LOVE

TWELVE

Precisely one hour after his departure – never let it be said that the Lord of Time was not acutely aware of the passage of Time, at least when it suited his purposes – The Doctor was once again standing in front of the large cerulean door. It was locked. This fact didn't surprise him and frankly he'd not expected it to be unlocked.

So he rang the doorbell. When no pleasant, disembodied voice responded, he rang it again, and then a third time.

Hmm, he thought to himself. Then he formed his right hand into a loose fist and with the knuckle of his index finger he rapped on the door. "Hello?" he said, "is anybody home?"

Again there was no response so he made his hand into a tighter fist and this time knocked on the door quite a bit more animatedly. The rapping sound echoed in the air around him. "Hello!" he yelled louder. "I'm here! Open up!"

The Doctor took a step back and meticulously scrutinized the door and its surroundings. "Well this is odd," he said to no one in particular, "I wonder where they could be." He tried the door again, but with no success – it was still locked.

He reckoned there was a video feed, or perhaps it was only a microphone, somewhere nearby, but after a few moments of careful examination he could locate neither.

Then he took yet another step back and looked up. The green and white medical facility sign was still there – he was indeed in the right place. "Sorry about this, Vatia," he muttered as he pulled out his sonic screwdriver. He activated it, changed its setting and then listened to its hum while he pointed it. Then he dropped it back inside his coat's inner breast pocket and gently poked at the door with his index finger. The door swung open freely.

"About time!" he commented dryly as he strode through the entryway and into the unoccupied waiting room. "Well, where is everybody?" he asked as he looked around. Nothing seemed particularly out of place, it was just that no one was there.

He sat down, picked up a magazine and agitatedly paged through it. After about thirty seconds he put it down, "This is ridiculous!" he grumbled. He stood up, paced back and forth across the waiting room a few times, looked around and then walked behind the reception desk. The old-fashioned looking clipboard was still there with Vatia's neat handwriting spread across its surface. He picked it up. "Captain Jack Harkness," the Time Lord read out loud. "Human, male, single," he continued. "And where the hell is Captain Jack Harkness now, hmm?" he glared at the clipboard as if it could answer him and then dropped it back down on the desk in disgust with a resounding clang. "Stupid thing!"

Next he marched over to the door he'd watched Jack and Vatia disappear through just before he left the clinic a little more than an hour earlier. He tried it. "Locked, of course," was his pronouncement. Again the sonic came out and again it hummed. As expected the door opened before him. The sonic went back into his pocket. The Doctor walked through the doorway, and was confronted by a long hallway lined with – you guessed it – more closed doors. "You've got to be kidding me," he muttered.

But then more loudly: "Jack! Are you here? Hello! Anyone? Jack?"

There was nothing but silence and the drone of the HVAC.

He tried the first door. Locked. The sonic came out. Unlocked. He pushed the door open and walked in. It was basically a typical examination room, empty except for the exam table, two chairs, and a small locked cabinet. The Doctor pointed his sonic, easily unlocked the cabinet and examined the contents of its drawers. "Medical paraphernalia. Nothing particularly unusual here," he murmured to himself as he walked out of the room and on to the next door.

He inspected five rooms, all identical down to the contents of their cupboards. "Come on, Jack, where are you?" he said to the sixth door, locked like all the rest. But once opened, the interior of this room was definitely not like any of the others.

Jack's clothes were neatly folded and stacked on the exam table. The Doctor picked up the shirt from the top of the pile and sniffed it cautiously. "Jack?" he said, worry now creeping into his voice as his eyes scoured the room. "What's going on here?"

He shook out the shirt, held it to his nose briefly and then looked at it intently, inside and out, before tossing it aside over the back of one of the chairs. Next came the trousers, followed by the t-shirt and boxers. Each in turn he shook out, sniffed, and examined in great detail before setting it aside. Finally he arrived at the Captain's greatcoat. He pressed it to his face and inhaled deeply. Then he inhaled again before allowing it to gracefully unfold down to his feet. Using one hand to hold on to the collar he used the other to start methodically going through the coat's pockets. It was not long before he found what he was looking for.

"Ah ha!" he held it up like a prize and for a transitory moment a smile flashed across his face. "Got you my beauty!" He tossed the garment onto the chair with the rest of the discarded apparel and addressed Jack's precious leather wristband. "And what has happened here?" he said to it, knowing full well that it really, truly couldn't answer him. "What has become of your owner, eh? What has happened to my friend Captain Jack Harkness?"

He shoved the well-worn strap into his own coat's pocket and scooped up the Captain's clothing before walking to the next door. Once again he fiddled with his sonic and the door opened.

As he entered, he gasped audibly. The exam room was absolutely filled with indelible evil – some of it sickeningly apparent, some of it concealed but no less fierce. In the visible spectrum there were weapons scattered about and blood and other bodily fluids pooled on the floor and spattered across the walls. Then there was the unseeable devilry: The Doctor sensed a truly malevolent, single-minded and forceful intelligence. There was madness on an inconceivable scale; the darkest nightmares of a diseased mind run amok. And he was nearly overwhelmed by the psychic remnants of phenomenal, horrific pain. Beyond even that, the room utterly reeked of death. His eyes welled up with tears, "Oh Jack," he whispered, "what has become of you?"

With one arm he held the Captain's clothing close to his chest, with his free hand he picked up the numerous discarded implements of death one at a time and as he gripped each object firmly in his fingers he closed his eyes and forced himself to examine the secrets lurking within. It was one of the hardest things he'd ever done, forcing himself to face those terrible and terrifying weapons and the horrible truths each possessed. To see each dreadful item as Jack had seen it, to feel what Jack had felt when it… when the hateful thing was used to hurt him, maul him, kill him.

Eventually The Doctor could stand it no more, he stumbled against the wall and then out of the exam room into the empty waiting area. He collapsed onto one of the couches, still clutching the Captain's clothing to his breast, to his hearts, his tears now freely flowing.

"I'm sorry, Jack. I'm so sorry," he repeated over and over again.

Eventually the words and tears slowed and finally stopped. For the longest time The Doctor sat quietly. He was stoic, unmoving. Well, not quite totally unmoving. His eyes were swiveling back and forth, and they were aflame with a fire not seen burning in those same old, ancient, eternal eyes for a long, long time.

He rested the treasured armful of clothing down onto his lap and then neatly, precisely, folded each piece before laying it on the couch next to him. Soon Jack's clothes were all in a carefully arranged stack once again. He smoothed the top of the pile one last time with his outstretched fingers, letting his hand rest there a moment longer than strictly necessary.

The Doctor took a deep breath, stood up and stretched out his back. Restlessly, he flexed his shoulders and rocked gently from side to side on the balls of his feet. He pulled the old, worn leather wristband out of his coat pocket and looked at it, first sadly and then more and more resolutely. "If you think," he said, tearing his eyes from it and staring up at the ceiling and beyond, into the vastness of Time and Space, "that I'm just going to sit back and let this happen; well… you have another think coming."

He was a lone warrior, armed only with the sound of his voice, confronting anything and everything that was wicked and despicable in the universe.

Then he pressed the little blue button.

-00-

"Whoso loves, believes the impossible."
Elizabeth Barret Browning