The road less travelled...

Title: The Skies Turn Dark 2/7
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Characters: The Doctor, Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, Donna Noble
Summary: The Doctor needs help.

Part II

Jack watches dully as Martha carries out another battery of tests on the semi-conscious Doctor, who is still rambling.

“So what can we do?” he asks suddenly from his position leaning against the desk tucked in one corner of the room.

“I don't know,” Martha admits as she shines a torch into the Doctor's eyes.

“Is he getting worse?”

“I think so,” comes the soft reply. “But I wish I knew more about what's 'normal' for a Time Lord. As it is, I don’t actually know just how sick he really is.”

“He's certainly very unwell,” says a familiar voice from behind them, and Jack leaps up from his seat on the desk with a loud yelp.

“Doctor...” Martha whispers, staring at a black object on the desk, which is projecting a small, blue-tinted holograph, on which the image of the Doctor's familiar features are showing.

“What the hell?” Jack demands, taking a step back. “Doctor, what is this?”

“Oh, come on, Jack, I would have expected you to be quicker than that,” the Doctor's image says lightly. “Figure it out!”

Jack stares at the blueish image before turning to stare at the identical man on the bed and then lifts his eyes to Martha's. The realisation strikes them both at the same moment.

“Metacrisis!”

The word comes from them both simultaneously and they turn to see the holographic projection nodding, a half-smile on his face.

“But what's this?” Jack asks, stepping towards the desk and tapping the black object, which causes the image of the Doctor to flicker. “Clearly Torchwood doesn't know what it is or they wouldn't have kept it in here. I heard rumours that one of the medical officers spent their free time trying to guess what unidentified objects were. I'd guess this is one of those.”

“It allows for limited interaction between parallel universes,” the Doctor tells them.

“Travel?” Jack asks eagerly. “Can you get here?”

“I wish I could.” The Doctor sighs ruefully, running a hand through his hair before nodding in the direction of his double. “But he will have sealed off the parallel universe after he left Jackie and Rose and me behind. Time Lord duty. Got to keep everyone safe, after all.”

The last words are almost sarcastic and definitely disapproving.

“All this allows right now,” he tells them, “is for us to talk.”

“How did you know we needed you?” Martha asks.

“I felt it.” The Doctor sighs again, an exhausted sound. “I knew he was in pain.”

“Actually, we're afraid he might be dying,” Jack says hesitantly, almost choking on the final word.

Stepping back, he lets the other Doctor stare at the identical man lying on the bed. The half-human Doctor's eyes narrow as he listens to the Time Lord muttering.

“He's in pain,” he says after a moment. “Terrible pain. And he's talking about being alone.”

“Painkillers!” Jack dives for the cupboard and begins hunting for out a device that he knows his own Torchwood office kept at hand. With a cry of satisfaction, he pulls out what looks like a small scanner and hands it to Martha. “That will dispense a dose of painkiller through the skin,” he tells her happily. “No need for injections and almost no chance of allergic reactions.”

“Not yet,” the Doctor warns, even as Martha turns towards the bed. “I need you to run some tests to find out what's wrong with him, and any drugs in his system could compromise the results. But, unless you give him aspirin, he shouldn't have a reaction to any drugs.”

“No aspirin, got it.” Martha snatches up the notepad she had been using before. “What tests should I administer, Doctor? And what do I need to look for?”

While the two doctors discuss how to use the various pieces of equipment in the room, and Martha writes down the information she needs to treat the ill man, Jack moves to the bedside and looks down at the semi-conscious man.

“You're not alone, Doctor,” he murmurs, stroking the other man's cheek. “I won't let you be, not ever! And we're going to do everything we can to ease your pain. And if you can't bear it,” he adds, his voice choked, “and you have to leave us, well, we'll have to try and get through that.”

Almost as if in reply, Jack sees that the Doctor's heartrate has dropped with startling suddenness.

“Martha,” he says sharply, and she turns away from the desk, her eyes following the direction of his pointing finger, which is shakily aimed at the cardiac monitor.

The young woman dashes across the room and pulls out a stethoscope, listening to both sides of the Doctor's chest before straightening up.

“One heart's stopped,” she says softly.

“Where's Donna?” the Doctor in the parallel universe asks suddenly.

Jack and Martha stare at each other for a moment in silence before Jack turns back to the black communications device.

“You saw her last,” he reminds the other man. “You were all together when you left us behind in the park.”

“Donna...”

The word comes from the man on the bed, who has suddenly tensed, sitting partially upright. For a long moment everyone stares at him as he continues to mutter meaningless words under his breath, before collapsing limply against the mattress.

“Doctor,” Jack is beginning as he turns back to the desk, but he stops dead as he realises that the blue light has faded from the black box.

“He's gone?” Martha asks anxiously. “No, we need him!”

“There's got to be a way to get him back!” Jack dives for the desk and picks up the black square, pressing every inch as he tries to find the button to turn it back on. “Unless – no!”

