For rude_not_ginger The Death's Spiral system.
Follows on from thisJack held fast to the controls of the ship as they plunged into hyperspace. The g-forces on his body pressed him into the chair, and he focused all of his attention on keeping the craft smooth and flying. He'd worry about just where it was they were going later
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His eyes flicked towards the Doctor, squinting to watch him in the darkness. "She's gone," he said gently. "Trapped in another universe. She's fine. Happy, I hope. But she can't come back." He thought it best for now not to mention just who she's trapped there with. Might be a little complicated.
Jack held fast as the ground cracked beneath his feet and he crouched down to the ground, touching his fingers against it. His skin seemed to blacken, die and regrow in front of his eyes; a fact he quickly concealed from the Doctor with a shift of his hand from sight. Probably best not to make contact with anything here.
"Careful what you touch," he said. "If it does this to plants I don't want to think what it could do to us." He offered the suggestion idly, as though he hadn't just experienced it first hand.
"No," he shook his head. "No, if we jump this thing with the ground like this it'll likely just fall apart when we hit the other side. Sorry, Doctor, but I think we're going to have to find a longer way around."
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He agreed with Jack, and turned, following the edge of the crack along. Eventually, another crack formed along his other side, creating a thin, bridge-like structure. Ash seemed to crumble to either side no matter which way he walked. And the bridge seemed to be getting thinner.
"Chronocitis," the Doctor said suddenly, loudly, as if that explained everything.
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What?
"Excuse me?" He frowned, wondering why the Doctor had so suddenly brought it up. "What of it?"
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He spun around and very nearly lost his balance. He caught himself, but pouted behind his oxygen mask at the lost drama of his excellent spin.
Though, really, his internal voice (which sounded remarkably like his leather-coated self) reminded him, there were more important things to worry about, like, oh, gee, the entire situation they were in.
"Time Waste is detectable by most authorities. It's the equivalent of intergalactic littering, and if you're driving about in a stolen machine, a tiny ticket is enough of a trail for anyone to follow. So they drive the TARDIS here, to hide. If he or she thinks she can repair the TARDIS, they just park her here and get to work. Except being in this environment will only make her sicker. Make the time waste leakage worse."
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A revelation as to why, perhaps, but not a comforting one. The amount of waste the TARDIS had been leaking back on Assiap alone was immense. The sheer amount of it that Jack himself had absorbed was huge, and that had barely scraped the surface of those leaking clouds. If the leak was worse than that... well, it didn't bear thinking about.
"Doctor are you sure you couldn't survive another jump?" He asked as he tapped his wriststrap. "Just one more, I could take us right there. Right to her. You said yourself this walk might take a day and who knows how much longer this has put on that." He motioned vaguely towards the chasm in the ground.
For once, he felt like time was something neither of them had enough of.
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"Did I say I couldn't? Because I was just about to suggest it----"
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"We did it before," he explained slowly. "You were kind of out of it a bit. Said it was something to do with you being away from the TARDIS. But I don't know, we're closer now, maybe it'd be okay? It's got to be worth a shot, right? I mean what's the worst that could happen?"
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"We could explode in an array of superparticalized atoms," he said. "Or the vortex could malfunction and we could end up not landing on solid ground, but instead falling to our deaths. Or we could end up in space. Or liquefied, I did hear about a vortex manipulator that turned someone inside out once." He nodded and adjusted the torch in his grip. "Or, actually, if the inverted subcortex gets any of this ash in it---"
The beam of light went back to the ground, near Jack's foot. This was the point where he noticed the long, ash tentacle sliding its way up from the crevice and around Jack's leg. The Doctor reached up for his harpoon.
"Look out!"
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Inside out? That sounded familiar. Some people he knew spoke about doing that to someone as a practical joke. Not really the best sort of practical joke though in his book.
Jack just had time to register the Doctor's warning and tense up as he felt the cold tentacle wrap around his leg and tighten, pulling him swiftly down to the ground and back towards the crevice, his legs getting yanked over the edge.
