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amythest_n_ice) wrote2007-06-24 06:23 pm
Fancy Seeing You Here (Eternity-verse 20) Part 3
http://amythest-n-ice.livejournal.com/13
Link to Eternity-verse 20 part 2
Previously in Eternity-verse 20
*Put it this way, don’t eat anything, you don’t know who its been*
*WHAT?*
*If someone can’t be sold, they’ll go into the processing tanks after they finish with all the animal life they took. The tanks have to be reprogrammed apparently, depending on species, planet of origin, and so on. The captain was just down here looking for the readings to program the tanks*
*We have to get out of here, before they leave orbit*
*Too late, they pulled out just after everyone was secured. They thought they were drawing too much attention, go figure
And now, our tale continues*********************************************
They silently moved around the cell, trying to wake up their unconscious cell mates. It took nearly an hour to get everyone awake, and aware.
“What now?” Turlough asked, looking around the featureless cell.
Ten grinned at him, and focused back along the link he had with Jack, he didn’t like the feeling he got from his mate now. Disgust, and tightly leashed rage vibrated along the threads of their bond.
*Jack?*
*It seems the Captain likes to sample the merchandise before he sells it to the brothels*
*Are you……*
*No, he just took one of the women. Her kid is sobbing his heart out in here*
*I thought you were in the medical bay?*
*I am. Are you lot ready to move yet? I need to get to this kid, and hopefully save his mother before the Captain rapes her*
*Yes, we’re ready, how do you want to play this?*
*I’m getting out of here, I’ll come and let you all out*
*OK, see you soon love*
“Jack’s coming for us,” he told the others quietly when he came out of the link.
“The state he was in? He’ll be lucky if he can walk, never mind stage a jailbreak.” Alistair hissed.
“They can’t sell damaged goods, and he’s too pretty to waste. They healed him, in their medical section. Be ready to go as soon as he lets us out.”
Alistair shot him a dubious look, but went to make sure his men were ready to go.
Jack cracked his eyes open a little, confirming what his senses had told him about the locations of the two people on duty in this section right now. Both of them had their backs to him, trying to get a needle into the arm of the hysterical, thrashing child whose mother the Captain had recently dragged out.
Silently he rolled off the bed and padded over catlike on bare feet. The two pirates registered his presence far too late, and had no chance as he grabbed them by the throats, big, powerful hands crushing the vulnerable windpipes. He dropped the corpses to the deck, and turned his attention to the child. The little boy had huddled up in a tiny ball at the head of the bunk, trying to bury himself in the thin pillow. His entire body trembling with the force of his sobs.
Jack reached out and gently rubbed his hand up and down the small back, the child flinched and tried to pull away from the touch.
“Hey, shhh, take it easy little one. Come on, shhh. My name is Jack, what’s yours?”
The little boy hunched his shoulders and tried to hide himself deeper in the pillows.
“Come on sunshine. We have to go and rescue everyone.”
The little boy looked up at that, his face red, and streaked with tears, he had silken black hair and brilliant blue eyes.
“My mummy?”
“Yeah, come on, we’ll make that horrible man let your mummy go.” Jack held his arms out patiently, and waited for the boy to come to him. His age looked to be somewhere between that of Jack’s own children, maybe two and a half, or three and Jack knew he couldn’t rush him, no matter how much his instincts were screaming at him to grab the cub and hurry to free his mate.
The boy finally scooted across the bed, and let Jack pick him up, seeming not to notice the bright gold eyes. He buried his face in Jack’s shoulder and sniffled, clinging on for dear life to the aura of security radiating from this man.
“You ready to tell me your name yet?” Jack gently asked the quivering boy.
“William.” The boy’s voice was muffled by Jack’s shoulder, but his sharp ears caught it anyway.
“Well William, you just hang on tight and keep your head down. OK sunshine?”
The boy nodded, and Jack smiled, stroking his hair lightly.
“Good boy.”
He moved to the door and pressed his ear to the metal, listening for any signs of life in the corridor. There was nothing, so he reached up and triggered the door mechanism, keeping his senses alert for anyone approaching. Stepping out into the corridor, he breathed in deeply, seeking the unique scent of his mate. It was overlaid by a lot of other scents, the other prisoners, but he found it, and started to run, keeping a tight grip on the child he held.
