Life Less Ordinary, Chapter 10
Chapter Title: Seeing Red
Author: stormwolf10
Character/Pairing: Doctor/Rose, Jack
Rating: PG13 (for mild-ish violence)
Summary: The Doctor and Jack come to Rose's rescue, and the Doctor has to make a choice that could decide what sort of a man he is to become.
Disclaimer: Still don't own Doctor Who or any of it's canon characters.
“The scanner said the Time Agents’ ship is docked in bay 17 Alpha,” the Doctor whispered over his shoulder to Jack as they slipped quietly through the large, open docking area of the space station.
“And then what? It’s not like we can just stroll up to the front and say, ‘Hello, we’re wanted fugitives. If you don’t mind, we’d like to spring someone from the cells, and then we’ll be out of your hair.’”
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Of course not,” he replied, “There’s got to be more than one way to get into that ship.”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m here with my trusty sonic screwdriver, isn’t it?”
Jack paused. “Sonic what?”
“Nevermind.”
The two of them skirted carefully around the sleek Time Agent ship, pausing every now and then duck into a corridor to wait for an Agent to pass by them, wheeling trolleys laden with metal crates up the ramp into the cargo hold of the vessel.
“That could be our way in,” the Doctor whispered to Jack.
Jack nodded and peered around, then pointed across the docking bay at a small stack of crates waiting to be brought in. “Those are our best option,” he said.
“They’re our only option, actually,” the Doctor retorted, and the two men pressed against the wall and waited for another Agent to pass by. Then, with only the sound of Jack’s coat flapping behind him to mark their passing, the Doctor and Captain Jack sped across the bay, slipping behind the nearest crate. Reaching into his jacket pocket, the Doctor found his sonic screwdriver and frowned at it a moment. It was going to make a lot more noise than he was comfortable with, but he knew it was his only chance of rescuing Rose. Holding the sonic up to the lock on the crate, he hit the button and it buzzed loudly. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before the lock clicked open, and the Doctor slid the sonic back into his pocket with a nod to Jack.
“Damn,” hissed Jack as they pulled open the top of the crate, eyeing the contents with a scowl, “We both can’t fit in there.”
“Get in, I’ll climb in another,” the Doctor replied, shutting the crate once the Captain settled himself inside. With another short blast from his sonic, he locked it again to keep suspicion down and began to work on the next crate before another Time Agent could pass by. Once inside, he pressed the tip of the sonic against the tiny gap under the crate lid and buzzed it once more, locking himself inside.
Another hour passed before the Doctor felt the crate he was in shift and tilt as it was being lifted onto the trolley. He flattened himself against the bottom of the crate and held his breath, trying to shift his weight as little as possible so as not to arouse suspicion, and praying that this version of Jack had the sense to do the same.
“Figures Dave would leave the heaviest crates to the last for me to do on m’own,” he could hear the man working the trolley mutter irritably, “At least we’re heading back to HQ as soon as this is done.” The Doctor’s single human heart began to race. The Agents were leaving now,
without capturing Jack? What were they playing at?
However, there was no time to think about that, because almost as soon as his mind began to race, the Doctor could feel the crate he was in get wheeled up into the cargo hold of the Time Agent ship. A moment later, it was set back down and he could hear the Agent’s footsteps fade away as he departed. Again, he pulled his sonic out from his pocket and pressed it against the gap under the crate lid and pushed the button, springing the lock. He pushed the lid up and looked around in the dim light of the hold at all the crates. They were all identical. This was going to make finding which one Jack was in a bit more difficult. Hopefully the crates had been loaded in much the same proximity to each other as they had been stacked outside in.
The Doctor set about tapping his sonic lightly against each crate in the rows to either side of him. Finally, near the front of the cargo hold, he heard a light tapping in response and quickly set about unlocking the crate. Jack uncurled from his cramped position and stretched for a moment, then nodded silently as the Doctor pressed his finger to his lips and motioned for him to follow.
“I heard one of the Agents speak of leaving as soon as the cargo was loaded,” the Doctor whispered as they reached the door leading out of the hold.
Jack blinked. “But why would they just leave without finishing their mission?”
“That’s what I’d like to know, but it’s not like we can approach them and ask.” The Doctor tested the door handle and, finding it unlocked, tucked away his sonic and slowly pushed open the door.
They were brought up short by the smugly grinning figure of Major Loretti and a handful of rifles pointed in their direction. “Well, that wasn’t too hard, now was it?” she drawled, “Thank you for giving yourselves up, gentlemen.”
