A/N: You have nooo idea how many different variants of scenes I wrote for this that all got deleted.

Chapter 18 - Crash

The Doctor had continued to purposely pile on his disobedience in an effort to get Jack to act more drastically. After a few hours, he'd managed to make Jack hit him three times, gag him and tie him with cables to a chair.

He could tell the immortal wasn't taking it well. Every time the Doctor met his eyes Jack looked as though he was about to cry, unconsciously cradling the fist that had hit the Time Lord. But it was working – Spleen had a permanent smile plastered on his face. Even now, the draconian was across the room, pretending not to be looking at him. Inside his head, the Doctor knew, Spleen was thinking of ways he would use him. There would probably be a group of people ready to meet them when they landed, ready to kill Jack and take him to whatever fate Spleen had planned for him.

I hate this.

He couldn't reply to Rose, though she knew that.

I don't want this. Stop it, please.

Jack entered the deck from the cockpit. 'Sirrus is one minute away.' He looked at the Doctor. The sadness returned, but only briefly before he marched up to the Time Lord. He removed the gag, stooping to the Doctor's height. 'Gonna play nice?' he asked the Time Lord.

'Yes, Master Jack,' the Doctor muttered. 'I'm sorry, Master Jack.'

Jack reached around to release the cables holding him. The Doctor finally stood up on Jack's cue, gazing at the immortal.

'Now stand in the corner with your hands on the wall, and don't move,' Jack told him. The Doctor obeyed, moving to the corner, facing the wall and placing his hands on it. He lowered his head and closed his eyes, just listening.

'I'll initiate the manual landing protocol,' Jack said, and left into the cockpit. Then, silence. No, wait. Spleen was moving towards him. He was…

Suddenly something hit his head. The Doctor screamed out as pain exploded in the right side of his skull, his vision immediately whiting out as the pure shock of the impact temporarily blinded him. He must have blacked out, as seconds later he found himself lying on the floor, barely able to see with the sound of Jack shouting from somewhere in the ebbing distance. In instinct he tried to get up, but the pure shock seemed to have numbed his body and he found himself just lying there on the floor with a dark figure standing over him, his vision swerving in and out...

Doctor! Doctor!

He couldn't answer her, as suddenly he realised Jack and Spleen were fighting, and the entire ship seemed to be pulsating with bright red light. Through his jumbled-up head he realised that with no one to pilot, the ship was now crashing…

We're crashing! Doctor, get out!

He blinked rapidly, struggling to focus. He had to get up. He blindly reached up for something to help him, managing to grip some sort of metal pipe. He staggered upright, finally managing to get some vision back before launching himself in the vague direction of the cockpit. He completely missed as suddenly the ship violently jolted, and began to nosedive. His body, helpless at the new angle, slid down to hit the wall separating the deck and the cockpit in a tangle of wires and loose cargo.

Jack!

'Jack!' he cried, but one look in Jack's direction told him all he needed to know as Jack and Spleen were entangled in a fierce brawl. So instead he forced himself up again, trying desperately to get to the cockpit. But behind him he heard Jack cry out, and suddenly a pair of draconian hands grabbed his shoulder and held him in place.

'He's dead, you're coming with me!' Spleen rasped, pushing the Time Lord through the door to the cockpit and consequently crashing onto the controls. The ship almost immediately did a flip and both him and Spleen ended up like loose change in a washing machine, the Doctor struggling to stay in place by holding one of the fixed chairs.

The Doctor caught a glimpse of the view out of the cockpit. They were heading straight towards solid ground. Spleen grabbed him again but he violently jerked away, desperately trying to reach the manual controls.

'We're going to crash!' the Doctor yelled at the draconian, who was still trying to restrain him.

'I own you now!'

'Let go!' the Doctor yelled.

'Jack's dead! I killed him! You're mine!'

Fuck off!

'We'll all be dead in a minute!' the Doctor cried. Finally Spleen managed to throw him off of the controls and onto the second pilot chair, where he promptly began to fasten him in.

