Chapter 12 - On His Own
The moment she turned, the soldiers, Jack and John immediately raised their weapons at her. With some sort of renewed strength the Doctor tore away from his captors and threw himself over her, protecting her.
"That's not your girlfriend anymore!" Jack shouted seriously.
"Shoot her and you'll regret it, Captain Jack Harkness," the Doctor warned.
"She's infected!" Jack insisted.
"You'll have to shoot me first!" the Doctor snapped.
Jack spread a smile. "Well, that's okay because you'll just regenerate, won't you?"
"Maybe you're not getting it," the Doctor began, turning to him with a true ferocity in his eyes. "Shoot her, and I'll kill you."
"Yeah?" Jack asked insincerely. "How?"
"Slowly," the Doctor spat. He said it with such hatred and bile that for once, Jack looked a little uncomfortable, but he quickly reasserted himself.
"I'm not taking her back to the base."
"Then you'll just have to leave us here, won't you?"
"Fat chance," Jack said, glancing at John. John gave an indifferent shrug. Jack sighed. "All right, you can bring your girlfriend. If she bites anyone I'm shooting her dead, you got that?"
"Loud and clear, sir," the Doctor said, spitting out the last word insincerely. He turned back to Rose, who was still unconscious. He reached up to her temple and made sure that she'd stay sleeping for the trip.
The Doctor had had all of his possessions taken away - sonic screwdriver included and they'd only left him his trousers and shirt to wear. They had been confined back to the cells, Rose in one and the Doctor in the other. She'd been sleeping all that time, but the Doctor was watching her closely - her skin was paling, her cheekbones hollow and her eyes dark. A full-scale Ex.
How had she been infected? It had to have been on a mission at some point. A tiny scratch; an infected scrape that had slowly but surely been multiplying within her. But why hadn't she told him? She would have told him, surely? Unless she didn't know…
Either way, it was now fruitless thinking about how. She was infected, and he didn't have a cure.
But there had to be something.
He curled up into the foetal position, his mind flickering through all the possibilities. None of them seemed viable.
The one thing he was sure about was Jack's next move. Jack wanted the TARDIS - sure, Time Agents could time travel, but a time machine on the scale of the TARDIS was technology the Time Agency could only dream of, and if Jack was the one to give it to them he'd skip Captain altogether and jump right up to Commander, John too.
They would do anything to get his ship. Extortion, torture, threatening Rose - even if she was an Ex. He was ready for it.
Suddenly there was the sound of someone shifting. He looked at Rose, who was finally coming to. He didn't move to the bars. Not yet.
"Rose?" he asked.
Her head rose, her long blonde hair trailing across the floor as she looked up at him as if seeing him for the first time in her life. The whites of her eyes were yellow, her pupils dilated, and without warning she launched herself at the bars with her teeth out, ready to bite.
He didn't move. He didn't even flinch. His hearts just sank.
"I'm sorry," he muttered.
She didn't care for his apology as he stuck her hand through the bars that separated them, desperately groping for him. Her crazed, animalistic expression was so wrong on her face.
It wasn't her, he reminded himself. This wasn't Rose, this was Ex-Rose, just inhabiting her body. She'd happily devour him for his flesh.
But was there something in there?
He forced himself to gaze at her, straight into those dead eyes. "Rose," he said softly. "Are you in there?"
He got nothing back.
Jack's soldiers had come to retrieve him sooner than the Doctor had anticipated, but he knew Jack wouldn't weaste any time with this. He was escorted out of the cells, leaving the ferocious Ex-Rose behind and taken to the interrogation room. He was forced by gunpoint into a chair on one side of a metal table, where suddenly his hands were enveloped in a bright blue light, and they were forcibly dragged towards the table, slamming his wrists down onto the surface as two metal cuffs slid up out of the table and held his hands firmly in place. No escape.
He sat there in silence for a good few minutes, mentally flickering through what he was going say. In front of him was a mirror - clearly double-sided - where John would probably be standing for this.
Eventually Jack came in. He locked the door behind him, acknowledging the Doctor with an upbeat greeting as he dropped into the opposing seat, propping his feet on the table.