“What is it?” Martha asks as she checks the Doctor's pulse.

“This is just the receiver! We can't get a message through to them!”

“The Doctor will call us back,” Martha says confidently, but Jack taps the box on the desk before holding it to his ear and shaking his head.

“He can't,” he's forced to admit. “There's no power. It's dead – seems like it burned out. Maybe communication between parallel universes was too much for it.”

Martha's eyes glisten with tears and Jack sees her hands clench around the Doctor's arm. He's about to go over and comfort her when an idea occurs to him and he lunges towards the pile of the Doctor’s clothing that is draped over a chair.

Fishing around in the pockets, he finally finds the object of his search and flourishes the sonic screwdriver, turning and pointing it at the communicator.

Nothing happens.

Desperation growing inside him, he pushes the button over and over again, changing every setting he can find, but still there's no response from the sonic screwdriver.

And finally he all but throws it away in despair.

“He's locked it,” he groans, understanding behind the Doctor's actions and state of mind slowly growing inside him. “Probably used isomorphic controls, like the Master did.”

“But why?” Martha's voice reveals her incomprehension. “Why would he do that?”

Jack leans against the desk, his arms folded across his chest, staring at the Doctor, who is more restless than before, and Jack can hear him saying Donna's name every nine or ten words.

“Sometimes,” Jack tells Martha, trying not to think how he could be referring as much to his own situation as the Doctor's, “when people have lost so much, they're afraid to risk losing anyone else. They shut themselves off. Refuse to let people close and do everything they can to make themselves completely independent.”

“But the Doctor hates being alone!”

“Trust me on this,” Jack replies, his voice hard. “When you lose so many people, when you keep on living when everyone you love is dead, you reach a stage where you just don't want to get attached to anyone anymore because the thought of losing them is so hard.”

Martha's eyes glisten and she gently strokes the Doctor's hair, murmuring something under her breath that Jack suspects is sympathy.

“No wonder he was talking about being alone,” Martha says after a moment.

“But he wasn't alone,” Jack reminds her. “The other Doctor said that he, Jackie and Rose were left in the parallel universe. You and Mickey and I left them before that. So,” he asks hypothetically, knowing she has no answer, “what happened to Donna?”

For a moment, the room is silent apart from the constant undercurrent of the Doctor's delirious mutterings. Then Jack pushes himself off the desk and begins hunting through the pockets of his coat.

“I'm going to find her,” he says firmly.

“How?” Martha stares at him. “She could be anywhere! Anywhere in the Universe! How can you possibly find her?”

“Aha!” Jack grins triumphantly. “Martha, you're forgetting the Torchwood motto: if it's alien, it's ours!”

“Donna's not an alien!” Martha reminds him indignantly.

Jack tilts his head slightly to one side. “She's the only person in this universe with a Time Lord consciousness in a human body,” he reminds her, using one of the machines he found in his pocket to take a tiny sample of the Doctor's skin and one of Martha’s, and using them to program his vortex manipulator. “Trust me, I'll find her! Just keep looking after the Doctor. We'll be back as soon as we can.”

He presses the buttons and the room dissolves in front of his eyes. A moment later, everything solidifies – and Jack finds himself staring at the London Eye on the horizon. His wrist device tells him that he's only a few miles away from Torchwood One and he stares around in confusion.

He'd expected to find himself back on the planet where he found the TARDIS, that Donna had been somehow separated from the Doctor and would now be looking for him or waiting for his return in the blue box.

But now he's here, only three miles from Canary Wharf, and his eyes fall on a distinctive head of ginger hair coming out of a café.

Not bothering to wonder why Donna is back on Earth, he dives forward and places his hand on her shoulder.

“The Doctor needs you.”

Her reaction, however, leaves him temporarily stunned. “Another bloody doctor,” she declares, shaking herself free of his hold. “Someone else who thinks they can magically fix the holes in my memory! Did my mother put you up to this?”

“Er, yes…”

Jack covers his shock, his con artist skills coming to the fore, and he fishes in his pocket for the psychic paper he hasn't used in months, careful to control his thoughts as he shows it to her.

“Yes, Miss Noble,” he says smoothly. “Your mother called me. My name's Jack Harkness and I've been sent to bring you to the doctor.”

“Doctor who?”

“Doctor Jones.” He tucks the psychic paper back into his pocket. “She's an expert in these matters,” he adds, lying smoothly, “and she believes she can help you.”

“Huh.” Donna shrugs. “I'll believe it when I see it, mate.”

Jack's mind is spinning, wondering what happened to Donna that she can have forgotten so much. Clearly the sight of him did nothing to prompt her memory, so he can only hope that Martha or, better yet, the Doctor himself might enable her to remember.

* * *
Teaser for next part:

‘Take a seat, Miss Noble,’ he says smoothly.