Doctor Who: "Death in the Garden" (2/4)
Title: Death in the Garden
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Jack/Rose, the TARDIS, OFC
Rating: Teen
Beta: yamx
Summary: A week after his regeneration, the Doctor takes Jack and Rose to a party. But he's been keeping secrets from them, and the truth will soon catch up to them in the worst way the Doctor could have imagined.
Chapter 1: The Storm Garden
Chapter 2: Lazarus and the Wolf
Entropy creeps in. The engines of life, working ceaselessly to fight the disorder of the universe, have broken down. The mass of nerves and tissue that once held everything he was would disintegrate. He has no family, no home. No sign that he had ever breathed, fought, struggled, lived, loved.
“I will fight the entropy in you, and win,” says the Wolf, “just as surely as I conquer all my foes.” She is golden-furred and vast. Her teeth can rend the walls between dimensions. Her voice sounds like Rose, and another voice beneath, more sung than spoken. “I will win, and so give you life. But it displeases me that you think yourself without home or family. Who do you think I am?”
“I'm dead,” says the man. He has had many names, but his true family calls him Jack. The Wolf is right. He has a family. And oh, how they will grieve when they learn that he's gone.
“Dead?” The Wolf bares teeth as long as the span of time. “Never.”
“Why not? You're the Bad Wolf. I don't know what that means, not really, but I can see what you are. You could save anyone. You could reverse all the entropy that ever was. What makes me so special?”
“You are special because I love you.” The Wolf pins him beneath her paw. “You will forget by the time you return. Until then, be still. This is going to hurt.”
Pain came first. Then, with the pain, a realization: I'm alive. Only living can hurt this much.
Then his thoughts surrendered to the pain for a while longer. He was breathing, somehow, each breath a torment, though none as bad as the first. There was a voice murmuring near his ear. He couldn't make out the words or the speaker, but the sound was soothing.
A second realization: whatever this is, it's happened before. Not long ago, in fact. A lance of white light, an all-consuming fire in his chest, then consciousness and terrible, bone-deep pain.
The Dalek had killed him, just like the Weeping Angel. He had come back to life, as he was doing now. Why hadn't he realized it before? He must not have wanted to believe. He still didn't want to.
Jack realized, as the pain receded, that he was being held in someone's arms. He supposed he ought to find out who, and opened his eyes. It was Sarge, her face harshly lit by the flare of a high-caliber electric lantern.
When she saw his eyes open and staring, she inhaled sharply and swayed a little on her knees. “Lazarus,” she said.
“Who's Lazarus?” said Jack, blearily.
“Man that Jesus brought back from the dead,” said Sarge. “Did you see him?”
“I don't know what I saw,” Jack answered honestly. Then he stiffened and looked around wildly. “Where's the Doctor?”
“Back from the dead, and the first thing you think of is the Doctor,” said Sarge, shaking her head in wonder. “You must love that man, ay?”
“Where is he?” said Jack, pulling out of Sarge's arms and up to his feet.
“Don't know. I got your call for backup and found you here. I was going to put you in a body bag.” Sarge got up from her kneeling position and looked him in the eye. “You were dead, and then you weren't. Wasn't paying attention to much else.”
“Don't worry about me. I'm fine. The Doctor and Rose are the ones who need help. Hold up your lantern, follow me, and keep a lookout. If you see a statue that looks like an angel, tell me, and don't look away.”
“A statue that looks like an angel? What?”
Jack reached out and took Sarge by the shoulders. “Sarge, that's not the first time I've come back from the dead. I don't know how or why any more than you do. But that doesn't matter. All I care about is getting them back. Will you help me?”
“You're an impossible thing, Lazarus,” said Sarge, and Jack could see genuine fear in her eyes. He understood. He was afraid too, not just for the Doctor and Rose but of what he'd become - and why the Doctor had known and never told him. “But if it were my husband missing, I'd be the same as you.” She reached into an inner pocket of her uniform jacket and took out two keys, one loose and one on a chain. “The Doctor gave these to Ndlovu, back in the pavilion by the lantern booth, who passed them on to me. He said the Doctor didn't tell him to guard them with his life, but he might as well have, by the look on his face.”
With a quick glance around, Jack took the keys. He put his key on its chain back around his neck and under his catsuit, then reached behind to unzip the back of his suit and put the Doctor's key in the holster surgically embedded at the base of his spine, concealed by a seamless hologram that mimicked the look and feel of his own skin.
Sarge raised an eyebrow. “Do I want to know where you put that other key?”
“Depends. How much do you want to know about me?” He quirked his eyebrows enough to pass it off as flirtation, but he kept a hint of a warning in his tone: don't press further than you need to.
“Just enough so my husband doesn't lose any sleep,” said Sarge. Message received.
“Good.” Jack zipped the suit back up. “Let's get moving. And don't forget what I said about the statues. You can think I'm crazy all you like, as long as you do what I say.”
Sarge took up the lantern and scanned the garden all around her as she walked, freeing up Jack's attention. He looked ahead, and saw the TARDIS was still there. He wasn't sure whether to feel terrified or relieved. If the TARDIS was still there, that meant the Angel hadn't got hold of her. But it also meant that the Doctor could be unconscious, or sent back in time like Rose, or dying - on the brink of regeneration with no TARDIS or loving partner to guide him through it. He keyed up a scan for the Doctor's biosignature with his wrist strap. No sign. Jack told himself, firmly, that there was no use wondering if the Doctor had died permanently, his corpse lying broken in the garden somewhere. He had to get to the TARDIS before the Lonely Assassin did. Finding the Doctor - dead or alive - came second.
“Are you going to tell me what that blue box is all about?” asked Sarge. “One of my officers saw it earlier. Thought it was bleeding odd, but given the circumstances…” She trailed off, shaking her head in disbelief. Jack recognized the expression, having felt it himself more than once. It was one of the phases of coming in contact with something you couldn't accept was real: the part where you go along with it, even though you don't quite believe it yet, because it's easier than denying it altogether. It was how he had felt when he had just been rescued from his doomed Chula warship.
“It's my ride,” said Jack, “and you're coming with me.”
“Your - oh, shit.” Sarge stopped in her tracks.
Jack felt his adrenaline kick into high gear. “What is it?”
Sarge held out her torch so Jack could clearly see the Doctor's red and gold lantern shattered on the rocks of the garden.
