Fic: Emancipation 1/2
Story: Emancipation
Author: wmr / wendymr
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Donna Noble, Jack Harkness
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: Characters all owned by the BBC and other recognised copyright-holders; no profit has been or will be made from their use in this work of fiction
Summary: Trust Donna to find trouble if it's there to be found.
This story was originally published in The Brotherhood vol. 7, a multi-fandom fanzine featuring gen friendship fic which was first made available a year ago today. The online publication embargo is now lifted and I am able to post this fic here. Full acknowledgements will be found at the end; for now, I would like to thank penfold and @Yum for the invitation to participate, and my primary BRs for this work, dark_aegis and ponygirl72.
Emancipation
Chapter 1: Trouble-Magnet
He skids to a halt on the uneven cobblestones, scanning the area for his missing companion.
“Doctor!”
There’s no mistaking the voice that just screamed his name a second time; it’s definitely Donna. The note of fear has his hearts thumping. Donna Noble doesn’t scare easily - in fact, most of the time he’d back her against anyone attempting to cross her path. She’s got a slapping hand worse than Jackie Tyler’s and a gob even bigger than his own.
If Donna’s frightened, he needs to be worried.
“Donna? Donna!”
The square he’s just reached, at one time perhaps the city’s proudest landmark but now sadly dilapidated, suffused with the odour of decay, is thronged with people, all several inches taller than him - well, the average height of a Shakilan is around seven feet - making it impossible for him to see where the call came from. It wasn’t close by, but not too far away either.
“Doct- Oi! Take your hands off me!”
There’s no fear now, just anger. That’s some relief, at any rate. Now he knows where she is - over there, in the corner of the square where the crowd’s most tightly packed. It would be, wouldn’t it? Trust Donna to find trouble if it’s there to be found. Though, to be fair, it’s not anything any of his past companions haven’t done.
All he asked was that she amuse herself for five minutes. Five minutes, while he talked to a trader to see whether he had any six-millimetre conductor cables. All right, by the time he’d finished doing business it’d been closer to fifteen minutes, but surely it’s not unreasonable to expect one human woman to stay out of trouble for fifteen minutes?
“Sorry... ‘scuse me... sorry.” He tries to make his way through the crowd towards where he’s pretty sure Donna has to be - not easy when they’re that much taller than he is and a careless elbow could send him sprawling to get trampled underfoot. “Sorry... just trying... yeah, thanks... ‘scuse me...”
“I said, take your mucky paws off me!”
She’s barely feet away now, and he stretches upwards, standing on tip-toe to try to see over the shoulder of the Shakilan in front of him. Yes. A flash of long coppery hair flying in the wind: definitely Donna.
The question is how much trouble has she got herself into? And how easy is it going to be to run?
There’s a sound ominously like the crack of a whip, and he flinches.
“The female will remain silent!”
With glares and venomous looks in his direction, the people standing close to him edge away, giving him an unobstructed view of Donna and her surroundings. She’s standing, defiant, while a male Shakilan towers over her, gripping her arm. Behind her, there’s a market stall with one table overturned, and all around credits and papers lie scattered on the ground.
There’s no time to take anything else in; a Shakilan dressed in what’s beyond doubt an official uniform is striding forward, closely followed by two others, clearly minions judging by the absence of braiding and other flourishes on their uniforms, not to mention the brutal-looking whips in their hands.
This planet’s police, no doubt. And Donna’s about to get arrested.
Normally, that wouldn’t trouble him overmuch; it certainly wouldn’t be the first time he’s broken a companion out of jail. But those whips have him more worried than he likes, as do the ugly looks on the faces of most of the onlookers - all men, and all making a very intimidating audience, towering over her as they do. Donna’s managed to make herself some enemies.
Time for diplomacy. He hurries forward, summoning his most charming, humble expression. “Sorry, sorry! I do apologise for my friend. She’s from Earth - human, you understand,” he explains as if it’s an excuse. “Naturally, she doesn’t understand your cust- Ow!”
“Don’t you dare apologise for me,” Donna snaps, as he tries to recover from the painful kick she’s just given his shin. “Just don’t you dare, Doctor!”
He’s seized with the desire to shake her. It’s a ruse. Can’t she see that? Just a little lie, a bit of polite diplomacy intended to make them let her go. All she needs to do is smile apologetically and let him handle it. But, no, of course Donna Noble can’t go along with that. Why did he ever expect she would?
“The female was ordered to remain silent,” the senior Shakilan police officer pronounces, and gives one imperious wave of his hand.
The Shakilan holding Donna steps back. The other two policemen grab her and pull her away from him before he has time to blink, and a shimmering circle of blue forms around her. Before he can begin to protest, they’ve all vanished.
***
He practically pins the Shakilan standing next to him - one of the few who didn’t move away as if he was contagious - to the spot and barrages him with questions. The reluctant answers do nothing at all to reassure him.
“They teleported her to the prison. She’ll be held there pending trial and execution.”
“What about trial and acquittal?” he suggests, craning his neck to look up at his neighbour while a sizeable lump of lead takes up residence in the pit of his stomach. Shakila... Shakila. There’s a reason that name sounds familiar, isn’t there? If only his brain wasn’t cluttered with so much useless information... “Or trial and a short prison sentence?”
“No.” The man shrugs, as if it’s immaterial. “No-one’s ever acquitted. They wouldn’t be arrested if they weren’t guilty. Off-worlders who break our laws don’t get sentenced to prison, anyway. Jails are too full as it is. No-one wants to pay for them to have free room and board at the taxpayer’s expense.”
What? What? Executed just for the crime of being alien? If the whole universe behaved like that, he’d never even have made it to his two-hundredth birthday. No species would ever have set that first foot out into space and explored, and how much the universe would have lost as a result... but that’s not what matters here and now. If Donna were here with him, she’d see that he does interfere at times, when he thinks it’s right. Like now. Once he’s got her back, she’ll see what the wrath of a Time Lord is like.
In the name of expediency, he smothers the response he’d like to make; this citizen doesn’t make the laws, even if he obviously approves of them - and, besides, he needs this man’s help. “Who do I have to speak to about getting her a lawyer? Paying a fine? A bribe?” he adds with little hope after the Shakilan’s shaken his head at his other suggestions.
“Lawyers are corrupt and were abolished on Shakila many years ago. Bribes will get you executed, off-worlder. As it is, you should consider yourself lucky the Protectors did not arrest you also when your friend was taken.”
