Fic: The Cold Heaven 2/8?
Story: The Cold Heaven
Author: wmr wendymr
Characters: Jack Harkness, Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor (Duplicate), other canon and original characters
Rated: PG13
Disclaimer: I think you all know by now that I don't own them!
Spoilers: DW: up to Journey's End; TW: up to Children of Earth. Warning: do not read if you haven't seen CoE
Summary: "They say black holes are like gateways to another universe" - Rose Tyler, The Impossible Planet
With very many thanks to
dark_aegis and yamx for beta-reading and allowing me to bend their ears on and on about this fic!
Chapter 1: Gateway
Chapter 2: Impossible and Immovable
Of course it’s his Jack. Their Jack. He’s known it, really, though he didn’t want to admit it, since Pete told him a man had come out of a black hole and survived. Yes, that is impossible - unless you’re Jack Harkness, immortal man, a Fact that cannot be unwritten.
Though what he was doing to get sucked into a black hole in the first place... now, that’s the question, isn’t it? Has to have been an accident, because why anyone would deliberately get that close to one of those passes understanding. Though, of course, the team on the Sanctuary Base did, didn’t they? All in the interests of research and advancing knowledge, which is good, of course it is. That’s what keeps him going - well, kept him going all those centuries until now: discovery. New knowledge. Seeing new things and places. Finding answers to the universe’s unanswered questions.
But Jack? It doesn’t really fit. He’s seemed content to stay on Earth, living a linear life with Torchwood, living with, and loving, the revolving-door of team members who don’t stay alive long enough to reach middle age. Oh, Jack misses the travelling, but not enough. After all, he said no when he was offered the opportunity to travel again.
So what Jack Harkness was doing out there... Well, of course, the bloke’s immortal. Who knows when it happened for him?
He stills, and his fingers grip the arm-rests so tightly he must be close to making indentations. The end of the universe. Of course. Jack was there with him on Malcassiro. They even joked about Jack, a much older Jack, being outside somewhere.
What if he was? What if the universe ended, sucked into the final black hole, and Jack with it? What if even entropy wasn’t enough to kill him?
And he, the other him, his counterpart, long dead, unable to do anything to help Jack - or unwilling to try before it was too late.
What sort of man will they find at the end of this journey?
“Jack can’t die, yes.” Rose needs to know that much, at least, even if the rest... well. “There was an... accident, and it left him like that. Well, I say he can’t die, but of course he can. He just doesn’t stay dead. Doesn’t age, either, or just very slowly. By the time I caught up with him again, around a year in Earth time after losing you, it’d been almost a hundred and forty years for him. He’d had some work done, but then he always was a bit vain, wasn’t he? But apart from that he hadn’t changed a bit.”
“Sort of like you, then.” Rose gives him a sidelong glance. “I mean, you told me you don’t age. You just live on and regenerate.”
“Oh, Jack’s nothing like me,” he counters immediately. “I - well, the Time Lord me, anyway - don’t have unlimited lives. And the universe reacts to him in a way it never did to Time Lords. Jack’s... He’s a fixed point. Time bends around him; it doesn’t flow through him like it does to you, and now to me. There doesn’t seem to be anything that can stop Jack from constantly reviving and living on. I’ve seen him be shot, irradiated, knifed, electrocuted and killed by a Dalek, and he’s come back every time. He even survived clinging to the outside of the TARDIS through the Time Vortex. Very him, that.” He stares down at the book in his lap, a recently-published monograph from a Nobel prize-winner specialising in quantum physics; he’s already found twenty-seven fundamental flaws in it. “Jack is... unique. And now he’s added another first to his list.”
Rose’s hand covers his. “It’s not your fault, Doctor.”
Oh, it is. There’s so much he could have done better. But there’s more she needs to be prepared for. “He’s different, Rose. He won’t be the Jack you know.”
She frowns. “But I saw him. We saw him, back in the other universe.” Her face creases into a frown. “Still wish I’d had more time to talk to him. I thought... well, didn’t know I’d be coming back to this universe. Just assumed I’d get to see him again.”
There’s no bitterness in her voice, not now. Oh, for a couple of months after they were left on that beach she was brittle, at times focused on doing her best to make things work - including treating him like something she really did have to take care of - and other times furiously angry at his counterpart for making decisions for her yet again. By the time she came around to realising that the other Doctor had also made that decision for him she was back to the Rose he knew, only a more mature version - and she was the one, not him, who initiated the where do we go from here? conversation.
Where they went was, of course, her flat - in the beginning, he’d lived in a granny flat, as Jackie’d called it, at the Tyler town house. It was important, he’d felt, to give Rose time and space to work out what she wanted, including whether she really wanted to be saddled with a copy of the man she’d fought so hard to get back to, and without the TARDIS. Ironic, then, that when they finally did have that talk he discovered that what she’d been most worried about was whether he really wanted to be saddled with her.
“I’m sorry you didn’t,” he says softly. “If I’d known what he planned...” His mouth turns down at the corners. “Well. Anyway. The thing is that even the Jack we saw then was around a hundred and seventy-five years old. Looking good on it, absolutely, but he’s not the same Jack, like I said. And we have no idea how long it’s been for him since then.”
Her fingers curl around his hand. “Well, we’re here for him now, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Though he can’t help wondering whether it’s too late for that to make any difference at all.
***
“They have him tied up.” Her voice is tight as she voices again what’s been eating away at her since she saw the photo on the Doctor’s computer screen. “Tied to a table, and with needles sticking into him.” She swallows. “Don’t tell me that’s medical treatment.”
“It’s not.” The Doctor’s voice is harsh. “They’re experimenting. Analysing him. After all-” He turns to look at her, and there’s fire and ice in his eyes. “-how many people survive what they’ve seen him go through?”
