Late Night Loss Chapter 8

[galadriel1010]

Jack enfolded the Doctor in a bear hug and pulled back to let the others do the same. They gathered around the couch, some sitting on it, some on desks and bean bags and some on each other to explain the situation. The Doctor was sitting cross legged on the desk to watch the enormous family interacting; John was flirting gently with, well everyone actually, but especially with Jack, trying to get a rise out of the immortal. But Jack just smiled weakly and ignored him, turning to the Doctor, “So, who made the call?”

“I did.” Martha admitted, glancing briefly at the Doctor

=Flashback=

“Martha, make that call.”

She pressed her mobile to her lips for a moment and then pressed the speed dial for the Doctor. The number flashed up on her screen, “Doctor – 07700 900461” and she listened to it ringing; once, twice, three times, then it was picked up.

“Martha?” He sounded calm but surprised, always a good sign.

“Doctor!” She smiled at the reassuring sound of his voice, “How soon can you get here?”

“Where is here?”

“Cardiff.” She bit her lip

“Oh.” Now he sounded very surprised, slightly perplexed and a little put off.

“Jack needs you, really needs you.”

There was silence for a moment, then she heard him moving around and flicking buttons and levers around the console and the unmistakeable sound of the TARDIS’s engines starting up.

=End Flashback=

The Doctor watched his immortal friend in concern, noting the way he held tightly onto Jasmine’s hand at all times and his left thumb was pressed against his wedding band, the way none of them had coffee and the Hub was looking untidy. “How long has he been gone?”

“Four days.” Jack’s voice was barely a whisper

He ran a hand through his hair and donned his brainy specs, “Why didn’t you call me sooner?”

Jack shrugged and answered in a broken voice, “You’ve got worlds to save, civilisations to rescue… And there’s…” He stopped and swallowed, letting John wrap an arm around his shaking shoulders

Jasmine finished his sentence, “There’s no trace Doctor, no residual energy that we can detect, nothing. No indication that he’s not here, apart from the fact that he… Isn’t.”

“There’s always a trace.” He insisted, pushing himself upright, “The question is, where is it and what is it? Wait, that’s two questions.” Jack and the others followed him into the TARDIS and the others who hadn’t been in there before looked around in shock, “Yes, yes, it’s bigger on the inside. Now, where did he disappear from?”

“Home. Our house.” Jack answered, gripping onto the console as the ship gave a welcoming lurch with excitement and hope evident in his eyes.

“Galactic co-ordinates?” The Doctor asked, feeling guilty for potentially getting Jack’s hopes up when he might not be able to do anything.

“Here.” Jazz swung under a pillar and up to the console, pushing the Timelord aside to input the co-ordinates. “And four days ago…”

He put his glasses back on and pulled the screen around to study the readouts, “Four days ago, those, no wait these co-ordinates. Jazz, we’ve not travelled in time as well, have we?”

“What, as well?” She checked her readouts and frowned, “Oh, yeah, why’s she done that… No, we’re still in place in time.”

“Good, can’t afford to go crossing over event lines. OK… Yes, there it is! It’s tiny, an eensy-weensy teeny-weeny iota of a trace, just a tiny blip.”

“Of what?” Jack asked, hurrying round behind him

“Negative energy reading.” The commander answered for him, “Sorry Jack but…”

“Something’s taken him.” He interrupted, his face pale and his knuckles white as they gripped on to the central console

The Doctor nodded sadly, “Something, it’s not a reading I’ve ever seen before, it’s like a dip in life energy or maybe even reality…”

“Life energy?” Jack found it hard to believe that he’d managed to get the words out, “You mean?”

“I don’t think he’s dead… If he’d died we would expect an increase in ambient life energy, and this isn’t life energy as such… It’s more…” He pulled a face

“Dimensional energy?” Jazz asked, studying it closely

He looked again, “That’s more like it, but not dimensions as we know them more like…” The Doctor looked at Jazz for a moment, “Like a stack of plates, one on top of the other, all existing alongside each other. Or one inside another.”

“Like the ghosts and… The Dungeon Dimensions!”

“Yes! Good old Pratchett, the Dungeon Dimensions. But no, not the Dungeon Dimensions. More like a balloon inside a balloon. He was inside the outer balloon with the inner balloon, but now he’s inside the inner balloon inside the outer balloon. Or maybe inside the inner balloon outside the outer balloon…”

“Doc, you’re not making a lot of sense, or maybe you are and it’s just the world that doesn’t make sense…”

“Yeah, something like that I think. You do realise I’m theorising out loud right?”

“You usually are.” Jack answered, “Can you do anything?”

“Well…” He ran his hand through his unruly hair again and pulled off his glasses “Not without knowing where he is. I think he’s inside the house still.”

Jazz straightened up from where she’d been bent over one of the console screens, “Stay here, all of you, I’m going to process the scene, and I don’t want you under my feet. Actually… Doc, you’re with me.” She grabbed her ever ready bag from the chair where she’d dropped it and led the way to the door, looking back with one hand on the handle to where no one had moved, including her intended field partner, “Doctor, you coming? The rest of you, have a look in the TARDIS library, Jack and Martha you can run some more scans on the computers. Use the best technology we have at our disposals to bring him home. Now, Doctor!”

