| "What's wrong?" He'd been pacing for hours - possibly days. Time was screwed up here. But when the big things were too big to worry about, the little things tended to take on a vastly out-of-proportion importance. His pacing was driving her round the bend. "Doctor!" "Something's wrong!" He stopped suddenly, wild expression eerily emphasized by the monster-eye lighting of the TARDIS. "That's what I asked you," Rose pointed out. "What is it?" He glanced away then back, shaking his head once. "I don't know." "Maybe if you stop thinking about it, it'll come to you." "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.� He considered it. �But okay." He turned his attention to the console, tapping on the small LCD readout. They weren't going anywhere. They were hanging around - literally - in space. There were supposed to be heading to Barcelona for a break. Rose needed one. She'd had a hard day. But there was something not right. Even the TARDIS felt it, because they'd stopped after putting some considerable safety distance between them and Satellite 5. The TARDIS had stopped dead - not easy in a vacuum - and now it was hovering, as if it had something to say but couldn't work out how to communicate. "What happened to Jack?" Rose asked hesitantly, knowing the answer already. "They exterminated him," the Doctor told her quickly. No need to ask who �they� were. "He's dead." Rose opened her mouth to speak and felt a jolt like hot electricity just behind her eyes. She stumbled forward, alarming the doctor who reached for her. "He's not dead," she gasped out, fingers clinging to the console. "It saved him. Bad Wolf created life." The Doctor stared at her, shaking his head. "No. Bad Wolf destroyed life." �And gave it!" "Everything dies - it said that." "But that which was dead lived. It found him. It brought him back." She straightened, the Doctor letting go to step away, face creasing in horror. "Then we left him. In a dead station with only corpses and ashes for company." "We have to go back." ~ Jack sat on the hard, metal-grilled floor, gun empty of bullets in one hand, a single unused shell in the other. He wouldn't use it, of course he wouldn't. He'd been in worse situations than this, in more fruitless, hopeless situations. But it did rankle, that the Doctor had left him on this dead satellite, abandoned him to a future devoid of life. Did he think he was dead? Hadn't he been? Hadn't that dalek fired its death ray and killed him? Was the doctor still alive? Had he left? Or had something else happened to him? Had Rose taken off with the TARDIS, believing them both to be beyond saving? Had the TARDIS been programmed to leave given some pre-determined criteria? Or had he gone one step too far with that kiss? He let the questions plague him for a little while. Then he pushed himself to his feet, stopped feeling sorry for himself, and wondered off to try and find another way off this piece of space junk. All the life rafts were gone. There hadn't been enough anyway - the hundred or so corpses on floor zero could attest to that. There didn't seem to be any other crafts around - although he checked every area that resembled a docking bay. He worked on interrogating the systems, asking simple and direct questions, but it didn't get him very far. The frank exchanges always went the same way - "Where are the docking bays?" "Command not recognised." "Are there any spacecraft docked at the satellite?" "Command not recognised." "Is there any way off this heap of junk?" "Command not recognised." He supposed if he waited long enough someone would come from Earth to find out what had happened to all the television channels they were used to receiving, the game shows they wasted their lives in paralysing fear of. Either that or mankind would get a clue and launch a missile to just destroy the place without asking questions. Did they even know how close they'd come to complete annihilation at the hands of the Doctor or to the worst kind of slavery at the... grapples of the daleks? Probably not. Humans had never been a particularly intelligent race. So after some immeasurable period of time spent roaming the abandoned satellite, Jack returned to sitting on his ass on the metal grilled floor, gun in one hand, bullet in the other, considering his rather limited future. ~ Rose peered out cautiously. "This isn't where we set down before." "I think the TARDIS has been particularly focused recently. Now everything�s all over its back to its usual flaky self." "You mean you got the landing co-ordinates wrong?" The doctor grinned. "That's exactly what I mean." "Is it safe?" Pushing passed her, glancing around before stepping out onto floor 494, the Doctor responded, "Is it ever?" But they seemed to be utterly alone. There was no sound, no sign of anyone else being aboard. And on something so big made of resounding metal that was kinda creepy. "It's kinda creepy," Rose observed. "It was more creepy with the daleks aboard, surely?" The Doctor had a point. "How do we find him?" "Let's ask the computer." They found a terminal next to the lift shaft and pressed the buttons in no particular sequence until the screen flickered into life, turning from black to blue. "Are there any other life signs on board, with the exception of the two standing here?" "Command not recognised." "Is there anyone else aboard?" "Command not recognised." "You useless lump of circuits!" "Command - " "- not recognised, I get the point." He turned to Rose. "Computer system's down, I guess we're on our own." "Is there nothing in the TARDIS that can scan the satellite?" "No, because the TARDIS isn't really here." "Yes it is! I can see it!" "It's still not really here. The walls are here but the inside's elsewhere, so it can't scan the satellite, because it isn't actually on it. If you see what I mean." "No." "Never mind. Come on." He led the way into the elevator - at least that was still working. 