Sorry about the late chapter, the last few days haven't been overly good to me. Also, I will be changing update days to Saturdays or Sundays. Just so you guys know. Enjoy! Disclaimer- Has anybody ever taken the time to think abot what might happen if a fanfic author actually got the rights somehow? It would be terrifying.
In Which Jack has the Doctors's Clothes, Toshiko bears bad news, and agreements are broken.
~oOo~
Owen straightened himself from leaning over the Doctor, who lie on his medical examination table, stretching himself out and standing at his full height.
"And?" Asked Jack, standing on the stairway that led down to the medlab, leaning on the guard rails that were installed there. Owen glanced from the Doctor's bare torso, then back to Jack.
"He's done a number on himself, that's for sure." Owen replied, with the air that only a doctor who had practiced for years and seen many injuries could muster.
"Yeah, no shit. I sort of figured that." Jack retorted.
Owen sighed.
"What do you want to know, Jack."
"I want to know what the hell happened to him."
"I can't tell much about his internals, mainly because I've never seen anything like his biology before. Confusing as hell, but absolutely fascinating. " Owen caught the glare that Jack was fixing him with and cleared his throat before continuing. "But externally? Not too much actually. Couple of cracked ribs at most. That's about it. Nothing life threatening."
Jock scowled but held his tongue.
"Why did he pass out? Do you know?"
Owen shrugged slightly.
"You might want to ask your-" He hesitated a moment. "Friend, how much sleep he's been getting."
"Really? You think so?" Asked Toshiko, who had, alongside Gwen, arrived just a half an hour ago, amongst all the chaos.
"Yeah. Far as I can tell, anyways. I think he's just exhausted."
"That idiot." Jack growled. No matter how much he thought that the Time Lord had changed, there were still some constants.
His love for technobabble.
The way he still lied through his teeth about always being fine.
And the way that, even after all this time, the stupid git absolutely refused to take care of himself.
"Also..." Owen cautiously started, only too aware of his bosses growing agitation at the situation.
"What?" Jack snapped, losing his patience one bit at a time.
"I hate to break it to you, but he looks bloody starved. Anybody could see that."
Yup. Somethings never changed.
"Fine. Fine." Jack said, rubbing at his eyes some. "We'll just...Do some other stuff for a while. Wait for him to wake up."
"Sounds like a plan." Owen agreed. "An in the mean time, you can explain to me, Gwen, and Tosh, just what the hell is happening."
oOo
The Doctor woke with a start, sitting up quickly, but immediately regretting his actions as a sharp pain coursed through his chest, though it soon enough retreated, setting into a dull, but throbbing and persistent ache. Recognizing his surroundings, he swung his legs over the side of the table and stood up, the cold concrete floor making him aware that he no longer had his shoes on. Now more awake than he had been just moments ago, he also discovered that he had been stripped of both his suit top and the shirt he wore underneath that, and his coat alongside that. He searched for a moment, hoping to find them, but to no avail. More than annoyed by this, he started up the stairs, finding himself on the main level of Torchwood.
"Oi!" He called, to nobody in particular, hoping that somebody would hear him.
A cautious Gwen stood up from her desk and looked a the Doctor.
"Oh. You're up then." She noted, watching the Time Lord carefully. Jack's explanation of the situation was enough reason to warrant that, she felt.
"Yeah. Nice observation, that" The Doctor dismissed shortly. "Now, where have you put my clothes?" He questioned.
"Jack wants to see you." Gwen replied, voice steady.
"I bet he does. No chance of that happening though. So you might as well tell me where my bloody clothes are."
"Jack thought you might be like this." Gwen said. "He's got them." She finished simply.
"Of fucking course he does..." The Doctor muttered. He turned away from Gwen and started towards the stairs that led up to Jack's office, climbing them quickly. He pushed the door to the office open and stepped in.
"Give them to me." He demanded, no room in his tone for questions as to what he was talking about. Jack laughed.
"Ah, no." He said, amusement present. "We're going to sit down, and talk, and-"
At this exact, incredibly inconvenient moment in time, the Torchwood Rift alarm decided to sound, ringing rapidly throughout the entire establishment. Jack gave a disbelieving stare to the Doctor, and swore loudly as the Time Lord smirked. The Doctor leaned forwards, placing both hands on Jack's desk, studying the Immortal.
"So, Harkness. Where are my clothes?"
Jack clenched his jaw, considering his options. He couldn't very well just leave the Doctor alone in the Hub. God knew what might happen then. And the elimination of that left only one viable option.
"Your stuff is on my bed." Said Jack, standing up and motioning towards the bed that he occasionally used, which did indeed have the Doctor's clothes upon it. The Doctor gave a lopsided smile and walked over to Jack's bed, taking his shirt and suit top off of it and putting them on, shrugging his trench coat on over his shoulders as well. He then glanced over at Jack who was busying himself by puting on his own World War Two coat on as well. The Ex-Time Agent looked over at the Doctor.
"You're coming with us." He stated. "I don't trust you here by yourself."
The Doctor shrugged.
"I wouldn't trust myself here either." He agreed.
"But you are not to get involved." Jack all but snarled. The Doctor scoffed.
"I wasn't planning to in the first place, Harkness." He replied, voice steely.
"And by getting involved, I mean that you don't so much as breathe on the thing we're going to be tracking down."
"Fine."