Lawyers corrupt? No more corrupt than the rest of the system here, by the look of it. His hands curl into fists. He should never have listened to Donna when she demanded to go somewhere neither of them had been before, so they could be tourists together. Exploring’s all very well, and he loves the thrill of going somewhere new, but he shouldn’t have taken her somewhere he didn’t know the risks.
“Forget her.” The Shakilan shakes his head. “She is as good as dead. If you want to stay alive, you should leave this planet immediately.”
Instinct borne of anger makes him reach up and grasp the native’s upper arms, shaking him. ”I can’t! Don’t you understand? She’s my friend! I brought her here. I have to rescue her.”
The Shakilan breaks free of his grasp, his expression threatening, and for a moment the Doctor imagines he’s going to be joining Donna in prison, until the man shakes his head, sneering in contempt. “On your head be it, off-worlder. If you’re willing to risk your own neck, that’s your problem.”
“I have to try!” And standing around here is doing no good at all. There’s only one more thing he needs to know. “Where is the prison?”
He gets vague directions, but they’re better than nothing. The instant the man finishes speaking, he’s off at a run, coat flapping at his heels.
***
There are worlds, across the wide expanse of the universe, where the words Time Lord commands instant obedience. Where the name Doctor generates respect, even fear, and a willingness to do anything he asks.
Shakila is not one of those planets. He finds this out within about thirty seconds of arriving at the jail. So far, the only building he’s seen on this planet not in need of major reconstruction.
“She’s from Earth,” he repeats for the fourth time. “Twenty-first century. This is only the second alien planet she’s ever visited. Course she can’t be expected to know all your laws and customs. If she did something wrong, I’m sure it was a mistake.”
The sole employee in sight, an information clerk - who wears no name-badge and is pointedly not providing any information - continues looking impassively at the papers on his desk, without saying a word.
“Look, all I want to know is if I can pay a fine or something to get her out of here. I promise, we’ll leave the planet immediately and never come back. I swear! Just let her go!”
The clerk moves some papers around and then, for the first time, meets the Doctor’s gaze. “The prisoner will be tried at sundown. At that time, should there be any evidence in mitigation, the arresting officer of the Protectorate will be called upon to supply it prior to sentencing. Civilians, including off-worlders, may attend the trial, but may only speak if given permission by the judge. In the meantime, if you continue to trespass on government premises you will join your associate in prison.”
He thanks the clerk, doing his best to refrain from sarcasm, and leaves.
Outside, he breathes deeply, trying to calm himself. Nerve gas. Or, more precisely, a cocktail of nerve gases designed to affect, say, four or five of the commonest types of oxygen-breather biologies. They pump it into the corridors. On the wall behind the clerk there was a staff information notice about it, stating that no-one should enter the corridors without the appropriate protective clothing.
It’s no wonder this prison doesn’t need guards. Why pay people to keep prisoners secure when a nasty little compound whose sole purpose is to murder can do the job at a fraction of the cost, and without even having to offer holidays and sick leave? And what kind of people - what kind of system - just accept this without protest? What’s wrong with this planet?
So, no chance of breaking into the prison to rescue Donna. Nerve gases can be absorbed through the skin. He - in fact, all his remaining regenerations - would be dead long before he found Donna. Even with a biohazard suit and full oxygen supply, rescuing her would be difficult: it’s not as if he can carry a spare suit into the prison to get Donna out and remain undetected.
Waiting for her trial’s not an option. It’s clear that it’s going to be little more than a farce, and the likelihood of him being able to break her out of custody seems slim.
There is another option. First checking the area for security cameras or onlookers, he scans the building quickly with the sonic screwdriver. He almost curses at the pitch of the screwdriver’s beep.
Sensors. Designed to detect any object trying to teleport or transmat into the prison. The guards would be on full alert and have her cell flooded with poison before he’d even got the TARDIS materialised.
So much for his idea of taking the TARDIS directly to Donna using her biosignature, materialising around her and dematerialising again. Not that it would have been easy, in any case. The last time he did that, he had help. That kind of precision flying’s very difficult to do solo, even for a genius like him.
There’s only one thing for it - only one way he’s going to get Donna safely out of prison and off the planet alive and in one piece.
With a resigned sigh, he sets off at a run back to the TARDIS and his only option: an emergency trip to Cardiff to find out if Jack Harkness has forgiven him enough to answer a plea for help.
***
“Oi! You lot! I have rights, you know! Heard of the Geneva Convention? The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights?”
Though, course, alien planet. Alien. Human rights don’t count for much here, do they?
If there’s an equivalent to the UN for alien planets, she’s going to report this lot as soon as the Doctor gets her out of here. The food’s bad enough - definitely cruel and unusual punishment - but the constant drone of the PA system’s far worse. Every ten minutes or so there’s something. Nothing useful, of course, or even interesting. Just reminders that prisoners must stay in their cells - as if they can just walk out if they feel like it! That they must respect prison property. That reprisals will follow should any prisoner break the advertised rules. Yeah, yeah. She’s only been here an hour at most and already she could repeat the announcements word for word.
She’s in jail. Her, Donna Noble, in jail! She’s never even had so much as a speeding ticket before. Good thing her mum’s never going to find out about this - she’d never hear the end of it.
Not that she regrets it. No way. If she’d done the easy thing and just walked on by, ignoring what she saw, what would that make her? Not Donna Noble, citizen of the universe. Not Donna Noble, Time Lord’s companion and saviour of the Ood. So that’s that. And the Doctor’ll get her out of here, anyway, so it’ll be-
The PA’s on again. And her breath’s trapped in her throat, because what’s coming out of it doesn’t sound like words at all. Not English words, anyway.
They’re not being translated for her. The Doctor’s ship isn’t in her head any more.
And the only reason that can be so is that the TARDIS isn’t on this planet any more. The Doctor’s left her. He’s gone and bloody left her here.
***
Jack Harkness freezes, coffee-cup halfway to his lips. There’s only one thing that makes that sound, like the asthmatic wheezing of an old generator. The Doctor’s TARDIS.
The Doctor’s back.
He has to smother the instinctive urge to rush outside. No running after the Doctor. Not any more. Besides, if the only reason he’s here is to refuel his ship from the Rift, he’ll be gone before Jack could get halfway across the Plas Roald Dahl.
Part of him would like to ignore the Doctor’s arrival altogether, but he still finds himself flipping his computer monitor to show the Plas security cam. Just to confirm his guess as to why the Time Lord is here, he tells himself.