As he got closer to the cells holding the prisoners, he ran across his first pirate since the two he had killed in the medical bay. Pressing back into a doorway, he waited until the man came level with him, and reached out to snap his neck. He relieved the man of his stun gun, and made sure he would be able to use it. He smirked at his luck, a ship used to routinely transport slaves and they didn’t have their weapons DNA encoded.
Jack palmed the control of the door he had been leaning against and kicked the body inside. The room looked to be a storage room of some type, so hopefully no one would stumble over the bodies he was leaving for a while yet.
He made it to the corridor that housed all the cells without having to kill anyone else, although he had stunned a few, and glanced in through the glass on the first cell. This one appeared to contain one of the pirates, sprawled asleep on the bunk, drunk. The next one was empty, and the third, he grinned, the first of the prisoners, all exceptionally good looking. The potential pleasure slaves, he decided as he opened the door. They looked up, surging to their feet, and he pressed his finger to his lips.
“Quietly, out into the hall. Keep to one side, single file, and don’t make any noise.” He ordered, gesturing them out. They obeyed without question, unnerved by his eerie eyes. Jack thought for a moment about having one of them take William, but the child was quiet now, and there would be no point upsetting him by passing him off to another stranger.
The fourth cell made his heart soar, his mate was leaning against the door, peering out through the small window set in it. Jack grinned, opening the door and letting the Doctor check him over with his eyes.
“You OK?” The Doctor finally asked.
“I am now. You?”
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“This is William. The Captain has his mom. William, sunshine?”
The little boy lifted his head and looked around, some of the people in the corridor he knew from home, but he still clung tightly to the security offered by Jack.
“William, this is the Doctor, he’s going to help me get your mommy. While we do that, will you help the others? They’re going to start rescuing the other people from your village.” William shook his head, lip trembling and held on to Jack tighter.
“William, they really need you to help them. The people might be frightened, and they’ll need to see a friendly face. Can you be brave so that they won’t be scared?”
William nodded after a moment, and let Jack hand him over to Turlough, Jack gave the young Trion a hard look, and Turlough met it without flinching, he might not like kids much, but he wouldn’t let anything happen to one.
“Right, the rest of the villagers will be in cells along here, get them all together and watch out for guards. The elderly and the infirm will probably be in cells close to the processing tanks, but we can make sure we have everyone as soon as we have the crew subdued.” Jack handed his stun gun to Alistair, and made sure he knew how to use it, then he led his lover off to hunt for the Captains quarters, and William’s mother.
“How many have you killed?” The Doctor asked as they pounded along a corridor, trusting Jack to keep alert for approaching pirates.
“Three, and a half dozen more stunned, why?”
“Just wondering how long we have before they start to be missed.”
Jack shot him a wry grin as an alarm started blaring.
“You just had to ask, didn’t you?” He sighed.
He skidded to a halt and dragged the Doctor back around a corner as he heard heavy footsteps pounding in their direction. A squad of four armed men ran passed, heading away from the cells.
“Where are they going?” The Doctor wondered aloud.
“I think we’ve just had a lucky break,” Jack said, busy hacking a computer console he had found.
“Why?”
“They found the bodies in the medical area. They’re looking for me in the shuttle and teleport area. It hasn’t occurred to them that I would bother trying to free their other prisoners yet. If the Brigadier can get everyone loose and in the same place, they’ll outnumber the crew significantly. Hah, found the Captain’s quarters. He’s on the top level, close to the bridge.”
“What options do we have for getting up there?” The Doctor asked, coming to lean over his shoulder to look at the screen himself.
“Oooh, maintenance ladders. Perfect,” he said, slapping Jack’s shoulder.
“Agreed, let’s get a move on. They’ll figure out that I wasn’t heading off this ship soon enough and check the prisoners.”
They located the access panel for the closest ladder and Jack punched in the release code that the computer had very kindly provided when he asked. They got into the tight shaft and the Doctor pulled the hatch closed behind them.
