A/N: Honest, they won't all be this fast :o

Chapter 2 - Barbie and Ken

The Doctor woke up, his head pulsating. He furrowed his brow and groaned his way to consciousness, before blinking open his eyes to meet the face of Rose Tyler, staring down at him anxiously.

"Hey," he said with a strained smile, hand moving to hold his head. "Ow. That hurt. I hate stun grenades. So impolite."

"Doctor," she said urgently.

For the first time he noticed her terrified expression. "What's wrong?" he asked, concerned.

"Everything. Everything's wrong. We're in a war, Doctor, Jack's here, he's a Time Agent..."

"Wait, wait," the Doctor said quickly, struggling to sit up. "Just woke up, here. Slower."

She took a deep breath. She was shaking so badly that the Doctor instinctively wrapped an arm around her, slightly alarmed. He'd never seen her so terrified.

"These soldiers appeared and..." She took a few more breaths. "It's Jack, Doctor, it's Jack as a Time Agent. He doesn't know us. He thinks we're medical personnel or somethin'... We're in a War... There's dead bodies everywhere..."

The Doctor's hearts sank a little. Time Agents were notoriously ruthless and trained to kill anyone they didn't trust without hesitation. If they were alive, Jack believed their assumed identities.

"Hey, you did well," the Doctor told her honestly. "Where are we now?"

"Their stronghold," she said. "He wouldn't let us go back to the Tardis."

"We'll get there," the Doctor assured her. "This is too dangerous. The longer we stay the more he'll remember us, and the time-lines will collapse."

"He wants to debrief us at um... fifteen hundred hours."

He nodded. "Right, just enough time to invent a cover story." He pulled away from her, patting the rug beside him as an indication for her to sit. "Let's get to work."

"What are your names?"

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, but Jack smoothly interrupted anything he might have said.

"You know, what, don't care," he said, regarding them both. "You're both pretty and plastic, I'll call you Barbie and Ken."

"Actually…" the Doctor began, but Jack wasn't listening.

"What are your ranks?"

"First Lieutenant," the Doctor told him.

"Private First Class," Rose said quickly.

"Who's your commanding officer?"

"Major Christian Slate," the Doctor replied without hesitation.

"Your IDs?"

"MED0124-9," the Doctor reeled off, and looked at Rose.

"MED0124-10," Rose stated.

"What's your unit?"

"Fourth Medical Battalion," the Doctor replied.

Jack nodded. As the Doctor suspected, he wasn't writing anything down. He highly doubted Jack would attempt to verify their identities. Thankfully.

"So what's the deal?" Jack asked, looking at the both of them. "You didn't bring your girlfriend to the war, did you?" He looked at Rose pointedly.

"She's my assistant," the Doctor told him. "Couldn't do it without her."

Jack just snorted through his nose, amused, glancing between them both before speaking once more, "did HQ brief you?"

The Doctor shook his head. "There wasn't time. We were deployed with the Twelfth Battalion on an intelligence operation and were dropped at point zero."

"Fuckin' NeoCorp," Jack swore. "Expect us to fight a war and won't even tell deployment what's going on."

"Tell me about it," the Doctor said, glancing at Rose who was just staring at Jack, wide-eyed.

"Sitrep," Jack began, leaning back casually in his chair. "The Exes have taken the capital, and with it one of our Generals. Twenty-one hundred hours we're doing a hostage rescue in their POW camp to get him out. We've got a diversion in place, half are being dispatched to draw the fire and the other half are going directly into the camp. Chances are he'll be injured so we'll need you in the field."

"Sounds fascinating. Thing is, we need to get back to our ship, that's where all our medical supplies are."

Jack just gazed at him, piercing, as if reading his soul. The Doctor maintained his confidence. Time Agents could read body language to such an expert level that they could almost tell what someone was thinking. Jack wouldn't get anything out of him. Rose, however…

Jack's gaze move to Rose, so the Doctor quickly spoke to draw the Time Agent's attention back to him, "I won't be able to do anything for the general without medical supplies."

"Your ship probably got blown up," Jack told him facetiously.

"She's pretty hardy."

"Not atom bomb hardy."

"I can't help him without supplies."

"You'll just have to do the best you can," Jack told him, perfectly calm.

"With wet wipes and plasters?" the Doctor wondered brazenly. "You're in charge, NeoCorp'll blame you first."

Jack offered a smile, though it didn't meet his eyes. "I don't care. Ain't me who's gonna get in the shit when the General arrives back at NeoCorp already rotting. That's your pleasure."

"Jack…"

"Try Captain," Jack interrupted.

The Doctor internally winced, and then immediately hoped that hadn't shown on his face. "Captain," he began again. "Chances are he's been tortured, and without the right…"

"Oh, shut up," Jack said, suddenly getting up. "We're done here. Go pack your wet wipes," he finished, and left before the Doctor could get another word in.

"Doctor?" Rose croaked.

The Doctor glanced up at the cameras in the corner of the room, and quickly shook his head at her. "Let's get prepared," he announced loudly before leading her back to the Medical Office.

