Author's Note: Forgive me for the delay in posting up this next chapter. RL took a huge bite out of me this week, but I am back now and raring to go! I decided to break this next sequence of events into two chapters so that the overall interactions were not too unwieldy. It just felt like it would run on too long, and the events are two completely different events when viewed this way. I hope to have the second chapter up in the next day or so, but for now enjoy this installment.
Thank you again to all who have messaged and commented!
Jack led the way back up the spiral stairs into the main part of the hub, Donna and the Doctor both quiet and withdrawn after the strange connection the Doctor had experienced with the weevil.
Donna could still feel the echo of fear and pain radiating off the Doctor while he tried to sort through the sensations he had felt when the creature had connected so powerfully with him. He hadn't recognized the sky that the beast had been beneath before being snatched by the rift, but it had felt like a familiar place. A SAFE place that then had been snatched away from it in the blink of an eye.
It had known that it was going to die in that warehouse, almost as if the telepathy that the creatures shared was able to span time and space. It had recognized the warehouse almost instantly, had smelled the death that it knew was lying in wait to claim it the moment it had materialized and even though it had known running was hopeless, it did so anyway.
Donna's hand was trembling in his grasp as all the fear and sorrow continued to pound against her already battered mind, the unrelenting agony that the Doctor had momentarily lost himself in. She couldn't shut it out, not with how strong her connection with the Doctor had grown in the last few weeks and she suddenly felt like if she was drowning in it.
The Doctor turned haunted eyes to her, his own shining with unshed tears before he seemed to come back to himself and notice the very real pain with which Donna was struggling. They reached the main landing back in the hub and he turned to her, fingers brushing against her temples to help her dull that strength of their bond back to bearable levels.
"I'm sorry Donna. There's something big going on here, and it worries me. I didn't realize I was broadcasting all of that."
She tilted her head into the cradle of his palm, eyes sliding closed as some semblance of order began to return to her thoughts. "It's all right, Doctor. You're not in this alone remember?"
The ghost of a smile flitted across his lips, doing nothing to alleviate the gaping chasm she felt in his gaze. "No, I'm not. I still have to remind myself of that sometimes."
Jack stood by the steps to the medical bay, watching the interaction between Donna and the Doctor when it finally hit him. It was just too… crazy that it was no wonder he hadn't noticed it before. The Doctor had always told him he avoided relationships with humans, for the very real reason that they would always end up breaking his hearts. He had once contemplated trying to start something more with the Doctor, when they had traveled together that brief time with Martha. He knew that he alone could be the perfect companion to the Doctor, that his own strange immortality would mean that at least he would be able to be there as a witness to all of the Doctor's long and lonely life. But the Doctor had been clear how he had felt about any such relationship, and so he had never allowed what he had felt for the Doctor to develop into anything more than the deep abiding respect and love that he had for the crazy alien.
Now though, all that was mixed up with his own pain and anger at his crazy life that had been made all the more unbearable when he remembered the last two thousand years that he had just suffered through. The deaths, the never ending suffocation and agony and the absolute searing heat that had roasted him in his own grave. How each time he had awoken from yet another unbearable death, despairing because he knew another one was only going to claim him in far too short a while.
He had nearly gone mad in that grave as he had lain there, feeling the slow passage of the world mere meters above his head. He remembered hearing the world around him changing, the field that had eventually turned into a courtyard in some Cardiff manor. When he had heard the shovels digging their way through the soil above his head, he had barely been conscious of the hope that had died a thousand deaths within him, cautiously reaching upward with each shovel strike, only to feel that hope die when he saw just who it was who had dug him up.
Torchwood Cardiff had been particularly brutal in their recruitment of him, and they hadn't been too happy to find their best trained lap dog buried 20 feet beneath their feet. It had been agonizing to know that his waiting wasn't done yet, that he had been exhumed over a century too early and still had so much to wait for before he could finally confront his brother and put an end to all of their suffering.
