Fic: Sphere of Influence 4/6
Story: Sphere of Influence
Author: wmr / wendymr
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Jack Harkness, Rose Tyler
Rated: PG13
Summary: He’s like a magnet. A gravity well, sucking in everything within his sphere of influence, drawing them to him whether they like it or not.
Written for space_monkey52 in return for an extremely generous donation to the Queensland flood appeal. Thank you SO much for your generosity. Many thanks also to dark_aegis for BRing.
Chapter 1: Clean-up Duty l Chapter 2: Amusements l Chapter 3: Drop-off Point
Chapter 4: Search and Recovery
Bile rises in his gut as he watches the building pancake in front of him, with Jack Harkness still inside.
Clouds of dust and debris are flying everywhere; his face stings as pieces hit him, but still he stares at the building, oblivious to the shouts and screams of the other bystanders, unable to tear his gaze away.
There’s no way the bloke can have survived this.
“Jack!” Rose sounds as helpless as he feels, and as he finally manages to turn and look at her he can see tears in her eyes. “Doctor, we have to do something!”
She wants to run into the devastated office-block, that’s obvious. He wants to do exactly the same - he brought Jack here, after all, with the intention of dumping him, and the fact that it was at Jack’s own request is irrelevant. He was getting rid of an unwanted passenger, the small bag of coins he gave the lad a small sap to his conscience, a way of telling himself that it was nothing to do with him what Jack did from here on. Denying all responsibility for the man whose life he saved after Jack saved him and Rose and everyone else at the bomb-site.
He judged Jack and found him wanting from the moment he met him, and never gave him a chance to prove that he might have changed. And how wrong he was. It was Jack who ignored the danger to himself, running into an unstable building to rescue a trapped woman. Did it even occur to the bloke that he was risking his life? Damn idiot - but then it wasn’t the first time he’s seen Jack put other people’s lives before his own. He teleported the bomb away and kept it in his ship knowing there was no escape for him - and, speaking of escape, why did he stay with the two of them at the Albion Hospital when he could have teleported out at any time and just walked away?
Oh, yes, if there were any way he could get into that devastated building to go and search for Jack, he would.
But it’s impossible. Even if he could get further than the lobby, let alone make it up to the floor where Jack was, the slightest movement could cause further collapses. Also, from what he can hear of the chatter around him among bystanders, and the emergency personnel now arriving, they can’t rule out an explosion.
He swallows, then takes Rose’s hands, holding her firmly. “Can’t go in there. ‘S not safe.”
She chokes back a sob. “But we can’t leave him there! We’ve got to get him out!”
Makes no difference whether they get him out now or in hours, even days, from now, whenever the building’s declared safe and stable enough for recovery teams to go inside. There’s no way Jack can have survived this. But he doesn’t tell her this. She’s not stupid. She’ll know it anyway, or will work it out for herself very quickly.
But there’s no question in his mind, as he stands gripping tightly to Rose as the groaning sounds continue to echo from the collapsed building, that they’ll wait as long as it takes to retrieve Jack’s body. He owes it to Jack.
And what then? It dawns on him, as he wraps his arms around Rose and pulls her against his chest, her tears soaking his jumper, that he knows nothing at all about his temporary passenger - not even his name, since he guessed immediately that Jack Harkness isn’t the bloke’s real name. Who knows if Jack really was a Time Agent? At any rate, he has no idea whether Jack has a family somewhere who’d want to have his body returned to them - people who love him and miss him and who’d want to know what happened to him.
He has no idea - because he never bothered to ask. It never even occurred to him.
Jack’s not the one who needed to be bigger on the inside. He is.
***
“You should go back to the TARDIS,” the Doctor tells her for about the fifth time.
“Not goin’ anywhere,” she retorts, as firmly as she did the first time.
He’s tried persuading her, pointing out that it could be hours before the local officials declare the site safe for recovery crews to go inside; it could take until tomorrow, even. And even when they do get inside it could take more days until they clear a path to where Jack’s trapped.
She knows all that. It still doesn’t make any difference. She’s staying put.
It’s been six hours since the first collapse, six hours since Jack ran inside, stupidly, thoughtlessly heroic, and lowered the woman - whose name, Rose now knows, is Sal - down to where the Doctor and others who’d stopped to help were waiting to catch her. Almost six hours since that sickening sound of grinding, groaning metal and the Doctor yelling to Jack that he needed to hurry up and get out because the place wasn’t stable.
She’s not naïve. She’s well aware that the chances of Jack being alive in there are slim to none. Doesn’t matter. They’re still not leaving him there.
The street’s crowded now, with emergency services, police, the media, people who work in this office building but arrived to find it destroyed - and onlookers. Rubberneckers, looking for shock value, probably hoping to see bodies carried out, she can’t help thinking with a vicious sense of hatred. At least the police are keeping them well behind barricades.
They told her and the Doctor to go back behind the barricades when the emergency responders first turned up. One pithy phrase from the Doctor had the first officer to approach backing away nervously. Later, Rose explained that their friend was inside, and since then people have been kind. She’s been offered a blanket, a place to sit, warm drinks and even something to eat. She accepted drinks, and later some food at the Doctor’s insistence, though he’s eaten nothing.
The people who were rescued from the building - including Sal - have all received first aid and either sent home or transferred to hospital. The paramedics are just standing around waiting, like everyone else, for something to happen.
And still they wait.
A short while ago, some kind of scanning equipment arrived. The Doctor knows what it is and how it works, though his description went right over her head. All she knows is that it can shoot some kind of rays at the building and identify if there are people inside, and if so it can give searchers coordinates so they can find them. So far they think there are around six people trapped inside - she refuses even to think the word dead.
Six people. Jack and five others. All in different parts of the building - opposite corners, some higher up than the area where they’re certain Jack is, one lower down. All waiting until the recovery unit says it’s safe to go in. She’s having nightmarish visions of trapped, injured, bleeding, terrified people waiting and praying for rescue that might come too late.
No-one knows what caused this. The police say the city’s monitoring system shows none of the giveaway signs of an explosion. There were no threats, and no-one’s claimed responsibility. It could just have been a freak accident, though the Doctor commented that these buildings are supposedly accident-free. Fully reinforced, with multiple failsafe and collapse-proof mechanisms in case of earthquake, explosion, landslide or other disaster. Why this office block would have simply collapsed in on itself is baffling everyone. They’ll find out, the investigators have said. One of them explained to her that it’s a legal requirement that all buildings have an internal computer - the description sounded a bit to Rose like the black box planes have in her time, though instead of recording voices it records movements, shifts in pressure, adjustments to the computerised controls and so on. That will likely explain what happened.
