Jumpin' Jack Flash

Coming down the stairs, Rose tries to look out over the mass of churning bodies below; it's impossible. It's too dark, and there's just too much movement for her to see the Doctor, let alone his assailant. Standing on the stairs where she can see out over the crowd and attempting to shut out all the movement and noise, Rose 'reaches' for the Doctor. She can just barely feel him, but only the -oh look a Time Lord- hum. /He must be unconscious,/ is the only reason Rose can come up with.

Flailing around for him mentally isn't going to help until he regains consciousness...if that's all that's wrong with him. Refusing to think that way, Rose pulls back to herself. She feels the "not Jack" come up behind her. He's a Sensitive, and she recognises his…"taste". She can feel the slow-reaching slightly sticky quality of his proto-telepathy. Almost like his mind is reaching for something it thinks it wants, but can't exactly figure out how; much like a toddler. The Doctor had explained that Sensitives can pick up on emotions and sometimes images, but that all they really have is super-intuition.

Before "not Jack" can touch her or ask her any stupid questions, Rose rounds on him.

"This is because of you, isn't it? You were at the restaurant tonight. You and your friend. This can't be a coincidence." She isn't sure what she can do to him, in a dress designed for dancing and a handbag, but she'll think of something; maybe her shoe. Taking one step higher towards him, he actually backs off, hands in the air.

"Look lady, I think my 'partner' may be involved, but trust me; we were not here for you or your mate." He says the word 'partner' with a generous coating of disgust, but this does nothing to assuage Rose's growing fear and fury; an unfortunate and potent combination. Narrowing her gold glinting eyes at him, and pointing, he winces...like she's about to incinerate him on the spot, and she enjoys it.

"You, mister are going to make this right. I don't know or care what we have to do, but You. Are. Helping. Me! Now get us outside." She bellows the end of her demand so loud there's a hiccup in the activity downstairs. Nodding at Rose, as he passes her on the steps, hands still in the air, he moves out into the crowd making a path for her. She follows close behind.

Finally reaching the entrance to the club, Rose pushes past "not Jack" out into the now cooler lane in front of the establishment. Looking to either side frantically, she hopes to catch some glimpse of anything that's out of place or just wrong, or if chance is on her side the Doctor and his kidnapper. There's nothing. The people still queued up waiting to get into the club barely glance at them before they go back to their mundane conversations. They certainly aren't acting like anything stranger than them has exited the club. Although a friend helping his drunk buddy out to the street, wouldn't look strange.

Rose doesn't know what to do. If this guy had actually been Jack, she wouldn't have to start from square one, but he doesn't know her at all, and she can tell that only the barest essentials of her Jack are in there. This "not Jack" is much darker, his aura muddy with lots of burnt red and brown in it. He's also suppressing his rage at the moment, but he's still afraid of her. She can see it in flashing green strands through his aura, along with the subtle glimpses of what she thinks must be the core of her Jack, a soft pure red, like the colour of strawberries, valentines, and love. But he's been hurt a lot, this "not Jack". So despite her desperate longing to find the Doctor and get the hell out of this place, she feels sympathy for him. Pushing it aside, Rose needs to find the Doctor. The sooner the better. She will worry about the "not Jack" later.

Coming up beside her, "not Jack" is careful not to touch her, knowing it's the height of rude in her culture. He's been told Time Lords can be extremely dangerous; that they're nearly Gods, and can manipulate Time and Space when provoked. He always thought that was complete bullshit, but like his partner, he thought the existence of Time Lords at all was complete BS. Something the Time Agency used as bogeymen. If you threw anything too out of whack a Time Lord would come along fix the stupid thing you did and erase you, or worse; drag you back to their CIA- Celestial Intervention Agency and no one comes back from them. As if the Time Lords only allowed the Time Agency to exist on their sufferance. No one he knew had ever seen a Time Lord, or their cloaked TARDIS ships. So after a while, he'd assumed they were either extinct, or had only ever truly existed in Galactic folklore, passed down from species to species.