“Yeah.” They can’t kill Jack - well, they can, but he’ll come back to life - but they can hurt him. “An’ that’s why they want you, right? To help them with their analysis.” She spits the word out.
“That’s why they want me, yes.” His fingers curl into a fist on his lap. If she wasn’t concentrating on driving, in an unfamiliar city and on the wrong side of the road, she’d hold his hand again.
“But you’re not gonna, right?” It’s not really a question.
“Of course not.” Abruptly, he turns to look at her, and he gives her a smile that suddenly reminds her of her first Doctor. “We’re gonna rescue him.”
“And take him home with us?”
He hesitates, and she wonders for a moment if he thinks that Jack might not want to come - and if so, why not? Just what’s happened between those two? “He doesn’t belong in this universe, Rose,” he says eventually. “For all we know, there might even be another version of him out there, in the fifty-first century. Wouldn’t matter if this Jack was mortal, but he’s not. I need to find a way to send him back.”
He’s right, of course he is, but... Sometimes it just feels like she’s always having to say goodbye to people she loves. She’s only just got used to Mickey not being around, after missing him every single day for over a year after she and the Doctor ended up here together. And when she and Jack met again back in the other universe, she didn’t even get to talk to him before the Doctor - the original Doctor - left her in this universe. Being here’s fine, of course it is. Better than fine, now. It would just have been nice to have a bit of warning first.
So she’s going to lose Jack again. But at least this time she’ll get to say goodbye properly, and say everything she would have said that day on the TARDIS if she’d known it was going to be the only chance she’d get to talk to him.
Three levels of security at the World Space Exploration Consortium entrance later, they’re directed to the lab wing. She can’t help another moment of nostalgia for the psychic paper as their Torchwood identification is scrutinised and scanned and they’re subjected to retinal imaging at the lab entrance. At least this time the Doctor refrains from giving the security staff his lecture about how retinal scanning technology can be fooled far more easily than people think.
They’re greeted inside the lab by a Professor Geraldine Carlton, a woman somewhere in her forties and wearing thick glasses. “I’m so pleased to meet you, Dr Smith! I’ve heard so much about the work you’ve been doing on velocity and mass in space travel, and it’s just incredibly fascinating.” She’s still holding onto his hand, ignoring Rose as she continues, almost gushing. “I know we’ve made you several offers, but you’ve turned down every one. What’s it gonna take to lure you over here? You know you’d have your own lab and research team, and you can name your price.”
Rose’s spine stiffens. Offers? He never said a word.
“Sorry,” the Doctor’s saying, and his free arm slides around her shoulders. “Torchwood has first claim on my loyalty, and I don’t think any inducement could change that.” He glances at Rose, giving her a swift smile. “Professor Carlton, this is Rose Tyler, Pete Tyler’s daughter - and my partner.”
Warmth floods her. Although they’ve been living together as lovers for almost two years, it’s the first time he’s actually put their relationship into words.
Professor Carlton’s obviously taken aback, but after a moment she says, “I’m sure some arrangement could be made for Ms Tyler...”
“And I don’t at all think that Pete Tyler would be happy to lose one of his best field agents,” the Doctor counters. “Sorry. It’s flattering, obviously, but our answer’s no. Now, if we could see the man your people brought in...?”
Clearly struggling to hide her chagrin, the professor nods. “We have some preliminary test results on the subject, but I’m afraid they’re inconclusive.”
The subject. She bites her lip, holding back the angry retort she wants to make. His name’s Jack. They can’t let anyone here know that they know him.
The Doctor just nods. “What have you found out?”
“Blood and tissue analysis indicate that the species is approximately eighty per cent human. We’re still working on a full DNA analysis. Physiology appears human; we have X-rays and we’re scheduling MRI and CT scans. The subject can speak English, and does a pretty good job of mimicking an Ameri-Canadian accent, though the vocabulary’s a bit suspect. More like British English. Though he’s able to curse up a storm.”
They’ve been taking samples from Jack? Tissue samples? If they’ve hurt him...
“Fascinating,” the Doctor murmurs. “Of course, we’ll need to see him and question him for ourselves.”
“You don’t want to see the lab results first?”
“Oh, I prefer the empirical approach, Professor. Observation, questioning, testing, analysis. I’m sure your tests have been very thorough, and I’ll want to examine them later, but first...” He waves a hand in vague impatience.
“Yes, of course.” Again looking as if she’s lost control of the situation and knows it, Professor Carlton starts walking briskly along the hallway. “We’ll just need to get you a HazMat suit”-
The Doctor cuts across her. “We don’t need protective suits.” His tone is implacable.
“But the risk of contamination-”
“Is minimal.” He halts and turns to the professor, staring her down; it’s an expression Rose has seen him use many times, and it always works. “I won’t even go into that room unless you let me do it my way.”
If it’s this hard just getting in to see Jack, then breaking him out of here’s going to be close to impossible. But - she smiles inwardly - that’s just a challenge. If she and the Doctor can’t manage it between them, and they’re damn well going to try, then they’ll just get Pete to help.
A few seconds later, the door into the containment room’s being unlocked. “We’ll be monitoring you while you’re in there,” the professor says. “The subject’s restrained, so you’ll be safe, but we have to take every possible precaution.”
“Images, yes, but not sound.” The Doctor’s staring again. “In this kind of situation, Rose and I work best if we can gain the subject’s trust. Far better if we can honestly say that our conversation’s private.”
The professor looks as if she wants to argue, but then she huffs out a breath. “If that’s your wish.”
“It is.” The Doctor simply waits.
With another huff, the professor marches over to a younger woman sitting at a nearby desk. “Disable the sound link to the containment room.”
“Thank you,” the Doctor says, then pushes the door open. “Rose?” He gestures for her to precede him.