Not that explanations will bring back those who... She swallows. Those who’ve died today.
“Rose.” The Doctor’s beside her again, laying his hand on her shoulder. “They’re gonna be hours yet. You might as well-”
“Told you,” she repeats. He’s right about one thing, though. Just standing around like this helps no-one, including herself. “Look, I’m gonna see if I can help the volunteers with anything, all right?”
He gives her a steady look, then nods. She leans towards him, and he folds her in his arms, hugging her tightly. The familiar scent of leather and her Doctor fills her nostrils, allowing her to smile a little as she pulls away. “See you later, okay?”
The Doctor nods, giving her a faint smile in return. “Later.”
***
It’s getting dark now, but the area around the collapsed building is still a hive of activity. Rose is over with the volunteers, handing out hot drinks, food and blankets to any of the recovery and emergency services teams who need them. It’s keeping her busy, stopping her from dwelling on the fact that Jack - well, Jack’s body - is still trapped in that flattened building in front of them.
The investigators are pretty sure now that the collapse was caused by a faulty repair to the building’s heating and ventilation system, according to the computer records they’ve been able to access. Something overheated. A valve failed, and the extra heat wasn’t able to vent properly. The temperature kept increasing until finally the heating system exploded, collapsing some of the load-bearing walls inside the building, and the entire building came down as a result. From bits and pieces he’s picked up, the Doctor’s guessing that the building owners cut corners, cheaping out on some of the construction, using materials which are less resistant to heat. The heating system malfunction caused the material to warp, and the pressure of the floors above it caused the collapse.
The authorities are relieved that it happened in the early morning, of course; if it had been during the day the office block could have had at least four hundred occupants. If the Doctor could have his way, the explosion would have happened earlier still, when there’d been no-one inside. Then Jack would now be safely on his way off-planet on a commercial ship.
If, if, if. Far too many if onlys in his long life.
The engineers are walking away from the building now, back towards the command centre. He strolls over, apparently carelessly - they’d order him away if they saw his deliberate intent; for all his knowledge, and the fact that he’s helped them in a couple of ways, including improving the accuracy of their scanning equipment - he’s just a bystander with no official status, even if he did show the psychic paper to prove that Jack’s a member of his crew.
“...as stable as we’re going to get it for now. Can’t let anyone go inside yet, though,” the chief engineer is saying as he approaches. “The conditions aren’t ideal and I won’t take the risk.”
What’s the hold-up now? There could be people alive in there! Pressure’s building in his chest and he wants to shout at them, rage and demand that they keep working all through the night. It’s not as if they don’t have lighting, or that inside the building it would matter whether it’s day or night.
“The extra stabilisers still not here?” the site supervisor demands, sounding almost as frustrated as the Doctor feels. “Hell, how long does it take to get two damn pieces of machinery a couple of dozen klicks across town?”
“Last update said it’d be a couple of hours at least.” The chief engineer shakes his head, and he’s clearly holding back anger. “All because some idiot programmed the nav wrongly.”
The Doctor’s heard enough. The building’s stable - well, stable enough for one person who knows what he’s doing. He’s going in.
A casual bypass of the equipment vehicle nets him a hard hat and a rope. With what’s in his pockets, it’ll do.
He’s in front of the shattered, now heavily fortified, entrance when a footstep from behind him makes him glance back. Rose. Of course it would be her. She’s the most inquisitive companion he’s known since Sarah Jane, and he can rarely pull one over on her. He wasn’t joking when he called her jeopardy-friendly, either - but he’s not going to give her the chance this time.
“I’ll be as quick as I can,” he says, intending to pre-empt any suggestion from her that she’s coming with him. “Keep watch, all right? Don’t want that lot getting in the way.”
“If you’re going in, I’m coming too.” Yeah, he can add stubborn to that list of adjectives.
“No.” This time he’s definitely putting his foot down. “Rose-” He dismisses it’s too dangerous; she’ll never accept that. “It’s dark in here, and I can’t be looking out for you as well as myself. You know I have better night vision than you.”
“You’ve got a torch in your pocket, yeah?” She gives him a determined look.
“I can’t take the risk that two of us blundering around inside will do more damage. There’s a reason the rescuers aren’t going in yet. I’ll be fine - just one of me - an’ I’ll be out again in no time.” With Jack’s body, by whatever means necessary. Yes, Jack’s not the only one inside, but he’s not going to have the time or the resources to get everyone out. If there was a chance anyone was still alive, it’d be different, but... that’s not likely.
Rose is still staring at him, and he's ready to turn and walk away from her - can't she see there just isn't time to stand around arguing? Any minute now, the idiots running this recovery operation are going to see him and try to stop him going inside - when she reaches for him. “Be careful,” she says, hugging him tightly, and there's a choke in her voice.
He hugs her back, then holds her away from him so he can look at her. “Aren’t I always?” He gives her one of his widest smiles, then leans in to kiss her briefly on the forehead before letting her go.
Two strides, and he’s through the door and inside the ruined lobby.
***
Rose moves away from the door - quickest way to attract attention would be to stay there - and sits leaning against one of the equipment vehicles, in a position that gives her about as good a view of the entrance as she can get without actually being in front of it. Back to waiting, then.
It’s no surprise that he’s done this. She could see it in his eyes throughout the day, and as the night wore on: his impatience and frustration with the rescue workers, how long the engineers were taking to make the building safe, the lack of any attempt to get inside and find out if anyone was still alive. There were several times when she wondered if he was actually going to do someone bodily harm.
It’s still dangerous in there. That’s what the Doctor was telling her. He could get hurt - get killed - by being inside. There’s no guarantee that he won’t get trapped by another collapse, or even trigger one simply by walking around.
There’s nothing she can do, though. She just has to trust that he’ll be all right. He’s the Doctor, isn’t he? He hasn’t let her down yet. And then she has to be ready to help him when he comes out with Jack. Because he will need her help then, even if he won’t admit it. She’s seen it in his eyes: he’s blaming himself for this.
It’s not his fault. How could it be? Jack decided he was going to help Sal. He saved her life, just like he saved everyone’s at the bomb site in 1941. It was his decision. The Doctor had nothing to do with it, and there’s no way he could have stopped Jack either.