"We can't get back to the Tardis," Rose said dully, her hands clutching a mug of some sort of hot drink that the Doctor had assured her had a relation to 21st century tea.

They were sitting on the rug bed, cross-legged, facing each other. While she was gripping her tea he was sitting with his hands clutched in front of him. His knuckles were a little too white for her liking. Outside she could hear the chatter of the soldiers, and occasionally the sound of a bomb going off outside the compound.

He looked at her, his eyes dark. "No," was all he said in reply.

"What're we gonna do?" she persisted. "Can't we run away?"

The Doctor sighed heavily, before finally looking up at her. "Do you know much about Time Agents?"

She shook her head.

"Time Agents, especially Jack's breed, are exceptionally dangerous. They're notoriously short tempered and trained to kill anyone they don't trust without hesitation. The fact we're still alive is actually quite lucky."

"Lucky?" Rose repeated, then quickly shook her head to force herself to move on the conversation. "So… if he catches us he kills us?"

The Doctor nodded. "No hesitation," he repeated. "They're trained in torture techniques, parapsychology, pinpoint accuracy, melee fighting… everything they need to follow orders and kill on command. The best soldiers the human race ever made. They can tell what people are thinking just through looking at their body language."

"Oh god," Rose moaned, taking another sip of tea. "We're dead."

"If we can slip out unnoticed we can get to the Tardis before he can find us," the Doctor told her. "It's just finding the moment."

She nodded, finishing the tea and setting it down. "So what's this war? Who are the Exes?"

The Doctor paused for a moment before answering, "have you ever watched Dawn of the Dead?"

"The zombie film?" she asked, confused. "Why… Oh god, you don't mean...?"

"Zombies," the Doctor confirmed, nodding. "At least, as close as you can get. In the 45th century there was a scientist who discovered the type of radiation that could actually cause zombie-like mutations in humans. Of course, being humans, they sealed it up in a secret government facility so they could use it for research. But in the early 52nd century, the facility was breached and the radiation escaped. The radiation got out, the people in the planet mutated. They called them Exes."

"Why?"

"Ex," he emphasised. "Ex-human. Before the government could get rid of them it had spread across the entire planet. People who had been affected by the radiation had boarded star-ships before they could be quarantined and it spread throughout the entire galaxy. The government locked down the galaxy but by then the Exes were forming groups."

"... I take it these zombies ain't the slow-movin' braaaains type?"

He smiled a little at that. "No," he said, dropping his smile. "They were just as intelligent as normal humans, except they ate flesh, their greatest instinct was to kill, and they were practically immortal unless they were decapitated."

"So Jack's fightin' zombies," Rose summarised.

"Yep. Due to the rate of infection the Exes had all sorts on their side - Doctors, scientists, you name it. They made weapons to rival the government's. By the time the government got there to kill them, they were fighting back. Fully-fledged war broke out. The government started to lose, so they called in the Time Agents on contract to lead the attack, which is why Jack's here."

"How did it end?"

"The last Ex was eliminated by an unknown soldier on a planet called Owatta, seven years after the war broke out."

"So that was it?"

"Yep. The Time Agents pulled out and the government destroyed the entire galaxy."

"Like, blown up?"

"Yeah."

Rose nodded. "D'you know how far we're into the war?"

"No," he confessed. "I'm not even sure what planet we're on."

Rose nodded again. "Either way we need to get out."

"Agreed," he finished, before there was suddenly there was the sound a well-timed bomb outside in the distance, shaking the room.

He looked at Rose. "You all right?" he suddenly asked.

Rose nodded. "Yeah. Just about."

He nodded in return. "Get some sleep," he advised her. "Just do what I say tonight and we should get through it."

She gave a half-smile but chose not to say anything, dropping to curl up on the rug. It barely offered any comfort, but she didn't even care. She already knew with everything that was running through her head she was unlikely to sleep, but she could try.

About two minutes after she put her head down, she heard the Doctor leave the room. Immediately the safety she had felt while she was with him evaporated into thin air.

The Doctor strolled through the compound, surveying it as best he could. It was incredibly ram-shackled and falling apart. At one time it probably had been a stronghold, but no longer. It had been bombed so many times that one or two more direct impacts would probably case the entire place to collapse.

He was standing in a large room filled with chattering soldiers, playing cards and dice on a flat metal floor. Attached to it in front of him was another large room stacked high with beds with toilets attached. His and Rose's Medical Office was on the right near what probably at one time had been a ward, but was now a rubbish tip, and Jack's private quarters were on the other side. Next to Jack's room was the mess, quite literally; a dining area in an utter mess. There was also the interrogation room, and attached to that some holding cells. There had been no attempt to try and clean up or repair the place. Clearly NeoCorp, the armed force's government body, hadn't seen fit to maintain this place despite the fact it was on the front line.

His priority was to check the exits - just the one behind him, which was posted with a handful of armed soldiers. Getting out would be difficult.