There was no sign of the Doctor. The Angel had sent him back in time. He could be surrounded by dangerous animals, like Rose, or worse. It was better than having his neck broken, Jack told himself, but still it felt as if the Weeping Angel's stone hands were around his throat again, cutting off his air.
Sarge laid a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Lazarus. Let's see your ride, or whatever it is. The Doctor can't have vanished off the face of the Earth. He's got to be somewhere. You'll find him.”
Jack nodded sharply, and trotted over to the TARDIS, closing the last yards with a few long strides. He used the key around his neck to open the door, glanced around for any signs of Lonely Assassins, and gestured for Sarge to follow him in. She looked ready to protest, but Jack drew on his experience commanding junior officers at the Time Agency and gave her a Look that brooked no denial. She recognized the Look, universal to high-ranking officers, and stepped into the TARDIS. Jack quickly closed the door behind her.
With a clang and a crash, the electric lantern fell from Sarge's hand to shatter on the metal grating. Jack flinched, both in sympathy for the TARDIS and at the reminder of the Doctor's shattered lantern not far outside. He understood the reaction, though. If he'd had anything but his wrist strap and the clothes on his back when he'd first seen the inside of the TARDIS, he'd have dropped it too.
“This is the maddest thing I've ever seen in my life,” she said slowly, “and I just saw a man come back from the dead.”
“The TARDIS is madder than I am,” Jack agreed. He came up the ramp and gestured to the jumpseat. “Why don't you sit down?”
Sarge nodded, still looking around the console room wide-eyed, and sat. Then she looked down at the empty hand that had been holding the lantern. “Oh. I'm sorry.”
“I'll take care of it later,” said Jack. “Right now I've got bigger problems.”
He stood at his usual co-pilot spot on the console, looking down at the controls. He had never flown the TARDIS on his own before, and hadn't flown her at all since the Doctor regenerated. He'd said that he needed to re-establish his rapport with the TARDIS, and that Jack would soon have his chance to co-pilot again. But here he was, alone, and the Doctor and Rose's lives depended on his ability to guide the TARDIS where he needed her to go.
He reached out and rested his fingertips on a switch. At once, he felt a jolt, as if electrocuted by the TARDIS' thoughts. She was afraid of him. No, that wasn't quite true - he hurt. His very presence burned, and his touch was even worse.
A wave of betrayal rose in Jack's throat like bile. His knees went weak, and he sagged against the console. The Doctor had known what was going to happen when the Angel took him. I'm so sorry for what's about to happen, he'd said, and for what will come after. All that talk about wanting to re-establish his rapport with the TARDIS had been a ruse to keep Jack from finding the truth. The TARDIS could barely stand him, and she and the Doctor were a part of each other. On some level, the Doctor could barely stand him either. When the Doctor had been moving against him last night, kissing his neck and murmuring sweet nonsense in his ear, Rose looking on, he'd been feeling this.
Jack felt strong arms behind him, and for a moment he tensed unconsciously. But it wasn't the Weeping Angel holding him, guiding him down to the jumpseat. It was Sarge, tucking his head to lean against her shoulder. He shook with the sheer effort of holding it all in. He couldn't fall to pieces now, not when the Doctor and Rose's lives hung in the balance.
The softest of whispers began at the back of his mind, a song sung by a shy child, and Jack realized that Sarge wasn't the only one comforting him. The TARDIS was sorry. His presence still bubbled away like a vat of acid inside her, but all the same, she didn't want him to hurt. How could he tell? How had he known how he felt to the TARDIS when he'd touched her console? He'd always had a special connection with her, but he'd never been able to discern her thoughts with such clarity.
Something between an image and a feeling filled Jack's mind. A golden glow, bright as a star's core, beating within the TARDIS like a heart, and alongside Jack's own heart, a thread spun of that same gold anchoring them together. The thread pulsed with the same rhythm that patterned the TARDIS' song. Jack didn't understand it. He had a feeling the TARDIS was trying to communicate with him through senses that Jack didn't possess. But it gave him hope. He was connected to the TARDIS. In some way, he belonged here.
“I'm sorry,” Jack murmured, the sound muffled by Sarge's shoulder. The connection between him and the TARDIS meant hope, but it also meant he couldn't spare her the agony that was his presence. Maybe if the connection were severed somehow, he wouldn't pain her so much, but he didn't want to break it. Neither did she, he suspected.
Sarge misinterpreted Jack's words, thinking, logically enough, that they were directed at her. “No need to apologize.” A beat. “If anything, I'm relieved that a man who can't die can feel pain as much as anyone else.”
“So am I,” admitted Jack. He pulled himself upright. Now that he knew about this connection to the TARDIS, he had a better chance of piloting her right. He would get Rose first; he didn't think he could face the Doctor right now.
The first step would be to wire his wrist strap into the console so he could direct the TARDIS to the source of the phone call from Rose. It was unlikely he'd land there right on time, but the Doctor's track record was hardly any better, and he would do everything in his power to make sure Rose didn't have to wait long after her call to be rescued. He reached for a bare wire coming out of the console and felt another jolt of raw pain from the TARDIS. Gritting his teeth, he kept hold of the wire with his left hand and unstrapped his wrist strap with his right.
Sarge watched his attempts. “Is that wire electrocuting you?”
“Not… exactly,” said Jack, teeth still clenched as he opened the wrist strap and directed the wire inside, pain still coursing through him.
“Take this, you fool man.” Sarge reached into her pocket and produced a thick work glove.
Jack let go of the wire and put it on. “Thanks.” When he returned to his task, he could still feel the TARDIS screaming faintly at the back of his mind, but it was a sympathetic pain rather than a physical one, and he could tune it out for the time being. He patched the wrist strap into the console and set to work programming the TARDIS to trace the time and location of the last call it had received.
Sarge folded her arms as she watched him. “Why did you invite me in here, Lazarus? It seems I'm not much use to you.”
“You could have been in serious danger if I'd left you out there. Besides, I don't know anything about South Africa. Rose is somewhere in or near the country, and the Doctor probably is too. You'll be plenty helpful once we've landed wherever they are.”
“How do you know where they are?”
“The Doctor's just a guess based on Rose. She called me from her phone. She's in the savanna. Alone. No food or water.”
“Should I even bother asking how that happened?”