Not that she blames Jack for trying to help, any more than she blames the Doctor for risking his life going inside now. He just better come back out alive, that’s all - or she’s going to bloody well kill him.
***
The Doctor picks his way carefully over the uneven floor, stepping over bits of rubble, broken furniture and electrical connections, bending low in places where the ceiling has dropped. Thanks to the engineers’ scanning equipment and the sonic screwdriver, which is picking up a signal from Jack’s Vortex manipulator, he knows where Jack is; the problem is going to be getting to him. Although the fourth floor is no longer exactly where it was, it’s still higher than ground level. There was a stairwell, but the images he looked at showed it pretty well destroyed.
He ducks as a crack sounds overhead; barely a second later, a chunk of construction material misses his head by a whisker. There’s still some creaking. He points the screwdriver upwards, and in the pale blue light sees a metal bar straining against whatever’s resting on top of it. A quick flick of the screwdriver setting allows him to solder the ends, strengthening it in position. That’ll help the recovery teams, whenever they finally move in.
It’s a mess in here, and very lucky for those who work here that the explosion didn’t happen an hour or so later. Only six people inside. Though every one of those six will have family and friends who care about them.
Except Jack.
No. The lad must have family somewhere. As he climbs over a broken desk, the Doctor silently vows that he will find Jack’s family and return his body to them.
A broken desk. He halts, frowning. On the scan, one of the bodies was in the lobby area, behind a desk. It takes a few seconds to navigate his way around, stepping over bits of ceiling, furniture and cables, bending double to avoid the parts of the floor above that are now barely a metre higher than ground level. He almost steps on the woman’s hand, but sees it just in time, and he drops to his knees to lay two fingers against her throat.
There’s no pulse. No surprise there, given the gash on her head and the pool of blood around her, but still. Gently, he closes her eyes and murmurs, “I’m sorry,” before getting to his feet again and carefully making his way to the stairwell area.
It’s not as bad as the scan showed. If he’s careful, he can pick his way up, and the sonic will tell him where to come out - so long as there’s still a door in the right place.
One step. Two. The next stair gives way as soon as he places his foot on it. He flings out an arm to the wall, finding his balance with that and his other foot. Okay. Try again. The next step up is reasonably steady, if uneven. But there’s debris everywhere, and more bits shower down on top of him from time to time.
It’s a relief when, after a couple of dozen steps, the sonic tells him he can take the next exit. But the floor outside is in a bad way. Clearance is not even up to his hips, and there are obstructions everywhere.
The Doctor drops to his hands and knees and starts to crawl.
***
“Where’s your friend?”
Damn. She was hoping no-one would notice the Doctor’s missing. Rose blinks and rubs her eyes, pretending to be just waking up, then looks up at the uniformed woman standing in front of her. One of the emergency coordination team, who’d been helpful earlier but then told her and the Doctor to wait and let the professionals do the work.
If she remembers right, this is Commander Marga. Rose frowns, then gives the woman a nod of recognition. “Commander? Sorry, was asleep. You’re lookin’ for the Doctor?” She gets to her feet, deliberately awkward, as if she were standing on stiff limbs. “Haven’t seen him since... not sure, actually. What time’s it?”
Marga glances at her watch. “Just after four. No-one’s seen him for the last fifteen minutes or so.” She gives Rose a sharp look. “You sure you were asleep?”
Rose yawns, belatedly covering her mouth. “Yeah. Sorry.” She smooths down her top. “Look, he really hates standing around doing nothing. I’m guessin’ he probably went for a walk. Our ship’s about twenty minutes from here. Could’ve gone back for a shower and a shave.”
“Leaving you here?” Marga sounds suspicious.
She shrugs. “He wouldn’t wake me. Knows I get cranky if I’m woken up. He hates that.”
Marga’s obviously not completely convinced, but she just as clearly doesn’t have time to keep questioning Rose. “Just tell him I want to talk to him, okay?” She starts to turn away.
“Wait.” Rose reaches out for her, catching her sleeve. “Has something happened? I mean, it doesn’t look like the rescue people are inside any more.” All right, yes, she knows that, but if something else has happened...
“The engineers needed a break,” Commander Marga says, her tone discouraging further questions. “I promise that they’ll be back at work as soon as they can. We’re just as anxious as you are to get everyone who’s trapped inside there out as soon as possible. I just don’t like it when civilians go missing at incident sites. Your friend shouldn’t have wandered off without telling anyone.”
Rose nods. “All right.” She watches Marga stride back to the command area, then steals a cautious gaze at the ruined building. Come on, Doctor, hurry!
***
Just a little bit further now, according to the beeping of the screwdriver. It’s not been easy, though. Good job he prefers jeans and a leather jacket in this body. If he was still in the crushed velvet his last self affected, his clothes - and his skin - would’ve been cut to ribbons.
He’s moving by touch and feel, and the dim light of the sonic. There’s no natural light up here; even if the windows weren’t blocked by the collapse, it’s still dark outside anyway. He’ll be a mass of bruises later, the number of times he’s crashed into stuff, but that’s all right. Bruises heal.
The beeping’s louder. He’s got to be right next to Jack now. He pauses and fumbles in his jacket pocket for the torch he acknowledged to Rose is there. Too difficult to carry it and move around at the same time, but it’ll be useful now.
He’s right next to an upturned desk, weighted down by huge blocks of ceiling tile and exterior wall. The desk is lying unevenly on the floor, itself resting on more debris - and a human leg.
He’s found the Captain.
Jack’s lying on his side, one arm curled around his head, one leg trapped under the desk, his body covered in shards of glass, chunks of insulation and other debris. Getting him out’s going to take time, because all of this will have to be moved very carefully in order to make sure he doesn’t cause another collapse.
He shuffles closer, so that he can reach out and touch his fingers to the pulse-point at the young man’s throat. Not that it makes any difference; he knows what he’s going to find. Still, it has to be done. He has to make sure.
The Doctor’s breath catches in his throat when, underneath his fingers, he feels the faint beat that signifies life.
Jack’s not dead. For a second, he’s almost light-headed with relief, but immediately snaps back into attention. Jack might be alive, but he’s not unharmed.
The pulse beating beneath his fingers is sluggish. He gives what he can see of Jack’s body and its surroundings a visual sweep with the aid of the torch, and almost immediately sees the pool of crimson spreading from beneath Jack’s torso. Not arterial blood, at least - well, the lad would have bled to death by now if it was. The blood’s not fresh, so the wound’s likely clotted by now.
