A/N: One chapter left, I think :o
Chapter 15 - Revenge
Jack had had to strap down Rose in order to give her a scan, which did indeed confirm it was her, though her immune system had been absolutely overwhelmed by some sort of powerful, unrelenting infection that seemed to cause zombie-like mutations. He'd never seen anything like it, and he had no idea how to treat it.
He knew enough to know that if Rose had turned up here on her own that meant the Doctor had sent her away himself. Which meant the Time Lord was in massive danger, and now had no means of escape.
Jack just had no idea how to get to him, and no idea how to cure Rose. He'd tried all the usual cure-all medicines the Doctor had, but none of them had worked. He didn't know what to do.
He took a walk through the TARDIS to help clear his head, leaving Rose secure in the infirmary. Obviously since the Doctor had sent her to him like this, he expected Jack to do something about it that didn't involve shooting her. But what?
The ideal plan of action of course would be to go back to wherever the Doctor was and try and figure out what the hell was going on. But not knowing how to cure Rose or where the Doctor was he was a little stuck. Besides, even if he did know he couldn't pilot the TARDIS.
What was he missing?
He ended up walking to the console room, staring at the myriad of complex buttons and levers. He'd seen the Doctor do it a million times, but Jack had no idea where to even start. He'd probably end up somewhere on prehistoric Neptune.
Still, he couldn't just sit here staring. He had to do something. He stepped up to the controls, rested a finger on a randomly-placed button, took an affirming breath, and pressed it.
The TARDIS immediately thunked, making Jack jump. But that was all she did. With increased confidence he stabbed another button. Nothing happened. Another. Nothing. Another. Nothing. He tried mashing the buttons all together. Nothing.
He groaned, stepping back with his hands on his head to try and reassess the situation, when all of a sudden the column began to churn, apparently of its own accord. Shocked, Jack stepped back again just to make sure he wasn't touching anything. Nope.
There was a jolt as the TARDIS landed. Where the Doctor was?
There was only one way to find out.
He pulled out his gun, checked it was loaded, went to the TARDIS doors and stepped out.
He was so, so hungry.
Ex-Doctor had tried with all of his might to get his hand free, but it wasn't coming no matter how hard he pulled. He'd tried shooting at the cuffs, and although the bullets had slightly chipped the metal it wasn't enough. The desperation to eat was everywhere in his head, screaming at him. He had to get free. He was so hungry. He needed to eat...
He was just contemplating chewing his own arm off when one of the bombs that had been repeatedly raining around outside the base hit exceptionally close to him. The shock-wave blasted out, throwing him back against the wall, which seemed to move, creak and almost topple. The roof over him shifted dangerously…
It was going to collapse.
Instinctively Ex-Doctor roll underneath the bed. Seconds later the metal structure tore in a deafening shriek and collapsed almost immediately right where he'd been sat two seconds ago. He closed his eyes, waiting for the debris to settle before he dared to look again, and saw the pole his handcuffs were attached to was now split in half.
He clambered out of his hiding place, stepping over the metal and concrete to finally free his hand.
Then he stepped out, through the fresh hole in the wall onto the battlefield.
He could smell him. The one that had been tormenting him for the past few months. The one that had tortured him and not let him treat Rose.
Ex-Doctor rapidly decided that revenge was a dish best served in Time Agent uniform.
He checked his gun. One bullet left. That would be enough. Then he set off, following the smell of Time Agent Jack.
Future Jack had run across a horrific battlefield, jumping through the bodies on the ground and avoiding the blasts of bombs. He'd had to shoot a few people to keep them from killing him - people who apparently had the same zombie-like infection as Rose. He'd also progressively been checking bodies as he ran, but hadn't yet seen the Doctor. He couldn't lie to himself - was expecting to see him dead. If the Doctor had been infected too, it seemed the only way of killing the infected was with a bullet through the brain. Not even the Doctor could regenerate from that.