The corridor was deserted on the upper levels, the pirates either at their posts, or searching for the prisoner missing from the medical section. Jack cocked his ear at the door, and hearing nothing, he triggered the release. The smell of blood hit him hard, and he turned away for a moment.
“Oh Gods.” The Doctor breathed, bowing his head.
The woman, William’s mother, was clearly dead. It looked like the pirate captain had beaten her to a pulp, and then broken her neck, judging by the angle of her neck. There was blood slicking the floors.
“Why? If they were supposed to be selling their prisoners in the slave markets, why would he do this?” The Doctor asked faintly.
“I’ll be sure to ask him before I kill him.” Jack’s voice was a low, guttural growl, and when the Doctor looked back over his shoulder at his lover he felt a thrill of alarm. Jack’s eyes were wild, enraged. The Doctor caught his arm, holding him tightly.
“No Jack. We have hundreds of other people on this ship we need to worry about. We cannot afford to go after that bastard no matter how much we want to. Come on.” The Doctor hoped his mate would listen to him, because he was fairly sure he wouldn’t be able to stop him if he really was determined to go after the monster that had done this.
Jack blew out a long breath and closed his eyes for a beat, then he nodded once. He opened his eyes, and looked around the room. There was no sign of the weapons that the soldiers had been carrying, they were probably in the ship’s armory, or the cargo bays, to be sold at the next port, but he did see his blasters, and the sonic screwdrivers on the desk in the corner, the captain having kept them for himself. Jack stepped past the body carefully and reclaimed their belongings, then he pulled the cover off the bed and covered the woman with it. He stopped before he covered her face and gently removed the St.
“What are you doing?” The Doctor asked.
“He has to have something to remember her by,” Jack said softly. He knew what it was like to lose your mother far too soon, and he had been older than William when he had gone through it.
“OK. Come on Jack, lets get this done.” The Doctor stepped over and guided Jack to his feet.
They stepped out of the Captain’s quarters, and found a man leaning against the wall across the corridor, pointing a gun at them.
“I should have known you would be trouble as soon as my men reported what kind of weapon you fired at them,” He said idly.
“Why did you kill her?” Jack snarled, gesturing to the now closed door.
“She was more trouble than she was worth. I wouldn’t have got enough for that hellcat to cover the cost of feeding her on the trip,” he said fingering scratches on his face and neck with his free hand. Jack growled, and the laser pointed more firmly in his direction.
“Ah ah ah, it would be a shame if you wasted your last half hour or so of life.”
“What?” The Doctor demanded.
“Well, you let all the prisoners out, and there is no way to retake them all without risking more of my crew. So, this ship is on course for the this system’s sun. We destroyed all the controls, primary and auxiliary, and even in the unlikely event you could operate the teleport without the remote, now the main panels are gone, there is nowhere in range for you to go, and not enough time to get everyone off.”
“Why? How does that benefit you? You lose your ship, and your cargo.” The Doctor pointed out.
“Oh, don’t be silly, the coverage on the ship, and the cargo together will buy us a very nice replacement. We have the manifest, and discs proving that it was the cargo which caused the tragedy. Have fun telling them they’re going to die, won’t you.” The captain sneered as he held up the remote and teleported out.
“Well, hell.” The Doctor scowled, kicking the wall.
“Come on, we better find the others, and make sure we have everyone together and we haven’t missed anyone,” Jack said.
“How are we going to get them off? We don’t have time to repair the controls AND turn the ship.”
“I know. I’m going to try to bring the TARDIS to us.”
“WHAT? You can’t Jack, flying the TARDIS from inside is one thing, but you’re too far away from her now. Not even you are strong enough to bring her in telepathically over this distance,” the Doctor said, panicking for his mate’s safety.
“No, that’s why you and the other Doctor are going to have to help me.”
“I’m listening,” the Doctor said, a little calmer now.
“If you and he both support me telepathically, then I should be strong enough to reach her, and guide her to us. Options are on the limited side here Doctor, if you have a better idea, let me know quick.”
“No, no better ideas. Let’s do it.”