Ejector seat, the Doctor realised before Spleen took the other seat. Before the Doctor could do anything, Spleen activated both ejector seats simultaneously

Sparks exploded from the Doctor's left side as Spleen chair flew up through a newly-created gap in the roof. But his hadn't. It had failed. He barely heard Spleen's cry of rage fly away as suddenly he realised that the ship was about to crash into solid ground, nose first, and he was in the nose. He tried desperately to unlatch himself from the chair but the ejector automatics had completely sealed him into it without any give whatsoever.

Get it off! Get it off!

The Doctor's brain rushed for an alternative. He had just about enough reached to get a hand on the control wheel, but it was far too late to avert the impact.

There's a lake! Aim for the lake!

Heeding her words he realised that there was a lake, just on the left. He turned the wheel so the ship was heading straight towards it.

Don't panic! DON'T PANIC!

The ship hit the water.

The Doctor jerked awake, finding himself sitting in the chair in the dark, dirty lake, still almost welded to it by the belts. His bypass had already activated. Above him was the ship in several pieces, the force of the impact against the highly viscous alien water managing to rip it apart.

Thank god! Doctor, you gotta get free!

His hand lethargically moved up to the straps where his fingers began to fumble, trying to find some sort of release catch. After a twenty long seconds he found the emergency release catch, and the straps fell away. Then he was taking strokes and kicking his legs, forcing his way up to the surface. The thick liquid was making it seem as though he was swimming through custard, and his coat was so heavy it was as though he was carrying another person on his back. He kept swimming, kept going, until somehow he finally broke the surface of the water. Bright light immediately assaulted his eyes as he forced his bypass to stay active – becoming weak at a time like this wouldn't be smart.

Oh my god, Jack!

The Doctor looked, and realised Jack was there, dead and face down in the water. He impulsively swam towards his friend, grabbing his arm before beginning to swim the the shore. But his body, although quite new, was beginning to ache, and his bypass was running out…

Finally, he reached the shore. He clambered through the mud and onto the bank, dragging Jack's limp body with him. He checked his surroundings briefly – they were on a plain, around two miles from a village. He couldn't determine where Spleen had gone, but either way, they had to get away, and fast. They were sitting ducks.

He turned over to Jack, shaking him. Almost immediately Jack gasped, launching out an arm to grip the Doctor as he sat up, wide-eyed. Eventually his gaze locked onto the Time Lord.

'We crashed?' he asked breathlessly.

The Doctor nodded. 'We need to move, I'm on my bypass. Once that runs out…'

'I know,' Jack interrupted, allowing the Doctor to help him to his feet. 'Where's Spleen?'

'Could be dead, probably not,' the Doctor replied. 'He ejected before we crashed.'

Jack nodded again. 'We've gotta find cover.' He checked the sky. 'Night's on the way.'

After about a mile, the sun was setting and the Doctor was out of energy. Jack had to pick him up and carry him the rest of the way, and he found that his only option was to go to the village. At least they'd be in amongst some people and buildings and harder to find. No doubt Spleen would be after them, assuming he was still alive.

But as he moved closer, he realised the village was in fact completely empty. The houses were half-destroyed with their windows blown out, and peppered holes of gunfire decorated the walls. There was even a pile of bodies, gently rotting and swarmed by insects and rats. It stank of death. Clearly there had been a massacre here.

Jack finally located a shelter away from most of the dead bodies – an old, burnt out house. He had no choice but to stay there. It was going to get cold very quickly and he couldn't carry the Doctor much further. He took the Doctor upstairs and settled him onto a partially-burnt bed.

'Doctor?'

The Doctor opened his eyes. 'Yeah?' he asked tiredly.

'I'll get some food for you and make a fire, then get you out of those clothes. Rose, keep him awake.'

The Doctor nodded absently. Clearly the repeated use of his bypass system in the past few weeks was taking its toll, not to mention the smack Spleen had given him. Jack left, severely hoping that he'd be able to find something for the Time Lord to eat and drink.

When Jack returned twenty minutes later, the sun had gone and it was bitingly cold. The Doctor was still there in exactly the same position on the bed. Jack put what he was carrying onto the floor, quickly moving to the Time Lord and shaking his shoulder.

'Doc,' he prompted.

The Doctor opened his eyes immediately.

'Good, stay awake,' Jack said, making his indoor fire with the bits he'd found. He then moved to the Time Lord and started to get the wet clothes off, musing only slightly on how this seemed to be happening more frequently. He then got rid of his own clothes, and hung them up on some chairs by the fire to dry out.