But he hadn't seen him yet, so Jack kept going. He figured that in order to find the Doctor he should probably head to where the source of all the zombies appeared to be, which ended up being some sort of army bunker that was half destroyed by bombs.
He headed into the bunker, shooting a few more zombies dead as he went, yelling out the Doctor's name as he progressed. He got nothing back.
He searched every room, and it wasn't until he went into what obviously used to be a medical ward that things took a turn for the worse. Half of the room was caved in, and just by the door was the sonic screwdriver, abandoned on the floor. The Doctor wouldn't just leave his sonic.
Jack picked it up. It was smeared with blood - blood that had a slight orange tinge. He knew by that alone that it was definately the Doctor's blood.
He swore under his breath, checking the room again. There was a blood trail on the floor - leading out from under a bed through massive hole in the wall.
He didn't have any other leads. He pocketed the sonic and followed the trail.
Time Agent Jack had made it to the evacuation point in a large building, but the rest of the evacuees had already left and there was just one escape pod remaining. He ran up to it, hitting the button to open the door.
The panel flashed red. It was locked.
"C'mon!" he urged the ship, whacking the button a few more times. It continued to flash red.
"Sorry!" came a voice from inside the pod, speaking on an outer comm. "Taken!"
"John!" Jack realised. "John, it's Jack, open the door!"
"This is one person only," John said. "They're sending another round of escape pods, you'll have to wait, sorry!"
"John!" Jack cried out, but the pod was already firing up. Jack had to quickly stumble backwards to avoid the fire of the jet engines as the pod lifted up through the open roof, and immediately departed in a blur of speed.
Jack cried out in frustration. He tried his vortex manipulator for about the 98th time, but as ever the EMP deployed by the Exes was shorting it out. He had no escape - he had to stand his ground and wait for the next evacuation.
He pulled out his gun, checking his surroundings. Only then did he notice that there was someone heading towards him through the doors.
He raised his gun. "Identify yourself!" he shouted across the room, but the person didn't yell anything back. They were heading towards him quite quickly - running.
"I'm gonna shoot!" Jack warned.
They didn't shout back, and now Jack could make out basic features. Tall, thin, brown hair…
It was Ex-Doctor.
Jack pulled the trigger straight away. It the ex-Time Lord didn't stop running. Jack kept firing repeatedly until he was out of ammunition, yet still the ex-Doctor was still heading towards him. Twenty metres. Ten metres…
It quickly became apparent that although some of Jack bullets had hit Ex-Doctor, they hadn't been near his head. Jack cursed himself for his terrible shot, turned, and began to run.
He didn't get far. The ex-Doctor hit him right in the back in a full-force rugby tackle, mowing him to the ground in a chaotic mess of limbs.
Jack struggled desperately, trying to throw the ex-Time Lord off. But despite his lankiness the Ex seemed to somehow be even stronger than him, pinning him to the ground by his neck with one hand, and the gun in his other.
"You killed Rose!" the Ex screamed.
"I d-didn't!" Jack managed to wheeze out. "She… She got i-infected!"
"If you just let us leave she would've been okay!" the Ex shouted.
"I'm sorry, all right, I'm sorry!" Jack garbled out.
"It's not good enough!"
"If I could've fixed her I would!"
"You just wanted my time machine, you didn't care what it took!" the Ex spat, and rammed his gun up against Jack's head.
"You can't kill me!" Jack said desperately. "You know me in the future! You can't, you're a Time Lord, you protect time!"
"I've got nothing left!" the Ex screamed in his face. "I don't care anymore!"
He made ready to fire, back Jack was prepared. He rolled, forcing the ex-Doctor off of him and grabbing the gun in the process. The Time Agent rose, gun in hand, aimed his shot at Ex-Doctor's head and pulled the trigger.
But before he did, somebody suddenly appeared, right in front of the ex-Doctor. By the time he'd had a chance to process it he'd already fired, and the bullet went straight into the person's head in place of the ex-Doctor.