The two men raised their hands in surrender. “Rose is innocent in all this,” the Doctor said, “Let her go.”
“General Savil will be the judge of that. Take them away.”
The Doctor stared at the Major’s back as she turned on her heel and marched away, the coil of rage in his gut tightening to nearly the breaking point. “You have to let her go!” he shouted, struggling against the strong grip of the Agents who had descended upon him, “She’s done nothing wrong!”
As the Major turned a corner and disappeared from sight, he turned his head towards Jack. “This is all your fault!” he snarled through gritted teeth, “You couldn't just do the right thing, you just wanted to let someone else take the heat.”
Jack stared at the Doctor as the Agents drug them along to their cell, confusion and remorse warring in his blue eyes. “You’ve only just met me, Doctor. How the hell would you know what I’m like?”
The Doctor fell silent. Jack was right. He didn’t know what he was like. Not this version of him, at least. For all he knew, this Jack could be even worse than his counterpart. This Jack had murdered a man, hadn’t he? Then again, he also had shown incredible remorse for a killer. Something wasn’t adding up.
====================================
“Doctor!” Rose shouted in surprise as the Doctor and Jack were roughly shoved into the tiny cell with her. She made an effort not to show signs that she’d been hurt as she knelt next to the Doctor, but from the look in his eyes as he stared at her throat, it was too late.
He quickly, but gently, snatched her chin as she tried duck her head to hide the welts around her throat from the device they had used to interrogate her with. The expression on his thin face was one of pure, murderous fury as the fingertips of his other hand carefully traced along the red line. The duality between the tenderness of his touch and the violence in his eyes almost frightened her. “Doctor,” she said quietly, putting her hands on his face to make him look at her, “Doctor, it’s alright. It’s just a mark. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“What did they do to you?” he asked, his voice shaking.
“Oh, you know,” Rose replied lightly with a small grin, “Just a bit of interrogation. I’ve had worse.”
“These are electrical burns.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll kill them for that,” he said with a finality that shocked her.
Rose shook her head. “Doctor, don’t,” she pleaded, “That isn’t you. That isn’t the way you do things.”
“Rose, they tortured you!”
“Stop it!” She roughly pulled herself away from him and turned to face Jack, ignoring the look of hurt in the Doctor’s eyes. “Who did you kill?” Rose asked Jack, who slumped back against the wall with a sigh.
“Apparently, my partner,” Jack replied.
“What do you mean, ‘apparently’?”
Jack nodded. “Y’see, they wiped the last two years of my memory. I don’t remember killing him.”
“The problem is, you seem strangely sorry about it for a murderer,” the Doctor said, coming out of his shocked stupor.
“Well, for one thing, John was my friend. And for another, I’ve never been a murderer…at least, not in the parts of my history that I remember. I’m a con man, not a cold-blooded killer.”
The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “And yet...the images on that disk were pulled directly from your memories, unless someone tampered with the extractor.”
“Who’d want to do that?” Jack asked.
“Whoever did kill John Hart. That is, if it really wasn’t you.”
“I…” Jack paused, pacing about the cramped cell, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you’re capable of murder?”
“No, I don’t!” Jack shouted at the Doctor, and then leaned back against the wall with a sigh, “I can’t remember what happened the last
two years. From what I can remember, I don’t think I could. I con people out of money. I don’t take bribes to murder people, but…something in that time could have changed. I just don’t know.”
Rose batted a lock of blond hair out of her eyes and looked around the cell with a frown. “Well, there’s no way we’ll find out in here, and they’re planning an execution when we get to their headquarters. At least, that’s what the Major said.”
“They don’t like to waste time, do they?” the Doctor said.
“Nope, and the TARDIS is back on the station.”
“And they’ve taken my sonic. So, we’ll just have to wait.”
“Wait, until we’re executed?”
“No, you know what I mean.”
Jack nodded, then glanced to Rose and pressed a finger to his lips, jerking his head slightly towards the outside of the cell. Pointed directly at them was a small camera, unnoticeable until it was pointed out to her. Rose nodded in return and leaned back, rubbing her sore neck. She watched the Doctor, whose gaze was again focused on the marks on her neck, and frowned. His words had shaken her more than the interrogation had. It was quite obvious that even though he was the Doctor, and this version of him had lived with her for months now, she really did not know him at all.
