A week too late but here it is:
Controlled Circumstances
Jack stepped out of the TARDIS. The sun wasn't shining brightly and no birds were singing merrily in the trees. The odour in the air was dusty and slightly metallic and the colours in this world had a green shift which was quite unusual. A brand new world none of them had seen before. A wide smile spread on Jack's face - this particular thrill never got old.
Directly after him Rose stepped out into this new world followed by the Doctor. Her face was open and eager.
“So what now?”
The Doctor turned to her the widest grin they had ever seen on his face - not a small accomplishment considering who they were looking at.
“Haven't got the slightest.”
***
Less than an hour later Jack was arrested and in a local prison for punching one of the local authorities.
“How the hell did that happen,” the Doctor demanded to know, “I leave you two for half an hour and Jack punches a police man - hitting on one I might have expected - but punching?”
He looked at Rose with his arms crossed waiting for some kind of explanation. A month ago he probably would have decided that Jack just was some violence loving maniac with a short temper, but now he knew the man better - there had to be a more or less reasonable explanation.
“He provided a distraction so that I could avoid being arrested,” Rose confessed.
“What?” He shouldn't be surprised really - she was a companion after all.
“Seems like smiling at one of their priest is considered flirting, which is punishable by death.”
“Great.”
The Doctor's cutting sarcasm was just his way of hiding how frightened he was, not only by the thought, that Rose might have died but also by the fact that Jack probably was in mortal danger.
“We need to get your knight out of prison. Punching a police officer may not be as serious as flirting with one of their Untouchables but if they make the connection Jack's life is in serious danger.”
He didn't mention the fact that police people everywhere in the universe tended to get more than a little rough on someone, who attacked one of them. No need to rub it in with Rose.
“We need to be careful Doctor, if someone identifies me it could make matters a lot more difficult.”
“Good thinking Rose. So the thing on our list: shopping. We need to blend in with the locals.”
***
After a considerably rough handling, an unnecessary violate examination of his body and a knee in his groin added for good measure, Jack was finally shoved into a small, bare cell.
The door closed with a bang and he heard the bar snapping.
*Well Jack, time to start to look for a way out.*
***
The shopping trip turned out to be a lot more complicated than Rose and the Doctor had anticipated. For obvious reasons they wanted to find a shop where neither the local police nor the clergy were represented and that proved to be nearly impossible.
The police was almost omnipresent to protect the priests, who seemed to be the ruling class on this world.
Finally they managed to find a shop in one of the shabbier parts of town, which after a short check by the Doctor turned out to be empty.
Rose was very relieved to have found fitting clothes, she felt far safer this way.
“You're tourists right? From somewhere in the country, yeah,” the shopkeeper asked.
“Right. Tourists, that's us. First time in the big city and all,” the Doctor confirmed with a goofy grin.
“Do you have any tips for us? I mean you probably know your way around here and with us being simple country people, we could use your help, you know: Which places to see, which to avoid, people, behaviour,” Rose tried with a smile.
The shopkeeper eyed them suspiciously. Then he obviously reached the conclusion that they were indeed harm- and clueless.
“Avoid the Untouchables, avert their eyes, keep your head down. Some of them just wait for an excuse to send some poor guy or gal to the pit - not that I'd want to speak ill of the holy men,” he added hastily.
“Course not - We didn't hear such a thing,” Rose agreed.
“Everyone knows, that every group has it's rotten apples.” The Doctor shrugged as if it was totally unimportant. “Power tends to get to people's heads.”
The shopkeeper nodded at that.
“It got worse ever since Brother Hadfel took over. An honest man is afraid to cross the street nowadays.”
The Doctor looked around a bit as if to make sure they were still alone. Rose recognized how he subtly made the man their conspirator. She wasn't surprised when the Doctor's next words were spoken in little more than a whisper.
“But not everyone is on Hadfel's side.”
Their new accomplice leaned closer a bit.
“There are those, who truly are holy, who really believe and want the best for the people.”
Rose decided to take a risk, they didn't have the whole week after all.
“Our friend was arrested a few hours ago.”
“Then there's not much that can be done for him. He'll be down at the Pit tomorrow,” the shopkeeper said gloomily.
“Who can help us?”
***
Jack swore under his breath. Not for the first time in the last hours he wished that the damn police hadn't been so thorough. With neither his blaster* nor his wrist computer at hand getting out of this mess was far from easy. Normally wouldn't break a sweat about that. His charm had gotten him out of far more situations like this than all of his equipment. His luck that the locals considered flirting a terminal offence and were far too afraid of the clergy to even notice his attempts to seduce them.
