The thoughts of Jack Harkness following the events in 2009.
The Doctor is now alone, Clara has been taken...what do the 456 want from him?...
The first scene is my thoughts as to what Jack might have gone through when The Children of the Earth was over, and what he has been doing in the interim.
The Doctor is finally becoming aware of his usefulness ...
Scene 17
Flashback.
Captain Jack Harkness pressed the button on the Vortex Manipulator. Gwen gave him a last wistful look then he was gone.
Where to?
He didn't know and he didn't much care.
Drifting aimlessly.
Nothing meant anything any more.
With Torchwood and with The Doctor, he felt he was fighting the fight. Saving the world...saving worlds.
Now everything just seemed like a sick joke. He'd lost one of the most important things to him. He'd lost his daughter.
She would never speak to him or have contact with him again. He had taken her son and destroyed him, and with Steven he had destroyed a part of himself.
The burden of immortality had never been greater.
He would have hundreds of lifetimes to think over his actions, he would never forgive himself. Never get over it.
He would live with it always.
So he wandered.
Without thought, without purpose.
Never stopping to rest, to think, in case it caught up with him, overtook him, plunged him into despair.
Throughout his long life, and many deaths, he'd always had a goal.
Now, nothing.
So he embarked upon a voyage of hedonistic pleasure, drinking and debauchery.
He took lover after lover, because being in someone's arms, whether it be male or female, or another species entirely, made him feel wanted, if only for a few short hours.
His time with Alonso had been the closest he'd come, to letting himself be lost in the moment, give in, forgive himself. But the feeling didn't last, and when they parted he was lost all over again.
Sometimes he drank, until he could no longer stand. Took drugs, anything, he didn't care,
It numbed him, made the pain less acute.
Except afterwards, when he came back down, the agony was increased two fold, and he'd need to do it again. Just to survive.
He travelled from place to place, never looking back, never setting down roots, just moving, moving constantly.
Always running. Just as he had run from the Boeshane Peninsula, place of his birth. Where he'd lost his brother.
All his fault. Just like Steven.
Running away.
Except he couldn't.
He couldn't forget. Couldn't escape.
Plagued by nightmares.
He missed Ianto.
Out of all his many lovers, male and female...and alien...Ianto had been different.
He was special, not just as part of their working relationship, but from the trust that was between them.
No matter what happened, he'd always been able to rely on him, always knew the bond between them. Friendship had come first.
Then love. Deep, true, complete. Love.
He recalled the first time they'd kissed. So awkward, so gauche, but so right.
The tenderness with which they'd made love, it never left him.
Never had he felt so isolated, so alone as he did now.
He couldn't really return to Earth, even if he wanted to. No one wanted him there.
Except maybe Gwen.
No. Gwen had a husband, a family. She didn't need the complication.
So he was doomed to meander, probably for all time.
Trying to forget. Days passing into years, into decades.
He would never be free.
Scene 18
The Doctor sat, back against the wall.
Knees to his chest.
Arms hugging those knees.
"So...Doctor...are you ready to speak rationally now?"
He leaped to his feet, facing the direction of the voice.
"I will do nothing until you return the woman to me."
A mocking laughter filled the void.
"You are not in a position to bargain Doctor."
"You will be sent back to Earth. You will tell the World Leaders to hand over the children to us."
"I will not."
"Oh, but you will. You will be sent via our transmat portal. We have your ship, and it will remain here. To ensure your compliance. You will do as we command, or two things will happen."
"Two things?"
"If our demands are not met, we will release a viral strain which will devastate Earth's population. Hundreds of thousands will die. Do you want that on your conscience Doctor?"
"And if I do as you ask...how many children will you take this time? 10%? 20%?...and what's to stop you coming back, decades hence, for more?"
"Nothing whatever...but the Earth will not miss those numbers, it will soon recover, soon repopulate, that is one of the wonderful things about the Human Race."
"You said two things...? What is the other?"
"Why Doctor, I would have thought that was obvious...should you fail, you will be safe in the knowledge that the woman you love will be held here in permanent stasis, a half life, a slave existence. She will be kept alive...just, for our pleasure, she will be aware of what is happening to her, but she will be beyond help, beyond reach. Her life stretched far beyond its natural span, eons of pain and exquisite torture."
The Doctor held his head in his hands.
The physical pain of knowing that Clara could, as he stood there, already be going through this, was almost more than he could bear.
So he was faced with a stark choice.
Condemn the Earth's children to this life of misery, used as human drug factories, for centuries.
Unimaginable suffering.
Or live with the knowledge that Clara faced a worse fate, and he could do nothing to help her.
"What guarantees would I have, that if I did what you asked, you would return Clara to me?"
"Once you have completed your task, and we have the children we require, then the woman will be returned to you."
"I have your word?"
"You have our word."
"And you won't be back for more, in years to come...? These children will be your last batch, how do I know this will be the case?"
"Because we are working on a synthetic substitute, for the essence we extract from them, it is only a matter of time, before we succeed. These children will suffice until then."
The Doctor sat down on the floor again.
They were lying. He knew it.
He couldn't even consider these demands, could he?
Perhaps he could pretend to go along with the 456, then somehow rescue Clara...
But then, no Tardis, no escape. No way of knowing where she was.
If they sent him back to Earth, he wouldn't even be able to return for her, should they fail to keep their bargain.
Oh, and he did not trust them to do that...not for one moment...once he left that planet he'd never see Clara again.
He knew it.
But how to escape?
How to reach her?
He had to play for time, he needed to think.
The thought of Clara suffering was clouding his mind.
He must focus...
And where the HELL was Jack?