He shook his head when he saw the Doctor and Donna break apart and walk towards him, the shutter firmly in place over both their eyes but he would never forget what he had just witnessed between them. Now just wasn't the time or place to discuss it.
Ianto had heard the Doctor ask to see the bodies of the victims, and as ever his efficient self, he had already had one of the bodies moved from the morgue and onto the diagnostic table. The autopsy reports already laid out on the nearby table. He had also the jars of powder that had been found at the site laid out beside the manila folders.
Jack smiled at Ianto, his hand resting briefly on his forearm. "Thank you, Ianto. Are the other bodies prepared as well?"
Ianto Jones nodded in response, his eyes following the Doctor down the steps into the examination theater. "Yes, Sir, they are all ready, though why he needs to see them when all the information is in the autopsy reports?"
Jack just shook his head. "The Doctor is looking for things that may have been missed in the autopsy, he can sense things that we sometimes can't." His voice turned suddenly grim. "Hopefully, he finds something useful."
He then turned away from Ianto, cocking an eyebrow when he saw Donna hovering in the entryway. "Are you all right, Donna?"
She jumped when he spoke, looking up at him as if just realizing that he has there. "Yeah, I'm fine Jack. Just not too sure I want to be looking at dead bodies."
He nodded in understanding. "It's definitely not my favorite part of the job either. Just let Ianto or Gwen know if you need something, all right?"
She nodded at him gratefully before she let her gaze drift down to the Doctor. He had one of the manila folders in his hands, his glasses already perched on the end of his nose as he frowned at the neat writing the stamp and initials "M.J." in the upper corner causing a soft smile to grace his lips.
"Martha did the autopsies, Jack?"
Jack nodded as he came up beside the Doctor, fingers rifling through the files before coming up with the one that dealt with the body on the table beside them. "Yeah, she's left unit now and has gone freelance. I can still call in a favor every now and then though since I no longer have a proper medic."
The Doctor looked up at that, squinting at Jack as he looked around the room and once again realized how small Jack's team was. "What happened to the rest of your team, Jack? You said that there were five of you at one time?"
A muscle ticked in Jack's jaw at that question, for a moment his mind flashing back to the disaster that he had brought down on all their heads. "They're dead." He stated flatly, eyes haunted as he remembered that it was in this very room that Toshiko had died in his arms.
The Doctor nodded softly, placing a comforting hand on Jack's shoulder as he took the folder from his suddenly tight grip. "I'm so sorry, Jack."
Jack just shook his head. "Yeah well, my brother finally found me and it was anything but the sweet reunion I had always pictured it being. They unfortunately got caught in the crossfire."
The Doctor sighed softly, hearing the world of agony and rage behind those simple words, no small portion of which he felt aimed at him in particular. "Sometimes we can't help but hurt those we care about the most, even when we try our hardest to take care of them."
Jack stepped away from the Doctor, not ready to have this conversation with him just yet because he knew that if he went down that path now there would be no going back when they all needed to keep a cool head right now. "Yeah well, you would know all about that wouldn't you, Doctor?"
The Doctor winced at the angry retort before blowing a soft frustrated breath out through clenched teeth. "Yeah, I guess I would."
Determined to change the subject, he pointed to the body bag lying on the examination table next to them. "So this was the first victim we found. As you can see from the autopsy reports, cause of death is identical in all victims."
Jack stepped away from the Doctor, hands reaching out to unzip the opening in the body bag before he pulled the cover down.
The Doctor hissed when he saw the body of a human woman in the bag, her head was bent at an unnatural angle to the rest of her body. The massive glaring bruises around her neck caused by the snapping of the vertebrae, but it didn't look like anything had wrapped about her neck before it was snapped. He pulled out his sonic and leaned closer to the cadaver, the neat incisions from the autopsy just confirming what he already knew to be the cause of death.