He gave them a nervous smile, rested his hand on Jack’s shoulder for a moment and then followed her out the door, closing it behind them both. Jack gazed after them mournfully for a moment, then turned back to the console without enthusiasm, “She’s right, let’s see what we can do.”

“Jack, they’ll find something, you know they will.” Mickey reassured him, “I’m going down to the library with the others, you two staying here?”

Martha looked at Jack, who shrugged and left her to the decision, “No, we’ll use the second control room, the computer set-up’s better there.”

“Second control room?” The hacker asked in surprise

“Yeah, down that corridor and turn left before the wardrobe, then take the second right…” She tugged on Jack’s arm and he started before setting off to the second control room

“Keep your coms open.” He called, “Easier to share information than trying to find each other in here. And don’t get lost.”

They sighed and looked at each other sadly before the library team moved off, “Will he be alright?” Andy asked worriedly

“When we get Ianto back, yeah.” John answered

The Doctor resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands and watched Jazz working around the house. She’d allowed him to watch her more closely to start with, but then his questions got annoying and she kept walking into him when she turned around suddenly and, to cut a long story short, he was now handcuffed by his ankle to the chair in the corner of the bedroom. The handcuff was deep red and fluffy, and he would have been more comfortable about that fact if it had come out of Jack’s drawer, rather than out of Jasmine’s pocket.

“You never know when you’ll need one.” She’d said.

He sighed heavily and reflected that in all his long life, he’d never been chained to things as often as he had when in the company of the two immortals, either pre or post their miraculous transformation. For some reason, Jasmine wasn’t as… wrong as Jack, and Jack wasn’t as wrong at the end of the year than at the start… He was rambling again.

“Why are you different?” He asked suddenly. She stared at him for a moment and he took that as an invitation, however misinterpreted the gesture may have been, to go on, “Why do I feel like Jack is wrong and not meant to be, out of time, factual. But you’re not really, you’re more…” She wasn’t helping, just sitting back and glaring at him, “And Jack… Jack was less wrong after that year that he was at the start of it, and now he’s more wrong than he was at the wedding…”

She sighed and turned back to look under the bed, flashing her torch around in a variety of colours, “That’s because no matter where I am, it’s where I belong, Jack hadn’t found where he belonged, and now he’s lost it again.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh.” She knelt up again and glared at him fiercely, her hands balling into fists, “Have you any idea how much you hurt him?” He cowered back from her intense gaze, “Ever since he met you, all he’s ever wanted to do is impress you, he wants you to be proud of him. Hell, he wants you to like him. He thought you’d abandoned him because you didn’t want him around, and I don’t know the truth of the matter but that’s how he sees it, and he waited Doc, he waited for a hundred years, protecting you and saving the world for you, when he could have done anything, so that he could find you again. And you ran away again.”

He dropped his eyes to the floor, “He’s a better man than I am.”

“Bollocks.”

“No, it’s true. I couldn’t face it; I couldn’t live up to him. I couldn’t face the fact that I nearly didn’t give him the chance.”

Old eyes looked out from a teenage face, which wasn’t any more sympathetic than he’d expected it to be, “You’re such a moron. He needs you, he always needs you.”

“He’s got you.”

She growled, “Doctor!”

“OK, I know… I promise, I’ll try to be better. I just… I don’t know if I know how.”

Giving up, Jazz rolled her eyes and stood up, “I can’t find anything, nothing at all. No indication of a struggle, nothing else was in here… I don’t want to go into the bed… And yes, I might consider rephrasing that one.” She sighed, “There’s nothing… And, I know you didn’t mean to hurt him. But you have to know that you did.”

“Did I hurt you too?” He asked quietly

“I’m tougher than that Doc, you know me. So is Jack really, but he looks up to you more than I do.”

“I’ll try not to be hurt by that revelation.” He hugged her when she released him, “And now how are you holding up?”

She shrugged, “I’m still in love with Ianto, but I will never, ever admit it to anyone but you and John. Still in love with Jack, likewise… I don’t know, I guess I’ll process it once it’s over. Until then I’ll just keep going.”

“Someone has to.” He smiled and they made their way back to the blue police phone box in the middle of the living room

“Yeah, come on.” She dropped her bag on the chair and the Doctor fiddled with the parameters, combining the two control rooms for a moment to retrieve Jack and Martha, “You two found anything?”

They shook their heads sadly, “Nothing, well lots of somethings, have you ever seen an alien tech scan of Cardiff?”

“It looks like one of those night time satellite photos with all the streetlights everywhere.” Martha groaned

“But not any something we want.” Jack dropped into a chair and didn’t even register the rooms separating again and leaving him in the main control room, “I don’t know what to do.”

Martha looked up at the other two and recognised their dejected looks, “Same for you two?”

Jazz nodded, “Yeah. Look, Jack, you should grab some stuff whilst we’re here. I know you’re running out of stuff at the Hub, and for the moment…”

He interrupted her and headed for the door, “Probably best if I stay there rather than here, I know. Just… Just give me some time, OK?”

“Sure, take as long as you need.” The Doctor assured him, leaning back on the console to watch his old friend go with concern and guilt in his eyes.