The Doctor didn’t quite know himself at the moment. Perhaps it was the result of being part human, but every time he looked at her wounds, he saw red. Glancing up, he caught Rose looking at him with a thoroughly disturbed look in her eyes, and turned away with his head in his hands. He was becoming something he hated. Before, when he was his other self, he could barely think of killing, but now the words had come out of his mouth without him even thinking. The Doctor began to wonder if this new him was even fixable.
=================================
The rest of the flight to Time Agent HQ was a silent one. All of them were lost in their own dark thoughts when the cell door swung open and Major Loretti stepped inside. “I see you didn’t attempt to escape,” she said, giving them all a thin smile when they simply stared up at her in silence, “Good. Come with me.”
They followed her, surrounded by Agent guards, out of the ship to the docking bay of the Time Agents’ headquarters. Silently, Jack nudged the Doctor and jerked his chin in the direction of a small, metallic box being carried by one of the Agents. Realizing that Jack was pointing out where their confiscated items were, the Doctor nodded back at him and held up a hand. There was too much room for the Agents out in the bay to spread out and fire on them should they attempt to escape just then. They had to wait it out. The Doctor, in turn, directed Rose’s attention towards the box and made a gesture, directing that it was her job to get it.
As the group continued down the corridor, waiting for just the right moment to act, the Doctor glared darkly at the back of the Major’s head. She would certainly be his first target when they made a break for it, for what she did to Rose. A momentary image of the woman’s head cracking into the hyper-combination wall next to her flew into his mind. It disturbed him how easily he pondered such an idea. Glancing over to Rose, he thought of the look in her eyes when he let those terrible words slip out of his mouth the night before, and shoved his fists into his trouser pockets so that no one could see that he had them clenched into tense, white balls. There’s nine hundred years of experience going around in my brain, he thought, Why do I still feel like I’ve been reduced to my childhood, having to re-learn my manners?
Jack prodded the Doctor out of his thoughts with a light touch of his elbow on his side, glancing almost inperceptively ahead towards an oncoming intersection in the corridor. This was it. They could quickly disable the guards there, grab the box, and flee through one of the side corridors. The Doctor nodded and looked to Rose, who returned his look to show that she understood.
Four more steps, three steps, two, one…
“Go,” the Doctor said and immediately leapt at Major Loretti as Jack punched the guard next to him, and Rose spun and jabbed her knee into the groin of the guard carrying the box. Despite his wiry frame, the Doctor easily outweighed the petite woman, and the force of their fall knocked the wind out of her, making it harder for her to fight. Still, the Major was trained to fight, and the incarnation the part-human Doctor was created from wasn’t exactly the sort of fighting man he had been in times past. She managed to struggle her way onto her back under him, reaching for the pistol in its holster at her side. The Doctor was, however, still very quick. He grabbed her wrist before she could slide it free, and they wrestled for control of the pistol.
Around them was chaos. The guards had been ill-prepared for such an escape from two civilians and a lone rogue Agent, and their rifles were nearly useless in such tight quarters. Jack, of course, was far more adept at fighting than the Doctor was. He was a flurry of whipping blue-grey fabric, punching one guard, then grabbing the rifle of his fellow before he could react and slamming the butt of it into his face. With a quick twist at the waist, he smashed the side of the rifle into the remaining guard’s skull.
Rose herself was also doing well, due to her Torchwood training, dropping one guard with a quick elbow to the temple when he tried to grab her from behind. She then turned again to the guard who was clutching the case to himself as he remained doubled over in pain from the hit to the groin. Getting what little hold on the side handles that she could, she quickly yanked upwards, catching the guard in the jaw with the metallic edge of the box. The guard’s head snapped back and Rose pulled the case out of his hands as the man collapsed to the floor. “I’ve got it! Come on!” she shouted at the Doctor and Jack before racing down one of the side corridors with Jack hot on her heels.
The Doctor gritted his teeth, still unable to wrest the pistol from Major Loretti’s hand. He could hear Rose and Jack disappearing down the corridor. It could be so easy, he thought as he twisted the woman’s wrist to loosen her grip, feeling the cool metal against his fingers, They would never know. With a final jerk, he had the pistol in his hand, and everything grew still. She tortured an innocent woman. Just one squeeze of my finger, and she’ll never hurt anyone again. Isn’t that how I always lost in the past, by letting these monsters go?
Pressing the barrel to the Major’s forehead with a shaking hand, the Doctor glared down at her for a long moment. He had been in this position before, when Jenny died. How easily he held General Cobb’s life in his hands. Just a pull of the trigger and it would have been over. He could never murder again. However, he spared Cobb’s life. The Man Who Never Would. The Doctor wondered if he was still that man.