When his computer had pinged with a near perfect probability of Time Lord, everything he knew was tossed right out that big pretty window. If Time Lords were true...then all the rest could be true. Not good...no, most definitely not good. Maybe the female one is young and underdeveloped, because she certainly isn't acting dangerous, or like she can bend space-time to her will, although he's pretty sure her eyes glowed golden in the club. To tell the truth, she looks upset, and worried. His limited telepathic sense is still telling him he should be careful, something about her can be scary, but that for the most part she is—upset, afraid, and very worried. He can also sense that she finds him familiar. He knows he's never met her before. He'd have remembered; she is gorgeous! She must know him from his future. He will just have to be careful, and not ask her too much. He doesn't want to know anything that will damage the timelines, get him deported, or worse.

Rose turns her baleful eye on "not Jack". She isn't sure what to do with him either, but he's willing to help, and it's his partner that has got them into this mess. It's hard not to instantly trust him; he's her Jack under all of that after all, but here and now...not completely.

"Okay, so I guess I'm going to have to trust you, and I don't exactly like it. Let's go." She starts off at a trot in the general direction of the TARDIS. She's hoping Darling can help track the Doctor's bio-signature, or anything else that might lead her to him. Too bad she doesn't have any weapons. Rose kind of wants one right now, but that's just her mad talking and she knows it. "What's your name?" she asks once she sees he's following along. She can at least try to be polite. Maybe she can get a better feel for him on the way.

"What did you call me in the club?"

"Jack."

"Jack works."

"Is that your name?"

"No, but I don't think I want any Time Lords having my name." There's that thread of fear again. So Jack Harkness was an alias. She can't remember if she knew that or not...not that it mattered. He's Jack as far as she's concerned. He calls her a Time Lord with much emphasis. Interesting. Maybe that can be useful.

"Okay, Jack," she replies.

"And yours? Is your name as lovely as you are?" Rolling her eyes, she's relieved that he's still such a flirt. That familiarity helps her feel more grounded. Even so, she isn't sure she wants him to have her name either.

"Wolf. You can call me Wolf."

"Is that your name?"

"Nope!" She smiles grimly at popping her 'p' Doctor style. She will find him, and nothing and no one in this city will stop her.

The fabric of Reality tightens again. Something isn't right here, and is trying to fix itself; making room for the changes. This causes ripples of temporal seismic activity to expand in ever widening circles heading out past the end of Sol system, and into the greater Universe. Very, very far away something shifts lazily, before returning to it's slumber.

"So where are we going, Wolf?" Jack asks. He's been assuming she has a way to find her mate that's better than his, but he's been stopping periodically to check his wrist-comp, and has just trotted up to Rose as she continues jogging along. She had paused at one point looking around worriedly, but then kept going.

"We're going back to my ship. I should be able to trace the Doctor's bio-signature from there, and figure out what that nutter partner of yours did with him."

"The Doctor, is your mate?" He tries to keep the uncertainty from his tone, and thinks he's only successful because of Wolf's distraction. God DAMMIT! Of all the Time Lords that stupid bastard has to grab, he grabs the Doctor. This is just getting better and better. First Time Lords, and therefore everything attached to them goes from being myth to fact in the time it took his comp to go 'ding'- And now, the most infamous of all of them, followed a quick second by the Master (really these people's names!) has just been trussed up like a holiday goose and carted off by HIS partner! If the Doctor or Wolf doesn't kill him—he definitely will!

Rose doesn't hear Jack's trepidation. She's very focused on trying to figure out where to start. She has all kinds of options if they can locate the maniac that took him, but until they do they're looking for that needle in a haystack. She really needs to catch a break.

"Ya, we've been mates for years. It's his ship were heading towards." Stopping dead, Jack reaches for Wolf's arm turning her toward him. The blast of golden anger and fear from her, has him clutching his head. Right. Don't touch a Time Lord. Got it.

"Ow, Sorry! Your ship," he gasps out. "You said we're going there so you can look for his bio-signature? I can trace my partner through this." Continuing to rub his head, he points his wrist-comp at Wolf and sees her expression which started off stormy, brighten.

She isn't feeling too sympathetic at the moment, he should know better than to touch her since he knows she's a Time Lord. The Doctor has said Time Lords considered it extremely rude to be touched. Rose had laughed out right when he'd told her, since he is very touchy-feely with her. He'd whined something about humans...blah...blah, it was her...blah, blah, blah. She knows he secretly craves the intimacy because he has been so lonely; even amongst his own people. Not touching can't be natural. She didn't even think it was really natural in a telepathic society either. It seemed like much of the social and interpersonal behaviours that had been suppressed in the Time Lords, had not necessarily made them a happier people. Rose has wondered what had happened when he was growing up that he would be so opposite to the rest of his people.