It took them ten minutes to check what was still running in the computer to make sure all the prisoners were out, and get to the cargo bay where Alistair had gathered everyone.
“Where’s my mummy?” William asked from where he still rested in Turlough’s arms.
“I’m sorry William, but the bad man hurt your mommy very badly, and she had to go to heaven. This is hers, so that you know she will always be watching over you,” Jack said, gently, clasping the tiny medal around the child’s neck. Blue eyes filled with tears, and he started to cry.
Reluctantly leaving Turlough to comfort the boy as best he could, Jack and the Doctor went to where Alistair five were standing. The Doctor quickly and very quietly explained what the pirates had done, and what he and Jack needed from his earlier incarnation.
“Fine, lets get on with it. How do you want to do this?” Five asked.
“Brigadier, can you have your men herd everyone out of the way? We need a clear space for the TARDIS, and I’m not sure how accurate this is going to be.”
“Consider it done.” Alistair went to help his men herd everyone over to the far side of the bay, and Jack knelt on the floor, breathing deeply to center himself. He felt the two Doctors place a hand on his shoulders as they stood side by side at his back, and opened himself up.
He lost all awareness of his body as he reached for the familiar, ancient soul of the TARDIS. He wavered for a moment, or an eternity, he wasn’t sure which, as he felt two distinct traces for her, unsure, but one was singing to the beacon of light and energy at his right, and that was not his mate. He plunged forward into the other presence, and this one sang his mate’s song joyfully, welcoming her navigator in to her and allowing him control.
Alistair and the others watched in various states of confusion and awe as the blue box slowly started to shimmer into existence in the open space left in the middle of the cargo bay. She was finally solid, and all was silent for a long moment, then Jack’s eyes snapped open.
“Get everyone inside, now. The pirate lied, we’re closer to the sun than he said. We have ten minutes before the forward sections start to burn.” He ordered, absently wiping his hand over an irritating tickle on his lip and realizing his fingers were lightly streaked with blood. He dismissed it as unimportant for the moment, they had bigger things to worry about. The TARDIS told him that the doors would open onto a new garden for the moment, and he thanked her silently.
The Doctor opened the door, and shooed everyone quickly into the green, grassy space inside, keeping one eye on the time, and one on Jack, who was pale, and looked exhausted, although the nosebleed seemed to have stopped, so hopefully that wasn’t serious. Once everyone was in the garden except the two Doctors, Turlough, William still cuddled in his arms, and Jack, the Doctor closed the door, and opened it again onto the console room.
They all got inside, Five and Turlough looking around the very different console room in shock, and the Doctor dove at the console, throwing the ship into the vortex.
Ianto and Terrell hurried into the console room, each carrying one of the children.
“What the…… happened? She just started flying herself.” Ianto missed out the word he had intended saying, mindful of Kalen in his arms, and Bobby with his lover.
“That was me,” Jack said tiredly, collapsing into the chair by the console.
“Mama, want mama.” Kalen struggled to get down, so Ianto lowered her to the deck, and Terrell let Bobby down a second later. They both charged over to Jack.
“Mama hurt.” Bobby accused, pointing at the blood on his lip.
“No Bobby, mamas just very tired. Bobby, Kalen, this is William, I would like you to take him to your room, and play with him. A bad man took his mum away from him, so I want you to be his friends.”
“Like a bad man tried to take mama when Kalen was still inside?”
“Yes.” The Doctor said with a shudder, he hadn’t realized Bobby remembered Jack getting abducted when he was just under five months pregnant.
“’K. C’mon Will’m.” Kalen said, grabbing one of the boy’s hands. Bobby grabbed the other hand, and the two of them towed him out of the room. Ianto followed not far behind to make sure they got there without any detours.
“Mama?” Five questioned.
“Don’t ask questions, please. The less you know, the less we will have to wipe from your memories when we get back to the UNIT base.”
“Er, no. No one is wiping my memories.” Turlough objected.
“Turlough, they have to. I know things now that I can’t know without risking my whole timeline. And if you remember them, then there is a risk you’ll accidentally remind me of them. Don’t worry, I’m sure it will be painless, and they won’t mess with anything other than memories we shouldn’t have.” Five looked for reassurance of this even as he reassured his companion, and received a harried nod from the Doctor.