“Let's just say that the universe is a lot scarier than you think, and the thing that killed me is one of the scariest. It's what took Rose, the girl, and your officers from the Stormgarden.”
Sarge sat up ramrod straight. “You know where my officers are?”
Jack grimaced. “I'm afraid not. All I know is that they're probably somewhere nearby, but they've gone back in time. I might be able to help you get them back, but not until I've found the Doctor first.”
“I will have them back, Captain. They disappeared on my watch. They're my responsibility.”
“I know. Just help me get Rose and the Doctor back safely, and we'll do our best to get them back. I promise.” Jack tapped a few more keys, nodded approvingly at the readout on the screen, then took up position at his usual piloting spot. “I've made my offer. Do you accept?” he asked Sarge.
She nodded.
“OK. Hold on tight.” He eyed the sergeant. “No, really. Hold on to the seat. This is not going to be a smooth ride.”
Sarge's knuckles tightened on the front edge of the jumpseat. Jack let out a breath and tried to clear his mind. He didn't have any conscious knowledge of how to do this. But he had the muscle memory of co-piloting with the Doctor, and he had the golden thread beside his heart, thrumming in time with the heart of the TARDIS. It would have to be enough.
His hands moved, almost of their own accord, flipping switches and twisting dials. Suddenly, before he was quite aware of it, he was dashing around to the other side the console, almost pummeling the controls there. A rasping, groaning sound, the most wonderful sound in the universe, filled his ears. Despite everything, Jack grinned. He had been responsible for that sound. He was filling the storm-charged air of the garden with it, and he hoped the Weeping Angel, if it was still there, was howling its frustration.
He moved through the next few minutes as if in a dream. Time didn't proceed in logical order; sometimes he seemed to be pulling each lever in slow motion, and other times he'd blink and be halfway around the console with barely a clue how he'd gotten there. The TARDIS was probably piloting herself more than he was flying her, but the partnership was working. It was working, despite the high, pained shriek still sawing at the back of his mind.
The journey ended with one last rasp and a thud. Sarge was shaken - literally, as she'd been thrown off the jumpseat within moments of dematerialization - but smiling. “Mad,” he heard her say quietly, shaking her head.
Jack bounded down the ramp, but hesitated before opening the door. What if he'd made a mistake? What if he'd landed a month or a year later, and Rose was either dead or so angry at him for not coming on time that she wouldn't love him anymore? He'd be part of events as soon as he opened the door, unable to undo that mistake.
“Go on, then,” came Sarge's voice from behind him. “Or are you going to stand there brooding for a while longer?”
Sarge was right. It was no use. There was probably some way to check the date and time before stepping out, but he didn't know how. Besides, he had to put his trust in the TARDIS. She'd been inside his head, guiding him, despite how much it must have hurt her to be so intertwined with his psychic presence. It wouldn't be fair of him to doubt her now.
With a deep breath to steady his resolve, Jack opened the door.
The elephant charged toward Rose. She leapt to her feet, the pain of her injuries forgotten in a burst of adrenaline, and ran. But it wasn't any use. The elephant was faster than her, and while she had to dodge around bushes and thickets, it could just crash through.
Suddenly, she heard the trees rustle and groan with a wind that hadn't been there moments before. A grinding sound filled the air. Rose looked back over her shoulder to see the elephant wheeling around mid-charge to face the source of the noise. The TARDIS was fading in and out of sight as it materialized in the middle of a thorn thicket. Rose wanted nothing more than to run toward it, but the elephant was squarely in her path, trumpeting its rage at this new intruder.
Rose heard Jack's voice shouting, and another she didn't recognize. Then there was the crackle of an energy weapon. It didn't seem to hit the elephant, but it made the creature halt its charge, at least for the moment. Rose carefully edged toward the TARDIS, taking a path that circled well clear of the distracted elephant. It had its ears spread wide, its trunk raised high. It let out a trumpet so loud the sound was like a blow to the head. Rose staggered a little, and she tripped over a thorny bush, drawing yet more blood from her leg.
She was close enough now to hear Jack and the other person talking. “Go! Find your Rose!” the stranger was saying. “I'll hold it off!” There was another crackle, also missing the elephant, and it reared back a little in surprise and agitation.
“Jack!” Rose cried. “I'm here!” Within moments she could see Jack running toward her, heedless of the thorns that tore at his sequined catsuit. There was a third shot, and this one hit the elephant in the flank. It didn't stop the elephant, but only enraged it. It screamed and charged the TARDIS. The figure standing in front dashed inside and shut the door. The fury of the elephant's charge knocked the TARDIS backward, the doors facing up, but otherwise didn't harm her.
Jack reached her then, circling his arms around her, and she abruptly went boneless. She noticed she was bleeding onto his catsuit from dozens of cuts, her blood dulling the sparkle of the sequins. “My ribs hurt,” she mumbled into his chest.
“Sorry.” He eased his embrace a little so as to put less pressure on her injuries. Behind him she could hear the elephant trumpet again. Jack looked over his shoulder. “I think he's figured out he can't hurt the TARDIS. If we stay quiet, he'll lose interest and go somewhere else.”
“Where's the Doctor?” said Rose. Her ankle burned with pain, and she shifted her weight to the other leg. She must have sprained that one. “And who's that other person with the gun?”
She felt Jack tense. “The Angels took him away, just like they did to you. I'm not sure where he is.”
“So you flew the TARDIS here all by yourself?”
“I wasn't alone. I brought Sarge with me. She's the head of security for the party at the Stormgarden.”
“I'm glad you did. She probably saved our lives.”
That, too, made Jack tense, though Rose wasn't sure why. “The elephant's walking away. Looks like he's spoiling for a fight, though, so let's not give him any reason.” He guided them into the shade of a dense tangle of thorny trees, out of sight. “Sarge said he's a bull elephant in musth. Some kind of testosterone-fueled rampage. When their hormones are running high like that, they'll attack anything.”
“Sounds like my mum 'round that time of the month,” Rose said, laughing weakly. It was hard to focus on anything, with her ankle sending ribbons of searing pain up her leg.
“Oh, that's nothing. Some species out there have way worse hormone surges. I remember one time when my ship crash-landed in the middle of a T'xol fertility rite. I crawled out of the wreckage and…”
Rose let Jack's tall tale wash over her, absorbing the warmth and mischief in his voice more than the content, though she could tell from his tone all the parts where she was supposed to laugh, and did so obligingly. It distracted her from the pain, which she knew was the point.