"Well, why didn't you say so in the first place? Where the hell is he?" Wolf demands. She's annoyed at the wasted time.

"Hang on." Opening his wrist-comp and pressing a few buttons, he turns a few degrees to the left of their current position, points and heads off in the new direction. "This way, about half a klick."

Wolf jogs to keep up with him now that he's started loping along in the chosen direction.

/Really! I'm running behind a younger version of Jack, chasing after a mad man who has kidnapped my mad man, in a dress and heels. (snort) Who's mad now!/ she thinks to herself. Despite everything, she grins at the picture of how ridiculous this situation is.

As she's running along though, she is thankful for the shoes that are letting her move this quickly. It's almost like they're heels and boots, all in one. She would really have preferred to be in jeans and a shirt. Bouncing around in this dress is getting old, and she knows it won't help at all if the situation gets hairy. At this thought the dress reforms itself to her mid-stride into a form-fitted black catsuit-it even has pockets, and her shoes have become matching black boots. Stumbling a little in her surprise, she's still able to keep up with Jack. This really is the best piece of clothing she's ever had! The Doctor had said it was made from telepathic cloth, but she hadn't been paying close attention with him standing there looking so…delicious in that tuxedo. Reaching into her handbag hoping she might have magically dropped a hair tie in it, she comes across all kinds of things; food bars, extra clothes, and all sorts of strange pieces and parts that must be intended for the Doctor. With eyes wide, she also feels something small and metallic; pulling it out she sees it's a weird spade shaped, key? Turning it over in her in her hand she abruptly hears Darling in her head.

~My Wolf, be careful! This is a very volatile situation. Time is in flux. Something may be about to happen, that shouldn't have. I had hoped this possibility was so small as to be unlikely. Trust the Lover, he will help you. He is so young, but he is still ours. You must find my Thief. He is in great danger.~

/It must be a recording/ Rose thinks as the voice ends. Well, bugger! Darling said a lot and not enough. What might happen? What kind of danger is the Doctor in? The Lover? Jack? So that's what the TARDIS calls him. That would be hysterical if Rose wasn't so worried about everything else. How did all this stuff get in here? Darling wouldn't have put all this in there and then sent them merrily on their way...would she? It was bigger-on-the-inside...maybe they were...connected? Ahhh, there it is; they could be connected. Her knowledge kicking in: A TARDIS can create dimensionally transcendental enclosures that are temporally null, and connected to a receptacle in the ship itself. That was certainly handy. Maybe she'd done it as a precaution. Whatever the reason, it eases Rose's mind a little to have these items. She'll catalogue them when she can.

As they get closer Jack starts to curse and mutter under his breath.

"What's wrong?" All this swearing can't possibly be good, so she's leery of the answer.

"Spaceport. Is what's wrong. I think he's heading toward our ship."

"You have a ship? Bollocks!"

"How else would you get on and off this crate?" Picking up speed, but looking back at her quizzically, he comes to a complete stop and stares at her open-mouthed. She runs past him with a grin, and he has to catch up to her. "You changed! How'd you do that?"

"Superior Time Lord technology, you wouldn't understand." She's completely charmed with the miffed and awed expression on his face. Knowing she's worn that look plenty of times in the past, she thoroughly enjoys using the phrase herself this time.

Now at an all out run, Jack and Wolf come around some outbuildings to see the spaceport. Being an enormous floating city in the 26th Century, it's suitably huge. There is a forcefield of some sort at the top of a dome for the ships to leave through. The ships themselves are in neat rows, and stacks depending on how they are parked. There are humans, aliens, and machines everywhere loading and unloading ships, moving the ships to launch positions, and some filing into the ships themselves. Checking his wrist again, they weave in and through all the commerce going on around them steadily heading to his ship.

"There it is, the black and blue one. Hurry, he's trying to hack in. Where the hell did he find a cryo-pod?" Just as they see the ship in question with a man working on it, they also see a deck officer wander up with his work screen, probably to ask politely if he can be of any assistance. The sandy-haired man is fiddling with a control panel on the side of the ship ignoring him. The officer taps him on the shoulder, and the man pulls out a blaster shooting him dead on the spot without even looking at him. At the same time, the main hatch pops open, he loads what looks like a silver coffin into the it, and throws himself in after it. Alarms are going off, and people are converging on the area with the downed officer.