500 floors equalled a lot of stairs. The Doctor's idea, that working randomly would reduce the risk of Sod's Law ensuring their search turned up Captain Jack in the last place they looked, made a strange kind of sense to Rose. But after the tenth random floor selection turned up no signs of life, she started to look at the problem from a different point of view. "What if Jack's doing the same as we are?" she asked as they finished their sweep of Floor 36. "Then at some point we're bound to run into him." She tried to find some logic in his logic and failed. "No. We'd just miss him." "It doesn't matter." "Why not?" "Because he's not moving is he?" "How do you know?" "There's only one lift! And it's always waiting just where we left it." Another good point well made. "What if he's using the ventilation shafts?" "Why would he, when there's a perfectly good lift?" Score two. She stopped in her tracks. "What if I'm wrong?" "You are wrong." "I mean about him being alive." The Doctor tilted his head and the smile vanished. "Don't say that. Don't give me hope like that then tear it away." She thought she should be surprised by the strength of his reaction but she wasn't. "You really like him, don't you?" The smile was back, like the flick of a switch. "Him? No. He's a right royal pain in the ass. But I don't leave people behind." She knew him too well. "You're one of the universe's worst liars. Don't think I didn't see that kiss he planted on you." "Rose...." "You look hot together, the two of you." "Stop it. We don't look anything together because we're not. Together." She nodded dramatically. "Right. Whatever you say, Doctor." The lift doors opened on Floor 495, one above where the TARDIS was docked - parked - waiting. Rose took a step forward but the Doctor's arm shot out in front of her, effectively blocking her path. "What?" "I heard something." "What?" "I heard something." "I mean... what did you hear?" "Something." She listened too, glancing from the empty hall in front of her to the man standing beside her, his ear to the air. Then, without warning, he let out a triumphant 'ha!' and leapt out of the elevator, disappearing down a corridor before she could stop him. "Doctor!" She followed at a more sedate pace, hoping he'd located something that was at the very least friendly. ~ Jack tossed the shell up into the air and caught it over-arm on its way back down. He'd given up thinking about how long he may be stuck here. His stomach was rumbling, begging for a Muchacha Burger or a Flops Cake. The TARDIS may have been an accident of panels and wiring but it had the best stocked kitchen he'd ever come across on any spacecraft. He missed it. Almost as much as he missed Rose's bubbles. Nowhere near as much as he missed the Doctor's easy charm. He was well aware of deluding himself. 'Easy charm'. Yeah, right. Nothing about the Doctor was easy. Not sensible conversation, not serious decision-making, not social interaction. He didn't want to think about the Doctor either. He started to sing. "...I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom, for me and you. And I think to myself. What a wonderful world...." ~ The words became clearer as he got nearer. "...The colours of the rainbow so pretty in the sky, Are also on the faces of people going by." Turning the corner, the Doctor laid eyes on Captain Jack, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. One leg stretched out in front of him, one bent at the knee, chin rested on the back of his hand as he half-sang, half-spoke the immortal words. "I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do, They're really saying..." "...I. Love. You." Not so much sang or spoken, more declared, loudly and matter-of-factly, stripping away their meaning and leaving behind the joy in just hearing a voice. Jack didn�t think at the moment that it would ever be equalled. He twisted around, letting go of the gun, curling his fist around the shell, returning the bear hug with the same enthusiasm as it was given. It was easy to let the male bullishness slip away, to let this become something more, something deeper. They went from hugging to holding one another. "I knew you'd come back for me," Jack said into the Doctor's long neck. "No, you didn't. But you will do next time." It was a promise of sorts and it was with some difficulty that Jack let him go. He saw Rose standing behind the crouched Doctor and hauled himself to his feet to show her he was glad to see her too. But there was something in her smile as he stepped back that told him she knew, if he'd had to choose one of them to rescue him, which one of them he'd have picked. And it was okay. "I'd really like to get out of here," he told them. "The TARDIS is only one floor down. If I hadn't worried about Sod's Law, we might have found you sooner." ~ "Gonna make me beg?" The Doctor and Jack were sitting on the floor of what Rose referred to as the 'carpeted room', presumably because that's the only thing that was in there. Twenty square feet of empty floor space covered by a moth-eaten, dusty old carpet Rose thought she recognised from her grandparents' house. The walls were dark wood panels and the light was always dim - just bright enough to read by - appearing not to come from anywhere. The Doctor liked to sit on the floor, just off from the room's centre point, and read one of the countless old tomes to be found in the ornate and frankly well over-the-top library. Tonight - today - now, Jack was lying at the Doctor's side, propped up on one elbow. "Hey!" "I'm reading." "I said, are you gonna make me beg?" "For what? A doggie biscuit? A pat on the head?" "How about you tickle my tummy and we'll go from there?" The Doctor couldn't resist a smile. He closed the book and dropped it to the carpet, sending a dust cloud scattering into the air. Stretching out, mirroring Jack's prone form, he started to idly follow the carpet's faded pattern with his fingertip. "The Doctor's only ever had companions," he explained, as if talking about a shared acquaintance rather than himself. "Aren't companions supposed to provide companionship?" "Not the kind you're thinking of, no." Lifting his hand, Jack ran his fingers lightly over the dark hairs on the Doctor's forearm. He paused in his pattern tracing. "Don't use the lonely line on me." Jack chuckled softly. "I wouldn't dream of it." "But it does." "I can imagine." "What about you?" He shrugged, as best he could in his position. "Couple of fluffys. No one really worth my time." "'Fluffy''s?" "Yeah. You know. One-night stands." "Oh. I wouldn't actually." "No. I don't suppose you would." "No one worth your time?" "Not until now." The Doctor sighed; deep breath in, long breath out. "You know, that smooch you gave me on Satellite 5... it wasn't exactly what I'd call a mind-blowing kiss. I've had better." Jack's smile broadened at the barely unspoken challenge. "You have?" "Yes." "I thought companions weren't for companionship." "I meet a lot of beings on my travels." Jack stroked his palm over the Doctor's forearm, meeting the dark eyes head on. "I'm not one of your companions." "No. You're an enigma." "That I'll take as a compliment." He moved his hand up to trace the Doctor's long neck as the muscles pulled tight. �Want me?� An amused smile, then, �Yes.� �So have me.� Jack made sure that this time the kiss was going to blow the Doctor�s mind. |