It’s really Jack. Of course, she’d already seen the photograph, but this, actually seeing him in reality... awareness slams into her gut, and she aches for him. Those restraints have to hurt. Plus, he’s stretched out completely naked on a hard, flat table, available for anyone to gawp at him. And they’re running tests on him, like he’s some sort of lab rat. There’s an open wound on his forearm - the tissue sample! - that no-one’s even bothered to stick a plaster over.
He hasn’t even turned to look at them, which tells her more than she needs to know about how he’s been treated here. If it wasn’t so important to keep these people on their side, at least for now, she’d march back out there and give that Professor Carlton a piece of her mind.
The Doctor closes the door with a snick. “Sound’s definitely off,” he murmurs, and she knows without him even needing to explain that he’s used his newest little gizmo - he’s still trying to build a sonic screwdriver, and getting closer every time - to test the comms system. “Jack,” he says then, his voice pitched louder.
The reaction’s immediate. Jack almost leaps off the bed, but he’s pulled back down by the restraints. The bright blue eyes she remembers are abruptly focused first on the Doctor and then on her.
And then Jack’s stunned expression changes to a look of absolute venom.
“Get her out of here. I never want to see that face again as long as I live.”
***
She looks as if he’s slapped her. Eyes wide, shock and hurt all over her face.
Once upon a time, he’d have cared. But he’s died too many times, and lost too many people, since then, and none of that would have happened if she’d only left well enough alone - left him dead, the way he should have been.
Rose and the Doctor, here. He should probably have expected the Doctor to turn up sooner or later. He usually does, even if it’s not when he’s actually needed. But Rose? Just when the hell is he? Rose is gone. She’s sealed off behind the walls, in that other universe, permanently. So what the hell is she doing here?
Unless... unless he’s crossed his own timeline and this is before Canary Wharf. In which case, Ianto is-
No. He’s done enough damage as it is without adding the effect of paradoxes and Reapers to the body-count.
Rose is moving towards him, hand out, intending to touch him. But the Doctor steps forward with a sharp, quietly-spoken “No,” and she halts abruptly.
“The microphone’s switched off, but they’re still watching us,” the Doctor adds. “Rose, stay where you are.” He comes closer to the table himself, expression all concern and curiosity. “We’re gonna get you out of here. But not yet. I’m supposed to be examining you at the moment, so... well, I’m going to do that, a bit anyway, and then we’ll have to go. For now, anyway. So, sorry. I’m so sorry, but I can’t let you out of these chains. Can’t cover you, either, though I suppose you don’t care very much about that.”
The Doctor’s fingers brush lightly against his cheek. The gentle gesture tugs at his gut, and suddenly there’s a lump in his throat.
He turns his head, looking away. If the Doctor knew what he’d done, there’s no way he’d be touching him like this, or offering to free him.
“Jack.” Rose’s voice is soft, full of concern he doesn’t deserve, along with confusion. “I dunno what’s wrong, and if I’ve done something to hurt you I’m sorry, but right now figuring out how we’re gonna get you out of here is what’s most important, yeah? These people... they’re experimenting on you.” Her voice sounds closer now; she has to be right up next to him. “They think you’re alien, or part-alien. Surviving a black hole an’ waking up alive and well after being dead’d do that, all right.” Her tone turns cold. “Bastards cut you. Shame I can’t give them what they deserve for that. But I won’t forget, I promise you that.”
He almost turns to look at her. This isn’t the Rose he remembers at all. Not that Rose was always sweet and innocent, by any means, but she was never cold. Never harsh.
But people change. He’s very much an example of that.
“Need to ask you a few questions, Jack,” the Doctor says. “Not the questions I really want answers to, mind you. They’ll have to wait until you’re safely out of here. Just enough to keep that lot out there happy and convinced that I’m helping them.”
He’d still like to know who that lot is, but that can wait, too. He’d really rather not engage the Doctor in any kind of conversation right now. Not after one gentle touch was almost his undoing.
“Go on, then,” he says, his voice taut. “Ask your questions.” No need at all to guess what they’ll be about. The Doctor’s both a scientist and a master of logic, even if emotions sometimes bypass him. He’ll want to know how Jack ended up inside a black hole and how he escaped from it - and what the hell he was doing within a thousand miles of a black hole in the first place.
The first question, when it comes, isn’t what he was expecting at all. “Have they given you anything to eat or drink?”
“Course they haven’t,” Rose retorts, her voice low, before he can say anything. “Bastards cut a lump of his skin off an’ just left him bleeding - why would they bother feeding him?”
The Doctor doesn’t wait for an answer from him. “Do they know you can’t stay dead? Have they been testing your reanimation properties?”
He turns his head just enough to stare at the ceiling. “They haven’t killed me, if that’s what you mean. They’ve just kept me chained up with these wires attached, and every so often someone comes in and asks me questions. Told them I wouldn’t answer anything unless they told me who they are and what they want with me.”
“Right, right.” He can almost sense the Doctor nodding. A slender hand - warmer than memory tells him the Doctor’s should be - rests briefly over the back of his. “I hear that when you were found you were missing some body parts.”
He tries to shrug, but finds he can’t; normal movements are somewhat impeded when his arms are held behind his head by chains to his wrists.
“We’ll get you out of here,” the Doctor adds softly. “I’ve had enough of seeing you in chains for this lifetime.”
Once upon a time, he’d have taken pride in coming up with a comeback lewd enough to make the Doctor blush. But for the last year even a passing thought of sex has been enough for images of Ianto and Estelle dying in his arms, or of the ghost of Lucia cursing him for what he did to Alice and Steven, to flood his mind.
“Best place for me,” he whispers, and turns away again.
***
It’s as he feared. This Jack has to be so very much older than when he last met the man - though, oddly, he’s getting a confused sense of the Captain’s timeline. Of course, being a fixed point doesn’t help, and it’s true that he really didn’t have any idea how long it had been for Jack when they met again on Malcassiro, but Jack feels at the same time both ancient and no older than when they last met.