The TARDIS door opens, and the Doctor - same man, same brown suit; so he hasn’t regenerated again yet - emerges, looking around him and blinking in the mid-afternoon sun. Passers-by seem to ignore him entirely, and not one of them even notices the blue police box that’s appeared out of nowhere. They never do, of course - just one of the TARDIS’s little tricks. Though, anyway, if someone were to tell the tourists outside the Millennium Centre that they’d just walked past an alien and his spaceship, they wouldn’t believe a word of it. Humans in this period have an amazing capacity for self-delusion, incredible after Slitheen and Sycorax and even Cybermen and Dalek invasions.
Jack taps his earpiece. “I’m going up above. No assistance needed.” Better see what the Doctor’s doing here, after all. He can’t help musing on Torchwood’s former motto as he heads to the lift. If it’s alien, it’s ours. Yeah. The Doctor’d love that.
Whatever the Doctor’s doing here, Jack’s confident of one thing: he’s unlikely to be looking up a former companion. He knows many things about the last Time Lord, and two of those are that he never goes back, and he hates to have to admit he made a mistake.
He steps out onto the Plas. “Doctor.”
The Time Lord swivels to face him. “Jack.” Well, it’s more friendly than Captain, anyway.
“Wouldn’t have expected to see you here. Well, other than a thirty-second refuelling stop.”
“I came to see you.”
He stifles the snort of disbelief that’s his instinctive response. There’s something about the way the Doctor’s looking at him... “What’s happened?”
The Doctor’s gaze meets his, his stance awkward and uncomfortable. “I need a man who can’t die.”
***
Jack smiles, only it’s not really a smile. “Funny how you hate what I am until you need it.”
“Oh, don’t start!” No doubt Jack’s entitled to be a tad bitter, but there’s a time and a place.
“Doctor. Tell me what you need.”
There’s no room for pride when Donna’s life is at stake. “My... my friend. Donna. She’s been arrested. I have to get her out of prison.”
Jack nods. “So you found someone else, then. She blonde?”
For a second, he stares at Jack in non-comprehension, until a fragment of conversation comes back to him.
“Is that what happens, though? Seriously? Do you just get bored with us one day and disappear?”
“Not if you’re blonde.”
Fury rises inside him. “That’s petty, even for you, Jack. You won’t help because your feelings were hurt?”
“Oh, for-” Jack shakes his head. “Don’t be any more of an idiot than you can help. Of course I’m gonna help, and if you ever thought I wouldn’t it shows how little you know me. Course, I don’t know you either. I never thought you’d abandon me on a deserted satellite after I’d just died for you, did I? Don’t answer that. There isn’t time.”
Before he can even open his mouth to reply, Jack’s talking into his earpiece - to his team, evidently. “Going to be out of contact for a bit. Couple of hours, maybe. No, nothing you need to know about.” As he speaks, he’s walking purposefully towards the TARDIS.
Inside the TARDIS, Jack joins him at the console. “So. Donna? New companion?”
“Yeah. Donna Noble. Temp from Chiswick. Met her a while back. On her wedding day, would you believe? Not that she actually got married. Her fiancé was up to no good. Long story, tell you another time. I asked her to come with me then, but she said no. Then she changed her mind and she actually tracked me down. Spent over a year chasing every report of suspicious alien activity she got hold of, until she found me. Isn’t that brilliant?”
Jack raises an eyebrow. “And it took me almost a hundred and forty years to find you again. I gotta meet this woman, find out what she’s got that I haven’t.”
There’s just enough humour in Jack’s tone for him to decide the immortal’s joking. Good. Better that way. He focuses on dematerialising the TARDIS.
“You said your friend’s in jail,” Jack says, businesslike now. “What, guarded too heavily for you to get near her?”
“Worse than that.” He explains about the gas.
Jack winces. “Right. Good job I can’t die, huh?”
Well, Jack can die. He just can’t stay dead. Though now’s not the time to remind him of that distinction.
“Good job,” he echoes, feeling like a hypocrite as he does so. After all, he abandoned Jack, ran away from him, because he’s immortal.
“I’ll still need a protective suit,” Jack says. “The gas won’t cling to my skin or hair, but it will stick to my clothes. No point using me to get to Donna if I kill her as soon as I walk into her cell.”
“Already thought of that. You’ll find something in the wardrobe.” He starts setting the coordinates.
Jack nods. “So, why was she arrested?”
He stills in the act of setting the co-ordinates. “I don’t... I don’t know.”
“What? How can you have no idea?”
“I was more concerned with finding out where she was being taken and how to get her out of there than bothering with... with trivial little details like why they arrested her!” He punches at the console, setting their destination. “Anyway, seeing as they’re going to execute her, I hardly think the question of whether or not she did whatever it is she’s accused of really matters.”
“Maybe not,” Jack says. “Though you shouldn’t be too quick to condemn them. Imagine an identifiable alien running around loose on Earth. What do you think the authorities would do? Regardless of whether he’d broken any laws.”
Oh, he knows. Arrested, locked up and handed over to UNIT or Torchwood. Probably experimented on, too, though he’d hope Jack would do better than that. In this era, at any rate. In future centuries, as the Earth gets more accustomed to contact with other species, things are better, but Jack’s quite right about the initial reaction.
“Where were you, anyway?” Jack asks. “And when?”
He pushes the dematerialisation lever. “Shakila. Somewhere around... ooh, 3418, Standard Earth dating.”
“Oh, god.” He turns his head sharply to look at Jack. “Tell me you’re joking, Doctor.”
“I’m not joking. What’s wrong?”
The look on Jack’s face makes his hearts jolt. “She wouldn’t have needed to do anything to get arrested. She’s an off-worlder. That’s practically enough to have her shot on sight. You too, Doctor. I’m amazed you got away alive.”
***
She’s given up shouting. For a start, her voice is hoarse and her throat hurts. But, more important, she’s come to the conclusion that no-one’s listening anyway. Because there is no-one to listen.
This prison’s automated. Oh, yeah, she was taken to her cell by a guard - a guard heavily covered in protective gear, while she was placed in some kind of bubble on wheels. Since then, and her watch tells her it’s been about four hours, she’s heard or seen no indication of other life anywhere near. Even the food, if she can call food the three unappetising pellets of something unidentifiable that slide out of a previously-invisible slot in the wall every couple of hours.
No-one’s come near her to offer her a lawyer or even let her know officially what she’s been charged with. Though, hello! Table overturned, pieces of silver all over the ground, missing girls. It’s not like anyone would’ve been in any doubt. Still, a lawyer would’ve been nice, not that she needs one. Oh, she’s got plenty of things she’s going to say in her defence when they finally get around to putting her on trial.