Jack stumbled back in surprise as the body hurtled to the floor head first, bouncing off until it came to a rest. He blinked, shocked as he registered the horribly familiar bright blue eyes, the fresh blood seeping into black hair...
He'd just killed himself.
In the blur of panic and emotion he hadn't realised that someone else was there too. He raised his horrified gaze to the new arrivals - a very familiar brown-haired man with a very familiar blonde-haired woman, both uninfected and unscathed were standing over the ex-Doctor, who was now lying on the floor unconscious from a blow to the head.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, hands sliding back into his pockets. Jack impulsively fired his gun,, but it was out of bullets, and the Doctor seemed to know that as he didn't even flinch.
"What the... Who the fuck are you?!" he stammered, dropping the gun. It hit the floor redundantly. "This ain't real! He's not real!"
"I'm afraid he is real," the Doctor said gently. "And he is you. A you from the future. Would you like me to explain who we are?"
Jack paused, and then nodded, still shaking.
"We're time travellers, my name is the Doctor, I am a Time Lord. This is my companion, Rose Tyler," he said, gesturing to the woman beside him, who gave a cheery wave. "She comes from 21st century Earth, she's human. We met your future self in the Blitz of World War 2 in the 20th century, he was a Time Agent turned conman. He calls, or rather, called himself Captain Jack Harkness. We've all been travelling in my Tardis for around a year together now, and just before we met you, Rose and I left him in a hotel on Plax. He just came to rescue us. You've just shot him. Any questions?"
"No, no," Jack stammered, utterly disbelievingly. "Are... Are you telling me I've just killed myself?!"
"Yes."
Jack was shaking his head quickly, panicking. He was a mile away from the calm, collected and sophisticated Jack he liked to appear as. "He's not me. You've got my DNA, you've cloned me, or genetic modification, or… or… morphic illusion..."
The Doctor continued to gaze at him sympathetically. "Jack said he used to live on the Boeshane Peninsula, with his mother, his brother, Gray and his father Franklin. He, Gray and Franklin used to play cricket together."
"You've seen some files, some records!" Jack accused, spitting.
"I might have done, or he might have told me," the Doctor said, pointing to the dead man on the floor, though he continued to stare at Jack. "You can go into denial all you want, but the fact of the matter is you've just murdered yourself. Or..." The Doctor paused, clicking his tongue and bouncing his head from side-to-side in contemplation. "Maybe that should be suicide?" He turned to Rose. "What would you rule that? Murder or suicide?"
"Suicidal manslaughter?" Rose proposed.
"Yeah!" the Doctor said nodding before looking back at Jack. "Suicidal manslaughter, I like that."
Jack stared at him, lowering his gun and staring at his own dead future self on the floor. "... What happens next?" he croaked.
"Your life!" the Doctor exclaimed, arms in the air, suddenly grinning. "Hey, older you might be dead but you've got a nice few years until it happens. At least you know how it happens, eh? Though, I have heard, knowing when and how you die can really play on your mind a lot. Really plague the subconscious. But hey, you know that already don't you? That's a method of psychological torture with you Time Agents, if I recall your kind correctly. But anyway. Good luck. We'll go and bury you, now. Don't worry, we'll give you a good send off. Fireworks and everything. If I can find some."
"Wait!" Jack yelled, stepping forward. "I can stop this. I just won't come here to save you in the future. Plax, you said Plax. I'll stop it from happening..."
The Doctor stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. "Oooh, Jack! You will be here, you will get shot in the head, it will happen, and you can't do anything to change it."
Jack blinked. "What... What do you mean?"
"You will willingly walk to your death. I can promise you that."
And with that, Rose grabbed the ex-Doctor's arm in one hand and the Doctor's in the other as the Doctor whipped out a blue-tipped electronic device, buzzed his future self's manipulator and pressed some buttons. With grins and waves from the Doctor and Rose, all four disappeared from in front of him.