So he had to search for a more conservative way to get out of this hole.
***
In a small street in the middle of the clerical district two figures knocked on the door of a small house. A short while later an older priest opened the door and let the tall man in robes and the girl in servant's attire in.
“Brother Sebastian?”
The priest nodded with a friendly smile. “What can I do for you?”
“Ever done a prison break?”
After the Doctor and Rose had explained everything to the startled man, he was eager to help.
“That's the problem with Hadfel's administration. He lets the dumb and brutal kind of people get into positions of power. We once were friends, you know? Young and eager priests - we wanted to change the world to the better. I stood by our ideals and he rose to power.” Sebastian sighed. “Why do I even tell you this? You can't possibly understand, how it hurts to see a friend become something you hate. - And you hopefully never will.”
Rose felt her heart go out to the priest. There was so much pain in his voice. She also noticed how the Doctor tensed at Brother Sebastian's words and how his eyes became distant.
“Anyway,” the priest continued in a strong voice,” of course I'll help you as best as I can. But I warn you, I don't think my pledge will get your friend set free.”
“Can you visit him,” the Doctor wanted to know, “bring him something?”
***
Jack had managed to rip his thin mattress open, but like he had feared there was nothing in the filling, that could help him - not without several other chemicals that he weren't at his disposal at the moment.
The bed was bolted to the floor and wall as was anything else in the room.
So when he heard steps coming his way and hid next to the door, he didn't even have a weapon.
The small window in the door slid open.
“Stand where I can see you, prisoner.”
*So much for surprising them.* Jack stepped into the middle of the small cell.
“To the back wall.”
Jack followed the order.
The door opened and an older man with short white hair, wearing priest robes entered the room.
“Call if you want to leave Brother,” the guard said and closed the door.
“You came for my last confession, Brother?”
“Sebastian,” the older priest told him gently. “I'm Brother Sebastian, Jack.”
Jack's eyes widened, if the man knew his name he must have spoken to Rose or the Doctor**.
“I've brought you something your friend wanted you to have.”
Sebastian pulled out the small, thin rod the Doctor had given him and looked thoughtfully at it. A part of him didn't want to part with it, wanted to keep this blue shining tool to himself.
***
Rose and the Doctor were left behind in Brother Sebastian's home. Since Sebastian was part of the clergy they were as safe here as they could be under the circumstances.
The society on this planet was in dire need of some intervention, it just wasn't right that everyone was afraid of the priests just because some power hungry individuals used their position to oppress others. But of course that had to wait until after they'd gotten Jack back.
In the meantime Rose looked around curiously, she had always wondered how exactly a priest lived.
“Found something interesting,” the Doctor asked acidly, not happy about her invasion of their host's privacy.
Rose grinned. “No porno mags so far, Doctor. Just this old fob watch.”
***
Jack took the sonic screwdriver from Sebastian. His face showed blissful awe despite the situation. The Doctor NEVER let someone other than himself play with his favourite toy. He just had enough common sense left to thank the priest and tell him about his confiscated belongings, before the Brother left him.
***
“Fob watch?”
The Doctor sounded alarmed. OK so maybe a fob watch was a bit anachronistic in this time and place, but . . . Rose looked closer at the metal and recognized the engravings.
“Doctor? This stuff here looks like the TARDIS' readings.”
He was already at her side and took the watch out of her hand.
“Gallifreyan script.”
“What does it say?”
Rose was afraid for him, the Doctor didn't look good.
“Sebastian Yana - and a date roughly 58 years ago.”
The Doctor's face was absolutely toneless.
“His name and his birthday - so? I mean it's his watch, so that's not unusual, right,” she asked in a hopeful tone, wishing it to be so but knowing it wasn't.
He just stared at the watch.
“Doctor?”
“I wonder if I knew him.”
“If you knew who? - Doctor? - Doctor, who did you know?”
He turned to her, woken from his thoughts by her alarmed tone.
“Probably nobody, Rose.” He absent-mindedly put the watch in the pocket of his jacket.
“Won't he miss it Doctor?”
“Not if he's the rightful owner, he won't. - And if he's a thief I don't care,” he added in a darker tone.
Rose found his behaviour very strange, but before she could insist on some kind of explanation the door opened and Brother Sebastian entered.
“Doctor? Rose?”
“Hello,” the Doctor greeted him with his patented manic grin and even waved his hand at the priest.
“Erm - hello,” Rose followed not sure how to act.
She could see how the Doctor had shut all his emotions in, she recognized his open, happy mask as exactly that - a mask and how his eyes stayed dead.