Jack and Rose can't run any longer now that they're caught up in the crowd. Attempting to push further past, all they can do is watch helplessly as the ship rises gently from the deck and heads for the forcefield. Watching it for as long as possible, Rose is numb with horror. How can she have missed him? Was he in the cryo-pod? Where can they be going? All these questions race through her mind. Reaching out to him, she can feel he's alive. Straining herself painfully, she reaches further trying to get past his shields and gain that place where she'd touched his core accidentally that time. There's too much happening around her to be completely successful, but she does her best to imbed a message for him on his dormant psyche.

~I'm coming, my love. I don't know what's happened, but I will find you. Nothing will stop me. I love you Doctor. Believe...~

As the ship pops through the field Rose is jostled by the crowd and she loses sight of it. Turning she buries her head into Jack's chest. She doesn't care if he knows who she is or not—he feels like her Jack and that will have to do. He glances down and wraps his arms around her before looking back up where his ship had been.

/I will get you, you stupid bastard, if there is any of you left to get, but John Hart you are a dead man,/ Jack thinks this towards his receding ship as hard as he can. He knows John won't hear him, but if that asshole felt a shiver just then, maybe he'll know who it's from.

Looking back down at Wolf, he tightens his arms around her. She's sobbing against him, and he doesn't blame her. He isn't exactly sure why he cares all that much, but he does. There's something about this girl that tugs at his heart. Maybe the whole situation reminds him a little too painfully of losing his brother. Not wanting to think too deeply on it, he loosens his hold and pulls Wolf away slightly.

"We need to get to your ship if we have any hope of catching them. I assume it can travel in the Vortex?"

"Ya, she can. Can your Time Agent ship, as well?"

How did she know he was a Time Agent? Just as he's about to ask, an enormous voice is heard throughout the city.

"This is Commander Straarl, of the Mighty 35th Sontaran Battle Fleet. Your puny human city is harbouring Rutans. Deliver the Rutans to us or die." Looking up, people start screaming and running toward any ships they can reach. Several ships were on their way skyward when the announcement started. As these reached the forcefield and make it through, they are blown out of the sky, their balls of flame visible from the spaceport floor. Gasping Rose reaches for the Doctor again; faintly he's still there, unchanged. The Sontarans must not have shot them down because they hadn't made their announcement yet. How generous. At the moment she is decidedly grateful.

"They made it!" she crows at Jack. "Oh, I'm an idiot! Do you have your Vortex Manipulator?"

"Yes but it's broken. It will only hop us to a location within 3 klicks and only in the current time stream and only if I can lock on something specific. And before you ask, it doesn't currently lock on my ship. That ass thought it would be..."

"Of course it's broken," she interrupts. "Isn't it always, but it's perfect for what we need. Can you do a scan for artron energy?"

"Yes, but wha-"

"Just do it!"

"Okay, okay. Yes! I have sizeable concentration about 1 klick back the way we came and a little further west."

"Take us to within a couple blocks of that location."

"But I don't und-"

"Jack! That's my ship. I don't think Sontarans are all that used to waiting from what I know of them and we don't have much time if I'm going to stop them. We have to go. Now."

Finally understanding her, he taps at his wrist trying to zero in on the source of the obscure type of energy, but not end up in it, and after a few seconds is ready. Clutching Wolf to him, he presses the button. Arriving in a flash of blue about 3 meters from the alley containing the TARDIS, Wolf lets out a whoop of victory. Grabbing Jack's hand she tugs him toward the alley.

"Whoa, girly. If you'd wanted me in an alley all you had to do was ask," he says with his patented 'everyone loves me' smirk. Rose chuckles grimly, but is obviously immune. Rolling her eyes she drags Jack to the TARDIS. He pulls back when he sees they're headed for a 1950's Police box.

"What the hell? I thought your ships were cloaked. How is a blue 20th Century Police box cloaking on 26th Century Saturn?" Fumbling for her key, she doesn't turn around to answer him. "It's the chamel—errr, cloaking device. It's broken, got stuck in 1963. What you see is what you get. She has a perception filter."