Assuming that anyone can understand her - the announcements are still incomprehensible. But there’s one thing she knows for certain. That’s not because the Doctor’s just abandoned her.
He wouldn’t do that. He’d never just walk away and leave her here. He wouldn’t, just as she’d never leave him.
Trouble is, that just leaves one other possible explanation, doesn’t there? Knowing the Doctor, knowing his determination and that guilt complex he carries around with him, the one that’ll make him believe her being arrested is his fault and he has to save her?
A choking sob catches in her throat and, before she even realises she’s crying, hot tears roll down her face. She stumbles, falling back against the wall, and slides clumsily to the floor, one hand over her mouth as if holding back the words can make it not be true.
But it’s the only thing that makes sense. Nothing’s being translated for her any more because the Doctor’s been killed.
***
“We were all warned about it in the Time Agency. Stay well away from Shakila anywhere around the thirty-fourth to the mid-thirty-fifth centuries. Didn’t you notice anything, Doctor? Didn’t anything seem a little odd to you?”
In all the time he’s known the Doctor, this is only the third time that he’s known something the Doctor didn't. Ordinarily, this would be cause for self-congratulation. Not this time.
“Everything was shabby. Well, except for the prison. It looked like... faded glory,” the Doctor says, and he can sense the Time Lord’s impatience. “Jack, tell me. What’s wrong with that planet?”
“What else?” He knows he’s pushing it, but he wants to know if what he remembers from Agency Academy is true. “What about the people?”
“People?” The Doctor frowns, though he’s barely managing to keep his patience. “In the- There were no women. Not a single woman in sight! Is that it? Some ridiculous sort of... of curfew for women, and they decided Donna broke it?”
“I wish.” He makes a minute adjustment to a control. Strange how, even after all this time, he falls so easily back into the co-piloting routine. “Shakila used to be prosperous. Wealthy, even. Prime luxury tourist destination. No poverty, no disease, everything bad eradicated. Utopia, you could almost call it.”
“Utopia’s a myth. We found that out,” the Doctor reminds him, an edge to his voice as he types rapidly at the console. "No data found. What do you mean, ‘no data found’? No, wait, don’t answer that. I should've remembered. The databanks were damaged in the Time War. The TARDIS can't call up corrupted files. Well, she can, but they'd be a bunch of gibberish so it's better to say no data found. So no data found. Rassilon!" He pounds his fist against the console.
Jack winces in sympathy. “Explains why you didn’t know any of this. Anyway, yeah, Utopia was a myth in this case, too. Because eradicating poverty and disease meant no-one knew how to cope with it any more.” He meets the Doctor’s impatient gaze. “A group of off-worlders came and brought a virus with them. Not an especially nasty one as far as they were concerned - easily controllable with drugs until the population developed immunity. But the medical industry was practically non-existent on Shakila - who needed doctors or drugs if no-one was ever sick? - and hardly anyone had a strong immune system. The virus took root.”
“Ouch,” the Doctor says softly. “No wonder off-worlders aren’t welcome. Let me guess - no more tourism? Aliens arrested on sight?”
“And shot. Thing is, Doctor, it’s even worse than you think. Usually, the effects of a plague are offset within a few generations. Antidotes get developed, immunity spreads, the population replaces itself. Trouble is, this virus killed Shakilan women who’d passed puberty, but men are the carriers. They didn’t realise that for almost a generation. They didn’t know how it was being transmitted because they kept testing women for it. Finally, someone realised that it was men who carried the virus and it transmitted through contact, but the disease had too hard a grip. By the time you visited, about three generations of female Shakilans have died - and, of course, there are fewer men because there are hardly any women around to add to the population.”
The Doctor’s flipping switches and cranking handles with such force Jack’s surprised nothing’s breaking off. “And, naturally, people get frightened. Law and order breaks down, so tougher laws are imposed. Prisons with poison gas. Draconian sentences. Hatred of anyone who’s just a little bit different. Classic dystopia. And still they never learn.”
He nods. That’s pretty much how he heard it was. “Once they realised how it got passed through the generations, a law got passed saying all women had to be sterilised. I’m a bit fuzzy on the details, but they invited women from a genetically compatible species to come to Shakila - a bit like mail-order brides, I guess.”
“Makes sense. Just different enough that their immune system neutralised the virus. Course, it would have made more sense to stop the men reproducing. They were the carriers and it would only have taken a couple of generations to eradicate the plague as the living carriers died,” the Doctor comments dryly. “But that just tells us who makes the laws. Or who was left alive.”
“Right.”
The Doctor looks straight at him. “So why weren’t we shot on sight? Both of us?”
Good question. Why-? Wait. “You said 3418? Word started to get around - after all, they were violating a number of interplanetary treaties.”
“Oh, yes.” The Doctor looks like he’s about to name them. Jack gets in first.
“So, yeah, after a while they waited until they could at least claim off-worlders had broken the law. Not too difficult, that.”
“I don’t doubt it.” The Doctor slams a lever into position more forcefully than is needed. “We’re here.”
***
They’ve materialised outside the prison, and Jack’s about to get suited up. “Two things, Doctor. I need the sonic screwdriver.” He hands it over without question. “And I need my teleport fixed.”
“Jack, I told you, I can’t have you going around-”
“And I can’t get your friend out of jail without it. What, you want me to take her out through the poison gas?”
Jack’s right, of course. Again. He sighs, reclaiming his screwdriver for the few seconds it takes to enable the teleport on Jack’s wrist computer. Just as well the block on teleporting only applies to getting into the prison.
“I could remind you,” Jack adds, wry humour in his voice, “that this is Time Agency-issue equipment. I’m completely entitled to have it and use it.”
“And I could remind you of all the times my people had to clean up after the Time Agency’s mistakes,” he retorts, and then adds pointedly, “Donna?”
“I’m going!”
As good as his word, Jack lets himself out. As soon as he’s visible on the external monitor, the Doctor picks up the mobile phone another companion left behind. “Jack?”
“What?”
“Be careful.”
“I’ll get her out alive, Doctor.”
“I meant you.”
“Doctor, I can’t die. For me, not being careful just means I get to take a power nap.”
He really wishes that Jack wouldn’t be so casual about his deaths, even if he doesn’t have any right to say so.
“Right, I’m going inside. Later, Doctor.” The line goes silent, and all he can do is wait... and hope that Jack’s not too late.
