clocketpatch | Chapter 8: In Search (Reply)

At long last, another chapter. Many thanks to Bewarethespork for the Britpick. This one is from Jack's POV

She doesn’t deserve this, Jack thinks.

They’re sailing along in the UNIT jeep; Benton, at the wheel, is making occasional light-hearted comments to try and bring down the mood. It isn’t working, but Jack respects the attempt. The Doctor is silent, brooding. He keeps fiddling with his fingers, stroking his chin, checking his pockets… Underneath his aristocratic crust, with the manners and the frills, he’s just as fidgety as the other Doctor, Jack thinks. Not Jack’s Doctor with the toothy, fantastic grin and the smell of cinnamon and leather – that man is dead – but the other-other Doctor, the skinny Doctor in brown pinstripes, the Doctor they’re looking for. But then, they’re all the same man, right?

Except Jack doesn’t understand regeneration, and the man he spent the last year with is not the man he tried to con during the London Blitz, not the man who saved his life, not the man who abandoned him; and the Doctor sitting beside him right now is neither. He’s someone else, someone distinct, someone who’s going to play the part and hopefully save the world.

The jeep has one large bench seat in the front. Benton is on the right doing the steering. The Doctor is by the window on the left, Jack is shoved between them, and Martha is on the far right, practically on Benton’s lap, leaning out the window with the tracker, shouting directions –

She doesn’t deserve this, Jack thinks again.

If he thinks about it hard enough, he doesn’t deserve this either, but he’s had a good century – not to mention the last year – to play pity party, and besides, he’s used to these sorts of situations. He’s been trained for it, and maybe it’s karma on him for all the crap he’s pulled in his time. He isn’t any saint.

He’s not naïve, though. He knows that TARDIS travel is better hands-on training than anything the agency ever gave him, and he knows that whatever he experienced on the Valliant, it was probably cushy compared to what Martha went through down below. He has so much respect for this woman, and the way that she’s holding herself together right now, leaning out that window, shouting Red! Green! Turn left here!

She didn’t sign up for this life. That’s the difference. Jack chose to join the Time Agency – granted, he only did so to dodge a draft – but there were other options he could have taken. He could have enrolled in an off-world university, faked an injury, or simply run away. He chose. And then he chose to become a con-artist, a soldier, a defender of Earth. He didn’t choose to become immortal, but he did choose to live recklessly back when he had only one life to spare.

He watches Martha. He watches the way the wind tugs at her hair, and the stern set to her jaw. He watches the way light and shadow jostle over her face as Benton drives – not too fast, but still stretching the speed limits.

Jack learned about Martha over the year that never was. He doesn’t know her very well. They only met for that little while on Utopia before everything went to hell, and that was all chaos and rushed accusations. He feels like he knows her better than that though, because over the year a picture emerged. He’d talk with her parents sometimes, with her sister quite a bit, and even, rarely, he’d get a word with the Doctor.

Jack knows Martha through a mosaic of anecdotes, from how she gave up her last breath of air to save the Doctor on the moon –

(“Though it was stupid of her,” the Doctor had said in an old-man whisper as they stole a moment of peace while the Master’s back was turned. “I can go without oxygen for longer than any human, and I was waiting for my cells to replenish. Still, thought that counts.”)

– To how she used to have nightmares about monsters hiding under her bed when she was little.

(“She always made me check before turning off the lights,” Francine said, blinking despite her dry eyes.

“My little girl,” Clyde said huskily. And then they were silent for a long time, all of them thinking – but resolutely not mentioning – the darkness and the monsters Martha was fighting down below. )

Jack knows from Tish how, when she was nine, Martha scrimped and saved for five months to buy her sister a limited edition Barbie doll for Christmas – one that had the right colour of skin. How she had decided she was going to be a doctor at thirteen, completely out of the blue, and then worked her tail off to get there. How she was determined, and caring, and never gave up, and was completely brilliant. He knows how she’d always wanted to travel. How she read sappy romances when she thought no one was looking. How she liked to dare the odds, ignore statistics, and then surprise the nay-sayers when she came out on top.

Jack watches the thin, battle-worn Martha sitting across from him and mourns her innocence. He mourns the Martha Jones he will never know. He is in awe of the Martha he’s just beginning to meet.

Jack is pulled out of his reminiscences when the jeep slows and pulls off to the side of the road. They all pile out onto the grass. There’s a dirt road here that turns off the main track, but they can’t follow it in the jeep because an abandoned car is blocking the way. It’s a yellow, antique roadster, doors ajar, engine sluggishly idling. Jack’s hand itches to his side, but he isn’t carrying a gun. Something about this is wrong.

The Doctor moves forwards and starts fawning over the car, showing it the same affection Jack remembers his Doctor bestowing on the TARDIS. He wonders if the car is somehow alive as well. Anything is possible.

“Hey there, old girl, what have they been doing to you?” the Doctor says, patting the hood. He moves into the driver’s seat and turns off the ignition.

“We’re close,” says Martha, checking the tracker.

“Yes,” the Doctor agrees.

“I don’t like it,” says Benton, echoing Jack’s thoughts. “It’s like something’s watching us, like static in the air.”

“Level nine,” the Doctor mutters, and Jack can see the tension is his face. The wince that the Doctor is working to contain. The way his steps don’t quite fall even when he walks.

Martha is walking up the road. It’s deeply rutted with grass in the middle. There are puddles at the bottom of the dips, and footprints in the sludge. Lots of footprints. Jack feels the hair on the nape of his neck go up. He tastes dying in the air. It’s a distinct scent, like lightning mixed with dry ice. Martha is holding the tracker. She isn’t looking up; she’s following the trail.

She’s –

His vision is spotting. He can’t see Martha now. He can’t see his hand in front of his face. But he can see the sky, and it’s dark and starry, which is wrong, wrong, wrong because right now it’s just passing one o’clock and the sun should be out – was out – is out.

The stars are spinning. They’re going to swallow him up.

“Level ten,” Jack whispers before falling up the rabbit hole and into the night.

TBC