Directly in front of him was a ceiling collapse, several men trapped underneath and left there. He pulled out some latex gloves from his pocket and slipped them on, inviting some gambling soldiers to help him shift some rubble to pull out the body of an unfortunate young man - couldn't have been more than eighteen.

"When did this ceiling collapse?" the Doctor asked one of the soldiers.

"A few days ago, sir," one of the soldiers replied, saluting and leaving.

The Doctor checked the boy's pulse, not that he expected to find anything. He didn't. He was already in secondary flaccidity.

He pulled out the next body. No heartbeat or pulse, but he was now in rigor mortis. It was only a few hours since he'd died.

Alarmed, the Doctor went to the next body. He pulled out a young blond man, blood caking his face. He checked his heartbeat. Nothing. Next body. Nothing.

Every single one was dead.

If he'd addressed this only hours recently he might have been able to save some of them.

He looked around at the chattering soldiers, suddenly feeling nothing but contempt for them. They'd completely abandoned their comrades to die when a few could have been saved. As a soldier he'd never have done that. It was unwritten law. You went back for your comrades.

Suddenly a fight broke out across the compound - shouting. He got up and went to look, joining the fast-gathering crowd of onlookers and finding two soldiers attacking each other.

"Hey!" the Doctor interrupted, darting forward to stop them. "What's going on?"

As one soldier, blond, staggered from a blow to the head, the other one, black-haired, roughly pushed the Doctor away, sending him crashing to the floor. "Get out of it," he spat, and launched another punch.

The Doctor got up again immediately, pulling off his gloves and throwing himself between the two of them, holding up his hands to defend the blond soldier. Despite this, the black-haired soldier threw another punch which the Doctor deftly dodged.

"Leave it!" the Doctor yelled.

The black-haired soldier's eyes narrowed, before he spat on the Doctor's shoes and stormed off. The Doctor watched him leave before turning back to the blond soldier who was bleeding from a split lip.

"I'm a doctor," the Doctor said, taking his arm. "Let's clean you up."

The blond soldier took one look around at the yelling crowd and quickly pulled away from him. "No," was all he said, and ran off to a chorus of mocks and jeers.

The crowd very quickly dispersed after that. The Doctor got the distinct feeling that this sort of thing tended to happen a lot.

A fighting force that was so fractured that the soldiers turned on each other?

Something had gone terribly wrong here.

"Ken," suddenly came a voice from behind him, and the Doctor turned to see Jack standing there balancing a large gun on his shoulders, smiling charismatically. "You lost?"

The Doctor's eyes narrowed slightly. He couldn't help it. "There's the bodies of some men over there," he said, pointing at the poor men he'd pulled out of the rubble. "We need to bury them."

Jack snorted with laughter. "And where d'you propose we do that? There's bombs raining on us all day. We've hardly got time to dig graves and say some shitty little prayers."

The Doctor fumed a little, but tried to come from a different angle. "They'll decompose and your entire command will be very sick if they're not moved."

"We'll chuck 'em out with the next rubbish collection," Jack told him brazenly.

"... Rubbish?" the Doctor repeated, hardly able to believe what he was hearing.

"You don't get into a lot of wars, do you?" Jack said patronisingly, walking towards the kitchen. "Welcome to reality, Ken!" he threw over his shoulder as he disappeared.

The Doctor almost felt sick with anger. He had to physically calm himself down by taking a few deep, measured breaths, before his head cleared enough to realise that this meant Jack's office was now vacant.

The Doctor slipped into the room. There wasn't much. Some firearms, a bed, a table with a chair and an information terminal.

The Doctor went to the terminal, pulling out his sonic to buzz it. The access unlocked and he found himself in a database. The timestamp was displayed clearly in the corner.

Owatta, 6.2:3:5119 Modern Era

The Doctor rolled the date about in his head for a moment. 5119 - two years before the end of the war. They were on Owatta too - the place it had ended.

He began to root through the database, tapping icons until he found the profile of Jack Harkness.

Captain Jack Harkness

Time Agent deployed to field in 7.9:9:5117. Assigned to lead a small front line regiment, Owatta.

That was all.

That meant Jack had been fighting for two years. Two years on the front line. No wonder he had gone insane.

Suddenly there came the sound of footsteps making their way towards the door. The Doctor quickly switched off the terminal and pressed himself up against the wall behind the door, taking a breath try and keep quiet as the door opened and Jack entered.

The Doctor had no escape route. He stood there, utterly silent, staring at the Time Agent as he dropped a bowl of vile-looking food on the table. He then turned back to his bed, looking for something.

A plan forming, the Doctor quickly took out his sonic screwdriver, pointing it at Jack's fork. The fork instantly magnetised to his sonic, flying towards him. He caught it, prongs first, having to bite his tongue to stop himself crying out in pain. As he recovered, Jack went back to the table, realised his didn't have a fork and harrumphed, turning back to the door.

The Doctor had to dive behind the terminal to avoid Jack seeing him as he stormed back out of the room.

The Doctor didn't wait to leave.