***
tbc
Author: wmr / wendymr
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Donna Noble, Jack Harkness
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: Characters all owned by the BBC and other recognised copyright-holders; no profit has been or will be made from their use in this work of fiction
Summary: Trust Donna to find trouble if it's there to be found.
This story was originally published in The Brotherhood vol. 7, a multi-fandom fanzine featuring gen friendship fic which was first made available a year ago today. The online publication embargo is now lifted and I am able to post this fic here. Full acknowledgements will be found at the end; for now, I would like to thank penfold and @Yum for the invitation to participate, and my primary BRs for this work, dark_aegis and ponygirl72.
Emancipation
Chapter 1: Trouble-Magnet
He skids to a halt on the uneven cobblestones, scanning the area for his missing companion.
“Doctor!”
There’s no mistaking the voice that just screamed his name a second time; it’s definitely Donna. The note of fear has his hearts thumping. Donna Noble doesn’t scare easily - in fact, most of the time he’d back her against anyone attempting to cross her path. She’s got a slapping hand worse than Jackie Tyler’s and a gob even bigger than his own.
If Donna’s frightened, he needs to be worried.
“Donna? Donna!”
The square he’s just reached, at one time perhaps the city’s proudest landmark but now sadly dilapidated, suffused with the odour of decay, is thronged with people, all several inches taller than him - well, the average height of a Shakilan is around seven feet - making it impossible for him to see where the call came from. It wasn’t close by, but not too far away either.
“Doct- Oi! Take your hands off me!”
There’s no fear now, just anger. That’s some relief, at any rate. Now he knows where she is - over there, in the corner of the square where the crowd’s most tightly packed. It would be, wouldn’t it? Trust Donna to find trouble if it’s there to be found. Though, to be fair, it’s not anything any of his past companions haven’t done.
All he asked was that she amuse herself for five minutes. Five minutes, while he talked to a trader to see whether he had any six-millimetre conductor cables. All right, by the time he’d finished doing business it’d been closer to fifteen minutes, but surely it’s not unreasonable to expect one human woman to stay out of trouble for fifteen minutes?
“Sorry... ‘scuse me... sorry.” He tries to make his way through the crowd towards where he’s pretty sure Donna has to be - not easy when they’re that much taller than he is and a careless elbow could send him sprawling to get trampled underfoot. “Sorry... just trying... yeah, thanks... ‘scuse me...”
“I said, take your mucky paws off me!”
She’s barely feet away now, and he stretches upwards, standing on tip-toe to try to see over the shoulder of the Shakilan in front of him. Yes. A flash of long coppery hair flying in the wind: definitely Donna.
The question is how much trouble has she got herself into? And how easy is it going to be to run?
There’s a sound ominously like the crack of a whip, and he flinches.
“The female will remain silent!”
With glares and venomous looks in his direction, the people standing close to him edge away, giving him an unobstructed view of Donna and her surroundings. She’s standing, defiant, while a male Shakilan towers over her, gripping her arm. Behind her, there’s a market stall with one table overturned, and all around credits and papers lie scattered on the ground.
There’s no time to take anything else in; a Shakilan dressed in what’s beyond doubt an official uniform is striding forward, closely followed by two others, clearly minions judging by the absence of braiding and other flourishes on their uniforms, not to mention the brutal-looking whips in their hands.
This planet’s police, no doubt. And Donna’s about to get arrested.
Normally, that wouldn’t trouble him overmuch; it certainly wouldn’t be the first time he’s broken a companion out of jail. But those whips have him more worried than he likes, as do the ugly looks on the faces of most of the onlookers - all men, and all making a very intimidating audience, towering over her as they do. Donna’s managed to make herself some enemies.
Time for diplomacy. He hurries forward, summoning his most charming, humble expression. “Sorry, sorry! I do apologise for my friend. She’s from Earth - human, you understand,” he explains as if it’s an excuse. “Naturally, she doesn’t understand your cust- Ow!”
“Don’t you dare apologise for me,” Donna snaps, as he tries to recover from the painful kick she’s just given his shin. “Just don’t you dare, Doctor!”
He’s seized with the desire to shake her. It’s a ruse. Can’t she see that? Just a little lie, a bit of polite diplomacy intended to make them let her go. All she needs to do is smile apologetically and let him handle it. But, no, of course Donna Noble can’t go along with that. Why did he ever expect she would?
“The female was ordered to remain silent,” the senior Shakilan police officer pronounces, and gives one imperious wave of his hand.
The Shakilan holding Donna steps back. The other two policemen grab her and pull her away from him before he has time to blink, and a shimmering circle of blue forms around her. Before he can begin to protest, they’ve all vanished.
***
He practically pins the Shakilan standing next to him - one of the few who didn’t move away as if he was contagious - to the spot and barrages him with questions. The reluctant answers do nothing at all to reassure him.
“They teleported her to the prison. She’ll be held there pending trial and execution.”
“What about trial and acquittal?” he suggests, craning his neck to look up at his neighbour while a sizeable lump of lead takes up residence in the pit of his stomach. Shakila... Shakila. There’s a reason that name sounds familiar, isn’t there? If only his brain wasn’t cluttered with so much useless information... “Or trial and a short prison sentence?”
“No.” The man shrugs, as if it’s immaterial. “No-one’s ever acquitted. They wouldn’t be arrested if they weren’t guilty. Off-worlders who break our laws don’t get sentenced to prison, anyway. Jails are too full as it is. No-one wants to pay for them to have free room and board at the taxpayer’s expense.”
What? What? Executed just for the crime of being alien? If the whole universe behaved like that, he’d never even have made it to his two-hundredth birthday. No species would ever have set that first foot out into space and explored, and how much the universe would have lost as a result... but that’s not what matters here and now. If Donna were here with him, she’d see that he does interfere at times, when he thinks it’s right. Like now. Once he’s got her back, she’ll see what the wrath of a Time Lord is like.
In the name of expediency, he smothers the response he’d like to make; this citizen doesn’t make the laws, even if he obviously approves of them - and, besides, he needs this man’s help. “Who do I have to speak to about getting her a lawyer? Paying a fine? A bribe?” he adds with little hope after the Shakilan’s shaken his head at his other suggestions.
“Lawyers are corrupt and were abolished on Shakila many years ago. Bribes will get you executed, off-worlder. As it is, you should consider yourself lucky the Protectors did not arrest you also when your friend was taken.”