The Doctor had no doubt what would happen next. Time Agents were trained in expert interrogation, with absolutely no regard for morality.
"Let's cut to the chase," Jack began. "Who are you?"
"The Medical Corp," the Doctor replied immediately.
"Yeah, I think we both know that's not true," Jack said seriously, adjusting his position on the seat.
The Doctor didn't answer that.
"What's your objective?" Jack repeated smoothly, losing no hint of his patience.
"I told you, we're from the Medical Corp. We're here to help."
"Okay," Jack began, dropping his feet and leaning forward on the table, staring at the Doctor. "Let me give you a few reasons why you're not from the Medical Corp. You don't have a valid ID. You don't have a uniform. Your assistant looks like she's come out of Vogue and you look like Sherlock Holmes with hair gel. You have no military discipline; you fraternise with each other, you seem to have trouble calling me sir and your assistant doesn't seem to have had any field training; a standard procedure. You don't understand the confines of your job and when you two first arrived you didn't seem to be briefed. John's told me that Barbie admitted to him you weren't part of the war. He also said you know me in the future."
The Doctor took a breath, and steeled himself. "We're from the Medical Corp."
Jack paused for a moment, shaking his head. "Please don't make me force it out of you."
"We're from the Medical Corp."
"Don't make me hurt that pretty face."
"... We're from the Medical Corp."
Jack sighed. "Dammit. Okay. How about your Tardis? Do I have to do the old 'if you don't give it I'll shoot your girlfriend' thing?"
The Doctor stared at him firmly, but didn't answer.
"This isn't the first time you've done this, is it?" Jack supposed idly.
The Doctor remained absolutely silent.
"I'm not gonna play nice much longer," Jack warned lowly.
The Doctor didn't reply to this either.
"Fuck's sake," Jack cursed, standing up. He pressed a button and to the Doctor's surprise the metal cuffs retracted, leaving him free to use his hands again. He rubbed his wrists, looking up at Jack, confused.
"I'm gonna give you an hour to think about telling me the truth," Jack told him as the door opened and few soldiers came in and restrained the Doctor, pulling him out. He just let them drag him out, unrelenting, back to the cells where they threw him in and locked the door.
Rose was still awake, clawing at the concrete ground. He tried to ignore this, dropping to lie down on the floor, closing his eyes and blocking her out.
He had an hour to mentally prepare himself for the interrogation.
It seemed like five minutes later the soldiers returned, picking him up and dragging him back to the interrogation room, but he was ready. He said nothing, did nothing and merely moved to their will as they sat him back down in the chair, though this time they didn't cuff him. He was so focused he didn't even wonder why.
Jack entered and stood over him, his arms folded.
"Identity?" he asked.
The Doctor didn't reply, just staring at the wall.
"Tardis?" Jack tried.
Again, the Doctor didn't reply.
Jack sighed. "Get up."
"Jack," the Doctor finally said, and Jack paused. "Let us go. You don't know what mistake you're making."
"If you're trying to change my mind about this you're not doing a very good job," Jack told him seriously.
"We just want to leave," the Doctor said calmly. "We're no part of this War."
"Heard enough," Jack suddenly said, and it quickly became apparent what Jack was going to do as he wrenched a metal bar off of the wall and balanced it in his hand. But the Doctor had been expecting it. "Get up."
"Jack, you really don't want to do this," the Doctor warned.
"Maybe you should start talking then?" Jack suggested. "You know me in the future, right?"
The Doctor fell silent.
"Okay then," Jack said. "Get the hell up."
The Doctor stared at Jack, almost disappointed as he got to his feet, and tensed himself. But then he realised Jack was leaving. He unlocked the door, and in slipped John.
"Round one," Jack told the Doctor, before looking at John and handing him the metal bar. "In one piece, please. And not the face. I like the face."
"Spoil sport," John muttered as Jack closed the door and locked it behind him.
Ex-Rose looked up sharply as a group of tasty-looking soldiers approached her cell. Between them they were carrying a man - she recognised him. He'd been in the cell next to hers most of the afternoon. They carried him to her, and paused.
"Which cell do we put him in?" one asked.
"I dunno. With the girl I guess," another one replied.
"She's an Ex, though," the first one pointed out.