Still, Jack needs medical attention, and quickly. Far more quickly than it’ll take to dig him out of here safely, not to mention the risks of doing further damage if more debris falls on him.
And, since Jack’s alive after all, what about the others who are still trapped - the ones he hasn’t found yet?
Jack’s left arm is conveniently accessible - good. The Doctor reaches for his wrist and opens the strap to get at Jack’s Vortex manipulator. It’s been a while since he’s used one of these, but the tech’s not that complex, whatever the Time Agency would like to think. It’s an easy task to set the device’s scanner to check for signs of life within the radius of what’s left of this building.
Nothing. Just three heartbeats: his two, Jack’s single heart.
Of course, the rescue team’s scans hadn’t detected that Jack was alive, so it’s not conclusive. But right now, it’s more important to get Jack taken care of.
“All right, lad, I’m getting you out of here,” he murmurs as he fiddles with the screwdriver to get the right setting. One hand over Jack’s wristband, he touches the screwdriver to the manipulator, concentrating hard.
As reality begins to bend, he keeps focusing, slowing the teleport down just enough to grab onto Jack’s torso, holding the younger man close to his own body to protect him as much as possible from further injury.
Now, it’s up to good medical care, and Jack himself.
***
A muffled thump from somewhere behind the truck has Rose scrambling to her feet again to investigate.
It is the Doctor - and he’s got Jack’s body awkwardly in his arms.
She hurries up, eyes wide and hand outstretched, taking in the blood and dirt staining Jack’s clothes and his limbs dangling uselessly from the Doctor’s arms. “How’d you get down here?” It’s not the question she wants to ask, but right now she just doesn’t want to hear the Doctor confirm what she’s known to be so for hours: that Jack’s dead.
“Teleport.” The Doctor’s curt response tells her he’s got a lot more on his mind. “Where’s the medic team?”
“Um - over there, behind the incident command station.” Why does he want the paramedics?
Immediately, the Doctor starts moving, walking so quickly she has to break into a run to keep up with him. “Lad’s alive,” he tells her as she reaches his side again. “Hurt, though. Lost a lot of blood, too.”
“Oh my god, he is?” But the Doctor’s not interested in answering her. He brushes past Commander Marga, ignoring her blunt enquiries as to where he was, and stops in front of one of the medical team.
“This man’s been trapped inside for almost twenty-four hours. He needs blood and fluids and scanning for broken bones and internal injuries.”
The medic immediately gestures for the Doctor to put Jack down on a makeshift examination table, just inside the open-sided vehicle. As the man bends over Jack, the Doctor turns back to Marga. “He’s alive. You might want to think about what that means for the others still trapped inside.” His tone is scathing. Well, that confirms the suspicions she’s had about his opinion of the rescue workers. “The woman in the lobby is dead, though,” he adds, more quietly.
Marga stares at him, starts to say something, but then turns on her heel, barking out instructions to the engineers and rescue workers. There’s activity suddenly, but Rose isn’t interested in that; her attention’s back on Jack, lying still and unmoving on the table.
The medic looks up sharply. “He’s human?”
“Yep,” the Doctor confirms.
“Ah.” The medic shakes his head. “Can’t help him. We don’t have any stocks of human plasma, and I’m not trained in human physiology anyway. I wouldn’t even know what drugs are safe for him.”
She feels her jaw slackening. “What? You’re sayin’ you won’t do anything for him? You can’t-”
“Rose.” There’s tension in the Doctor’s voice, though he’s not looking at her; he’s lifting Jack carefully into his arms again. “Forget it. Should’ve known this lot’d be useless. Been useless all day, they have.” He’s standing very close to her suddenly. “Put your hand over Jack’s wrist computer.”
He’s struggling, awkwardly holding Jack against his chest while fiddling with the sonic screwdriver with his other hand, but his tone tells her he’s not in the mood to be asked questions. She simply does as she’s told.
His hand, still holding the screwdriver, presses down hard on top of hers. The sonic buzzes, and suddenly solid ground falls away from her, and she’s tumbling, spinning...
***
Almost six hours later, the Doctor makes a minute adjustment to a drip, then nods in satisfaction at the data the monitor’s showing him. Young Harkness is going to be fine. Might be a while yet before he’s up and walking around, but he’ll make a full recovery.
It’s been a tricky few hours, what with getting the three of them back here with Jack’s teleport and into the TARDIS, then working quickly to set up transfusions and fluids, at the same time coping with Rose’s questions and worrying. “Yes, I did qualify as a doctor,” he told her after a while. “Four - no, five times. Proper medical school an’ all. Think I know what I’m doing.”
She insisted on helping as he ran scans to determine the extent of Jack’s injuries: as he suspected, a few broken ribs, cracked wrist, a fractured fibula - could be worse; if it’d been the tibia the lad would’ve been laid up for a couple of weeks, even with the TARDIS’s bone repair tech - significant blood loss and dehydration, though not enough to do damage to his brain, according to the scans. And then, finally, he persuaded her an hour or so ago to go and take a shower and have something to ear. He suspects she’s fallen asleep on her bed. Good thing, if she has; she’d be falling asleep in here instead, which wouldn’t help anyone.
The only uncertainty now is Jack’s unconscious state. His brain’s been protecting him by keeping him unconscious, but he should be coming to by now.
“Jack?” Again, as he’s done every so often for the last couple of hours, he stands close to the bed and says the Captain’s name clearly. “Time to wake up.”
As he’s done before, he pauses, watching for signs of returning consciousness: a flicker of eyelashes, a movement that’s more than involuntary twitching. Nothing. He’s just about to turn away when a low mumble comes from the body on the bed, and then Jack’s eyelids move just a fraction.
“Jack?” He lays a hand gently on the lad’s shoulder - it doesn’t do to startle someone who used to be a soldier. “You’re safe. You’re in the TARDIS.”
Jack’s eyelids flicker. “Doctor?”
“Yeah, ‘s me.”
“Wha...” Jack breaks off, coughing slightly, then taking a breath. His eyes open wide and he stares upwards. “Hey, what’s with the lights?”
“Lights?” He frowns; thanks to all the equipment, the room’s brightly lit.
“Can’t... see a thing.” Jack struggles to sit; he adds pressure to the hand on his shoulder. He can’t be allowed to move yet. “Either you’ve turned all the lights off, or-” Jack stops and takes a shuddering breath. “-I’m blind.”