“Good news my friends, I not only managed to deliver your 'sonic screwdriver' to your companion, but also managed to get his possessions.”
Sebastian handed over a small package. The Doctor took it quickly.
“Thanks. That's fantastic you know, stuff in there is much to sophisticated for the people in this place.”
“How did you get it,” Rose asked mainly to stop the Doctor's weirdly manic response.
“That's easy,” Sebastian smiled, “the possessions of sentenced criminals go to the church one way or the other, and no one questions an Untouchable.”
“Well enough with the twittering, we must be going Rose. Jack will return to the TARDIS and we better meet him there before he gets himself into trouble again,” he turned to their host, “Fantastic meeting you, thanks for the help, be seeing you.”
He practically pulled Rose out of the priests home. It didn't escape her notice how sharply he had watched Brother Sebastian the whole while.
“Did his eyes twitch, when I said TARDIS? What do you think,” he asked her.
“I really don't know Doctor, why should it have done so?”
“Never mind.”
***
No matter how hard she had tried, the Doctor hadn't said a word to explain his strange behaviour, so Rose was no wiser than in Sebastian's home when they finally arrived at theirs.
After they had closed the TARDIS door the Doctor began to relax slightly.
*His safe place* shot through Rose's brain and she smiled.
“We're home Doctor.”
He just nodded, looking at the fob watch in his left hand.
“Will you now tell me, what's the matter with that thing?”
When he turned to her she could practically watch how he willed his personal shields down.
“Let's wait for Jack, I'm not sure I'll be able to do this twice.”
Rose went over to him and pulled him into a hug. First he stiffened but then he relaxed letting himself be held by Rose, who didn't need to know what she protected him from to do it nonetheless.
“Can I join,” the well known voice of Jack Harkness interrupted their embrace.
Rose pulled back to face Jack including him into their private moment immediately.
“That's great, I'm on the run and have to sneak back here and in the mean time you two have fun without me,” he scolded them light-heartedly. Then he realized that's something was wrong. He put the sonic screwdriver down on the console.
“What happened?”
“I found something - that watch.” Rose pointed at the thing the Doctor's hand was clenched around.
The Doctor turned around and began walking into the innards of the TARDIS. Jack looked at Rose, who just shrugged and followed him, so Jack did the same.
After a walk of maybe ten minutes they entered a garden lined by old stone walls, a place neither Rose nor Jack had ever seen before. In the middle of the garden hung a bell.
“This is the cloister - most secure place in the TARDIS besides the zero room, and we don't want to go there if it isn't necessary,” the Doctor explained.
He walked over to a stone bench and set down. Rose and Jack instinctively took his left and right side on the bench, supporting him with their closeness without putting pressure on him. Rose had only once seen the Doctor this deeply disturbed and Jack never had. Both were a bit afraid by the Doctor's strange behaviour.
“This,” he began, “is not just an ordinary fob watch. It's a very sophisticated piece of psi-technology.”
Jack concentrated and then nodded, behind the TARDIS' song he could feel a very quiet hum originating in the watch.
“It was fabricated to store the conciousness of a Timelord.”
Rose gasped. And Jack's head jerked up from the watch to the person who was holding it.
“There's a machine that makes it possible for a Timelord to alter his complete genetic code, to become another species. The trigger to return to his original state is hidden, with a part of his psyche a lot of memories and a few other things, they are all stored inside a fob watch.”
“So Sebastian is a Timelord?”
Rose smiled slightly at the thought. Her Doctor wouldn't be the last any more, wouldn't have to be alone in his head. Even if it might mean, that he wouldn't need her any more, if it meant that she lost him, she couldn't be anything but happy for him at the thought.
“Maybe.” The Doctor didn't sound half as enthusiastic as Rose. “But maybe this watch is empty, or the original person is long since dead and Sebastian just inherited it. And even if . . .”
Jack understood the Doctor's dilemma, not every human was his friend after all.
“The question is: Who is stored safely away in this watch?”
“There's only one way to find out right,” Rose asked. “Open it.”
Jack took his free hand and squeezed it. “If you open it just a crack, for a short moment, will you recognize him?”
“If I know him”
“If you don't, it doesn't really matter who he is anyway,” Rose stated with a good portion of the common sense she inherited from her parents. She placed her hand on his shoulder. “We're here, Doctor.”
So he did it. He opened a crack in the watch. What he felt overwhelmed him almost to a point where he couldn't close it fast enough. Just Jack's and Rose's presence grounded him enough to not loose it completely. He snapped the watch close. His face must have been white as a sheet, because both his companions watched him intently, their concern for him clearly written on their faces.
“Koshei.”
“Who?”