“You’ve tortured an innocent woman, Major,” the Doctor finally said, “Never again.”
Major Loretti tilted her head slightly, her dark eyes blazing with defiance. “Do it.”
The Doctor tightened his grip on the pistol. He could barely hear Rose and Jack calling his name off in the distance over the sound of the blood rushing to his head. Now or never. There was no more time to think it over. With a soft growl, he dropped the pistol on the floor with a clatter, and then got to his feet and ran. Behind him, he heard the click of a pistol hammer being pulled. Then there was a loud pop and he felt himself thrown forward by the force of the blow.
“Doctor!” Rose shouted as she rushed towards him, but he waved her off, scrambling back to his feet.
“Just my shoulder,” he said, clutching the wound.
“He’ll live! There’s no time, we have to go!” Jack shouted. The Doctor nodded to her to do as Jack said and followed after them.
Author: stormwolf10
Character/Pairing: Doctor/Rose, Jack
Rating: PG13 (for mild-ish violence)
Summary: The Doctor and Jack come to Rose's rescue, and the Doctor has to make a choice that could decide what sort of a man he is to become.
Disclaimer: Still don't own Doctor Who or any of it's canon characters.
“The scanner said the Time Agents’ ship is docked in bay 17 Alpha,” the Doctor whispered over his shoulder to Jack as they slipped quietly through the large, open docking area of the space station.
“And then what? It’s not like we can just stroll up to the front and say, ‘Hello, we’re wanted fugitives. If you don’t mind, we’d like to spring someone from the cells, and then we’ll be out of your hair.’”
The Doctor rolled his eyes. “Of course not,” he replied, “There’s got to be more than one way to get into that ship.”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m here with my trusty sonic screwdriver, isn’t it?”
Jack paused. “Sonic what?”
“Nevermind.”
The two of them skirted carefully around the sleek Time Agent ship, pausing every now and then duck into a corridor to wait for an Agent to pass by them, wheeling trolleys laden with metal crates up the ramp into the cargo hold of the vessel.
“That could be our way in,” the Doctor whispered to Jack.
Jack nodded and peered around, then pointed across the docking bay at a small stack of crates waiting to be brought in. “Those are our best option,” he said.
“They’re our only option, actually,” the Doctor retorted, and the two men pressed against the wall and waited for another Agent to pass by. Then, with only the sound of Jack’s coat flapping behind him to mark their passing, the Doctor and Captain Jack sped across the bay, slipping behind the nearest crate. Reaching into his jacket pocket, the Doctor found his sonic screwdriver and frowned at it a moment. It was going to make a lot more noise than he was comfortable with, but he knew it was his only chance of rescuing Rose. Holding the sonic up to the lock on the crate, he hit the button and it buzzed loudly. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before the lock clicked open, and the Doctor slid the sonic back into his pocket with a nod to Jack.
“Damn,” hissed Jack as they pulled open the top of the crate, eyeing the contents with a scowl, “We both can’t fit in there.”
“Get in, I’ll climb in another,” the Doctor replied, shutting the crate once the Captain settled himself inside. With another short blast from his sonic, he locked it again to keep suspicion down and began to work on the next crate before another Time Agent could pass by. Once inside, he pressed the tip of the sonic against the tiny gap under the crate lid and buzzed it once more, locking himself inside.
Another hour passed before the Doctor felt the crate he was in shift and tilt as it was being lifted onto the trolley. He flattened himself against the bottom of the crate and held his breath, trying to shift his weight as little as possible so as not to arouse suspicion, and praying that this version of Jack had the sense to do the same.
“Figures Dave would leave the heaviest crates to the last for me to do on m’own,” he could hear the man working the trolley mutter irritably, “At least we’re heading back to HQ as soon as this is done.” The Doctor’s single human heart began to race. The Agents were leaving now,
without capturing Jack? What were they playing at?
However, there was no time to think about that, because almost as soon as his mind began to race, the Doctor could feel the crate he was in get wheeled up into the cargo hold of the Time Agent ship. A moment later, it was set back down and he could hear the Agent’s footsteps fade away as he departed. Again, he pulled his sonic out from his pocket and pressed it against the gap under the crate lid and pushed the button, springing the lock. He pushed the lid up and looked around in the dim light of the hold at all the crates. They were all identical. This was going to make finding which one Jack was in a bit more difficult. Hopefully the crates had been loaded in much the same proximity to each other as they had been stacked outside in.