“…and I would have loved to be a fly on the wall during that disciplinary hearing. Oh, hey. Rose, the elephant's gone. Let's go back to the TARDIS. I've got you.” Rose held onto Jack's arm, limping on her good leg, and let him steer her back toward the TARDIS. She propped herself up against it as Jack climbed on top of the left door and opened the right with his key. She felt a stab of loss when she saw it. The Doctor would give her a replacement key, of course, but her first key would always hold a special place in her heart. It reminded her, every time she touched it, of when the Doctor had first given it to her.
The door swung inward. It was disorienting to look inside the TARDIS when it was tipped over, the interior at right angles to the world around her. It looked like she would fall in if she tried to step through.
“The gravity change will be disorienting at first,” said Jack, noticing the worry on her face. “Let me help you.” He gathered her firmly against his side with one arm and hoisted her up so she was standing on the left door. Then he stepped through, still holding her close. Rose's world spun for a moment as her sense of up and down was suddenly wrong. Her brain insisted she was standing on a wall rather than a floor, but gravity was pulling toward it. She clutched at Jack's torn catsuit until the dizziness passed.
“Good shooting there, Sarge,” said Jack. “I was hoping we wouldn't have to kill the elephant. Rose and I owe you.”
Rose gave Sarge a brittle smile through the pain. She was a solid-looking woman, her uniform crisp and her stance ready. “Yeah, thanks a lot. I thought I was done for.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Rose. Thank Jack. He was frantic about you.” To Jack, she said, “Do something about her ankle, will you? It's swollen up to twice its size.”
Jack nodded. “I'll take her to the medical bay. If you want tea or anything else, take a right down the corridor, two lefts, and down the ramp. There's a kitchen with all the fixings.”
Sarge raised an eyebrow - clearly she hadn't expected the TARDIS to be quite that big on the inside - but didn't ask. She made her way down the corridor, dragging her fingertips along the wall as if to reassure herself by touch that the ship was real.
“Come on, sweetheart,” said Jack. Rose leaned against him, resting most of her weight on him, and he took her to the medical bay, which was the first door to the left as usual when there was an emergency. Rose settled on the bed, sighing with relief at the lack of weight on her injured ankle. Jack eased off her tattered dress, his fingers gentle and warm against her bare skin, intimate but not sexual. He may have had more libido than anyone Rose had ever met, but he always knew when his advances were wanted and when they were inappropriate. She felt herself relax slowly under his ministrations.
“What happened after I called you?” said Rose over the familiar hum of the surgical robot. In a moment, she knew, there would be a piercingly cold sensation in her ankle, then numbness.
Jack knelt in front of Rose, watching carefully as the spider-shaped robot drilled into Rose's numbed foot, relieving the swelling and fixing the torn ligament. “We ran to the TARDIS, quick as we could. And then…” He let out a shuddering breath and leaned his head against the side of the bed. Rose reached out to stroke his hair, ignoring the strange grinding sensations in her foot as the surgical robot did its work. She had the feeling neither of them were going to like what he was about to say.
“One of them got me. The Lonely Assassins. It had me, completely. There was nothing I could do to escape. The Doctor was watching, and I didn't know when he was going to blink, and he - he knew. He knew!”
Jack pressed his face against Rose's leg, and she felt the scratches there burn as if covered in salt. She studied Jack's face, and realized he was crying against her skin. She had never seen him cry before, not even before he'd gone off to nearly certain death on the Game Station.
“Shhh,” said Rose, increasing the pressure on his scalp with her fingertips as she stroked. “It's all right.”
“It's not all right,” said Jack, hoarsely. He looked up at her, his cheek resting against her calf. His face had little smears of her blood on it. She wiped the blood and tears away with her thumb. “Rose, what do you remember about the Game Station?”
Rose's thumb stilled on the center of his cheekbone. “After you - after you said goodbye?” He nodded, and Rose moved her hand down to the side of his neck. “The Doctor tricked me. He - she - sent me home. Mum was over the moon, thought she'd got me back for good, but all I could think about was you and the Doctor dying out there in the future while I sat safe in a chippie. Mum and Mickey helped me get the TARDIS console open - sorry, girl - and then…” She shook her head. “Nothing, until I woke up in the TARDIS with you there and the Doctor dying. God, Jack, you nearly died too. We were so lucky.”
Jack's neck tensed beneath her hand. “I didn't nearly die.”
“What?”
“I didn't nearly die. I did die. Dalek shot to the chest. I didn't know it, then, because I had nothing to compare it to. Who knows what dying feels like? So I told you the Dalek's gun must have malfunctioned, a lucky fluke, because that's what I really thought. But it happened again. The Angel killed me. I felt my neck snapping. And I'm still here.”
“You're sure?”
He nodded. “Sarge was there when I came back to life. She won't stop calling me Lazarus. And…”
Rose squeezed the side of his neck, very gently. “And what?”
“And the Doctor knew. I think he's known ever since the Game Station. When the Angel had me, he said something about what would come after. He knew I'd come back. And he's kept me from helping him fly the TARDIS on purpose. As soon as I touched the console, I could tell. The TARDIS hates me.” His voice broke on the words.
“Not a chance!” said Rose. “She wouldn't let you use the medical equipment on me if she didn't trust you.”
“She trusts me,” Jack amended, “but I hurt her. There's something about me that makes her cringe. Just me being inside her is like torture, and I don't know why.”
Rose tilted his head up. “Jack, you're going to get answers from the Doctor. I'll slap some sense into him myself if I have to. I promise. But we've got to find him first.”
Jack hadn't seemed to quite register her words. “Why hasn't he kicked me out? If I hurt the TARDIS this much, I shouldn't be anywhere near her. If I hurt the TARDIS, I must be hurting him. Why has he let me stay?”
“Because he loves you, you idiot!” Rose had half a mind to slap some sense into Jack, too. “Just because he's too much of a child to say it out loud doesn't mean it's not true! He wants you here no matter how much it hurts. He'd crawl over hot coals for you - for both of us. Can't you see that?”
“If he loves us that much, then why can't he tell us the truth?”
“I don't know,” said Rose. “Let's rescue him and find out.”
