Chapter Thirty-Four: A Friend in Need

Ever since the attempt to probe the half of Regina's mind that contained the Doctor's subconscious, Regina had gone M.I.A. Jack and David searched everywhere in town for her; they knew she could not have gone any further than the town line if she didn't want to risk losing her memory. Of course, after what had happened in Archie's office, Jack wouldn't put it past Regina to purposely make herself forget everything to take away the mental effects of the Doctor's subconscious. Regardless, her sudden disappearance did not bode too well for Jack, who still had to deal with the disgruntled townsfolk along with David, who himself felt discouraged with the continued absence of Emma and Mary Margaret.

After a long day of searching, Jack and David returned to the station in defeat. "You really think she might've done it?" David asked, anticipating the worse. "You think she tried to go over the line?"

Harkness shook his head and sighed. "I don't know what to think anymore. We're running out of options, David."

"Doesn't River have any ideas?"

"Only to use her vortex manipulator to search all around time and space for one blue police box; but even that will lead us to another dead end. The Doctor is a hard man to find, unless you have the right resource to use to reach him. I didn't even know I'd found him the whole time here in Storybrooke when I met him as John Smith." Jack snickered as a not-too-distant memory came to mind. "The greatest success I ever had in finding him was through this severed hand I kept in the old Torchwood hub in Cardiff."

David raised a curious eyebrow. "A severed hand?"

"There was this event in London on Christmas of 2005 when an alien ship invaded the Earth and nearly killed thousands of people. The Doctor had just regenerated and fought the leader of the invading force. Somewhere in the fight, the Doctor had his had cut off and it fell from the ship, landing in a random area of the city. When Torchwood investigated the incident in its aftermath, I just happened to find the hand lying there and kept it submerged in a container. Only after a few days with it did I realize from the familiar alien energy it gave off that it belonged to the Doctor."

David found the story incredibly insane; however, having been familiarized with the life of the Doctor (which was no stranger than David's), he accepted it all as just another interesting fact about him. "Well, as demented as it sounds, it's too bad we don't have another severed hand of the Doctor's to use in finding him now." Harkness grinned and nodded in agreement with David's sentiment. At the same time, the telephone at the sheriff's desk rang and David went to answer it. "Storybrooke Sheriff Department." He listened to the voice on the other end; it was a woman, possibly in her early to mid-thirties with a peculiar accent that David couldn't properly identify. She gave David the name of someone that she wanted to know was there and David replied with a hint of surprise, "Uh…yeah…he's here with me now." Jack noticed David slowly turning and gesturing the receiver his way. "It's for you."

Jack stood confused; in the days he had been in Storybrooke, as well as in a parallel universe, he never figured anyone would find out he had been there. But one person did, and Harkness could not pass on finding out who it was. He went to David and took the receiver from him, placing it against his left ear and left side of his mouth. "Hello?"

"Jack? Is that you?"

"Gwen? How did you know I was here?"

"Your Doctor told me that you were."

Harkness nearly lost his grip on the receiver upon hearing what his friend and Torchwood colleague told him. "W-What did you say?"

"I said the Doctor told me that you're there." Gwen reiterated over the phone. "At least I think it was him. I only got this postcard from this little town called Storybrooke in the mail that says 'Jack Harkness is here and he needs to find us' and it's signed by the Doctor. It could just be a joke, but I…"

"Gwen, where are you right now?"

"I just landed in New York with Rhys and Anwen. We're on our way there right now to…"

"No, stay there." Jack instructed. "Check into a hotel. I'll come there and meet up with you."

"Jack, what is going on?"

Harkness then heard the angry voice of Rhys Williams in the background saying, "What's he got us mixed up in now? Ask him!"

"Not now, Rhys." Gwen told her furious husband.

Jack let out a disgruntled sigh; he knew that hell was coming once he did meet up with Gwen and Rhys in New York. He wished that she hadn't brought him along with her, but he realized that Gwen was a wife and a mother now, which meant family would always come first. "Just tell your husband that we're saving lives again," Jack said. "He'll understand that – or at least learn to."

"Get here as soon as you can, Jack. I'd hate to think we came all this way for nothing."

"Trust me, Gwen…you didn't." He hung up the phone and bustled past David, who seemed heavily confused. "I have to go. Tell River and anyone else who asks about me that I'm going out of town for a while and I'll be back soon."

"Why? What's going on? Who was that over the phone?"

"An old friend of mine."

"Can she help us find the Doctor?"

Before walking out of the room, Jack stopped and smiled confidently. "You don't know the half of it."

Jack tried his best not to go too fast through the road leading out of town. His mind raced as fast as his black sports sedan did upon thinking over the many reasons for the Doctor leaving that postcard for Gwen. The postcard had to be a lead-in for something much larger – a way of redirecting the Doctor back into Storybrooke. He wouldn't have just left a subtle message and then be off his merry way. If there was more – if there was another card yet to be played – then Jack had to be out of Storybrooke to see that it was. Whatever magical force that took the Doctor out of the town had kept him from returning, so it was crucial for Jack's meeting with Gwen to be in New York and not in Maine; of course, he couldn't tell her that entirely or else Rhys would surely refuse to let her help.

As Harkness finally reached the exit out of Storybrooke, he brought the sedan to a tire-screeching halt when he discovered a chaotic scene blocking the way. There, just near the line that was never to be crossed by any of the cursed residents of the town, was Mr. Gold cradling a frantic and wounded Belle in front of his car. Across from them was another vehicle that had veered off the road and crashed into a tree with the driver slumped over the wheel and unconscious. Jack immediately got out of his sedan and rushed over to Gold and Belle; while doing so, he caught sight of one more party at the scene – Captain Hook. The pirate captain lied battered and bruised at the side of the road, and he himself was left unconscious from whatever chaos that had unfolded there.

Jack stared at Hook for a long while in total shock. How the hell did he reach Storybrooke from the other world? It was a mystery bigger than the one Jack currently faced with the Doctor. He did not have much time to reason out the cause of Hook's presence there as a desperate Gold shouted to him, "Don't just stand there, Captain Harkness! Get an ambulance here now! Belle's been shot!"

"Why do you keep calling me that? Who are you?" Belle hysterically questioned, pushing Gold away from her but stopping when she felt the searing pain from her gunshot wound.

Jack only then realized how Belle and Gold were situated over the other side of the line marked on the road to warn the cursed townspeople of the exact thing that happened to Belle there and then. How Gold still had his memory intact was something else Jack had to worry about for another time. In the meantime, he did as Gold requested and rushed back to his sedan, contacting David through his cell phone and alerting him of the scene he uncovered there.