He’s broken, though, that’s beyond doubt. Because he’s lived through so many centuries - millennia - with no hope of his existence ever ending? Or because he’s been through some recent trauma? Either’s possible. Jack’s a resilient bloke generally, even if he’s never been as light-hearted and happy as he was back in their TARDIS days. He bounces back: from multiple deaths, from the torture he experienced at the hands of the Master during the Year that Never Was - and for which he never actually thanked the bloke, did he? - and even from losing people close to him. Martha told him when they met during the Sontaran incident that two of Jack’s team had recently been killed, and that when she was seconded to Torchwood she’d heard from Jack’s colleague Gwen about someone called Estelle who’d meant a lot to Jack.
Jack always bounced back. But the man chained to the table in this room hasn’t. So what’s happened to him?
And where was his counterpart while it was happening? Or afterwards?
They’re achieving nothing here. “Come on, Rose. Jack, we will be back for you.”
Jack doesn’t reply, and with one last look at the man who was his companion he ushers Rose from the room. She’s got questions, he knows, and Jack’s left him with no choice but to tell her the one thing he hoped he’d never have to - but not while they’re still in this place.
Outside, Professor Carlton is waiting, an expectant look on her face. “Well, Doctor?”
He tugs at his ear. “Ooh, definitely fascinating, I’d say. You were right to call me in. Now, how long did you say it’s been since he resuscitated?”
She checks her watch. “A little over nine hours. We’ve been monitoring his vital signs and running two-hourly analyses ever since.”
“Right, right.” He nods. “Have you given him food? Drink? He is human, by the way. Just a little different from humans in our time.”
“In our time? What are you talking about, Doctor?”
A little of the truth won’t hurt, and it’ll help to explain some of what they’ve observed. “Our guest in there is from the future. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s fallen through time.”
The professor’s jaw drops. “But how is that possible?”
He shrugs. “There’s so much we still don’t know about black holes. And he did come out of one, didn’t he?”
“Captain Lambert of the Tutkium Mission saw the body emerge with his own eyes. Out of the black hole, through the event horizon and into deep space. Dead, of course, though as you can see the subject is very much alive now.”
“I’ll want to talk to him, of course.” He shoves his hands deep into his pockets and rocks slightly. “Later, though. Now, Rose and I need to go and freshen up - we have been travelling for some time, you understand. We’ll be back in a couple of hours. That’ll give you time to organise some lab space for me to work in. I’ll need all your samples and test results, and I’ll want to interview everyone who’s come into contact with the man. Yes?”
“Ah.” Carlton looks bemused. Good; always best to keep them on their toes. “Some people will have gone home. It is almost seven pm, Doctor.”
“And almost midnight according to Rose’s and my body-clocks,” he says lightly. “But all right. Tomorrow will do for that, as long as we get a lab to work in for now. I take it there won’t be a problem with us staying as late as we want?”
“Oh.” She tugs at the hair, which starts to come loose from her bun. “I’ll have to organise security passes for the two of you...”
“Excellent. Photographs, fingerprints? The sooner it’s done, the sooner we’ll be back to start getting some answers for you.” He starts to stride down the hallway - oh, this is the sort of time when he loved that long trench-coat he used to wear - then turns back as if just remembering something, which he hadn’t forgotten at all, of course. “Oh, and do remember to give him some food. Clothes wouldn’t be a bad idea, either. And I hardly think he’s any danger to anyone, not in a facility with this level of security, so you probably don’t need to have him in quite so many restraints.” He smiles. “Softly, softly, catchee monkey? Treat him a bit better and he might actually be willing to answer some of our questions.”
Ten minutes later, they have their passes, he’s confident that Jack’s going to be given some food even if not left unchained, and he and Rose are finally back in their hire-car. She hasn’t even started the engine before she’s turned to him, questions all over her face. “Why did-”
He stops her with a hand to her mouth before she says Jack’s name. “Not here,” he cautions. The car could easily be bugged - or, of course, someone could have slipped a bug into either of their pockets.
It’s not that the World Space Exploration Consortium is a shady outfit or anything like that. Its aims are laudable and it’s been responsible for a considerable amount of Earth’s scientific advancement in this universe, putting it ahead of the parallel Earth. But progress comes at a cost, just as it did in his and Rose’s original universe. Just as he strongly disapproved of what Torchwood London was doing, and he’s occasionally had arguments with Pete about Torchwood methods here, he has no doubt whatsoever that senior people in this organisation lacks scruples in certain areas.
They have the hotel lift to themselves, so he takes the opportunity to scan the two of them with his - well, it’s not a sonic screwdriver yet, but it’s getting there. “No bugs,” he confirms. “We’ll talk upstairs.”
The door’s barely closed behind them when Rose asks again. “Why did Jack want me to leave? What on earth does he think I’ve done?”
He sighs, pulling at his ear, then busies himself setting down their overnight bag, checking the desk drawers, looking into the bathroom. “Oh, look, twin sinks! And a double-sized shower cubicle! We can shower together.”
“We have a large shower at home too,” Rose points out dryly. “I asked you about Jack.”
“Yes.” He glances down at the floor. “I was hoping that you’d never need to know this. But... the reason Jack’s upset with you - and I’m sure there are plenty of times when he doesn’t mind so much - is that you’re the reason he doesn’t stay dead. When you took the Time Vortex inside you and wiped out the Daleks - remember that?” She nods, and she’s gone very still. “You brought him back to life, Rose. Which... well, no-one’s supposed to mess around with life and death, of course, and I wasn’t all that happy with it, but on the other hand I’d prefer Jack alive, of course. But you couldn’t control the power. You made him immortal. He’ll never die, Rose, not until the end of time.”