Finally getting her key out of her dress/catsuit she inserts it into the lock and opens the doors. Rushing inside, she pauses at the doors as Jack runs in and up the ramp. She closes the doors and leans against them waiting to see his reaction. Darling is happy they made it, but distraught at her arrival with Jack, but not the Doctor.

/Hang on Darling. I need to get Jack settled, deal with some Sontarans, and then have you help get us the hell out of here so we can follow the ship that has the Doctor on it./ Receiving the wave of acceptance Rose turns back to Jack. Beat...beat...ahh there it is.

"Holy Rings of Akhaten! It's bigger in here than out there!" Eyes huge and trembling slightly Jack leans against the rail. "Wow! No one would ever believe me."

Heading up the ramp toward the Console,"This is the TARDIS...T.A.R.D.I.S. Which means-"

"Actually, I know this part, Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. We learn what little there is to know about Time Lords in training, and that at least is something we know."

Outside they can hear some explosions and feel the city beneath them lurch.

"Right Sontarans," Rose says on her way past Jack.

Leaping to the Console, Rose grabs the screen pulling it towards her. Just letting her Time Lord brain do everything without thinking, she soon has the Sontaran Commander on the screen.

"Commander Straarl, cease and desist. By Convention 15 of the Shadow Proclamation I demand the ability to Parley for the safety of the innocents in this city." She hopes that sounds authoritative enough. She's just really happy to have the knowledge she needs come to her as she needs it.

"Human Female! We will not Parley. Sontarans do not recognise the Shadow Proclamation's jurisdiction here. There are Rutans and they will die. This is our mandate," the potato-shaped clone commander says with a snarl.

"I'm not Human, I'm a Time Lord, and if you know there are Rutans here just go get them. Let everyone else leave. Stop blowing their ships from the sky!" Rose pleads.

"Rutans and their supporters will die." Ending the transmission abruptly, Straarl is gone.

"No! No, no, NO! Why won't they listen? What do they gain by killing everyone. I have to stop them," Rose gasps out.

Madly tapping at the keyboard and face glued to the screen, Rose looks for options. Jack steps up to her, and taps her on the shoulder. Whirling around with a half-crazed look on her face and tears lining her cheeks, she's about to yell at him, but stops at the look on his face.

"Their Sontaran that's how, and there are Rutans here, he says with a rueful shake of his head. "They're why I'm here. I—we were meeting them here to talk about arms shipments that were coming from the 40th Century. They were afraid the higher tech would lead the Sontarans here. Unfortunately, they were right, and we're too late. We have to leave," he finishes quietly, knowing whats coming.

"But this isn't supposed to happen. The city isn't destroyed this way, not now." Turning back to the screen, she sees the TARDIS is warning her that they need to leave and immediately. Clamping down hard on her feelings, she opens up to Darling.

/Okay, let's get out of here. Help me, please?/

~Of course, my Wolf. I am so sorry. I will help you, then we must find my Thief.~

With a grim twist of her lips, Rose starts leaping around the console pushing buttons, pressing switches, pulling levers, and directing Jack where he can help. This is not the way she envisioned her first solo driving trip would go. Throwing the final lever they dematerialise just as hundreds of shuddering cracks appear in the walls and ceilings of the city.

Chelsea 426 bursts apart into millions of glittering pieces above the clouds of Saturn. The debris field hung there for a couple of days as the bits and pieces fell into the atmosphere of Saturn and were burned up. The Sontarans left after three days. Earth successfully negotiated that they had no idea, and yes thank you for destroying such a heinous weapons cache. The added threat of 25 Judoon ships coming to observe, helped encourage the Sontarans along. Earth stopped all further negotiations with the Rutans, letting them know they were no longer welcome.

The many, many changes to the time streams continued to displace and alter reality out to the furthest reaches of the Universe. At a couple of key points this additionally destabilised the fabric of Reality damaging the Universe further. As these ripples again found their way to a long forgotten corner, a long slumbering entity notices, and shivers in unease, awakening at what she senses these changes have wrecked across the vast landscape that she considers her garden. Cracking open a sun-filled eye, she readies herself.

A/N: I hope you're enjoying my story so far! We've reached the top of the first hill on my roller coaster. If you read my first story "Song of the Spheres," then you'll recognize the OC character I mention at the end. :-) Enjoy the ride! Thank you for all your reviews. Keep it up, they encourage me to finish this beast that's taken over my life. -grin- Special thanks to Anaika Skywalker. Cheers!