He grabbed quickly onto the crumbling ground and could feel the skin of his hands dying where it touched it. As he tried to tug himself back he felt a second tentacle creeping over his back. "Doctor!" He called, struggling against the creature's grip.
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He dropped , grabbing onto Jack's upper body. He dug his trainers into the ground. Some of the ash hit his calves and hands and burned like liquid nitrogen, killing the cells.
"Get that manipulator going!" he called.
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Lifting his hand from the ground he flicked open the manipulator. His hand was dark and the skin on his fingers crumbled away as he pressed them against the button and programmed in the data.
He could feel his hand rebuilding and it hurt just as much as it did to damage it. A couple more buttons and the manipulator was primed for teleport. "Hold on tight, Doctor! Give me your hand."
Still holding the ground with one hand he reached the other back to grasp at the Doctor and grabbing hold of his arm he tugged it over towards the manipulator, held it over it, and activated.
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Then, suddenly, he was still. His feet landed on ash and his body seemed to still immediately. Dark ash fell around them, though it didn't eat the way the ash from the ground did. It stung, like acid rain. He shone the light of the torch to his side, to check on his companion, then back ahead of them.
The dark blue of the TARDIS doors poked through the haze of ash.
Despite everything, the Doctor grinned.
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He pushed himself up from the ground, trying not to let his hands touch it, and he squinted a little as the ash in the air touched his face and stung his skin.
"That was a close one, Doctor," he said as he brushed his hands down his front, the skin almost completely reconstructed, leaving nothing but a small looking burn that wouldn't last long. Let's try not-" but as he looked up, he saw it too, the beam from the torch catching the colour of the door. A spark of light in the darkness.
He turned his head to the Doctor and grinned. "Well it's about time."
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Jack would need medical attention inside the TARDIS. They'd need to get the ash off of their skin and the TARDIS a long distance away from here.
Her voice was a little louder in his mind, but still so quiet, so far away, so hurt.
He reached out a hand to touch her, to try to reestablish a connection. But something blocked his way. An invisible something, standing just in front of the ship. Ash fell onto the form and stuck to it, the image of a humanoid.
It pulled back and swung, punching the Doctor in the jaw.
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Jack grinned. This would be good. They'd get inside, fix what needed to be fixed (Jack would help, of course). They could get away and land her somewhere safe while she recovered and most of all, the Doctor could get his memories back.
He just had the little problem of trying to explain why his wounds were healing. He seemed to be getting the Doctor on his side, and he wanted to keep it that way, so while he wasn't looking Jack leaned down and rubbed his hands on the ground. It hurt, but it did the trick, at least for a while.
He was just standing up when he saw the Doctor knocked back by a blow. "Doctor!" He called and ran forward to catch him. He could make out the figure looking transparent through the ash that clung to it.
"Oh no you don't," Jack said and swung his own fist towards the shape, hitting it in the stomach. He wished he had left his hands as they were, harder to hit like this. He fought with the figure, almost domineering, until he was kicked in the back of his legs, throwing him off kilter.
In the darkness he heard the familiar click of a gun being cocked, and as ash continued to fall it settled on the shape of a gun in hand and levelled towards the Doctor.
His body and mind going into autopilot he called out at the top of his lungs. "Doctor! Look out!" And just as the trigger was pulled, he moved in front of the Doctor, pushing in front of him, and took the bullet right through his chest.
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He caught Jack in his arms. He was stronger than a human, but the shock and the sudden, sharp terror running through him kept him from holding him up. He slid to his knees, still cradling his companion.
Jack. Oh, god. Jack, his only friend. He wanted to tell him he was sorry. He wanted to tell him he was so, so sorry that he didn't believe him at first. That he would've remembered. Things would've been all right. He was so sorry.
Instead, all he said was: "You stupid, stupid man! I would've just regenerated!"
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