Next he prepared the meat he'd acquired, cooking it on the fire, all the while talking to the Doctor and Rose to keep him awake. He then handed the cooked meat to the Doctor on a stick.

'Just don't expect me to tell you what it is,' Jack said seriously. The Doctor gave him a look. 'Relax,' Jack continued, 'it didn't used to talk.'

The Doctor just ate as Jack boiled water from the lake and gave that to him too. He then tried his best to clean up the blood on both of them before the Doctor settled and promptly fell asleep.

Jack stayed up until the clothes were dry enough. When he redressed the Doctor, the Time Lord didn't even stir. Then, as the fire died, Jack finally sat next to his best friend and pulled a blanket with frayed edges over them both, ready to keep watch.

This was it, he realised. Sirrus. Getting whatever food he could lay his hands on and making fire from nothing was all painfully familiar from his last stay on this grotty little planet. But at least, he mused as he looked at the Doctor, he had someone to keep him sane this time.

The Doctor was woken up by Jack roughly shaking him, almost immediately followed by a loud crash. He sat up immediately, realising quickly that Jack was next to him and doing exactly the same.

Someone's here!

'It's gotta be Spleen!' Jack said urgently.

'Get up,' the Doctor said urgently, jumping to his feet. But before he could get much further suddenly the door burst open and several aliens flooded into the room, screaming at them with guns pointed in their direction.

The Doctor quickly checked for escape routes but he couldn't even begin to process any before Spleen walked in. He looked at the Doctor with hunger, before looking at Jack and immediately losing his demeanour as he stumbled back, shocked.

'B-but I killed you!' Spleen stammered. 'You're dead!'

The Doctor and Jack glanced at each other, already knowing what the other was thinking. In half a second, they both ran for the window, and jumped before the aliens could realise that they had moved.

The Doctor fell the ten feet to the ground below, just about managing to keep his momentum with a roll, springing to his feet again. His leg, still damaged from the bite he'd received on New Shada, shot through with pain but he ignored it. Jack shortly followed, landing beside him. But as soon as they were up and running the Doctor heard a shot, a cry, and Jack fell to the floor. The Doctor had to shield himself to stop his best friend's blood from coating his face.

In the half a second that followed, the Doctor realised that they weren't going to escape. The only hope was that Spleen still believed he was subservient to Jack. So he stopped, turned, and called out for his master as the aliens spilled out of the house onto the street. A group of them ran up to him, grabbing him and throwing him face first to the floor, placing a boot on the back of his neck and a gun against his head.

'He's immortal!' Spleen yelled as he appeared among the crowd, his eyes snapping to the Doctor. 'He's immortal, isn't he!?'

Don't tell him!

The Doctor didn't answer.

Spleen stormed over to him, ordering his henchmen to pull up the Doctor to his feet.

'Tell me!' he demanded.

'I only serve my master,' the Doctor said calmly.

'I am your master now!' Spleen yelled, and slapped him in the face.

You've gotta run! You can outrun 'em!

The Doctor subtly nodded for her. He then glanced at Jack, still dead with blood pouring out of his head. Could he run? Spleen wouldn't kill him; he wouldn't risk it. But Jack. Could he just leave Jack? If he ran then Spleen would pursue him, but the draconian also wouldn't allow Jack to be left alone in case he really was immortal. However, even if the Doctor managed to pull away from them, he had nowhere to run. There was no cover beyond this village, just open plains.

He bit his lip, and looked at Spleen. 'I serve only Master Jack.'

Spleen glared at him. 'You'll learn soon,' he grated, just as Jack gasped, reviving at the worst possible moment. Immediately he was pinned down.

'Doctor!' Jack cried, looking at the Time Lord.

'Master Jack!' the Doctor shouted back, and got another slap for it.

'Leave him alone!' Jack demanded, and Spleen kicked him hard in the side, spitting on him. Jack grunted.

'You can forget your Time Lord, human,' Spleen grated at Jack. 'You can forget your freedom.' He then turned to the Doctor, and signalled to his henchmen. One of them grabbed his hands and handcuffed him behind his back, another gagging him. 'Get them to the van.'