He shook his head to clear it.
“I know him. We once were very close. In the end he was just a homicidal psychopath with a lust for world domination. He should have been dead.”
He sprung up pacing up and down mumbling to himself, sometimes raising his voice to a yell.
“Couldn't be he's dead, deader than the others. He tricked death more than once before. He's DEAD I brought his ashes home I cried at his grave It can't be him. Yet Sebastian is so much like him in the old days if anyone COULD survive it had to be him more lives than a cat what should I do? I can't let him loose he's too dangerous but it's him if I don't help him who does I want to forgive him but how can I how could he ever forgive me? What will he say when he finds out? We lost our home but maybe not everything of it What should I DO?
“Doctor!” Rose ran to his side and stopped his pacing. “Talk to us.”
“If he's too dangerous . . .,” Jack began and let the sentence hang in the air.
Rose was furious at him for that, the Doctor always thought of the consequences, always of others, but he needed this other survivor of his race and he deserved to think of his own needs for a while. How dared Jack to appeal to the Doctor's conscience his sense of responsibility. She felt the Doctor falling into himself next to her.
“I say we let him free.”
Both men looked at her. Jack with curiosity he didn't understand her vehemence until he noticed the Doctor's reaction, the Timelord looked at her with hope.
“We don't have the right to decide he deserves to never know who he really is.”
Jack sighed admitting he was wrong never had been his strong suit.
“If he does something bad we can still stop him,” he agreed.
The Doctor wasn't stupid, he realized why Jack was giving in, why Rose was so quick in deciding to let some killer she didn't know run free, they both loved him and were ready to support him the whole way through.
“He's a killer, I want you to understand that. To give you an idea of how twisted his mind is, just consider that he likes to be known as the Master. You're really sure that it's a good idea to let him free?”
“Of course not,” Rose agreed. “I still say we have to do it. A lot has happened since you've last seen him, the rules have changed, even the board of the game has, so maybe he has, too. And if not . . .”
“We've dealt with Daleks Doctor, I think we can safely assume we can deal with one maniac.”
The Doctor nodded, he knew he didn't have the energy to fight this, maybe if had been the Rani or Borussa, but not with Koshei.
“Let's go.”
***
The man known as Sebastian Yana or Brother Sebastian was surprised to see the three of them again, now all dressed in local attire they weren't as noticeable as the first time they had set foot on this world, but with Jack being a prisoner on the run they still took a great risk, visiting him. And they endangered his life, too. If someone saw them entering here his life was forfeit, priest or not.
“Come in,” he ordered them hastily, hoping no one had spotted them here yet.
“Look I know you won't like this Koshei, but you'd hate me far more if I let you stay this way.”
The old man looked around irritated, who was Koshei?
The Doctor pulled an old fob watch out of his pocket, not any old fob watch but his.
“You stole my watch.”
“Yep,” the Doctor agreed. “Needed to make a few investigations.”
Jack and Rose stood on both sides of “Brother Sebastian” to make sure he wouldn't run or make other mistakes.
“There's been a war Ko- Sebastian. A brutal war, lots of deaths. You know how wars were sometimes deserters can flee and survive, but of course they need to hide themselves very well, as not to be found. Sometimes they need to hide so badly, that they even hide it from themselves.”
The priests eyes went wide. “No. No, even if it's true I don't want to be someone else, I want to stay myself.”
The Doctor's face softened. “I'm sorry Sebastian, I really am. But Koshei wants to live, too. He has a right to life.”
“I've got a right to live, too. I'm not just some construct I'm a person. I'm me.” Sebastian now was on the edge of hysterics, his whole life exposed to be a lie.
“You have. But there's no way for you both to live. And Koshei's my friend. Please take comfort in the fact that you will live a lot longer in a way. If you remember who you are you will have many decades or more ahead of you and you will always remember being you.”
Sebastian looked up to him. “I'm afraid. I don't want to die.”
Through her own tears she could see that the Doctor's eyes were wet, too.
“You will learn many secrets, Sebastian, you will understand time and space in a way no human ever will. It won't hurt.”
Sebastian smiled. “If what you just said is true, I don't care if it hurts.”
The Doctor felt his hearts leap, if there's one thing about Koshei nothing could ever change it was his desire, his need to learn.
“Do it.”
Following his friend's order the Doctor opened the watch.
***
*He promised himself to never forget his backup mini-blaster again.
**Jack dismissed the possibility of telepathy immediately, his psychic training was to good for such an attempt to go undetected.
You requested to see how the Doctor/Master meeting would have gone if the Doctor still had his OT3 support.
I hope you like it
adaliazandra