He pulled the cover of the body bag open further, seeing the bruising and strange rashes peppering her body from her neck down over her abdomen before stopping just above her thighs. He fiddled with a few settings on the sonic, its blue tip whirring to life as he swept it over her from her head to her toes.
He felt the shuddering gasp in his mind and looked up just in time to see Donna's hand fly to her mouth, while huge blue-green eyes were locked on his face in horror. He could feel the nausea swimming through her belly, before she turned and bolted from the room. "Jack, could you please make sure she's all right?"
He couldn't go to her now, not with a dead woman lying on the table before him. Something about the rashes was bothering him, he had seen these kinds of marks before and didn't want to lose the train of thought when it was flickering just beyond his reach.
Jack nodded and ran up the steps into the hub, breathing a sigh of relief when he noticed Gwen had already followed her to the loo. She flashed a soft smile at him, nodding at the unasked question to let him know how Donna was doing once she found out.
Jack returned to the Doctor's side, frowning when he found the Time Lord practically laying over the corpse so close was his nose to her lifeless form. His sonic was whirring mechanically right in front of his nose, drifting over each of the abrasions that had so confounded Martha during her autopsy. All the bodies had those marking over them, in a seemingly random pattern that was disturbingly similar when they were all placed together.
The Doctor's fingers ghosted over the woman's flesh, his tongue caught between his teeth while he continued with his strange examination. "I've seen these markings before, as well as deaths like this. But there's something more, it's definitely alien though I will tell you that."
Jack jumped at the sudden sound of the Doctor's voice, having wondered that himself but Martha hadn't found any traces of alien activity around any of the bodies. They had just appeared in and around the warehouse, almost as if they had been dumped there.
"Martha hadn't detected any signs of alien DNA or anything when she examined each of the bodies. She said it was almost as if their necks had snapped themselves."
The Doctor cocked his head at that, pausing for a moment to think. "In a way they did I suppose you could say. The broken neck was the main cause of death, but there is something more. Those abrasions were places where the energy was drained from the victims before death." He paused in thought, smacking himself in the forehead to try to clear his thoughts. "Come on, Doctor. Think! THINK think think. Where have I seen this before?"
There were several species in the universe that killed in this manner, each one worse than the last and if they were on earth it was fair to say that they were just bidding time and using the temporal energy in Cardiff to rally their numbers before they pushed out into the rest of the city in a rush of blood and death.
He turned abruptly away from the body on the table and let his gaze focus on the manila folders spread across the table, knowing exactly what he would find in each folder. Cause of death would be the exact same in every case. His frowned at the large jars of dark gray dust lined up behind the manila folders, long legs carrying him to the table quickly where he picked up one of the jars and unscrewed the lid.
He lifted the jar to his face, sniffing hesitantly at the contents before pinching some between his thumb and forefinger. He frowned at the strange almost oily quality of the powder before looking up at Jack. "What is this?"
Jack had come close to the Doctor, his gaze riveted on the jar in the Doctor's hands. "We found piles of this material scattered all throughout two warehouses. Set there perfectly in neat little piles almost like someone had put them there. We have analyzed it but can't make heads or tails of what it is or how it got there."
He watched in fascinated horror as the Doctor experimentally licked the powder on his fingers, his eyes taking on a faraway distracted look while he tried to sort through the information that was suddenly screaming through his mind. "It's definitely organic, or at least it was." Head cocked to the one side as a suddenly acrid tang burned through his mouth, causing him to gag before he hastily set the jar aside. He leaned against the table, gagging and nearly retching as the answer suddenly slammed into him. "Oh my god, that's what's left of the weevils that have been coming through the rift."
Jack recoiled in disgust at that pronouncement, his gaze shooting up to Ianto who also looked like he was about to be sick. The Doctor had just licked…. DEAD WEEVIL? What in the universe could do this to a creature? What were they dealing with here?