This entry was crossposted at http://joking.dreamwidth.org/95551.html.
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Jack/Rose, the TARDIS, OFC
Rating: Teen
Beta: yamx
Summary: A week after his regeneration, the Doctor takes Jack and Rose to a party. But he's been keeping secrets from them, and the truth will soon catch up to them in the worst way the Doctor could have imagined.
Chapter 1: The Storm Garden
Chapter 2: Lazarus and the Wolf
Entropy creeps in. The engines of life, working ceaselessly to fight the disorder of the universe, have broken down. The mass of nerves and tissue that once held everything he was would disintegrate. He has no family, no home. No sign that he had ever breathed, fought, struggled, lived, loved.
“I will fight the entropy in you, and win,” says the Wolf, “just as surely as I conquer all my foes.” She is golden-furred and vast. Her teeth can rend the walls between dimensions. Her voice sounds like Rose, and another voice beneath, more sung than spoken. “I will win, and so give you life. But it displeases me that you think yourself without home or family. Who do you think I am?”
“I'm dead,” says the man. He has had many names, but his true family calls him Jack. The Wolf is right. He has a family. And oh, how they will grieve when they learn that he's gone.
“Dead?” The Wolf bares teeth as long as the span of time. “Never.”
“Why not? You're the Bad Wolf. I don't know what that means, not really, but I can see what you are. You could save anyone. You could reverse all the entropy that ever was. What makes me so special?”
“You are special because I love you.” The Wolf pins him beneath her paw. “You will forget by the time you return. Until then, be still. This is going to hurt.”
Pain came first. Then, with the pain, a realization: I'm alive. Only living can hurt this much.
Then his thoughts surrendered to the pain for a while longer. He was breathing, somehow, each breath a torment, though none as bad as the first. There was a voice murmuring near his ear. He couldn't make out the words or the speaker, but the sound was soothing.
A second realization: whatever this is, it's happened before. Not long ago, in fact. A lance of white light, an all-consuming fire in his chest, then consciousness and terrible, bone-deep pain.
The Dalek had killed him, just like the Weeping Angel. He had come back to life, as he was doing now. Why hadn't he realized it before? He must not have wanted to believe. He still didn't want to.
Jack realized, as the pain receded, that he was being held in someone's arms. He supposed he ought to find out who, and opened his eyes. It was Sarge, her face harshly lit by the flare of a high-caliber electric lantern.
When she saw his eyes open and staring, she inhaled sharply and swayed a little on her knees. “Lazarus,” she said.
“Who's Lazarus?” said Jack, blearily.
“Man that Jesus brought back from the dead,” said Sarge. “Did you see him?”
“I don't know what I saw,” Jack answered honestly. Then he stiffened and looked around wildly. “Where's the Doctor?”
“Back from the dead, and the first thing you think of is the Doctor,” said Sarge, shaking her head in wonder. “You must love that man, ay?”
“Where is he?” said Jack, pulling out of Sarge's arms and up to his feet.
“Don't know. I got your call for backup and found you here. I was going to put you in a body bag.” Sarge got up from her kneeling position and looked him in the eye. “You were dead, and then you weren't. Wasn't paying attention to much else.”
“Don't worry about me. I'm fine. The Doctor and Rose are the ones who need help. Hold up your lantern, follow me, and keep a lookout. If you see a statue that looks like an angel, tell me, and don't look away.”
“A statue that looks like an angel? What?”
Jack reached out and took Sarge by the shoulders. “Sarge, that's not the first time I've come back from the dead. I don't know how or why any more than you do. But that doesn't matter. All I care about is getting them back. Will you help me?”
“You're an impossible thing, Lazarus,” said Sarge, and Jack could see genuine fear in her eyes. He understood. He was afraid too, not just for the Doctor and Rose but of what he'd become - and why the Doctor had known and never told him. “But if it were my husband missing, I'd be the same as you.” She reached into an inner pocket of her uniform jacket and took out two keys, one loose and one on a chain. “The Doctor gave these to Ndlovu, back in the pavilion by the lantern booth, who passed them on to me. He said the Doctor didn't tell him to guard them with his life, but he might as well have, by the look on his face.”
With a quick glance around, Jack took the keys. He put his key on its chain back around his neck and under his catsuit, then reached behind to unzip the back of his suit and put the Doctor's key in the holster surgically embedded at the base of his spine, concealed by a seamless hologram that mimicked the look and feel of his own skin.
Sarge raised an eyebrow. “Do I want to know where you put that other key?”
“Depends. How much do you want to know about me?” He quirked his eyebrows enough to pass it off as flirtation, but he kept a hint of a warning in his tone: don't press further than you need to.
“Just enough so my husband doesn't lose any sleep,” said Sarge. Message received.
“Good.” Jack zipped the suit back up. “Let's get moving. And don't forget what I said about the statues. You can think I'm crazy all you like, as long as you do what I say.”
Sarge took up the lantern and scanned the garden all around her as she walked, freeing up Jack's attention. He looked ahead, and saw the TARDIS was still there. He wasn't sure whether to feel terrified or relieved. If the TARDIS was still there, that meant the Angel hadn't got hold of her. But it also meant that the Doctor could be unconscious, or sent back in time like Rose, or dying - on the brink of regeneration with no TARDIS or loving partner to guide him through it. He keyed up a scan for the Doctor's biosignature with his wrist strap. No sign. Jack told himself, firmly, that there was no use wondering if the Doctor had died permanently, his corpse lying broken in the garden somewhere. He had to get to the TARDIS before the Lonely Assassin did. Finding the Doctor - dead or alive - came second.
“Are you going to tell me what that blue box is all about?” asked Sarge. “One of my officers saw it earlier. Thought it was bleeding odd, but given the circumstances…” She trailed off, shaking her head in disbelief. Jack recognized the expression, having felt it himself more than once. It was one of the phases of coming in contact with something you couldn't accept was real: the part where you go along with it, even though you don't quite believe it yet, because it's easier than denying it altogether. It was how he had felt when he had just been rescued from his doomed Chula warship.
“It's my ride,” said Jack, “and you're coming with me.”
“Your - oh, shit.” Sarge stopped in her tracks.
Jack felt his adrenaline kick into high gear. “What is it?”
Sarge held out her torch so Jack could clearly see the Doctor's red and gold lantern shattered on the rocks of the garden.