Lawyers corrupt? No more corrupt than the rest of the system here, by the look of it. His hands curl into fists. He should never have listened to Donna when she demanded to go somewhere neither of them had been before, so they could be tourists together. Exploring’s all very well, and he loves the thrill of going somewhere new, but he shouldn’t have taken her somewhere he didn’t know the risks.
“Forget her.” The Shakilan shakes his head. “She is as good as dead. If you want to stay alive, you should leave this planet immediately.”
Instinct borne of anger makes him reach up and grasp the native’s upper arms, shaking him. ”I can’t! Don’t you understand? She’s my friend! I brought her here. I have to rescue her.”
The Shakilan breaks free of his grasp, his expression threatening, and for a moment the Doctor imagines he’s going to be joining Donna in prison, until the man shakes his head, sneering in contempt. “On your head be it, off-worlder. If you’re willing to risk your own neck, that’s your problem.”
“I have to try!” And standing around here is doing no good at all. There’s only one more thing he needs to know. “Where is the prison?”
He gets vague directions, but they’re better than nothing. The instant the man finishes speaking, he’s off at a run, coat flapping at his heels.
***
There are worlds, across the wide expanse of the universe, where the words Time Lord commands instant obedience. Where the name Doctor generates respect, even fear, and a willingness to do anything he asks.
Shakila is not one of those planets. He finds this out within about thirty seconds of arriving at the jail. So far, the only building he’s seen on this planet not in need of major reconstruction.
“She’s from Earth,” he repeats for the fourth time. “Twenty-first century. This is only the second alien planet she’s ever visited. Course she can’t be expected to know all your laws and customs. If she did something wrong, I’m sure it was a mistake.”
The sole employee in sight, an information clerk - who wears no name-badge and is pointedly not providing any information - continues looking impassively at the papers on his desk, without saying a word.
“Look, all I want to know is if I can pay a fine or something to get her out of here. I promise, we’ll leave the planet immediately and never come back. I swear! Just let her go!”
The clerk moves some papers around and then, for the first time, meets the Doctor’s gaze. “The prisoner will be tried at sundown. At that time, should there be any evidence in mitigation, the arresting officer of the Protectorate will be called upon to supply it prior to sentencing. Civilians, including off-worlders, may attend the trial, but may only speak if given permission by the judge. In the meantime, if you continue to trespass on government premises you will join your associate in prison.”
He thanks the clerk, doing his best to refrain from sarcasm, and leaves.
Outside, he breathes deeply, trying to calm himself. Nerve gas. Or, more precisely, a cocktail of nerve gases designed to affect, say, four or five of the commonest types of oxygen-breather biologies. They pump it into the corridors. On the wall behind the clerk there was a staff information notice about it, stating that no-one should enter the corridors without the appropriate protective clothing.
It’s no wonder this prison doesn’t need guards. Why pay people to keep prisoners secure when a nasty little compound whose sole purpose is to murder can do the job at a fraction of the cost, and without even having to offer holidays and sick leave? And what kind of people - what kind of system - just accept this without protest? What’s wrong with this planet?
So, no chance of breaking into the prison to rescue Donna. Nerve gases can be absorbed through the skin. He - in fact, all his remaining regenerations - would be dead long before he found Donna. Even with a biohazard suit and full oxygen supply, rescuing her would be difficult: it’s not as if he can carry a spare suit into the prison to get Donna out and remain undetected.
Waiting for her trial’s not an option. It’s clear that it’s going to be little more than a farce, and the likelihood of him being able to break her out of custody seems slim.
There is another option. First checking the area for security cameras or onlookers, he scans the building quickly with the sonic screwdriver. He almost curses at the pitch of the screwdriver’s beep.
Sensors. Designed to detect any object trying to teleport or transmat into the prison. The guards would be on full alert and have her cell flooded with poison before he’d even got the TARDIS materialised.
So much for his idea of taking the TARDIS directly to Donna using her biosignature, materialising around her and dematerialising again. Not that it would have been easy, in any case. The last time he did that, he had help. That kind of precision flying’s very difficult to do solo, even for a genius like him.
There’s only one thing for it - only one way he’s going to get Donna safely out of prison and off the planet alive and in one piece.
With a resigned sigh, he sets off at a run back to the TARDIS and his only option: an emergency trip to Cardiff to find out if Jack Harkness has forgiven him enough to answer a plea for help.
***
“Oi! You lot! I have rights, you know! Heard of the Geneva Convention? The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights?”
Though, course, alien planet. Alien. Human rights don’t count for much here, do they?
If there’s an equivalent to the UN for alien planets, she’s going to report this lot as soon as the Doctor gets her out of here. The food’s bad enough - definitely cruel and unusual punishment - but the constant drone of the PA system’s far worse. Every ten minutes or so there’s something. Nothing useful, of course, or even interesting. Just reminders that prisoners must stay in their cells - as if they can just walk out if they feel like it! That they must respect prison property. That reprisals will follow should any prisoner break the advertised rules. Yeah, yeah. She’s only been here an hour at most and already she could repeat the announcements word for word.
She’s in jail. Her, Donna Noble, in jail! She’s never even had so much as a speeding ticket before. Good thing her mum’s never going to find out about this - she’d never hear the end of it.
Not that she regrets it. No way. If she’d done the easy thing and just walked on by, ignoring what she saw, what would that make her? Not Donna Noble, citizen of the universe. Not Donna Noble, Time Lord’s companion and saviour of the Ood. So that’s that. And the Doctor’ll get her out of here, anyway, so it’ll be-
The PA’s on again. And her breath’s trapped in her throat, because what’s coming out of it doesn’t sound like words at all. Not English words, anyway.
They’re not being translated for her. The Doctor’s ship isn’t in her head any more.
And the only reason that can be so is that the TARDIS isn’t on this planet any more. The Doctor’s left her. He’s gone and bloody left her here.
***
Jack Harkness freezes, coffee-cup halfway to his lips. There’s only one thing that makes that sound, like the asthmatic wheezing of an old generator. The Doctor’s TARDIS.
The Doctor’s back.
He has to smother the instinctive urge to rush outside. No running after the Doctor. Not any more. Besides, if the only reason he’s here is to refuel his ship from the Rift, he’ll be gone before Jack could get halfway across the Plas Roald Dahl.
Part of him would like to ignore the Doctor’s arrival altogether, but he still finds himself flipping his computer monitor to show the Plas security cam. Just to confirm his guess as to why the Time Lord is here, he tells himself.