***
tbc in chapter 3: Truth and Daring
Author: wmr wendymr
Characters: Jack Harkness, Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor (Duplicate), other canon and original characters
Rated: PG13
Disclaimer: I think you all know by now that I don't own them!
Spoilers: DW: up to Journey's End; TW: up to Children of Earth. Warning: do not read if you haven't seen CoE
Summary: "They say black holes are like gateways to another universe" - Rose Tyler, The Impossible Planet
With very many thanks to
dark_aegis and yamx for beta-reading and allowing me to bend their ears on and on about this fic!
Chapter 1: Gateway
Chapter 2: Impossible and Immovable
Of course it’s his Jack. Their Jack. He’s known it, really, though he didn’t want to admit it, since Pete told him a man had come out of a black hole and survived. Yes, that is impossible - unless you’re Jack Harkness, immortal man, a Fact that cannot be unwritten.
Though what he was doing to get sucked into a black hole in the first place... now, that’s the question, isn’t it? Has to have been an accident, because why anyone would deliberately get that close to one of those passes understanding. Though, of course, the team on the Sanctuary Base did, didn’t they? All in the interests of research and advancing knowledge, which is good, of course it is. That’s what keeps him going - well, kept him going all those centuries until now: discovery. New knowledge. Seeing new things and places. Finding answers to the universe’s unanswered questions.
But Jack? It doesn’t really fit. He’s seemed content to stay on Earth, living a linear life with Torchwood, living with, and loving, the revolving-door of team members who don’t stay alive long enough to reach middle age. Oh, Jack misses the travelling, but not enough. After all, he said no when he was offered the opportunity to travel again.
So what Jack Harkness was doing out there... Well, of course, the bloke’s immortal. Who knows when it happened for him?
He stills, and his fingers grip the arm-rests so tightly he must be close to making indentations. The end of the universe. Of course. Jack was there with him on Malcassiro. They even joked about Jack, a much older Jack, being outside somewhere.
What if he was? What if the universe ended, sucked into the final black hole, and Jack with it? What if even entropy wasn’t enough to kill him?
And he, the other him, his counterpart, long dead, unable to do anything to help Jack - or unwilling to try before it was too late.
What sort of man will they find at the end of this journey?
“Jack can’t die, yes.” Rose needs to know that much, at least, even if the rest... well. “There was an... accident, and it left him like that. Well, I say he can’t die, but of course he can. He just doesn’t stay dead. Doesn’t age, either, or just very slowly. By the time I caught up with him again, around a year in Earth time after losing you, it’d been almost a hundred and forty years for him. He’d had some work done, but then he always was a bit vain, wasn’t he? But apart from that he hadn’t changed a bit.”
“Sort of like you, then.” Rose gives him a sidelong glance. “I mean, you told me you don’t age. You just live on and regenerate.”
“Oh, Jack’s nothing like me,” he counters immediately. “I - well, the Time Lord me, anyway - don’t have unlimited lives. And the universe reacts to him in a way it never did to Time Lords. Jack’s... He’s a fixed point. Time bends around him; it doesn’t flow through him like it does to you, and now to me. There doesn’t seem to be anything that can stop Jack from constantly reviving and living on. I’ve seen him be shot, irradiated, knifed, electrocuted and killed by a Dalek, and he’s come back every time. He even survived clinging to the outside of the TARDIS through the Time Vortex. Very him, that.” He stares down at the book in his lap, a recently-published monograph from a Nobel prize-winner specialising in quantum physics; he’s already found twenty-seven fundamental flaws in it. “Jack is... unique. And now he’s added another first to his list.”
Rose’s hand covers his. “It’s not your fault, Doctor.”
Oh, it is. There’s so much he could have done better. But there’s more she needs to be prepared for. “He’s different, Rose. He won’t be the Jack you know.”
She frowns. “But I saw him. We saw him, back in the other universe.” Her face creases into a frown. “Still wish I’d had more time to talk to him. I thought... well, didn’t know I’d be coming back to this universe. Just assumed I’d get to see him again.”
There’s no bitterness in her voice, not now. Oh, for a couple of months after they were left on that beach she was brittle, at times focused on doing her best to make things work - including treating him like something she really did have to take care of - and other times furiously angry at his counterpart for making decisions for her yet again. By the time she came around to realising that the other Doctor had also made that decision for him she was back to the Rose he knew, only a more mature version - and she was the one, not him, who initiated the where do we go from here? conversation.
Where they went was, of course, her flat - in the beginning, he’d lived in a granny flat, as Jackie’d called it, at the Tyler town house. It was important, he’d felt, to give Rose time and space to work out what she wanted, including whether she really wanted to be saddled with a copy of the man she’d fought so hard to get back to, and without the TARDIS. Ironic, then, that when they finally did have that talk he discovered that what she’d been most worried about was whether he really wanted to be saddled with her.
“I’m sorry you didn’t,” he says softly. “If I’d known what he planned...” His mouth turns down at the corners. “Well. Anyway. The thing is that even the Jack we saw then was around a hundred and seventy-five years old. Looking good on it, absolutely, but he’s not the same Jack, like I said. And we have no idea how long it’s been for him since then.”
Her fingers curl around his hand. “Well, we’re here for him now, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Though he can’t help wondering whether it’s too late for that to make any difference at all.
***
“They have him tied up.” Her voice is tight as she voices again what’s been eating away at her since she saw the photo on the Doctor’s computer screen. “Tied to a table, and with needles sticking into him.” She swallows. “Don’t tell me that’s medical treatment.”
“It’s not.” The Doctor’s voice is harsh. “They’re experimenting. Analysing him. After all-” He turns to look at her, and there’s fire and ice in his eyes. “-how many people survive what they’ve seen him go through?”