"Well if they're together he might be infected too," the second one said.
"Oh god, get him in before he wakes up," the first one said as the second one opened the cell door, pointing a gun straight at Ex-Rose's head. Ex-Rose knew better than to attack now so she restrained herself, curled up in the corner as they deposited the body, locked the door and left.
Then she was alone with the man. She scrambled to him on all fours, experimentally prodding him with a finger. He was unconscious, clearly injured, and she could see rivulets of his blood dripping down from his body onto the floor. They looked so tasty, and the smell he was giving off was absolutely divine. She ran her nose from his legs to his head, taking in deep, measured sniffs. She dared to lick his cheek. The taste on her tongue she ended up sucking on for a good few seconds after it was so nice.
His smell was deliciously intoxicating, and even one lick told her all she need to know for how amazing he'd taste.
She picked up his limp arm, holding up his fingers to her mouth. She leaned forward, teeth out, ready to take a bite…
He's hurt! a voice screamed inside her head, panicked. She paused, frowning. Something wasn't right here. He did look and smell very tasty, but something, somewhere inside her was holding her back with his fingers hovering millimetres from her lips.
His face. She seemed to know it more than any other face here. She reached forward tentatively, running her cold fingers down his cheek. His skin was so warm. She dug her fingernails in, just to test its pliability. The texture of his skin would be a little chewy, she thought, but not difficult to digest.
No. She didn't want to eat him.
Did she?
She abruptly realised she'd inadvertently covered the ends of her fingers in his blood.
Eat it! a voice screamed inside her head.
No. This was… she knew him. She knew this man. And she didn't want to hurt him. She couldn't let herself taste test his blood, in case she couldn't stop...
Impulsively she wiped her fingers on her jeans, dropped his arm and backed away from the helpless body, curling up and burying her head.
The Doctor groaned, shifting slightly as he came to. His body was hurting in various places, but not nearly as bad as he'd been expecting. He could still move his limbs. Clearly Jack's interrogation was going to come in stages. None of his limbs were broken. Yet. Small victories, he thought.
He opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and saw Ex-Rose sitting across the same cell from him, curled up in the corner.
Immediately he panicked, ignoring all pains and backing up into the corner, quickly checking himself over for bites. There weren't any. Had Jack purposely put him in here? No, Jack wouldn't want him infected. Someone had made a mistake…
He turned back to the cell bars, ready to make a noise to alert the guards. But suddenly a thought drifted through his brain. No. Wait. Why hadn't Rose eaten him? He'd been bleeding - exposed wounds. That should have been irresistible to an Ex.
He turned back to her, and thought some more. Rose was still in there. It was the only explanation.
"Rose?" he tried.
Ex-Rose didn't say anything, remaining curled up.
"Rose, please let me know if you're in there," he almost begged.
No reply.
"You haven't eaten me," he continued. "You should have eaten me. It's me, Rose, it's the Doctor. You recognised me, didn't you?"
Finally she looked up at the sound of his name. Those dead eyes seemed to be staring straight into his soul.
"You know me," he continued, daring to inch forward slightly. "You stopped yourself from hurting me."
He moved forward a little more. Suddenly Ex-Rose snapped, launching forward with her teeth bared. The Doctor quickly backed away, arms in the air. "The Doctor," he told her quickly. "I'm the Doctor."
She stopped, frowned, and crawled back to her corner again.
He realised he couldn't approach her, but she seemed to be having a battle of instincts. The instinct not to hurt him from the Rose part of her, and the instinct to designate him dinner from the Ex part of her. The two were in contention.
But how was it possible? He'd seen the spread of this infection before - the person was always completely lost, even to friends and family. Was her body made stronger by her travels with him? Something to do with the background radiation?
Either way, it gave him a small glimmer of hope in what had seemed like spiralling darkness. If there was a bit of Rose left, maybe he could cure her. He just didn't know how. And now Jack had him captured and had begun the increments of interrogation, he would only get weaker, bleed more, and become more and more tempting for her to eat.
He had to escape.
But as he sat there locked in the cell with a carnivorous Rose, no sonic screwdriver or a notion of a plan, he had to wonder just how he was going to manage it.