There was no sign of the Doctor. The Angel had sent him back in time. He could be surrounded by dangerous animals, like Rose, or worse. It was better than having his neck broken, Jack told himself, but still it felt as if the Weeping Angel's stone hands were around his throat again, cutting off his air.
Sarge laid a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Lazarus. Let's see your ride, or whatever it is. The Doctor can't have vanished off the face of the Earth. He's got to be somewhere. You'll find him.”
Jack nodded sharply, and trotted over to the TARDIS, closing the last yards with a few long strides. He used the key around his neck to open the door, glanced around for any signs of Lonely Assassins, and gestured for Sarge to follow him in. She looked ready to protest, but Jack drew on his experience commanding junior officers at the Time Agency and gave her a Look that brooked no denial. She recognized the Look, universal to high-ranking officers, and stepped into the TARDIS. Jack quickly closed the door behind her.
With a clang and a crash, the electric lantern fell from Sarge's hand to shatter on the metal grating. Jack flinched, both in sympathy for the TARDIS and at the reminder of the Doctor's shattered lantern not far outside. He understood the reaction, though. If he'd had anything but his wrist strap and the clothes on his back when he'd first seen the inside of the TARDIS, he'd have dropped it too.
“This is the maddest thing I've ever seen in my life,” she said slowly, “and I just saw a man come back from the dead.”
“The TARDIS is madder than I am,” Jack agreed. He came up the ramp and gestured to the jumpseat. “Why don't you sit down?”
Sarge nodded, still looking around the console room wide-eyed, and sat. Then she looked down at the empty hand that had been holding the lantern. “Oh. I'm sorry.”
“I'll take care of it later,” said Jack. “Right now I've got bigger problems.”
He stood at his usual co-pilot spot on the console, looking down at the controls. He had never flown the TARDIS on his own before, and hadn't flown her at all since the Doctor regenerated. He'd said that he needed to re-establish his rapport with the TARDIS, and that Jack would soon have his chance to co-pilot again. But here he was, alone, and the Doctor and Rose's lives depended on his ability to guide the TARDIS where he needed her to go.
He reached out and rested his fingertips on a switch. At once, he felt a jolt, as if electrocuted by the TARDIS' thoughts. She was afraid of him. No, that wasn't quite true - he hurt. His very presence burned, and his touch was even worse.
A wave of betrayal rose in Jack's throat like bile. His knees went weak, and he sagged against the console. The Doctor had known what was going to happen when the Angel took him. I'm so sorry for what's about to happen, he'd said, and for what will come after. All that talk about wanting to re-establish his rapport with the TARDIS had been a ruse to keep Jack from finding the truth. The TARDIS could barely stand him, and she and the Doctor were a part of each other. On some level, the Doctor could barely stand him either. When the Doctor had been moving against him last night, kissing his neck and murmuring sweet nonsense in his ear, Rose looking on, he'd been feeling this.
Jack felt strong arms behind him, and for a moment he tensed unconsciously. But it wasn't the Weeping Angel holding him, guiding him down to the jumpseat. It was Sarge, tucking his head to lean against her shoulder. He shook with the sheer effort of holding it all in. He couldn't fall to pieces now, not when the Doctor and Rose's lives hung in the balance.
The softest of whispers began at the back of his mind, a song sung by a shy child, and Jack realized that Sarge wasn't the only one comforting him. The TARDIS was sorry. His presence still bubbled away like a vat of acid inside her, but all the same, she didn't want him to hurt. How could he tell? How had he known how he felt to the TARDIS when he'd touched her console? He'd always had a special connection with her, but he'd never been able to discern her thoughts with such clarity.
Something between an image and a feeling filled Jack's mind. A golden glow, bright as a star's core, beating within the TARDIS like a heart, and alongside Jack's own heart, a thread spun of that same gold anchoring them together. The thread pulsed with the same rhythm that patterned the TARDIS' song. Jack didn't understand it. He had a feeling the TARDIS was trying to communicate with him through senses that Jack didn't possess. But it gave him hope. He was connected to the TARDIS. In some way, he belonged here.
“I'm sorry,” Jack murmured, the sound muffled by Sarge's shoulder. The connection between him and the TARDIS meant hope, but it also meant he couldn't spare her the agony that was his presence. Maybe if the connection were severed somehow, he wouldn't pain her so much, but he didn't want to break it. Neither did she, he suspected.
Sarge misinterpreted Jack's words, thinking, logically enough, that they were directed at her. “No need to apologize.” A beat. “If anything, I'm relieved that a man who can't die can feel pain as much as anyone else.”
“So am I,” admitted Jack. He pulled himself upright. Now that he knew about this connection to the TARDIS, he had a better chance of piloting her right. He would get Rose first; he didn't think he could face the Doctor right now.
The first step would be to wire his wrist strap into the console so he could direct the TARDIS to the source of the phone call from Rose. It was unlikely he'd land there right on time, but the Doctor's track record was hardly any better, and he would do everything in his power to make sure Rose didn't have to wait long after her call to be rescued. He reached for a bare wire coming out of the console and felt another jolt of raw pain from the TARDIS. Gritting his teeth, he kept hold of the wire with his left hand and unstrapped his wrist strap with his right.
Sarge watched his attempts. “Is that wire electrocuting you?”
“Not… exactly,” said Jack, teeth still clenched as he opened the wrist strap and directed the wire inside, pain still coursing through him.
“Take this, you fool man.” Sarge reached into her pocket and produced a thick work glove.
Jack let go of the wire and put it on. “Thanks.” When he returned to his task, he could still feel the TARDIS screaming faintly at the back of his mind, but it was a sympathetic pain rather than a physical one, and he could tune it out for the time being. He patched the wrist strap into the console and set to work programming the TARDIS to trace the time and location of the last call it had received.
Sarge folded her arms as she watched him. “Why did you invite me in here, Lazarus? It seems I'm not much use to you.”
“You could have been in serious danger if I'd left you out there. Besides, I don't know anything about South Africa. Rose is somewhere in or near the country, and the Doctor probably is too. You'll be plenty helpful once we've landed wherever they are.”
“How do you know where they are?”
“The Doctor's just a guess based on Rose. She called me from her phone. She's in the savanna. Alone. No food or water.”
“Should I even bother asking how that happened?”
