Jack was about to say something, but the creature spoke first.
'Don't keep me waiting long… I'm hungry.' It hovered in place while the Doctor dragged the Torchwood team and his companions with him to the other side of the hub.
'I know how we can defeat this thing. There's only one way to do it, and that's to trap it alone and drown it in pure H2O. It's going to be difficult, but we need to find a way to do it. None of you can be in there though; I'm not going to be the cause of anyone getting hurt. I've done that enough… You know this place better than I do, Jack. What can we do?' The doctor whispered in the tight huddle.
Jack thought for a moment. 'We do have a room, and experimental room we recently built. It's got a special tube to fill the room with whatever compound we want. We built it to contain more aliens, but this seems like a pretty good time to use it.'
The doctor smiled wide and then frowned again. 'Well, how are we supposed to get it in there, Jack?' The rest of the team turned to the captain, wondering the same exact thing.
'Doc, I'm immortal. I'll live; I can lead it in there.' He replied without a moment's hesitation. With a frown still upon his face, the doctor nodded. 'I don't see another choice…'
They broke their huddle and Jack marched straight up to the hovering being. 'Hey, here's the deal. You can have me first. I'm still a time-traveller, I'll taste delicious and satisfy your hunger, right?'
The beast stayed silent. Jack stared it down. 'Yes… you will satisfy… as well as the others… I am hungry. You go first.' It finally agreed.
'Catch me if you can!' Jack yelled with a laugh as he sprinted towards the stairs down to the cells. The big black beast followed him closely as it tried to keep up. The rest of the gang ran after them and when the beast reached the room, Gwen slammed the door shut behind it and pulled the airtight seal. 'Tosh, go!' she yelled as Tosh quickly programmed the computer to fill up the room with water. She turned on the security cameras in time to see water beginning to cover the floor and Jack dodging the strikes of the creature.
As soon as the water was deep enough, Jack ducked under it. The creature, as much as it wanted Jack, wouldn't penetrate the barrier of water, knowing it was his only downfall. 'You… time lord… you betrayed me…' They heard through the security microphones.
As the water filled up the room, there was no way they couldn't hear the screech that came from the creature. The wailing travelled easily through the door, and blasted the ears of the onlookers.
When the wailing stopped, they looked at the security feed to see the blackness completely gone. Jack however, was floating in the middle of the room completely limp. Ianto let out a cry and hit the 'drain' button. They watched in agonizing slowness as the water trickled through the tiny drain at the bottom of the room, and when the level was finally below ankle level, Ianto couldn't wait any longer.
He burst into the room and ran straight to his companion, Jack. He kneeled down next to him and held his hand as he waited for him to awaken once again. After a minute longer, Jack sucked in a breath and opened his eyes to see the wonderful face of his favourite person within Torchwood: Ianto Jones. He reached up and gave Ianto a hug, while the rest of the team watched in amazement as their boss once again defied death.
Rose smiled, finally able to fully believe in Jack's abilities. The Doctor, who had already seen proof of Jack's amazing situation, relaxed his tense muscles. Ianto helped Jack up, and Jack quickly recovered his strength and consciousness. The team all bunch up around him, giving him slaps on the back and congratulations and thanks for sacrificing himself yet again for his team.
Amy and Rory, the curious couple, watched the doctor with confused eyes. When he turned around, they spoke to him before he could scamper off somewhere. 'Doctor, what the hell just happened?' Rory said sternly, being reminded once again that the doctor knows so much more than them.
The Doctor simply smiled. 'It's a long story, Rory. It's a long long story…' And with such a lame answer given, the doctor strode off, leaving Amy and Rory once again wondering why they liked this man so much. Rose walked over to them with a smile brightening up her face.
'Hey, have either of you seen where the doctor went?' She asked the two. Amy replied to her, 'He just went that way, but before you go, can we ask you a question?' Rose turned to follow her beloved tome lord, but swivelled back to face the Ponds. 'Yeah, sure.' She looked truly curious to hear what Amy was wondering about.
'Well, I was wondering if you could tell me… how exactly Jack ended up like that.' Amy asked, letting go of her husband to listen intently to Rose's answer.
'Well… I can tell you about when it may have happened, but that's really all I know. I've gotten bits and pieces over the years, but I just can't remember those days that well… I think it caused the doctor to regenerate though… into the doctor before this one, I'd assume. You met the Daleks?' Rose explains to Amy, hoping that for the doctor's sake the Daleks hadn't returned again like they seemed to have a knack for doing.
'We have actually… the doctor was really violent, more than I've ever seen him.' She replied, remembering the days with the Daleks in World War II, where the doctor seemed to be eternally full of frustration, anger, and sadness.
Rose frowned a bit, before pulling herself back up. 'Well, the first time I met Jack, he was a con-man in the Blitz, saved me from falling off a zeppelin, actually. I don't think he was immortal then… I really can't be sure… Well, anyways, he ended up getting shot by a Dalek later and well, we assumed he had died. Then… the doctor was threatening to wipe out all the Daleks with the press of a button. The thing was, it'd kill him, me, and all the other humans within the vicinity.
'He decided he was going to save me though, he put me in the TARDIS and sent me back home. I didn't want to go home though, so my friend helped me rip a hole in the console…. And that's really as far as I can remember. I've got a hazy memory of something golden killing the Daleks, reviving Jack, but then… I don't know. I just remember waking up in the TARDIS next to the doctor dying… Then after than when we ran into Jack again, he was immortal.' Rose said, matter-of-factly. She seemed to become very distant as she thought about that moment, falling deep into memories surrounding the event. She knew subconsciously that she was the one that saved Jack, but she could never locate the memory and thus couldn't explain it.
She turned away, deep in thought, and wandered off after the doctor, leaving Amy and Rory just as confused as before. 'Space and Time… why is it so messed up?' Rory whispered to his wife. She giggled, and they both strode after Rose and the Doctor, hand in hand.