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http://amythest-n-ice.livejournal.com/36116.html
Link to Part 7
http://amythest-n-ice.livejournal.com/37008.html
Link to Part 9
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“Jack?” Rose whispered, her voice shaking.
Jack looked at her blankly, no recognition in his eyes.
“Jack, speak to me, please. Tell me what happened, what’s wrong.”
He said something in a language she didn’t understand, and for a second, she wondered why the TARDIS wasn’t translating for her, then she recognized it as the language the Doctor sometimes muttered in when he was repairing the TARDIS.
“Jack, I don’t understand. Please tell me what’s going on.”
She heard hammering on the door of the TARDIS, her mum and Mickey trying to get in, and stood up to go and open it for them. Jack surged to his feet after her and grabbed her arm, making her squeak in fear.
“Rose?”
“Jack, you’re OK.” She sighed, relaxing a little.
“That’s…..debatable. We need to figure out some way to rescue the Doctor and destroy the Daleks without killing everyone on Earth. Any ideas Old Girl?” He asked, directing the last to the TARDIS.
“But the TARDIS can’t go back for him. He said that in the message, and that no one but a Time Lord could operate her.”
“Then aren’t we lucky we have one?” He asked idly.
“What?”
“Alright, first, into the Vortex, outside time. Then we can figure out what we’re going to do to help the Doctor.”
“Jack, what do you mean about us having a Time Lord?”
Jack didn’t reply, going over to the console and starting the dematerialization sequence.
“Jack, what was that light, what did it do to you? What the hell is going on?” Rose demanded, following him over to the console.
“Later,” Jack said, drumming his fingers on the edge of the console, possibilities running through his mind. He didn’t think he could build a refined Delta wave generator without the Doctor, his official studies had never got that far, and in what free time he had been given, he was far more interested in TARDIS mechanics. He closed his eyes, focusing on the TARDIS, hoping she would be able to offer him a solution. She put forward a tentative suggestion, the sense around it worried, dark.
“OK, that’s a plan,” he said softly.
“Rose, go out of the room.”
“What? No.”
“Fine then, turn your back and close your eyes, don’t look at the light.”
“You’re going to open the TARDIS? You can’t, what it did to Blon……there must be another way.”
“There isn’t, or she wouldn’t have suggested this. Do it Rose.”
Rose turned her back, shutting her eyes as he set the controls to take them back to the Game Station as soon as she could after the temporal ripples of her departure had dissipated, then queued the landing sequence. Once that was done, he stood quietly in front of the console, waiting. The console split open, just a sliver, a golden tendril snaking out and sliding into Jack before the console dropped closed again.
He felt that coil of energy spreading through his body, the TARDIS’s calculations hopefully precise enough that she would be able to use him as a beacon, without the radiation killing him. They landed, and Jack turned in Rose’s direction without opening his eyes.
“Rose.”
“Yes?”
“The Doctor is just outside, so are the Daleks. He hasn’t triggered the Delta wave. I want you to open the door, stay inside the threshold, and tell him to shut his eyes, he mustn’t look. Then you need to get out of the way, and cover your eyes.”
“What?”
“The TARDIS is coming out to play Rose, you have to do what I say or you won’t be safe.”
He heard her footsteps crossing the room, and the sound of the door opening. The first voice he heard was the Doctor’s, sounding worried and a little angry.
“Rose, what are you doing here, what have you done? She shouldn’t have been able to get back here.”
“It was Jack, he…… you have to close your eyes Doctor, he’s done something with the TARDIS.”
Jack heard her step back and to the side, and hoped she did as he had told her as he took her place in the doorway, the TARDIS tendril inside his head guiding him, he braced himself in the doorway, and took a breath.
“Daleks, you will not be permitted to destroy any further. We will not permit you to taint the universe any longer with your evil. You may have escaped oblivion once, but here in this place you will be stopped.”
The Doctor briefly opened his eyes in shock, the voice may have been Jack’s but the tone and sentiment most definitely were not. Jack stood braced in the doorway, his eyes shut, his head held high.
“You cannot destroy me, I am God.” The Dalek emperor sneered.
“And I am the Bad Wolf, harbinger and servant of the Storm. You will be destroyed.”
The Doctor snapped his eyes shut once more on instinct, and a beat later there was an un-earthly siren song, beautiful, enticing and devastating, and on it’s heels, a wash of golden light that he could see through his eyelids. The light and the song faded as the TARDIS searched out all of the Daleks, spinning away through the station and space to turn each and every one of them to dust. The Doctor took that moment to get up and hurry to where Jack still stood in the doorway, his eyes shut, his breathing even.
“Jack?” The Doctor put a tentative hand to Jack’s face, and the young man smiled faintly, his eyes opening. The Doctor almost flinched, his eyes were gold, completely gold.
“It is just a protection, to make sure the Wolf cannot harm me. Do not worry Doctor, all will be well when this is done.” The odd formality of his speech indicated that this still wasn’t entirely Jack, but the Doctor let that slide for the moment.
“So you come to my rescue, and everything goes on as before?” The Doctor asked, half teasing, half seeking information.
“Not precisely as before, no.”
The hand that rested against Jack’s face slid down to rest against his chest, and he wasn’t sure if he should be overjoyed, or saddened by the double beat he felt through his sensitive fingers. Jack had opened the watch, and now the Doctor was no longer the last of his kind, but was two lonely souls really any better than one? When Jack had been human, he may have had only a fleeting life span, but he had had hopes, dreams, ambitions to fill that time, and now he would know that he was one of the last two survivors of a once great civilization, doomed to wander the centuries with no world to call home.
“Close your eyes now, Doctor. The Wolf returns.”
The Doctor closed his eyes, and as he once more saw the light against his eyes, he felt the rush of the TARDIS around him, he could feel her Heart in a way he never had before, he could feel the power in her, and her love for him, and her joy at having a new young Time Lord to teach, a true companion for the Doctor, but still not losing her measure of affection for the bright young human who had saved a battle weary Time Lord’s soul. He heard Jack breathe out slowly, returning the energy that rested in him to the main flow as it passed, then the light was gone, and a ringing clang from inside indicated the console was closed once more.
He opened his eyes to see Jack’s white knuckle grip on the door frame start to go lax, and he caught him as he started to slide to the floor. Tired blue eyes met his, and Jack cracked a faint grin.
“Hey Doc, did we win?”
“Don’t call me Doc, and yes, yes we did win. Thank you, Jack.”
“’s, nothing. If we didn’t save you, who would teach me about being a Time Lord? One year at the Academy and five years Time Agent training just don’t seem like they’re going to cut it.” Jack smirked, before exhaustion dragged him once more into unconsciousness.
Rose had uncurled from her protective huddle by this time, and came over to help him once more move Jack to the sofa.
“Is he all right Doctor? He opened the TARDIS and looked in, and before that, he was acting kind of odd, and there was a watch, and a light.”
“He’s going to be fine Rose, I’ll explain what I can later, but right now, I think I’d like to get us out of here, and I suspect we’re going to have to go and calm your mother down.”
“Yeah, the doors did kind of slam on her and Mickey, then we left while they were hammering, trying to get in.”
“Great,” the Doctor said with a wry grin.
Even as he bantered with Rose, part of his mind was worrying over another thought. One year at the Academy on Gallifrey, they didn’t take on students until after their 100th birthday, usually between 102 and 105, which meant that given the time he had lived as a human he was still less than 150 years old, just a child by Time Lord standards, and for him to have been found as a child, he must have been regenerated, probably forced, at that age. Would the Council really have approved that, wasting a regeneration of one so young? What had they done?
tbc