The TARDIS door opens, and the Doctor - same man, same brown suit; so he hasn’t regenerated again yet - emerges, looking around him and blinking in the mid-afternoon sun. Passers-by seem to ignore him entirely, and not one of them even notices the blue police box that’s appeared out of nowhere. They never do, of course - just one of the TARDIS’s little tricks. Though, anyway, if someone were to tell the tourists outside the Millennium Centre that they’d just walked past an alien and his spaceship, they wouldn’t believe a word of it. Humans in this period have an amazing capacity for self-delusion, incredible after Slitheen and Sycorax and even Cybermen and Dalek invasions.
Jack taps his earpiece. “I’m going up above. No assistance needed.” Better see what the Doctor’s doing here, after all. He can’t help musing on Torchwood’s former motto as he heads to the lift. If it’s alien, it’s ours. Yeah. The Doctor’d love that.
Whatever the Doctor’s doing here, Jack’s confident of one thing: he’s unlikely to be looking up a former companion. He knows many things about the last Time Lord, and two of those are that he never goes back, and he hates to have to admit he made a mistake.
He steps out onto the Plas. “Doctor.”
The Time Lord swivels to face him. “Jack.” Well, it’s more friendly than Captain, anyway.
“Wouldn’t have expected to see you here. Well, other than a thirty-second refuelling stop.”
“I came to see you.”
He stifles the snort of disbelief that’s his instinctive response. There’s something about the way the Doctor’s looking at him... “What’s happened?”
The Doctor’s gaze meets his, his stance awkward and uncomfortable. “I need a man who can’t die.”
***
Jack smiles, only it’s not really a smile. “Funny how you hate what I am until you need it.”
“Oh, don’t start!” No doubt Jack’s entitled to be a tad bitter, but there’s a time and a place.
“Doctor. Tell me what you need.”
There’s no room for pride when Donna’s life is at stake. “My... my friend. Donna. She’s been arrested. I have to get her out of prison.”
Jack nods. “So you found someone else, then. She blonde?”
For a second, he stares at Jack in non-comprehension, until a fragment of conversation comes back to him.
“Is that what happens, though? Seriously? Do you just get bored with us one day and disappear?”
“Not if you’re blonde.”
Fury rises inside him. “That’s petty, even for you, Jack. You won’t help because your feelings were hurt?”
“Oh, for-” Jack shakes his head. “Don’t be any more of an idiot than you can help. Of course I’m gonna help, and if you ever thought I wouldn’t it shows how little you know me. Course, I don’t know you either. I never thought you’d abandon me on a deserted satellite after I’d just died for you, did I? Don’t answer that. There isn’t time.”
Before he can even open his mouth to reply, Jack’s talking into his earpiece - to his team, evidently. “Going to be out of contact for a bit. Couple of hours, maybe. No, nothing you need to know about.” As he speaks, he’s walking purposefully towards the TARDIS.
Inside the TARDIS, Jack joins him at the console. “So. Donna? New companion?”
“Yeah. Donna Noble. Temp from Chiswick. Met her a while back. On her wedding day, would you believe? Not that she actually got married. Her fiancé was up to no good. Long story, tell you another time. I asked her to come with me then, but she said no. Then she changed her mind and she actually tracked me down. Spent over a year chasing every report of suspicious alien activity she got hold of, until she found me. Isn’t that brilliant?”
Jack raises an eyebrow. “And it took me almost a hundred and forty years to find you again. I gotta meet this woman, find out what she’s got that I haven’t.”
There’s just enough humour in Jack’s tone for him to decide the immortal’s joking. Good. Better that way. He focuses on dematerialising the TARDIS.
“You said your friend’s in jail,” Jack says, businesslike now. “What, guarded too heavily for you to get near her?”
“Worse than that.” He explains about the gas.
Jack winces. “Right. Good job I can’t die, huh?”
Well, Jack can die. He just can’t stay dead. Though now’s not the time to remind him of that distinction.
“Good job,” he echoes, feeling like a hypocrite as he does so. After all, he abandoned Jack, ran away from him, because he’s immortal.
“I’ll still need a protective suit,” Jack says. “The gas won’t cling to my skin or hair, but it will stick to my clothes. No point using me to get to Donna if I kill her as soon as I walk into her cell.”
“Already thought of that. You’ll find something in the wardrobe.” He starts setting the coordinates.
Jack nods. “So, why was she arrested?”
He stills in the act of setting the co-ordinates. “I don’t... I don’t know.”
“What? How can you have no idea?”
“I was more concerned with finding out where she was being taken and how to get her out of there than bothering with... with trivial little details like why they arrested her!” He punches at the console, setting their destination. “Anyway, seeing as they’re going to execute her, I hardly think the question of whether or not she did whatever it is she’s accused of really matters.”
“Maybe not,” Jack says. “Though you shouldn’t be too quick to condemn them. Imagine an identifiable alien running around loose on Earth. What do you think the authorities would do? Regardless of whether he’d broken any laws.”
Oh, he knows. Arrested, locked up and handed over to UNIT or Torchwood. Probably experimented on, too, though he’d hope Jack would do better than that. In this era, at any rate. In future centuries, as the Earth gets more accustomed to contact with other species, things are better, but Jack’s quite right about the initial reaction.
“Where were you, anyway?” Jack asks. “And when?”
He pushes the dematerialisation lever. “Shakila. Somewhere around... ooh, 3418, Standard Earth dating.”
“Oh, god.” He turns his head sharply to look at Jack. “Tell me you’re joking, Doctor.”
“I’m not joking. What’s wrong?”
The look on Jack’s face makes his hearts jolt. “She wouldn’t have needed to do anything to get arrested. She’s an off-worlder. That’s practically enough to have her shot on sight. You too, Doctor. I’m amazed you got away alive.”
***
She’s given up shouting. For a start, her voice is hoarse and her throat hurts. But, more important, she’s come to the conclusion that no-one’s listening anyway. Because there is no-one to listen.
This prison’s automated. Oh, yeah, she was taken to her cell by a guard - a guard heavily covered in protective gear, while she was placed in some kind of bubble on wheels. Since then, and her watch tells her it’s been about four hours, she’s heard or seen no indication of other life anywhere near. Even the food, if she can call food the three unappetising pellets of something unidentifiable that slide out of a previously-invisible slot in the wall every couple of hours.
No-one’s come near her to offer her a lawyer or even let her know officially what she’s been charged with. Though, hello! Table overturned, pieces of silver all over the ground, missing girls. It’s not like anyone would’ve been in any doubt. Still, a lawyer would’ve been nice, not that she needs one. Oh, she’s got plenty of things she’s going to say in her defence when they finally get around to putting her on trial.