“Yeah.” They can’t kill Jack - well, they can, but he’ll come back to life - but they can hurt him. “An’ that’s why they want you, right? To help them with their analysis.” She spits the word out.
“That’s why they want me, yes.” His fingers curl into a fist on his lap. If she wasn’t concentrating on driving, in an unfamiliar city and on the wrong side of the road, she’d hold his hand again.
“But you’re not gonna, right?” It’s not really a question.
“Of course not.” Abruptly, he turns to look at her, and he gives her a smile that suddenly reminds her of her first Doctor. “We’re gonna rescue him.”
“And take him home with us?”
He hesitates, and she wonders for a moment if he thinks that Jack might not want to come - and if so, why not? Just what’s happened between those two? “He doesn’t belong in this universe, Rose,” he says eventually. “For all we know, there might even be another version of him out there, in the fifty-first century. Wouldn’t matter if this Jack was mortal, but he’s not. I need to find a way to send him back.”
He’s right, of course he is, but... Sometimes it just feels like she’s always having to say goodbye to people she loves. She’s only just got used to Mickey not being around, after missing him every single day for over a year after she and the Doctor ended up here together. And when she and Jack met again back in the other universe, she didn’t even get to talk to him before the Doctor - the original Doctor - left her in this universe. Being here’s fine, of course it is. Better than fine, now. It would just have been nice to have a bit of warning first.
So she’s going to lose Jack again. But at least this time she’ll get to say goodbye properly, and say everything she would have said that day on the TARDIS if she’d known it was going to be the only chance she’d get to talk to him.
Three levels of security at the World Space Exploration Consortium entrance later, they’re directed to the lab wing. She can’t help another moment of nostalgia for the psychic paper as their Torchwood identification is scrutinised and scanned and they’re subjected to retinal imaging at the lab entrance. At least this time the Doctor refrains from giving the security staff his lecture about how retinal scanning technology can be fooled far more easily than people think.
They’re greeted inside the lab by a Professor Geraldine Carlton, a woman somewhere in her forties and wearing thick glasses. “I’m so pleased to meet you, Dr Smith! I’ve heard so much about the work you’ve been doing on velocity and mass in space travel, and it’s just incredibly fascinating.” She’s still holding onto his hand, ignoring Rose as she continues, almost gushing. “I know we’ve made you several offers, but you’ve turned down every one. What’s it gonna take to lure you over here? You know you’d have your own lab and research team, and you can name your price.”
Rose’s spine stiffens. Offers? He never said a word.
“Sorry,” the Doctor’s saying, and his free arm slides around her shoulders. “Torchwood has first claim on my loyalty, and I don’t think any inducement could change that.” He glances at Rose, giving her a swift smile. “Professor Carlton, this is Rose Tyler, Pete Tyler’s daughter - and my partner.”
Warmth floods her. Although they’ve been living together as lovers for almost two years, it’s the first time he’s actually put their relationship into words.
Professor Carlton’s obviously taken aback, but after a moment she says, “I’m sure some arrangement could be made for Ms Tyler...”
“And I don’t at all think that Pete Tyler would be happy to lose one of his best field agents,” the Doctor counters. “Sorry. It’s flattering, obviously, but our answer’s no. Now, if we could see the man your people brought in...?”
Clearly struggling to hide her chagrin, the professor nods. “We have some preliminary test results on the subject, but I’m afraid they’re inconclusive.”
The subject. She bites her lip, holding back the angry retort she wants to make. His name’s Jack. They can’t let anyone here know that they know him.
The Doctor just nods. “What have you found out?”
“Blood and tissue analysis indicate that the species is approximately eighty per cent human. We’re still working on a full DNA analysis. Physiology appears human; we have X-rays and we’re scheduling MRI and CT scans. The subject can speak English, and does a pretty good job of mimicking an Ameri-Canadian accent, though the vocabulary’s a bit suspect. More like British English. Though he’s able to curse up a storm.”
They’ve been taking samples from Jack? Tissue samples? If they’ve hurt him...
“Fascinating,” the Doctor murmurs. “Of course, we’ll need to see him and question him for ourselves.”
“You don’t want to see the lab results first?”
“Oh, I prefer the empirical approach, Professor. Observation, questioning, testing, analysis. I’m sure your tests have been very thorough, and I’ll want to examine them later, but first...” He waves a hand in vague impatience.
“Yes, of course.” Again looking as if she’s lost control of the situation and knows it, Professor Carlton starts walking briskly along the hallway. “We’ll just need to get you a HazMat suit”-
The Doctor cuts across her. “We don’t need protective suits.” His tone is implacable.
“But the risk of contamination-”
“Is minimal.” He halts and turns to the professor, staring her down; it’s an expression Rose has seen him use many times, and it always works. “I won’t even go into that room unless you let me do it my way.”
If it’s this hard just getting in to see Jack, then breaking him out of here’s going to be close to impossible. But - she smiles inwardly - that’s just a challenge. If she and the Doctor can’t manage it between them, and they’re damn well going to try, then they’ll just get Pete to help.
A few seconds later, the door into the containment room’s being unlocked. “We’ll be monitoring you while you’re in there,” the professor says. “The subject’s restrained, so you’ll be safe, but we have to take every possible precaution.”
“Images, yes, but not sound.” The Doctor’s staring again. “In this kind of situation, Rose and I work best if we can gain the subject’s trust. Far better if we can honestly say that our conversation’s private.”
The professor looks as if she wants to argue, but then she huffs out a breath. “If that’s your wish.”
“It is.” The Doctor simply waits.
With another huff, the professor marches over to a younger woman sitting at a nearby desk. “Disable the sound link to the containment room.”
“Thank you,” the Doctor says, then pushes the door open. “Rose?” He gestures for her to precede him.