“Let's just say that the universe is a lot scarier than you think, and the thing that killed me is one of the scariest. It's what took Rose, the girl, and your officers from the Stormgarden.”
Sarge sat up ramrod straight. “You know where my officers are?”
Jack grimaced. “I'm afraid not. All I know is that they're probably somewhere nearby, but they've gone back in time. I might be able to help you get them back, but not until I've found the Doctor first.”
“I will have them back, Captain. They disappeared on my watch. They're my responsibility.”
“I know. Just help me get Rose and the Doctor back safely, and we'll do our best to get them back. I promise.” Jack tapped a few more keys, nodded approvingly at the readout on the screen, then took up position at his usual piloting spot. “I've made my offer. Do you accept?” he asked Sarge.
She nodded.
“OK. Hold on tight.” He eyed the sergeant. “No, really. Hold on to the seat. This is not going to be a smooth ride.”
Sarge's knuckles tightened on the front edge of the jumpseat. Jack let out a breath and tried to clear his mind. He didn't have any conscious knowledge of how to do this. But he had the muscle memory of co-piloting with the Doctor, and he had the golden thread beside his heart, thrumming in time with the heart of the TARDIS. It would have to be enough.
His hands moved, almost of their own accord, flipping switches and twisting dials. Suddenly, before he was quite aware of it, he was dashing around to the other side the console, almost pummeling the controls there. A rasping, groaning sound, the most wonderful sound in the universe, filled his ears. Despite everything, Jack grinned. He had been responsible for that sound. He was filling the storm-charged air of the garden with it, and he hoped the Weeping Angel, if it was still there, was howling its frustration.
He moved through the next few minutes as if in a dream. Time didn't proceed in logical order; sometimes he seemed to be pulling each lever in slow motion, and other times he'd blink and be halfway around the console with barely a clue how he'd gotten there. The TARDIS was probably piloting herself more than he was flying her, but the partnership was working. It was working, despite the high, pained shriek still sawing at the back of his mind.
The journey ended with one last rasp and a thud. Sarge was shaken - literally, as she'd been thrown off the jumpseat within moments of dematerialization - but smiling. “Mad,” he heard her say quietly, shaking her head.
Jack bounded down the ramp, but hesitated before opening the door. What if he'd made a mistake? What if he'd landed a month or a year later, and Rose was either dead or so angry at him for not coming on time that she wouldn't love him anymore? He'd be part of events as soon as he opened the door, unable to undo that mistake.
“Go on, then,” came Sarge's voice from behind him. “Or are you going to stand there brooding for a while longer?”
Sarge was right. It was no use. There was probably some way to check the date and time before stepping out, but he didn't know how. Besides, he had to put his trust in the TARDIS. She'd been inside his head, guiding him, despite how much it must have hurt her to be so intertwined with his psychic presence. It wouldn't be fair of him to doubt her now.
With a deep breath to steady his resolve, Jack opened the door.
The elephant charged toward Rose. She leapt to her feet, the pain of her injuries forgotten in a burst of adrenaline, and ran. But it wasn't any use. The elephant was faster than her, and while she had to dodge around bushes and thickets, it could just crash through.
Suddenly, she heard the trees rustle and groan with a wind that hadn't been there moments before. A grinding sound filled the air. Rose looked back over her shoulder to see the elephant wheeling around mid-charge to face the source of the noise. The TARDIS was fading in and out of sight as it materialized in the middle of a thorn thicket. Rose wanted nothing more than to run toward it, but the elephant was squarely in her path, trumpeting its rage at this new intruder.
Rose heard Jack's voice shouting, and another she didn't recognize. Then there was the crackle of an energy weapon. It didn't seem to hit the elephant, but it made the creature halt its charge, at least for the moment. Rose carefully edged toward the TARDIS, taking a path that circled well clear of the distracted elephant. It had its ears spread wide, its trunk raised high. It let out a trumpet so loud the sound was like a blow to the head. Rose staggered a little, and she tripped over a thorny bush, drawing yet more blood from her leg.
She was close enough now to hear Jack and the other person talking. “Go! Find your Rose!” the stranger was saying. “I'll hold it off!” There was another crackle, also missing the elephant, and it reared back a little in surprise and agitation.
“Jack!” Rose cried. “I'm here!” Within moments she could see Jack running toward her, heedless of the thorns that tore at his sequined catsuit. There was a third shot, and this one hit the elephant in the flank. It didn't stop the elephant, but only enraged it. It screamed and charged the TARDIS. The figure standing in front dashed inside and shut the door. The fury of the elephant's charge knocked the TARDIS backward, the doors facing up, but otherwise didn't harm her.
Jack reached her then, circling his arms around her, and she abruptly went boneless. She noticed she was bleeding onto his catsuit from dozens of cuts, her blood dulling the sparkle of the sequins. “My ribs hurt,” she mumbled into his chest.
“Sorry.” He eased his embrace a little so as to put less pressure on her injuries. Behind him she could hear the elephant trumpet again. Jack looked over his shoulder. “I think he's figured out he can't hurt the TARDIS. If we stay quiet, he'll lose interest and go somewhere else.”
“Where's the Doctor?” said Rose. Her ankle burned with pain, and she shifted her weight to the other leg. She must have sprained that one. “And who's that other person with the gun?”
She felt Jack tense. “The Angels took him away, just like they did to you. I'm not sure where he is.”
“So you flew the TARDIS here all by yourself?”
“I wasn't alone. I brought Sarge with me. She's the head of security for the party at the Stormgarden.”
“I'm glad you did. She probably saved our lives.”
That, too, made Jack tense, though Rose wasn't sure why. “The elephant's walking away. Looks like he's spoiling for a fight, though, so let's not give him any reason.” He guided them into the shade of a dense tangle of thorny trees, out of sight. “Sarge said he's a bull elephant in musth. Some kind of testosterone-fueled rampage. When their hormones are running high like that, they'll attack anything.”
“Sounds like my mum 'round that time of the month,” Rose said, laughing weakly. It was hard to focus on anything, with her ankle sending ribbons of searing pain up her leg.
“Oh, that's nothing. Some species out there have way worse hormone surges. I remember one time when my ship crash-landed in the middle of a T'xol fertility rite. I crawled out of the wreckage and…”
Rose let Jack's tall tale wash over her, absorbing the warmth and mischief in his voice more than the content, though she could tell from his tone all the parts where she was supposed to laugh, and did so obligingly. It distracted her from the pain, which she knew was the point.