"You don't talk to it, you don't poke at it-"
"Fine."
Jack studied the Doctor for half a moment more, then dashed out of his office, leaning over the guard rail, and looking down on the level below.
"Toshiko!" He called. "Have you got a fix on where the signal's coming from?!" He asked.
"Outer Southeast Cardiff!" Tosh responded, glancing at her computer screen. "And from these energy readings, it looks like Weevils!"
Jack swore under his breath and began racing down the stairs, the Doctor not far behind him.
After just a few moments of quickly grabbing the needed precautions, the rest of the Torchwood team clambered into their van. Jack started up the engine and pulled the vehicle out into the streets, wheels screeching.
There were Weevils to catch.
oOo
"Take this left!" Toshiko instructed. Jack yanked the steering wheel left and onto the rough dirt road, that was empty. Of course. He continued racing down said road at nearly breakneck speeds.
"They should be coming up in about a hundred meters!'
Mere seconds later the vehicle screeched to a halt, and Jack and his team leaped out of the doors with practiced ease. Ianto raced to the side of the van only to stop dead in his track.
"Jack?" He called uneasily.
"What?" The Captain asked, eyes trained on the beings before he and Ianto.
"Those...Aren't Weevils." The Welshman pointed out.
"Yeah. I noticed."
"What are they, then?" The voice's owner this time was Doctor, who had somehow snuck u behind Jack while he had been studying the creatures before him.
"Get back in the van, Doctor!' Jack barked.
"Fat chance. You see, now you've went and got me interested. And I'm staying put right. Where. I. Am."
"Jesus Christ..." Jack muttered, taking a closer look at the aliens. Ianto was right. These things were not Weevils. What they actually were though, escaped Jack.
There were three of them, all standing close together, and examining the five humans (and deceivingly human-like Time Lord) with the same intensity that they themselves were being scrutinized with. They were humanoid in shape. with deep purple skin and jet black hair that reached to their shoulders. They were tall, at least six feet, with almost elvish features; narrow yellow eyes, high bridged noses, and thin faces. They were clad in dark blue robes.
Jack took a careful step towards the three, holding his hands up to show that he was not armed.
"...Hello?" He asked cautiously. The tallest of the three aliens began walking towards Jack, who stopped moving at once, standing stalk still. He turned his head back to face the Doctor.
"You've never seen them before?" He asked.
"Nope." The Doctor replied, hands in his pockets. Jack grumbled some and turned back to face the alien that was still advancing towards him. Jack took a few uncomfortable steps backwards.
"Right...Why don't you stop walking? That would be good. So, if you could stop, we could tak about this, right? We can help you get back home if you want."
The purple skinned alien continued to come towards Jack, and reached inside of his robes and extracted a matte silver object that was shaped suspiciously like a 'L'.
Or a gun.
Matter of opinion, really.
Jack's eyes widened in alarm, gaze drawn on the weapon that had just been drawn against him.
"Woah, woah." He said, clearly startled, taken aback even. "Put that down. W'e're not going to hurt you."
The alien stopped walking, all of ten feet away from Jack. He stopped walking and trained the weapon on Jack's head, finger tightening on wat appeared to be a trigger.
"Put your gun down!" Jack all but shouted. The finger continued to tighten until-
"Oh, for fuck's sake..."
Bang!
Jack flinched, expecting to be hit by a bullet, or whatever it was that these things used, but watched in surprise as the alien crumpled, falling to the ground underneath him, red blood pooling around him.
The Immortal spun around in shock, open mouthed. He switched his gaze around frantically, glancing at each of his equally stunned team, before settling on the only person wh was daring to move.
The Doctor, shoving what was undoubtedly his revolver back into his coat pocket.
The Time Lord looked up, right past Jack and at the other two aliens, saying no words. The two backed up slightly and frantically yanked up their sleeves, revealing a device that was strapped to their wrist. The both of them began punching commands into the devices, obviously panicing. They pressed several more buttons, and just like that, they were gone. Teleported most likely, no trace of them left.
Disappeared.
Jack spun back around, emotions a mess, and stared at the Time Lord met his gaze, steady and cold. Completely removed from what he'd just done.
The Doctor waked forwards, shoving past Jack as he did so. He stopped when he reached the purples alien's body. He tapped its torso with his foot, efectovely turning the body onto its back. He pressed the alien's chest with his foot one more time, putting most of his weight into it this time around.
Apparently satisfied, he turned around and began walking, stopping directly in front of Jack.
"Done." Was all he said before continuing his walk over to the Torchwood vehicle, leaning against the side of it, staring at the ground and nothing else.
Still slightly stunned, Jack darted over to the alien's body, looking it over. After just a few seconds, he found what he was looking for; one bullet wound, located directly in between it's eyes.
The single flaw in this new species of unidentified alien.
Dead, unidentified alien.
Jack slowly stood up from where he knelt, and fixed his gaze on the Doctor, who was busy wiping the blood off his shoes.
And that's that. This chapter was a bit difficult to write emotionally, but the next one was way harder. Actually, every chapter from here on out was hard to write. I think that in creating this story I'm actually killing any capacity for emotions I may have. Anywho, a great big thanks to all you guys who favorited/followed and a double thanks to the person who reviewed. You all just make my day. So, thanks for reading, pretty please with bananas on top leave a review with feedback, ideas, anything at all, have a great day, and DFTBA!