***
tbc in Chapter 5: Leading the Blind
Author: wmr / wendymr
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Jack Harkness, Rose Tyler
Rated: PG13
Summary: He’s like a magnet. A gravity well, sucking in everything within his sphere of influence, drawing them to him whether they like it or not.
Written for space_monkey52 in return for an extremely generous donation to the Queensland flood appeal. Thank you SO much for your generosity. Many thanks also to dark_aegis for BRing.
Chapter 1: Clean-up Duty l Chapter 2: Amusements l Chapter 3: Drop-off Point
Chapter 4: Search and Recovery
Bile rises in his gut as he watches the building pancake in front of him, with Jack Harkness still inside.
Clouds of dust and debris are flying everywhere; his face stings as pieces hit him, but still he stares at the building, oblivious to the shouts and screams of the other bystanders, unable to tear his gaze away.
There’s no way the bloke can have survived this.
“Jack!” Rose sounds as helpless as he feels, and as he finally manages to turn and look at her he can see tears in her eyes. “Doctor, we have to do something!”
She wants to run into the devastated office-block, that’s obvious. He wants to do exactly the same - he brought Jack here, after all, with the intention of dumping him, and the fact that it was at Jack’s own request is irrelevant. He was getting rid of an unwanted passenger, the small bag of coins he gave the lad a small sap to his conscience, a way of telling himself that it was nothing to do with him what Jack did from here on. Denying all responsibility for the man whose life he saved after Jack saved him and Rose and everyone else at the bomb-site.
He judged Jack and found him wanting from the moment he met him, and never gave him a chance to prove that he might have changed. And how wrong he was. It was Jack who ignored the danger to himself, running into an unstable building to rescue a trapped woman. Did it even occur to the bloke that he was risking his life? Damn idiot - but then it wasn’t the first time he’s seen Jack put other people’s lives before his own. He teleported the bomb away and kept it in his ship knowing there was no escape for him - and, speaking of escape, why did he stay with the two of them at the Albion Hospital when he could have teleported out at any time and just walked away?
Oh, yes, if there were any way he could get into that devastated building to go and search for Jack, he would.
But it’s impossible. Even if he could get further than the lobby, let alone make it up to the floor where Jack was, the slightest movement could cause further collapses. Also, from what he can hear of the chatter around him among bystanders, and the emergency personnel now arriving, they can’t rule out an explosion.
He swallows, then takes Rose’s hands, holding her firmly. “Can’t go in there. ‘S not safe.”
She chokes back a sob. “But we can’t leave him there! We’ve got to get him out!”
Makes no difference whether they get him out now or in hours, even days, from now, whenever the building’s declared safe and stable enough for recovery teams to go inside. There’s no way Jack can have survived this. But he doesn’t tell her this. She’s not stupid. She’ll know it anyway, or will work it out for herself very quickly.
But there’s no question in his mind, as he stands gripping tightly to Rose as the groaning sounds continue to echo from the collapsed building, that they’ll wait as long as it takes to retrieve Jack’s body. He owes it to Jack.
And what then? It dawns on him, as he wraps his arms around Rose and pulls her against his chest, her tears soaking his jumper, that he knows nothing at all about his temporary passenger - not even his name, since he guessed immediately that Jack Harkness isn’t the bloke’s real name. Who knows if Jack really was a Time Agent? At any rate, he has no idea whether Jack has a family somewhere who’d want to have his body returned to them - people who love him and miss him and who’d want to know what happened to him.
He has no idea - because he never bothered to ask. It never even occurred to him.
Jack’s not the one who needed to be bigger on the inside. He is.
***
“You should go back to the TARDIS,” the Doctor tells her for about the fifth time.
“Not goin’ anywhere,” she retorts, as firmly as she did the first time.
He’s tried persuading her, pointing out that it could be hours before the local officials declare the site safe for recovery crews to go inside; it could take until tomorrow, even. And even when they do get inside it could take more days until they clear a path to where Jack’s trapped.
She knows all that. It still doesn’t make any difference. She’s staying put.
It’s been six hours since the first collapse, six hours since Jack ran inside, stupidly, thoughtlessly heroic, and lowered the woman - whose name, Rose now knows, is Sal - down to where the Doctor and others who’d stopped to help were waiting to catch her. Almost six hours since that sickening sound of grinding, groaning metal and the Doctor yelling to Jack that he needed to hurry up and get out because the place wasn’t stable.
She’s not naïve. She’s well aware that the chances of Jack being alive in there are slim to none. Doesn’t matter. They’re still not leaving him there.
The street’s crowded now, with emergency services, police, the media, people who work in this office building but arrived to find it destroyed - and onlookers. Rubberneckers, looking for shock value, probably hoping to see bodies carried out, she can’t help thinking with a vicious sense of hatred. At least the police are keeping them well behind barricades.
They told her and the Doctor to go back behind the barricades when the emergency responders first turned up. One pithy phrase from the Doctor had the first officer to approach backing away nervously. Later, Rose explained that their friend was inside, and since then people have been kind. She’s been offered a blanket, a place to sit, warm drinks and even something to eat. She accepted drinks, and later some food at the Doctor’s insistence, though he’s eaten nothing.
The people who were rescued from the building - including Sal - have all received first aid and either sent home or transferred to hospital. The paramedics are just standing around waiting, like everyone else, for something to happen.
And still they wait.
A short while ago, some kind of scanning equipment arrived. The Doctor knows what it is and how it works, though his description went right over her head. All she knows is that it can shoot some kind of rays at the building and identify if there are people inside, and if so it can give searchers coordinates so they can find them. So far they think there are around six people trapped inside - she refuses even to think the word dead.
Six people. Jack and five others. All in different parts of the building - opposite corners, some higher up than the area where they’re certain Jack is, one lower down. All waiting until the recovery unit says it’s safe to go in. She’s having nightmarish visions of trapped, injured, bleeding, terrified people waiting and praying for rescue that might come too late.
No-one knows what caused this. The police say the city’s monitoring system shows none of the giveaway signs of an explosion. There were no threats, and no-one’s claimed responsibility. It could just have been a freak accident, though the Doctor commented that these buildings are supposedly accident-free. Fully reinforced, with multiple failsafe and collapse-proof mechanisms in case of earthquake, explosion, landslide or other disaster. Why this office block would have simply collapsed in on itself is baffling everyone. They’ll find out, the investigators have said. One of them explained to her that it’s a legal requirement that all buildings have an internal computer - the description sounded a bit to Rose like the black box planes have in her time, though instead of recording voices it records movements, shifts in pressure, adjustments to the computerised controls and so on. That will likely explain what happened.