Assuming that anyone can understand her - the announcements are still incomprehensible. But there’s one thing she knows for certain. That’s not because the Doctor’s just abandoned her.
He wouldn’t do that. He’d never just walk away and leave her here. He wouldn’t, just as she’d never leave him.
Trouble is, that just leaves one other possible explanation, doesn’t there? Knowing the Doctor, knowing his determination and that guilt complex he carries around with him, the one that’ll make him believe her being arrested is his fault and he has to save her?
A choking sob catches in her throat and, before she even realises she’s crying, hot tears roll down her face. She stumbles, falling back against the wall, and slides clumsily to the floor, one hand over her mouth as if holding back the words can make it not be true.
But it’s the only thing that makes sense. Nothing’s being translated for her any more because the Doctor’s been killed.
***
“We were all warned about it in the Time Agency. Stay well away from Shakila anywhere around the thirty-fourth to the mid-thirty-fifth centuries. Didn’t you notice anything, Doctor? Didn’t anything seem a little odd to you?”
In all the time he’s known the Doctor, this is only the third time that he’s known something the Doctor didn't. Ordinarily, this would be cause for self-congratulation. Not this time.
“Everything was shabby. Well, except for the prison. It looked like... faded glory,” the Doctor says, and he can sense the Time Lord’s impatience. “Jack, tell me. What’s wrong with that planet?”
“What else?” He knows he’s pushing it, but he wants to know if what he remembers from Agency Academy is true. “What about the people?”
“People?” The Doctor frowns, though he’s barely managing to keep his patience. “In the- There were no women. Not a single woman in sight! Is that it? Some ridiculous sort of... of curfew for women, and they decided Donna broke it?”
“I wish.” He makes a minute adjustment to a control. Strange how, even after all this time, he falls so easily back into the co-piloting routine. “Shakila used to be prosperous. Wealthy, even. Prime luxury tourist destination. No poverty, no disease, everything bad eradicated. Utopia, you could almost call it.”
“Utopia’s a myth. We found that out,” the Doctor reminds him, an edge to his voice as he types rapidly at the console. "No data found. What do you mean, ‘no data found’? No, wait, don’t answer that. I should've remembered. The databanks were damaged in the Time War. The TARDIS can't call up corrupted files. Well, she can, but they'd be a bunch of gibberish so it's better to say no data found. So no data found. Rassilon!" He pounds his fist against the console.
Jack winces in sympathy. “Explains why you didn’t know any of this. Anyway, yeah, Utopia was a myth in this case, too. Because eradicating poverty and disease meant no-one knew how to cope with it any more.” He meets the Doctor’s impatient gaze. “A group of off-worlders came and brought a virus with them. Not an especially nasty one as far as they were concerned - easily controllable with drugs until the population developed immunity. But the medical industry was practically non-existent on Shakila - who needed doctors or drugs if no-one was ever sick? - and hardly anyone had a strong immune system. The virus took root.”
“Ouch,” the Doctor says softly. “No wonder off-worlders aren’t welcome. Let me guess - no more tourism? Aliens arrested on sight?”
“And shot. Thing is, Doctor, it’s even worse than you think. Usually, the effects of a plague are offset within a few generations. Antidotes get developed, immunity spreads, the population replaces itself. Trouble is, this virus killed Shakilan women who’d passed puberty, but men are the carriers. They didn’t realise that for almost a generation. They didn’t know how it was being transmitted because they kept testing women for it. Finally, someone realised that it was men who carried the virus and it transmitted through contact, but the disease had too hard a grip. By the time you visited, about three generations of female Shakilans have died - and, of course, there are fewer men because there are hardly any women around to add to the population.”
The Doctor’s flipping switches and cranking handles with such force Jack’s surprised nothing’s breaking off. “And, naturally, people get frightened. Law and order breaks down, so tougher laws are imposed. Prisons with poison gas. Draconian sentences. Hatred of anyone who’s just a little bit different. Classic dystopia. And still they never learn.”
He nods. That’s pretty much how he heard it was. “Once they realised how it got passed through the generations, a law got passed saying all women had to be sterilised. I’m a bit fuzzy on the details, but they invited women from a genetically compatible species to come to Shakila - a bit like mail-order brides, I guess.”
“Makes sense. Just different enough that their immune system neutralised the virus. Course, it would have made more sense to stop the men reproducing. They were the carriers and it would only have taken a couple of generations to eradicate the plague as the living carriers died,” the Doctor comments dryly. “But that just tells us who makes the laws. Or who was left alive.”
“Right.”
The Doctor looks straight at him. “So why weren’t we shot on sight? Both of us?”
Good question. Why-? Wait. “You said 3418? Word started to get around - after all, they were violating a number of interplanetary treaties.”
“Oh, yes.” The Doctor looks like he’s about to name them. Jack gets in first.
“So, yeah, after a while they waited until they could at least claim off-worlders had broken the law. Not too difficult, that.”
“I don’t doubt it.” The Doctor slams a lever into position more forcefully than is needed. “We’re here.”
***
They’ve materialised outside the prison, and Jack’s about to get suited up. “Two things, Doctor. I need the sonic screwdriver.” He hands it over without question. “And I need my teleport fixed.”
“Jack, I told you, I can’t have you going around-”
“And I can’t get your friend out of jail without it. What, you want me to take her out through the poison gas?”
Jack’s right, of course. Again. He sighs, reclaiming his screwdriver for the few seconds it takes to enable the teleport on Jack’s wrist computer. Just as well the block on teleporting only applies to getting into the prison.
“I could remind you,” Jack adds, wry humour in his voice, “that this is Time Agency-issue equipment. I’m completely entitled to have it and use it.”
“And I could remind you of all the times my people had to clean up after the Time Agency’s mistakes,” he retorts, and then adds pointedly, “Donna?”
“I’m going!”
As good as his word, Jack lets himself out. As soon as he’s visible on the external monitor, the Doctor picks up the mobile phone another companion left behind. “Jack?”
“What?”
“Be careful.”
“I’ll get her out alive, Doctor.”
“I meant you.”
“Doctor, I can’t die. For me, not being careful just means I get to take a power nap.”
He really wishes that Jack wouldn’t be so casual about his deaths, even if he doesn’t have any right to say so.
“Right, I’m going inside. Later, Doctor.” The line goes silent, and all he can do is wait... and hope that Jack’s not too late.
***
tbc