It’s really Jack. Of course, she’d already seen the photograph, but this, actually seeing him in reality... awareness slams into her gut, and she aches for him. Those restraints have to hurt. Plus, he’s stretched out completely naked on a hard, flat table, available for anyone to gawp at him. And they’re running tests on him, like he’s some sort of lab rat. There’s an open wound on his forearm - the tissue sample! - that no-one’s even bothered to stick a plaster over.
He hasn’t even turned to look at them, which tells her more than she needs to know about how he’s been treated here. If it wasn’t so important to keep these people on their side, at least for now, she’d march back out there and give that Professor Carlton a piece of her mind.
The Doctor closes the door with a snick. “Sound’s definitely off,” he murmurs, and she knows without him even needing to explain that he’s used his newest little gizmo - he’s still trying to build a sonic screwdriver, and getting closer every time - to test the comms system. “Jack,” he says then, his voice pitched louder.
The reaction’s immediate. Jack almost leaps off the bed, but he’s pulled back down by the restraints. The bright blue eyes she remembers are abruptly focused first on the Doctor and then on her.
And then Jack’s stunned expression changes to a look of absolute venom.
“Get her out of here. I never want to see that face again as long as I live.”
***
She looks as if he’s slapped her. Eyes wide, shock and hurt all over her face.
Once upon a time, he’d have cared. But he’s died too many times, and lost too many people, since then, and none of that would have happened if she’d only left well enough alone - left him dead, the way he should have been.
Rose and the Doctor, here. He should probably have expected the Doctor to turn up sooner or later. He usually does, even if it’s not when he’s actually needed. But Rose? Just when the hell is he? Rose is gone. She’s sealed off behind the walls, in that other universe, permanently. So what the hell is she doing here?
Unless... unless he’s crossed his own timeline and this is before Canary Wharf. In which case, Ianto is-
No. He’s done enough damage as it is without adding the effect of paradoxes and Reapers to the body-count.
Rose is moving towards him, hand out, intending to touch him. But the Doctor steps forward with a sharp, quietly-spoken “No,” and she halts abruptly.
“The microphone’s switched off, but they’re still watching us,” the Doctor adds. “Rose, stay where you are.” He comes closer to the table himself, expression all concern and curiosity. “We’re gonna get you out of here. But not yet. I’m supposed to be examining you at the moment, so... well, I’m going to do that, a bit anyway, and then we’ll have to go. For now, anyway. So, sorry. I’m so sorry, but I can’t let you out of these chains. Can’t cover you, either, though I suppose you don’t care very much about that.”
The Doctor’s fingers brush lightly against his cheek. The gentle gesture tugs at his gut, and suddenly there’s a lump in his throat.
He turns his head, looking away. If the Doctor knew what he’d done, there’s no way he’d be touching him like this, or offering to free him.
“Jack.” Rose’s voice is soft, full of concern he doesn’t deserve, along with confusion. “I dunno what’s wrong, and if I’ve done something to hurt you I’m sorry, but right now figuring out how we’re gonna get you out of here is what’s most important, yeah? These people... they’re experimenting on you.” Her voice sounds closer now; she has to be right up next to him. “They think you’re alien, or part-alien. Surviving a black hole an’ waking up alive and well after being dead’d do that, all right.” Her tone turns cold. “Bastards cut you. Shame I can’t give them what they deserve for that. But I won’t forget, I promise you that.”
He almost turns to look at her. This isn’t the Rose he remembers at all. Not that Rose was always sweet and innocent, by any means, but she was never cold. Never harsh.
But people change. He’s very much an example of that.
“Need to ask you a few questions, Jack,” the Doctor says. “Not the questions I really want answers to, mind you. They’ll have to wait until you’re safely out of here. Just enough to keep that lot out there happy and convinced that I’m helping them.”
He’d still like to know who that lot is, but that can wait, too. He’d really rather not engage the Doctor in any kind of conversation right now. Not after one gentle touch was almost his undoing.
“Go on, then,” he says, his voice taut. “Ask your questions.” No need at all to guess what they’ll be about. The Doctor’s both a scientist and a master of logic, even if emotions sometimes bypass him. He’ll want to know how Jack ended up inside a black hole and how he escaped from it - and what the hell he was doing within a thousand miles of a black hole in the first place.
The first question, when it comes, isn’t what he was expecting at all. “Have they given you anything to eat or drink?”
“Course they haven’t,” Rose retorts, her voice low, before he can say anything. “Bastards cut a lump of his skin off an’ just left him bleeding - why would they bother feeding him?”
The Doctor doesn’t wait for an answer from him. “Do they know you can’t stay dead? Have they been testing your reanimation properties?”
He turns his head just enough to stare at the ceiling. “They haven’t killed me, if that’s what you mean. They’ve just kept me chained up with these wires attached, and every so often someone comes in and asks me questions. Told them I wouldn’t answer anything unless they told me who they are and what they want with me.”
“Right, right.” He can almost sense the Doctor nodding. A slender hand - warmer than memory tells him the Doctor’s should be - rests briefly over the back of his. “I hear that when you were found you were missing some body parts.”
He tries to shrug, but finds he can’t; normal movements are somewhat impeded when his arms are held behind his head by chains to his wrists.
“We’ll get you out of here,” the Doctor adds softly. “I’ve had enough of seeing you in chains for this lifetime.”
Once upon a time, he’d have taken pride in coming up with a comeback lewd enough to make the Doctor blush. But for the last year even a passing thought of sex has been enough for images of Ianto and Estelle dying in his arms, or of the ghost of Lucia cursing him for what he did to Alice and Steven, to flood his mind.
“Best place for me,” he whispers, and turns away again.
***
It’s as he feared. This Jack has to be so very much older than when he last met the man - though, oddly, he’s getting a confused sense of the Captain’s timeline. Of course, being a fixed point doesn’t help, and it’s true that he really didn’t have any idea how long it had been for Jack when they met again on Malcassiro, but Jack feels at the same time both ancient and no older than when they last met.