Two days later, Five and Turlough had gone on their way after a very apologetic Alistair had explained that calling them had been a false alarm, the inhabitants of the village not having vanished, but there had been a problem with the phones. Everyone in the village had had their memories altered to have abduction by aliens wiped out, and changed into false memories of those few days, thanks to the application of Retcon, and the help of the TARDIS, which only left one problem.
“Have you managed to locate any family of William?” Jack asked Alistair, the only person outside of the TARDIS crew who remembered everything.
“Yes, he should be here any moment. Where is the lad?”
“The children and Ianto are with him in the rest room down the hall, we altered his memory this morning.”
“So he now believes there was a fire, and his mother died in hospital?"
"Yes, that way he could keep her medal without it causing any confusion, he’s a bright little thing, and he would wonder how she managed to find time to put it on him in the middle of a blaze.”
“Right enough.”
There was a knock at the door, and at Alistair’s order, and young corporal came in.
“The Major is here Sir.”
“Thank you. Bring him in.”
A sandy haired man in an army major uniform came in, he carried a cane and had a noticeable limp.
“George, good to see you again, although I wish the circumstances were better.”
“As do I Alistair.” The man had a pleasant Scottish burr when he spoke.
“George, I would like you to meet Jack Harkness, and Dr. John Smith. They’ve been looking after young William. I had no idea the boy was your nephew until we started looking for family.”
“How did you come to be looking for his family anyway? I would have thought that a job for the police.”
“It’s a long story George, and believe me, you do not want to hear it. William is down the hall, would you like to see him now?”
“Of course.”
They went into the rest room, where Ianto was watching the three children coloring pictures on the floor, he just hoped their ages would be blamed for some of the colors they were choosing for stuff. Ianto tried to remember which planet would have given Kalen the idea of that yellow sky.
“William,” George said as they entered. The dark haired boy looked up.
“Uncle George.” He stood up and went to stand in front of the Major.
“Mummy went to heaven,” he said, his lower lip trembling slightly, but he didn’t cry.
“I know laddie, I know. Say good bye to your friends William, we have a long journey ahead,” George said gently, ruffling the boy’s hair. With the death of his younger sister, William’s mother, they were each all the other had now.
Jack lay in the Doctor’s arms after they had made love, staring at the ceiling.
“Why are you still awake?” The Doctor yawned, propping his head up on his hand and looking down into the soft blue eyes of his lover.
“Thinking,” Jack said with a slight smile.
“Ah, I thought I heard a grinding sound.”
“Ha ha,” Jack said, poking him lightly.
“What are you thinking about?”
“William. I hope he’ll be all right.”
“He will Jack, his Uncle loves him, he’ll do everything he can to make sure William has a good life.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“So what else is whirling around your brain?”
“How often does that happen, meeting other versions of yourself?”
“Not very often. Why?”
“It felt weird, when you were both helping me get the TARDIS to that ship. There were two entirely different aura’s to the TARDIS, two songs.”
“How did they sound?”
“His sounded happy enough, but there was a hint of something melancholy.”
“And our lady?”
“She sounded so joyful,” Jack said softly.
“Jack, the song of the TARDIS reflects the soul of the time lord she carries. That incarnation of me was happy enough, but lonely. I have a mate, and a family, and friends. For the first time in millennia Jack, the TARDIS is buzzing with life, and her joy is added to ours in her song.”
“There have been times in my life when I thought I could never be happy again. I’m glad I found you again, and I hope William will be as happy one day as I am now,” Jack whispered, tugging the Doctor down into a sweet kiss.
*I love you* they whispered together into their link
**************************************************
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OK, on that shockingly sappy note, this chapter is finally concluded, and I would just like to say a huge thank you to the people who commented on the first two parts and didn't get a reply from me, hangs head in shame. So therefore this whole three part chapter is for Taffimai, adafrog, feenixandashes, jigot, rivana, pfyre, and i_is_a_freak.
Oh, and cookies and ice-cream to the first person to tell me who William and George are, and who they will one day both work for *grin*
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