The road less travelled...

Title: The Skies Turn Dark 1/7
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Characters: The Doctor (Ten), Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, (eventually) Donna Noble
Summary: The Doctor needs help.
Spoilers: It helps if you’ve seen up to the end of Journey’s End. Also spoiler for the major character-related event of Torchwood’s Children of Earth as well as the general plot, i.e. alien threat. Please note, however, that I do not watch Torchwood, so this is basically Captain Jack as we see him in Doctor Who, but who has gone through the events of CoE.
A/N: Ah yes, finally a completely new fic from me! Not a timestamp meme story or a continuation of any something. Completely and utterly new. So you have no idea what’s going to happen. Bwahahahaha…
A/N 2: Virtual cookies for the first people who can pinpoint the source of my title.

Part I

“What's this about, Jack?”

Martha's confusion is obvious as Jack all but drags her into the building that used to house Torchwood One.

“Hurry up,” is all he says as he grabs her hand and rushes her down the hall. “Quick!”

“I don't appear to be able to do anything else,” she retorts, finally breaking in to a run to keep up with his long strides. “Tell me what's going on, Jack!”

“He needs you,” Jack tells her, stopping short in front of a door and pushing it open, stepping away so that Martha can see into the room.

The room would usually contain two hospital-style beds, but now there is only one, standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by small, wheeled tables and chairs. A variety of screens hang around the walls. Numerous other machine are fastened to hooks or hanging from IV poles around the walls. The whole place is reminiscent of a futuristic hospital room.

However the room isn't free of life.

“Doctor!” Martha exclaims in horror, dashing to the occupied bed.

The Doctor is lying on the cot, his eyes partly open, but clearly not focusing on anything as they travel erratically around the room. His lips are moving, nonsensical syllables creating an undercurrent of noise in the room, and his hair is plastered to his white face. Occasionally his legs or his arms twitch as if he’s trying to move them, but the actions are so feeble that they are almost unnoticeable. He is clad only in a white shirt, brown pants and red converse. His tie, jacket and duster have been draped over a nearby chair.

Martha places her hands on both sides of his chest, checking his hearts, before looking up at Jack. That man has stepped into the room and stops just inside the door, leaning against the wall. “Where did you find him?”

“A long way away.” Jack sighs and walks to the bedside. “Beside the TARDIS. He was unconscious and freezing, but he started to babble like that after I got him a little warmer.”

“What's he saying?” Martha demands.

“No idea.” Jack shakes his head. “I presume it's Gallifreyan.”

“Why can't we understand him?” she asks as she hauls some of the machinery closer to the bed and starts attaching varies wires to the Doctor's arms and hands, reaching up to switch on several of the monitors. “Why isn't the TARDIS translating for us?”

“The TARDIS is dead,” Jack says softly. “No light, no sound, nothing. And I think that's the reason we can't understand him now – because the TARDIS isn't alive if it doesn't have a connection to the Doctor. And he's clearly too ill for that.”

He stares down at the man he carried into this room only an hour previously. The solitary difference between the Doctor Jack rescued from an otherwise deserted planet and the man on the bed in front of him is that Jack has gently cleaned the grime off the other man's face while he waited for Martha to arrive. However that has uncovered the Time Lord's ashen complexion, which makes the freckles and the eyebrows and lashes stand out so sharply against his almost grey skin.

As he watches Martha work, Jack thinks back to when he cradled the unconscious Doctor in his arms in the dark, dead TARDIS, blankets wrapped around the man's motionless figure in an attempt to warm him after his prolonged period of lying in the snow before they risked the journey through the vortex.

He doubts he will ever forget the shock he got when the man suddenly began to speak meaningless syllables at about half of the rapid rate at which he usually talked. He can still remember the weight of the Doctor's limp, heavy body pressed against his during their flash through the vortex, and the way he fell to the ground, the Doctor collapsed on top of him, when they finally arrived in the lobby of Torchwood One.

“How did you get him here?” Martha wants to know, glancing at the monitor showing lines rising and falling, presumably, Jack guesses, at the same rate as the Doctor's hearts.

Pulling up the sleeve of his jacket, Jack taps the vortex manipulator in demonstration. “That'll teach him to defuse it,” he says with an attempt at humour.

For several minutes, he silently watches Martha working on the Doctor, who is still only semi-conscious, muttering incomprehensible words and occasionally gasping for breath. Jack is startled in one occasion to see tears glistening in his eyes as Martha draws a vial of blood, and even more surprised when, the next instant and for only a split second, a sudden grin illuminates the Doctor’s gaunt, fragile features.

Martha makes use of a variety of medical instruments she finds around the room to run a series of tests, taking note of the results on a pad of paper she finds on one of the shelves. Finally, she drapes a blanket over the Doctor, gently lifting his arms to lay them on top of the covers so that she can still reach the numerous instruments attached to him, and then turns to Jack, who speaks before she can.

“What is it?”

“I don't know,” she admits with obvious reluctance. “None of the tests have given me a positive result. All I know is that his hearts are racing and they're becoming erratic. He could be running a temperature, but I don't know what's normal for a Time Lord, so I can't be not sure.”

Jack folds his arms over his chest, gazing at the Doctor's slack, almost emotionless face, the only movement coming from his lips, which haven’t ceased since he began mumbling in apparent delirium.

“So he regenerates,” he says with a shrug. “We should be thankful there isn't an alien invasion happening at the same time. Probably the least stressful change he's ever gone through.”

“And if he can't?” Martha asks softly as she checks the strength of the Doctor's pulse, deliberately not looking at Jack.

That man stares at her in confusion, suddenly aware of a flash of what he hopes is irrational fear.

“Why wouldn't he?” he shoots back, attempting to conceal his concern.

“Jack, the Master chose not to regenerate after he was shot,” Martha reminds him gently. “That suggests to me that regeneration is a conscious decision. And I don't think,” she adds, stroking the Doctor's hair, “that he's capable of making that choice.”

Jack feels as if something has dropped within him and he stares at her in speechless horror.

“But... he has to,” he protests feebly. “He can't... I mean, not now!” He feels his eyes burning with sudden tears. “Not so soon after...”

“After what?” Martha asks him.

He shakes his head, unable rather than unwilling to answer, but with his mind filled with the agonising memory of Ianto's last moments. The thought of losing the Doctor so soon after that other terrible loss is almost incomprehensible, and he leans breathlessly against the nearby wall to hold himself up as he stifles a sob.

* * *
Teaser for next part:

‘Is he getting worse?’