"Blimey, that was disgusting." The Doctor said with a grimace, scrubbing the back of his hand over his mouth as once again his weird oral fixation had landed him in a pot of hot water. "Well, at least now we know what has been happening to the weevils." He said philosophically. "Can I please get a drink, Jack? I need to get that taste out of my mouth."
Jack nodded up to Ianto, his gaze following the young man's progress up the steps when he noticed that Donna had returned and was staring down at the Doctor with something akin to horror on her face.
The Doctor looked up when he heard Jack's sharp intake of breath, his gaze rising to unerringly land on Donna who had just come in right as he had tasted the powder on his fingers. She swayed where she stood, her face revealing her disgust and horror, though not for the reasons that he thought. "The weevils were disintegrated, Doctor?"
When the Doctor nodded up at her, she covered her mouth in shock, the tears streaming down her cheeks in a sudden uncontrolled flow. "No wonder why they're in so much agony, Doctor. If they can feel that happening to their fellows."
He wiped his hand on the back of his greatcoat and bounded up the steps to her, taking her chin in his hand and gently wiping her cheeks dry. "Yeah, is it any wonder why they're so terrified? I have an idea now what's going on, but I'm still not 100% positive." Once again he was amazed at her tremendous compassion, how she instantly felt the pain of another being and understood it in a way he almost never could. She was truly amazing, his Donna Noble. Her unflagging spirit and amazing will of iron making her a more than perfect companion for him as she alone had always helped him to understand the very human side to a situation that he sometimes was just too thick to notice. He gently cupped her shoulders in his hands. "You know that I have to go to the warehouses?"
She shook her head at him, already bristling at the unspoken words she felt in that question. "You mean WE have to go to the warehouses Doctor."
He was already shaking his head at that, unable to still the lance of fear that spiked through his hearts at the thought of her being exposed to the danger that he now knew was very real indeed. "Don't you even start, Spaceman! We're in this together or not at all. I am coming with you, and even if you tie me down, I will still find a way and make your life a living hell when I DO catch up to you."
He was set back on his heels at the fire he felt behind her words, the indomitable will that was Donna Noble once more reminding him just why she meant so much to him.
He shook his head, but couldn't stop the huge smile at her words. "All right, Donna. But you will need to listen to me exactly, do you hear me? I will not have time for the usual arguments. Do I have your word? If not, I WILL tie you down and deal with the repercussions later."
She nodded in response to that, felt the implacable will behind his words. His eyes were darkening, the flat look she had so come to associate with the Oncoming Storm rising to consume him once more. "You have my word, Doctor." She breathed softly to him, completely overwhelmed with the ancient power she felt within him, the careful leash he kept on his darker nature being loosed now in preparation for the challenge ahead.
Jack came up to them right as she said that, figuring that he wasn't going to like what he found across the bay but at least they would soon have an answer to just what was happening in his city.
"Cardiff PD, pull back. I repeat, Cardiff PD this is Gwen Cooper with Torchwood. You are in a restricted area that is the midst of a Torchwood investigation, it is very dangerous. I need you to pull back NOW."
Jack nearly threw himself across the hub when he heard Gwen's voice, her words were tinged with panic when she saw the police force across the bay getting ready to enter the warehouses.
Gwen looked up at Jack, her face filled with the panic that he knew must be racing through her. He felt the Doctor and Donna come up behind him, their gazes drawn unerringly to the feed from across the bay.
Jack fumbled a headset onto his head, pressing the button on the ear to open the channel. "Cardiff PD, this is Captain Jack Harkness. I need you to pull back, that area is highly unstable and the site of possible alien activity. We are going to be attending the scene shortly. Pull back now!"
There was silence before a flare of static on the other line. "Torchwood, this is PC Andy Davidson. We are investigating signs of another murder in this area and are searching the warehouses for the potential suspect. We don't need Torchwood at this time."