Not that explanations will bring back those who... She swallows. Those who’ve died today.
“Rose.” The Doctor’s beside her again, laying his hand on her shoulder. “They’re gonna be hours yet. You might as well-”
“Told you,” she repeats. He’s right about one thing, though. Just standing around like this helps no-one, including herself. “Look, I’m gonna see if I can help the volunteers with anything, all right?”
He gives her a steady look, then nods. She leans towards him, and he folds her in his arms, hugging her tightly. The familiar scent of leather and her Doctor fills her nostrils, allowing her to smile a little as she pulls away. “See you later, okay?”
The Doctor nods, giving her a faint smile in return. “Later.”
***
It’s getting dark now, but the area around the collapsed building is still a hive of activity. Rose is over with the volunteers, handing out hot drinks, food and blankets to any of the recovery and emergency services teams who need them. It’s keeping her busy, stopping her from dwelling on the fact that Jack - well, Jack’s body - is still trapped in that flattened building in front of them.
The investigators are pretty sure now that the collapse was caused by a faulty repair to the building’s heating and ventilation system, according to the computer records they’ve been able to access. Something overheated. A valve failed, and the extra heat wasn’t able to vent properly. The temperature kept increasing until finally the heating system exploded, collapsing some of the load-bearing walls inside the building, and the entire building came down as a result. From bits and pieces he’s picked up, the Doctor’s guessing that the building owners cut corners, cheaping out on some of the construction, using materials which are less resistant to heat. The heating system malfunction caused the material to warp, and the pressure of the floors above it caused the collapse.
The authorities are relieved that it happened in the early morning, of course; if it had been during the day the office block could have had at least four hundred occupants. If the Doctor could have his way, the explosion would have happened earlier still, when there’d been no-one inside. Then Jack would now be safely on his way off-planet on a commercial ship.
If, if, if. Far too many if onlys in his long life.
The engineers are walking away from the building now, back towards the command centre. He strolls over, apparently carelessly - they’d order him away if they saw his deliberate intent; for all his knowledge, and the fact that he’s helped them in a couple of ways, including improving the accuracy of their scanning equipment - he’s just a bystander with no official status, even if he did show the psychic paper to prove that Jack’s a member of his crew.
“...as stable as we’re going to get it for now. Can’t let anyone go inside yet, though,” the chief engineer is saying as he approaches. “The conditions aren’t ideal and I won’t take the risk.”
What’s the hold-up now? There could be people alive in there! Pressure’s building in his chest and he wants to shout at them, rage and demand that they keep working all through the night. It’s not as if they don’t have lighting, or that inside the building it would matter whether it’s day or night.
“The extra stabilisers still not here?” the site supervisor demands, sounding almost as frustrated as the Doctor feels. “Hell, how long does it take to get two damn pieces of machinery a couple of dozen klicks across town?”
“Last update said it’d be a couple of hours at least.” The chief engineer shakes his head, and he’s clearly holding back anger. “All because some idiot programmed the nav wrongly.”
The Doctor’s heard enough. The building’s stable - well, stable enough for one person who knows what he’s doing. He’s going in.
A casual bypass of the equipment vehicle nets him a hard hat and a rope. With what’s in his pockets, it’ll do.
He’s in front of the shattered, now heavily fortified, entrance when a footstep from behind him makes him glance back. Rose. Of course it would be her. She’s the most inquisitive companion he’s known since Sarah Jane, and he can rarely pull one over on her. He wasn’t joking when he called her jeopardy-friendly, either - but he’s not going to give her the chance this time.
“I’ll be as quick as I can,” he says, intending to pre-empt any suggestion from her that she’s coming with him. “Keep watch, all right? Don’t want that lot getting in the way.”
“If you’re going in, I’m coming too.” Yeah, he can add stubborn to that list of adjectives.
“No.” This time he’s definitely putting his foot down. “Rose-” He dismisses it’s too dangerous; she’ll never accept that. “It’s dark in here, and I can’t be looking out for you as well as myself. You know I have better night vision than you.”
“You’ve got a torch in your pocket, yeah?” She gives him a determined look.
“I can’t take the risk that two of us blundering around inside will do more damage. There’s a reason the rescuers aren’t going in yet. I’ll be fine - just one of me - an’ I’ll be out again in no time.” With Jack’s body, by whatever means necessary. Yes, Jack’s not the only one inside, but he’s not going to have the time or the resources to get everyone out. If there was a chance anyone was still alive, it’d be different, but... that’s not likely.
Rose is still staring at him, and he's ready to turn and walk away from her - can't she see there just isn't time to stand around arguing? Any minute now, the idiots running this recovery operation are going to see him and try to stop him going inside - when she reaches for him. “Be careful,” she says, hugging him tightly, and there's a choke in her voice.
He hugs her back, then holds her away from him so he can look at her. “Aren’t I always?” He gives her one of his widest smiles, then leans in to kiss her briefly on the forehead before letting her go.
Two strides, and he’s through the door and inside the ruined lobby.
***
Rose moves away from the door - quickest way to attract attention would be to stay there - and sits leaning against one of the equipment vehicles, in a position that gives her about as good a view of the entrance as she can get without actually being in front of it. Back to waiting, then.
It’s no surprise that he’s done this. She could see it in his eyes throughout the day, and as the night wore on: his impatience and frustration with the rescue workers, how long the engineers were taking to make the building safe, the lack of any attempt to get inside and find out if anyone was still alive. There were several times when she wondered if he was actually going to do someone bodily harm.
It’s still dangerous in there. That’s what the Doctor was telling her. He could get hurt - get killed - by being inside. There’s no guarantee that he won’t get trapped by another collapse, or even trigger one simply by walking around.
There’s nothing she can do, though. She just has to trust that he’ll be all right. He’s the Doctor, isn’t he? He hasn’t let her down yet. And then she has to be ready to help him when he comes out with Jack. Because he will need her help then, even if he won’t admit it. She’s seen it in his eyes: he’s blaming himself for this.
It’s not his fault. How could it be? Jack decided he was going to help Sal. He saved her life, just like he saved everyone’s at the bomb site in 1941. It was his decision. The Doctor had nothing to do with it, and there’s no way he could have stopped Jack either.