“…and I would have loved to be a fly on the wall during that disciplinary hearing. Oh, hey. Rose, the elephant's gone. Let's go back to the TARDIS. I've got you.” Rose held onto Jack's arm, limping on her good leg, and let him steer her back toward the TARDIS. She propped herself up against it as Jack climbed on top of the left door and opened the right with his key. She felt a stab of loss when she saw it. The Doctor would give her a replacement key, of course, but her first key would always hold a special place in her heart. It reminded her, every time she touched it, of when the Doctor had first given it to her.
The door swung inward. It was disorienting to look inside the TARDIS when it was tipped over, the interior at right angles to the world around her. It looked like she would fall in if she tried to step through.
“The gravity change will be disorienting at first,” said Jack, noticing the worry on her face. “Let me help you.” He gathered her firmly against his side with one arm and hoisted her up so she was standing on the left door. Then he stepped through, still holding her close. Rose's world spun for a moment as her sense of up and down was suddenly wrong. Her brain insisted she was standing on a wall rather than a floor, but gravity was pulling toward it. She clutched at Jack's torn catsuit until the dizziness passed.
“Good shooting there, Sarge,” said Jack. “I was hoping we wouldn't have to kill the elephant. Rose and I owe you.”
Rose gave Sarge a brittle smile through the pain. She was a solid-looking woman, her uniform crisp and her stance ready. “Yeah, thanks a lot. I thought I was done for.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Rose. Thank Jack. He was frantic about you.” To Jack, she said, “Do something about her ankle, will you? It's swollen up to twice its size.”
Jack nodded. “I'll take her to the medical bay. If you want tea or anything else, take a right down the corridor, two lefts, and down the ramp. There's a kitchen with all the fixings.”
Sarge raised an eyebrow - clearly she hadn't expected the TARDIS to be quite that big on the inside - but didn't ask. She made her way down the corridor, dragging her fingertips along the wall as if to reassure herself by touch that the ship was real.
“Come on, sweetheart,” said Jack. Rose leaned against him, resting most of her weight on him, and he took her to the medical bay, which was the first door to the left as usual when there was an emergency. Rose settled on the bed, sighing with relief at the lack of weight on her injured ankle. Jack eased off her tattered dress, his fingers gentle and warm against her bare skin, intimate but not sexual. He may have had more libido than anyone Rose had ever met, but he always knew when his advances were wanted and when they were inappropriate. She felt herself relax slowly under his ministrations.
“What happened after I called you?” said Rose over the familiar hum of the surgical robot. In a moment, she knew, there would be a piercingly cold sensation in her ankle, then numbness.
Jack knelt in front of Rose, watching carefully as the spider-shaped robot drilled into Rose's numbed foot, relieving the swelling and fixing the torn ligament. “We ran to the TARDIS, quick as we could. And then…” He let out a shuddering breath and leaned his head against the side of the bed. Rose reached out to stroke his hair, ignoring the strange grinding sensations in her foot as the surgical robot did its work. She had the feeling neither of them were going to like what he was about to say.
“One of them got me. The Lonely Assassins. It had me, completely. There was nothing I could do to escape. The Doctor was watching, and I didn't know when he was going to blink, and he - he knew. He knew!”
Jack pressed his face against Rose's leg, and she felt the scratches there burn as if covered in salt. She studied Jack's face, and realized he was crying against her skin. She had never seen him cry before, not even before he'd gone off to nearly certain death on the Game Station.
“Shhh,” said Rose, increasing the pressure on his scalp with her fingertips as she stroked. “It's all right.”
“It's not all right,” said Jack, hoarsely. He looked up at her, his cheek resting against her calf. His face had little smears of her blood on it. She wiped the blood and tears away with her thumb. “Rose, what do you remember about the Game Station?”
Rose's thumb stilled on the center of his cheekbone. “After you - after you said goodbye?” He nodded, and Rose moved her hand down to the side of his neck. “The Doctor tricked me. He - she - sent me home. Mum was over the moon, thought she'd got me back for good, but all I could think about was you and the Doctor dying out there in the future while I sat safe in a chippie. Mum and Mickey helped me get the TARDIS console open - sorry, girl - and then…” She shook her head. “Nothing, until I woke up in the TARDIS with you there and the Doctor dying. God, Jack, you nearly died too. We were so lucky.”
Jack's neck tensed beneath her hand. “I didn't nearly die.”
“What?”
“I didn't nearly die. I did die. Dalek shot to the chest. I didn't know it, then, because I had nothing to compare it to. Who knows what dying feels like? So I told you the Dalek's gun must have malfunctioned, a lucky fluke, because that's what I really thought. But it happened again. The Angel killed me. I felt my neck snapping. And I'm still here.”
“You're sure?”
He nodded. “Sarge was there when I came back to life. She won't stop calling me Lazarus. And…”
Rose squeezed the side of his neck, very gently. “And what?”
“And the Doctor knew. I think he's known ever since the Game Station. When the Angel had me, he said something about what would come after. He knew I'd come back. And he's kept me from helping him fly the TARDIS on purpose. As soon as I touched the console, I could tell. The TARDIS hates me.” His voice broke on the words.
“Not a chance!” said Rose. “She wouldn't let you use the medical equipment on me if she didn't trust you.”
“She trusts me,” Jack amended, “but I hurt her. There's something about me that makes her cringe. Just me being inside her is like torture, and I don't know why.”
Rose tilted his head up. “Jack, you're going to get answers from the Doctor. I'll slap some sense into him myself if I have to. I promise. But we've got to find him first.”
Jack hadn't seemed to quite register her words. “Why hasn't he kicked me out? If I hurt the TARDIS this much, I shouldn't be anywhere near her. If I hurt the TARDIS, I must be hurting him. Why has he let me stay?”
“Because he loves you, you idiot!” Rose had half a mind to slap some sense into Jack, too. “Just because he's too much of a child to say it out loud doesn't mean it's not true! He wants you here no matter how much it hurts. He'd crawl over hot coals for you - for both of us. Can't you see that?”
“If he loves us that much, then why can't he tell us the truth?”
“I don't know,” said Rose. “Let's rescue him and find out.”
This entry was crossposted at http://joking.dreamwidth.org/95551.html.