Gwen's face fell when she heard Andy's voice on the other end of the line, her heart quivering when she thought of just how much danger her friend truly was in. "Andy, please its Gwen. Please just listen to me and pull back until we know what's going on. We have an expert on hand and are investigating. Please, Andy, I'm begging of you. You and your men will DIE if you go in there." She was nearly frantic with her need to save her friend, even though he had always been slightly jealous of Gwen's work with Torchwood. He, like most of Cardiff PD, had no time of day for Torchwood and were usually highly resentful when they would sweep in and take over investigations without so much as a by your leave.
"Gwen, me and my mean are armed, we are by no means helpless."
The Doctor pointed at Jack's headset. "Give me the comm, Jack. I may be able to talk some sense into him. Either way, we need to get over there and fast before this turns into a slaughter."
Jack fumbled another headset off the table and thrust it into the Doctor's hands, feeling as if he had just run a marathon so hard was his heart pounding. He hated seeing the stricken look on Gwen's face, hated the feeling of helplessness that was blanketing the both of them right now. He looked at Ianto, calling out. "Get the car ready, we need to make a break for it and fast!"
Ianto nodded and dashed off towards the garage, fingers flying over the controls to the main door before he disappeared down a side corridor.
Donna was wringing her hands nervously when she felt the calm certainty in the Doctor, the certainty that if those men entered the warehouse they were all dead. He was raging at the universe right now, and at those pig headed humans across the bay who thought their little guns would be enough to protect them from something far worse than they had ever experienced before.
"Cardiff PD, this is the Doctor speaking."
He waited tensely for a reply, eyes trained on the monitors while he waited. The group of officers had paused when Gwen and Jack had spoken to them, thankfully all were still outside of the warehouse but he didn't know how long they would remain that way.
"Who is the Doctor? Doctor of what?" The question was tensely snapped, the young voice trembling in some unnamed emotion though it tried to sound firm and authoritative.
"I'm the expert that Torchwood has on hand and I have an idea of what is in that warehouse and killing people. You can't hurt it with bullets, you will never see it coming and you will all die within moments of each other. Now please! Save me the pain of watching you all walk to your deaths. Please just pull back until we get there. Get all of your men back to a safe position and wait for us. We can have you as backup once we get there."
The silence on the other end of the comm was near deafening, the Doctor leaning intently forward to watch the monitors while hoping for some sign that his words hadn't fallen on deaf ears.
No more deaths. Please not like this when he was so close to figuring it all out. Please for once, he hoped the universe wasn't testing him again by throwing people his friends obviously cared about into the line of fire just to show him once more he was not the master of his own destiny.
He reached out blindly to Donna, his mind screaming against what he was afraid was going to happen even while he couldn't still the hope that just this once, someone would listen to him and give him the precious time he needed to figure it all out.
Donna clutched at his mind with hers, standing firm with him against the tidal wave of anger and despair that threatened to drive him to his knees. She could feel the calm certainty spread through him like a balm, the certainty that no matter what the universe threw at him, he was no longer facing it alone.
As always, she calmed the raging despair in his soul and gave him the strength to do what he did best. To try to save those who didn't always realize they needed saving.
The comm crackled to life once more, the young voice suddenly sounding more firm as Andy responded. "All right Torchwood, we will recall our men and wait until the cavalry arrives."
All four of them whooped in delight when they saw the force of men begin to pull back, the arms of the man in the lead waving as he spoke into his comm to recall the rest of his force.
The Doctor was nearly giddy with relief when he responded. "Thank you, Cardiff PD. We will be there presently."
He took the headset off his head and tossed it back onto the table, eyes locked with both Gwen and Jack who both looked like they were about to fall over so great was the relief that radiated off them. Donna merely brushed her fingers across his back in reassurance, but it was all the reassurance he needed as he prepared to face what was coming.
Jack and Gwen both took their guns out of the holsters, checking the chambers before returning them to their proper spot on their hips. They made their way to the weapons room, making sure to grab extra clips before turning back to face the Doctor who was only shaking his head at their actions.