The Doctor set about tapping his sonic lightly against each crate in the rows to either side of him. Finally, near the front of the cargo hold, he heard a light tapping in response and quickly set about unlocking the crate. Jack uncurled from his cramped position and stretched for a moment, then nodded silently as the Doctor pressed his finger to his lips and motioned for him to follow.
“I heard one of the Agents speak of leaving as soon as the cargo was loaded,” the Doctor whispered as they reached the door leading out of the hold.
Jack blinked. “But why would they just leave without finishing their mission?”
“That’s what I’d like to know, but it’s not like we can approach them and ask.” The Doctor tested the door handle and, finding it unlocked, tucked away his sonic and slowly pushed open the door.
They were brought up short by the smugly grinning figure of Major Loretti and a handful of rifles pointed in their direction. “Well, that wasn’t too hard, now was it?” she drawled, “Thank you for giving yourselves up, gentlemen.”
The two men raised their hands in surrender. “Rose is innocent in all this,” the Doctor said, “Let her go.”
“General Savil will be the judge of that. Take them away.”
The Doctor stared at the Major’s back as she turned on her heel and marched away, the coil of rage in his gut tightening to nearly the breaking point. “You have to let her go!” he shouted, struggling against the strong grip of the Agents who had descended upon him, “She’s done nothing wrong!”
As the Major turned a corner and disappeared from sight, he turned his head towards Jack. “This is all your fault!” he snarled through gritted teeth, “You couldn't just do the right thing, you just wanted to let someone else take the heat.”
Jack stared at the Doctor as the Agents drug them along to their cell, confusion and remorse warring in his blue eyes. “You’ve only just met me, Doctor. How the hell would you know what I’m like?”
The Doctor fell silent. Jack was right. He didn’t know what he was like. Not this version of him, at least. For all he knew, this Jack could be even worse than his counterpart. This Jack had murdered a man, hadn’t he? Then again, he also had shown incredible remorse for a killer. Something wasn’t adding up.
====================================
“Doctor!” Rose shouted in surprise as the Doctor and Jack were roughly shoved into the tiny cell with her. She made an effort not to show signs that she’d been hurt as she knelt next to the Doctor, but from the look in his eyes as he stared at her throat, it was too late.
He quickly, but gently, snatched her chin as she tried duck her head to hide the welts around her throat from the device they had used to interrogate her with. The expression on his thin face was one of pure, murderous fury as the fingertips of his other hand carefully traced along the red line. The duality between the tenderness of his touch and the violence in his eyes almost frightened her. “Doctor,” she said quietly, putting her hands on his face to make him look at her, “Doctor, it’s alright. It’s just a mark. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“What did they do to you?” he asked, his voice shaking.
“Oh, you know,” Rose replied lightly with a small grin, “Just a bit of interrogation. I’ve had worse.”
“These are electrical burns.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll kill them for that,” he said with a finality that shocked her.
Rose shook her head. “Doctor, don’t,” she pleaded, “That isn’t you. That isn’t the way you do things.”
“Rose, they tortured you!”
“Stop it!” She roughly pulled herself away from him and turned to face Jack, ignoring the look of hurt in the Doctor’s eyes. “Who did you kill?” Rose asked Jack, who slumped back against the wall with a sigh.
“Apparently, my partner,” Jack replied.
“What do you mean, ‘apparently’?”
Jack nodded. “Y’see, they wiped the last two years of my memory. I don’t remember killing him.”
“The problem is, you seem strangely sorry about it for a murderer,” the Doctor said, coming out of his shocked stupor.
“Well, for one thing, John was my friend. And for another, I’ve never been a murderer…at least, not in the parts of my history that I remember. I’m a con man, not a cold-blooded killer.”
The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “And yet...the images on that disk were pulled directly from your memories, unless someone tampered with the extractor.”
“Who’d want to do that?” Jack asked.
“Whoever did kill John Hart. That is, if it really wasn’t you.”
“I…” Jack paused, pacing about the cramped cell, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you’re capable of murder?”
“No, I don’t!” Jack shouted at the Doctor, and then leaned back against the wall with a sigh, “I can’t remember what happened the last
two years. From what I can remember, I don’t think I could. I con people out of money. I don’t take bribes to murder people, but…something in that time could have changed. I just don’t know.”
Rose batted a lock of blond hair out of her eyes and looked around the cell with a frown. “Well, there’s no way we’ll find out in here, and they’re planning an execution when we get to their headquarters. At least, that’s what the Major said.”