He’s broken, though, that’s beyond doubt. Because he’s lived through so many centuries - millennia - with no hope of his existence ever ending? Or because he’s been through some recent trauma? Either’s possible. Jack’s a resilient bloke generally, even if he’s never been as light-hearted and happy as he was back in their TARDIS days. He bounces back: from multiple deaths, from the torture he experienced at the hands of the Master during the Year that Never Was - and for which he never actually thanked the bloke, did he? - and even from losing people close to him. Martha told him when they met during the Sontaran incident that two of Jack’s team had recently been killed, and that when she was seconded to Torchwood she’d heard from Jack’s colleague Gwen about someone called Estelle who’d meant a lot to Jack.
Jack always bounced back. But the man chained to the table in this room hasn’t. So what’s happened to him?
And where was his counterpart while it was happening? Or afterwards?
They’re achieving nothing here. “Come on, Rose. Jack, we will be back for you.”
Jack doesn’t reply, and with one last look at the man who was his companion he ushers Rose from the room. She’s got questions, he knows, and Jack’s left him with no choice but to tell her the one thing he hoped he’d never have to - but not while they’re still in this place.
Outside, Professor Carlton is waiting, an expectant look on her face. “Well, Doctor?”
He tugs at his ear. “Ooh, definitely fascinating, I’d say. You were right to call me in. Now, how long did you say it’s been since he resuscitated?”
She checks her watch. “A little over nine hours. We’ve been monitoring his vital signs and running two-hourly analyses ever since.”
“Right, right.” He nods. “Have you given him food? Drink? He is human, by the way. Just a little different from humans in our time.”
“In our time? What are you talking about, Doctor?”
A little of the truth won’t hurt, and it’ll help to explain some of what they’ve observed. “Our guest in there is from the future. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s fallen through time.”
The professor’s jaw drops. “But how is that possible?”
He shrugs. “There’s so much we still don’t know about black holes. And he did come out of one, didn’t he?”
“Captain Lambert of the Tutkium Mission saw the body emerge with his own eyes. Out of the black hole, through the event horizon and into deep space. Dead, of course, though as you can see the subject is very much alive now.”
“I’ll want to talk to him, of course.” He shoves his hands deep into his pockets and rocks slightly. “Later, though. Now, Rose and I need to go and freshen up - we have been travelling for some time, you understand. We’ll be back in a couple of hours. That’ll give you time to organise some lab space for me to work in. I’ll need all your samples and test results, and I’ll want to interview everyone who’s come into contact with the man. Yes?”
“Ah.” Carlton looks bemused. Good; always best to keep them on their toes. “Some people will have gone home. It is almost seven pm, Doctor.”
“And almost midnight according to Rose’s and my body-clocks,” he says lightly. “But all right. Tomorrow will do for that, as long as we get a lab to work in for now. I take it there won’t be a problem with us staying as late as we want?”
“Oh.” She tugs at the hair, which starts to come loose from her bun. “I’ll have to organise security passes for the two of you...”
“Excellent. Photographs, fingerprints? The sooner it’s done, the sooner we’ll be back to start getting some answers for you.” He starts to stride down the hallway - oh, this is the sort of time when he loved that long trench-coat he used to wear - then turns back as if just remembering something, which he hadn’t forgotten at all, of course. “Oh, and do remember to give him some food. Clothes wouldn’t be a bad idea, either. And I hardly think he’s any danger to anyone, not in a facility with this level of security, so you probably don’t need to have him in quite so many restraints.” He smiles. “Softly, softly, catchee monkey? Treat him a bit better and he might actually be willing to answer some of our questions.”
Ten minutes later, they have their passes, he’s confident that Jack’s going to be given some food even if not left unchained, and he and Rose are finally back in their hire-car. She hasn’t even started the engine before she’s turned to him, questions all over her face. “Why did-”
He stops her with a hand to her mouth before she says Jack’s name. “Not here,” he cautions. The car could easily be bugged - or, of course, someone could have slipped a bug into either of their pockets.
It’s not that the World Space Exploration Consortium is a shady outfit or anything like that. Its aims are laudable and it’s been responsible for a considerable amount of Earth’s scientific advancement in this universe, putting it ahead of the parallel Earth. But progress comes at a cost, just as it did in his and Rose’s original universe. Just as he strongly disapproved of what Torchwood London was doing, and he’s occasionally had arguments with Pete about Torchwood methods here, he has no doubt whatsoever that senior people in this organisation lacks scruples in certain areas.
They have the hotel lift to themselves, so he takes the opportunity to scan the two of them with his - well, it’s not a sonic screwdriver yet, but it’s getting there. “No bugs,” he confirms. “We’ll talk upstairs.”
The door’s barely closed behind them when Rose asks again. “Why did Jack want me to leave? What on earth does he think I’ve done?”
He sighs, pulling at his ear, then busies himself setting down their overnight bag, checking the desk drawers, looking into the bathroom. “Oh, look, twin sinks! And a double-sized shower cubicle! We can shower together.”
“We have a large shower at home too,” Rose points out dryly. “I asked you about Jack.”
“Yes.” He glances down at the floor. “I was hoping that you’d never need to know this. But... the reason Jack’s upset with you - and I’m sure there are plenty of times when he doesn’t mind so much - is that you’re the reason he doesn’t stay dead. When you took the Time Vortex inside you and wiped out the Daleks - remember that?” She nods, and she’s gone very still. “You brought him back to life, Rose. Which... well, no-one’s supposed to mess around with life and death, of course, and I wasn’t all that happy with it, but on the other hand I’d prefer Jack alive, of course. But you couldn’t control the power. You made him immortal. He’ll never die, Rose, not until the end of time.”
***
tbc in chapter 3: Truth and Daring