Not that she blames Jack for trying to help, any more than she blames the Doctor for risking his life going inside now. He just better come back out alive, that’s all - or she’s going to bloody well kill him.
***
The Doctor picks his way carefully over the uneven floor, stepping over bits of rubble, broken furniture and electrical connections, bending low in places where the ceiling has dropped. Thanks to the engineers’ scanning equipment and the sonic screwdriver, which is picking up a signal from Jack’s Vortex manipulator, he knows where Jack is; the problem is going to be getting to him. Although the fourth floor is no longer exactly where it was, it’s still higher than ground level. There was a stairwell, but the images he looked at showed it pretty well destroyed.
He ducks as a crack sounds overhead; barely a second later, a chunk of construction material misses his head by a whisker. There’s still some creaking. He points the screwdriver upwards, and in the pale blue light sees a metal bar straining against whatever’s resting on top of it. A quick flick of the screwdriver setting allows him to solder the ends, strengthening it in position. That’ll help the recovery teams, whenever they finally move in.
It’s a mess in here, and very lucky for those who work here that the explosion didn’t happen an hour or so later. Only six people inside. Though every one of those six will have family and friends who care about them.
Except Jack.
No. The lad must have family somewhere. As he climbs over a broken desk, the Doctor silently vows that he will find Jack’s family and return his body to them.
A broken desk. He halts, frowning. On the scan, one of the bodies was in the lobby area, behind a desk. It takes a few seconds to navigate his way around, stepping over bits of ceiling, furniture and cables, bending double to avoid the parts of the floor above that are now barely a metre higher than ground level. He almost steps on the woman’s hand, but sees it just in time, and he drops to his knees to lay two fingers against her throat.
There’s no pulse. No surprise there, given the gash on her head and the pool of blood around her, but still. Gently, he closes her eyes and murmurs, “I’m sorry,” before getting to his feet again and carefully making his way to the stairwell area.
It’s not as bad as the scan showed. If he’s careful, he can pick his way up, and the sonic will tell him where to come out - so long as there’s still a door in the right place.
One step. Two. The next stair gives way as soon as he places his foot on it. He flings out an arm to the wall, finding his balance with that and his other foot. Okay. Try again. The next step up is reasonably steady, if uneven. But there’s debris everywhere, and more bits shower down on top of him from time to time.
It’s a relief when, after a couple of dozen steps, the sonic tells him he can take the next exit. But the floor outside is in a bad way. Clearance is not even up to his hips, and there are obstructions everywhere.
The Doctor drops to his hands and knees and starts to crawl.
***
“Where’s your friend?”
Damn. She was hoping no-one would notice the Doctor’s missing. Rose blinks and rubs her eyes, pretending to be just waking up, then looks up at the uniformed woman standing in front of her. One of the emergency coordination team, who’d been helpful earlier but then told her and the Doctor to wait and let the professionals do the work.
If she remembers right, this is Commander Marga. Rose frowns, then gives the woman a nod of recognition. “Commander? Sorry, was asleep. You’re lookin’ for the Doctor?” She gets to her feet, deliberately awkward, as if she were standing on stiff limbs. “Haven’t seen him since... not sure, actually. What time’s it?”
Marga glances at her watch. “Just after four. No-one’s seen him for the last fifteen minutes or so.” She gives Rose a sharp look. “You sure you were asleep?”
Rose yawns, belatedly covering her mouth. “Yeah. Sorry.” She smooths down her top. “Look, he really hates standing around doing nothing. I’m guessin’ he probably went for a walk. Our ship’s about twenty minutes from here. Could’ve gone back for a shower and a shave.”
“Leaving you here?” Marga sounds suspicious.
She shrugs. “He wouldn’t wake me. Knows I get cranky if I’m woken up. He hates that.”
Marga’s obviously not completely convinced, but she just as clearly doesn’t have time to keep questioning Rose. “Just tell him I want to talk to him, okay?” She starts to turn away.
“Wait.” Rose reaches out for her, catching her sleeve. “Has something happened? I mean, it doesn’t look like the rescue people are inside any more.” All right, yes, she knows that, but if something else has happened...
“The engineers needed a break,” Commander Marga says, her tone discouraging further questions. “I promise that they’ll be back at work as soon as they can. We’re just as anxious as you are to get everyone who’s trapped inside there out as soon as possible. I just don’t like it when civilians go missing at incident sites. Your friend shouldn’t have wandered off without telling anyone.”
Rose nods. “All right.” She watches Marga stride back to the command area, then steals a cautious gaze at the ruined building. Come on, Doctor, hurry!
***
Just a little bit further now, according to the beeping of the screwdriver. It’s not been easy, though. Good job he prefers jeans and a leather jacket in this body. If he was still in the crushed velvet his last self affected, his clothes - and his skin - would’ve been cut to ribbons.
He’s moving by touch and feel, and the dim light of the sonic. There’s no natural light up here; even if the windows weren’t blocked by the collapse, it’s still dark outside anyway. He’ll be a mass of bruises later, the number of times he’s crashed into stuff, but that’s all right. Bruises heal.
The beeping’s louder. He’s got to be right next to Jack now. He pauses and fumbles in his jacket pocket for the torch he acknowledged to Rose is there. Too difficult to carry it and move around at the same time, but it’ll be useful now.
He’s right next to an upturned desk, weighted down by huge blocks of ceiling tile and exterior wall. The desk is lying unevenly on the floor, itself resting on more debris - and a human leg.
He’s found the Captain.
Jack’s lying on his side, one arm curled around his head, one leg trapped under the desk, his body covered in shards of glass, chunks of insulation and other debris. Getting him out’s going to take time, because all of this will have to be moved very carefully in order to make sure he doesn’t cause another collapse.
He shuffles closer, so that he can reach out and touch his fingers to the pulse-point at the young man’s throat. Not that it makes any difference; he knows what he’s going to find. Still, it has to be done. He has to make sure.
The Doctor’s breath catches in his throat when, underneath his fingers, he feels the faint beat that signifies life.
Jack’s not dead. For a second, he’s almost light-headed with relief, but immediately snaps back into attention. Jack might be alive, but he’s not unharmed.
The pulse beating beneath his fingers is sluggish. He gives what he can see of Jack’s body and its surroundings a visual sweep with the aid of the torch, and almost immediately sees the pool of crimson spreading from beneath Jack’s torso. Not arterial blood, at least - well, the lad would have bled to death by now if it was. The blood’s not fresh, so the wound’s likely clotted by now.