"Didn't you hear me tell them that bullets won't work in there?"
Jack nodded even as he stuffed his pockets with spare ammunition. "Humor us Doctor, it makes us feel like we aren't completely useless."
Gwen looked up at the strange alien, wondering just how he was planning on fighting whatever it was they were dealing with if he would not use a gun. "Doctor, just WHAT are we dealing with?"
The Doctor only continued to shake his head. "I'll tell you on the way. Come on, we have to go and fast!"
Ianto had just come back into the hub, looking to them both as he quickly realized he would be staying behind to monitor and help in any way he could.
Donna felt a surge once more, her head snapping around to see the inky lines of force shoot out from the central column once more. The lines seemed thicker than the previous ones, thick cables of power that once more screamed through the hub towards the focal point across the bay.
"Doctor." She stated just as the alarm on the computer blared in response to the rift spike.
His expression suddenly grim, he nodded in response to her query. "Yes, Donna I felt it too. They know somethings happening, and they're responding to it."
"Who, Doctor? What's going on?"
"Talk while we walk Jack, we're out of time now."
"Ianto stay in constant contact with all of us. Monitor the rift and let us know of any spikes." His gaze fell on Donna, who was still staring at the central column with something akin to horror on her face. "Though I think we'll have a pretty good idea when one is coming."
The Doctor turned Donna to look at him, his dark eyes near fathomless pools of concern as he gently ran his thoughts through hers. "Donna, are you sure about this? It's likely to be completely overwhelming over there at the focal point."
She looked up at him, her hand grabbing tight to his before she nodded without hesitation. "Absolutely, Doctor. Besides, you need me to keep you out of trouble!"
His answering smile was absolutely blinding at that remark, before he nearly dragged her down the stairs towards the door that Jack was holding open. He was quite honestly terrified of what they were going to find over there, and if the massive rift surges were any indication, it was going to be a huge mess that he was still trying to figure out how to fix.
The Tardis had already finished the calculations she needed to in order to repair the damage done to the rift, she had also downloaded the schematics of the rift manipulator so that he could create a duplicate that he would be able to use if need be when they went to check on other rifts across the universe.
It was what was making use of this rift, with its nearly unlimited power that had him the most concerned. He had only remembered one other time when he had felt this off balance, and that time had also been when Donna had been in the direct line of fire. He looked to her as she ran by his side, eyes bright and alert while her crimson hair streamed behind her in the wind of their passing. She truly was stunning in her unwavering support of him and her desire to always be there to help him make the hard decisions, her voice the sound of reason when he stood teetering on the edge of the abyss.
He had been so lost without her, more lost than even he had realized at the time, that now that she was here with him, he more keenly knew what he stood to lose. If anything happened to her now, he knew he would not go quietly into the night. Not this time.
They ran into the garage, Gwen already waiting for them in the left seat of the black SUV with the blue light bars flashing up the side columns. He and Donna rounded the car, jumping into each side of the car just as Jack climbed in and put the car in motion even before he was fully seated.
Donna leaned back into the leather seat, a little overwhelmed with the bank of computers in the back seat, all the screens flashing an almost constant stream of data and up to minute reports of rift activity.
The SUV tore out of the underground parking structure, tires screaming in protest at the sharp turn Jack made to get them into the flow of traffic as quickly as possible.
Donna flattened her hands against the glass window, her lips parting in horror when she saw just how many lines of force were weaving their way across the bay. "Doctor, what is doing this? How can we stop it? It's getting so big, is it already too late?" He was a shadow in her mind, his thoughts grim while he tried to focus on the sensations and images that were flooding her mind. He knew that there was a focal point and that that was where they would need to act, but trying to find that focal point without dying would be the real trick.
With a sigh, he pulled out of Donna's thoughts and turned to lean forward between Jack and Gwen's seats. Taking a deep breath he spoke directly to the immortal.
"Jack, what do you know about the Weeping Angels?"