Still, Jack needs medical attention, and quickly. Far more quickly than it’ll take to dig him out of here safely, not to mention the risks of doing further damage if more debris falls on him.
And, since Jack’s alive after all, what about the others who are still trapped - the ones he hasn’t found yet?
Jack’s left arm is conveniently accessible - good. The Doctor reaches for his wrist and opens the strap to get at Jack’s Vortex manipulator. It’s been a while since he’s used one of these, but the tech’s not that complex, whatever the Time Agency would like to think. It’s an easy task to set the device’s scanner to check for signs of life within the radius of what’s left of this building.
Nothing. Just three heartbeats: his two, Jack’s single heart.
Of course, the rescue team’s scans hadn’t detected that Jack was alive, so it’s not conclusive. But right now, it’s more important to get Jack taken care of.
“All right, lad, I’m getting you out of here,” he murmurs as he fiddles with the screwdriver to get the right setting. One hand over Jack’s wristband, he touches the screwdriver to the manipulator, concentrating hard.
As reality begins to bend, he keeps focusing, slowing the teleport down just enough to grab onto Jack’s torso, holding the younger man close to his own body to protect him as much as possible from further injury.
Now, it’s up to good medical care, and Jack himself.
***
A muffled thump from somewhere behind the truck has Rose scrambling to her feet again to investigate.
It is the Doctor - and he’s got Jack’s body awkwardly in his arms.
She hurries up, eyes wide and hand outstretched, taking in the blood and dirt staining Jack’s clothes and his limbs dangling uselessly from the Doctor’s arms. “How’d you get down here?” It’s not the question she wants to ask, but right now she just doesn’t want to hear the Doctor confirm what she’s known to be so for hours: that Jack’s dead.
“Teleport.” The Doctor’s curt response tells her he’s got a lot more on his mind. “Where’s the medic team?”
“Um - over there, behind the incident command station.” Why does he want the paramedics?
Immediately, the Doctor starts moving, walking so quickly she has to break into a run to keep up with him. “Lad’s alive,” he tells her as she reaches his side again. “Hurt, though. Lost a lot of blood, too.”
“Oh my god, he is?” But the Doctor’s not interested in answering her. He brushes past Commander Marga, ignoring her blunt enquiries as to where he was, and stops in front of one of the medical team.
“This man’s been trapped inside for almost twenty-four hours. He needs blood and fluids and scanning for broken bones and internal injuries.”
The medic immediately gestures for the Doctor to put Jack down on a makeshift examination table, just inside the open-sided vehicle. As the man bends over Jack, the Doctor turns back to Marga. “He’s alive. You might want to think about what that means for the others still trapped inside.” His tone is scathing. Well, that confirms the suspicions she’s had about his opinion of the rescue workers. “The woman in the lobby is dead, though,” he adds, more quietly.
Marga stares at him, starts to say something, but then turns on her heel, barking out instructions to the engineers and rescue workers. There’s activity suddenly, but Rose isn’t interested in that; her attention’s back on Jack, lying still and unmoving on the table.
The medic looks up sharply. “He’s human?”
“Yep,” the Doctor confirms.
“Ah.” The medic shakes his head. “Can’t help him. We don’t have any stocks of human plasma, and I’m not trained in human physiology anyway. I wouldn’t even know what drugs are safe for him.”
She feels her jaw slackening. “What? You’re sayin’ you won’t do anything for him? You can’t-”
“Rose.” There’s tension in the Doctor’s voice, though he’s not looking at her; he’s lifting Jack carefully into his arms again. “Forget it. Should’ve known this lot’d be useless. Been useless all day, they have.” He’s standing very close to her suddenly. “Put your hand over Jack’s wrist computer.”
He’s struggling, awkwardly holding Jack against his chest while fiddling with the sonic screwdriver with his other hand, but his tone tells her he’s not in the mood to be asked questions. She simply does as she’s told.
His hand, still holding the screwdriver, presses down hard on top of hers. The sonic buzzes, and suddenly solid ground falls away from her, and she’s tumbling, spinning...
***
Almost six hours later, the Doctor makes a minute adjustment to a drip, then nods in satisfaction at the data the monitor’s showing him. Young Harkness is going to be fine. Might be a while yet before he’s up and walking around, but he’ll make a full recovery.
It’s been a tricky few hours, what with getting the three of them back here with Jack’s teleport and into the TARDIS, then working quickly to set up transfusions and fluids, at the same time coping with Rose’s questions and worrying. “Yes, I did qualify as a doctor,” he told her after a while. “Four - no, five times. Proper medical school an’ all. Think I know what I’m doing.”
She insisted on helping as he ran scans to determine the extent of Jack’s injuries: as he suspected, a few broken ribs, cracked wrist, a fractured fibula - could be worse; if it’d been the tibia the lad would’ve been laid up for a couple of weeks, even with the TARDIS’s bone repair tech - significant blood loss and dehydration, though not enough to do damage to his brain, according to the scans. And then, finally, he persuaded her an hour or so ago to go and take a shower and have something to ear. He suspects she’s fallen asleep on her bed. Good thing, if she has; she’d be falling asleep in here instead, which wouldn’t help anyone.
The only uncertainty now is Jack’s unconscious state. His brain’s been protecting him by keeping him unconscious, but he should be coming to by now.
“Jack?” Again, as he’s done every so often for the last couple of hours, he stands close to the bed and says the Captain’s name clearly. “Time to wake up.”
As he’s done before, he pauses, watching for signs of returning consciousness: a flicker of eyelashes, a movement that’s more than involuntary twitching. Nothing. He’s just about to turn away when a low mumble comes from the body on the bed, and then Jack’s eyelids move just a fraction.
“Jack?” He lays a hand gently on the lad’s shoulder - it doesn’t do to startle someone who used to be a soldier. “You’re safe. You’re in the TARDIS.”
Jack’s eyelids flicker. “Doctor?”
“Yeah, ‘s me.”
“Wha...” Jack breaks off, coughing slightly, then taking a breath. His eyes open wide and he stares upwards. “Hey, what’s with the lights?”
“Lights?” He frowns; thanks to all the equipment, the room’s brightly lit.
“Can’t... see a thing.” Jack struggles to sit; he adds pressure to the hand on his shoulder. He can’t be allowed to move yet. “Either you’ve turned all the lights off, or-” Jack stops and takes a shuddering breath. “-I’m blind.”
***
tbc in Chapter 5: Leading the Blind