“They don’t like to waste time, do they?” the Doctor said.
“Nope, and the TARDIS is back on the station.”
“And they’ve taken my sonic. So, we’ll just have to wait.”
“Wait, until we’re executed?”
“No, you know what I mean.”
Jack nodded, then glanced to Rose and pressed a finger to his lips, jerking his head slightly towards the outside of the cell. Pointed directly at them was a small camera, unnoticeable until it was pointed out to her. Rose nodded in return and leaned back, rubbing her sore neck. She watched the Doctor, whose gaze was again focused on the marks on her neck, and frowned. His words had shaken her more than the interrogation had. It was quite obvious that even though he was the Doctor, and this version of him had lived with her for months now, she really did not know him at all.
The Doctor didn’t quite know himself at the moment. Perhaps it was the result of being part human, but every time he looked at her wounds, he saw red. Glancing up, he caught Rose looking at him with a thoroughly disturbed look in her eyes, and turned away with his head in his hands. He was becoming something he hated. Before, when he was his other self, he could barely think of killing, but now the words had come out of his mouth without him even thinking. The Doctor began to wonder if this new him was even fixable.
=================================
The rest of the flight to Time Agent HQ was a silent one. All of them were lost in their own dark thoughts when the cell door swung open and Major Loretti stepped inside. “I see you didn’t attempt to escape,” she said, giving them all a thin smile when they simply stared up at her in silence, “Good. Come with me.”
They followed her, surrounded by Agent guards, out of the ship to the docking bay of the Time Agents’ headquarters. Silently, Jack nudged the Doctor and jerked his chin in the direction of a small, metallic box being carried by one of the Agents. Realizing that Jack was pointing out where their confiscated items were, the Doctor nodded back at him and held up a hand. There was too much room for the Agents out in the bay to spread out and fire on them should they attempt to escape just then. They had to wait it out. The Doctor, in turn, directed Rose’s attention towards the box and made a gesture, directing that it was her job to get it.
As the group continued down the corridor, waiting for just the right moment to act, the Doctor glared darkly at the back of the Major’s head. She would certainly be his first target when they made a break for it, for what she did to Rose. A momentary image of the woman’s head cracking into the hyper-combination wall next to her flew into his mind. It disturbed him how easily he pondered such an idea. Glancing over to Rose, he thought of the look in her eyes when he let those terrible words slip out of his mouth the night before, and shoved his fists into his trouser pockets so that no one could see that he had them clenched into tense, white balls. There’s nine hundred years of experience going around in my brain, he thought, Why do I still feel like I’ve been reduced to my childhood, having to re-learn my manners?
Jack prodded the Doctor out of his thoughts with a light touch of his elbow on his side, glancing almost inperceptively ahead towards an oncoming intersection in the corridor. This was it. They could quickly disable the guards there, grab the box, and flee through one of the side corridors. The Doctor nodded and looked to Rose, who returned his look to show that she understood.
Four more steps, three steps, two, one…
“Go,” the Doctor said and immediately leapt at Major Loretti as Jack punched the guard next to him, and Rose spun and jabbed her knee into the groin of the guard carrying the box. Despite his wiry frame, the Doctor easily outweighed the petite woman, and the force of their fall knocked the wind out of her, making it harder for her to fight. Still, the Major was trained to fight, and the incarnation the part-human Doctor was created from wasn’t exactly the sort of fighting man he had been in times past. She managed to struggle her way onto her back under him, reaching for the pistol in its holster at her side. The Doctor was, however, still very quick. He grabbed her wrist before she could slide it free, and they wrestled for control of the pistol.
Around them was chaos. The guards had been ill-prepared for such an escape from two civilians and a lone rogue Agent, and their rifles were nearly useless in such tight quarters. Jack, of course, was far more adept at fighting than the Doctor was. He was a flurry of whipping blue-grey fabric, punching one guard, then grabbing the rifle of his fellow before he could react and slamming the butt of it into his face. With a quick twist at the waist, he smashed the side of the rifle into the remaining guard’s skull.
Rose herself was also doing well, due to her Torchwood training, dropping one guard with a quick elbow to the temple when he tried to grab her from behind. She then turned again to the guard who was clutching the case to himself as he remained doubled over in pain from the hit to the groin. Getting what little hold on the side handles that she could, she quickly yanked upwards, catching the guard in the jaw with the metallic edge of the box. The guard’s head snapped back and Rose pulled the case out of his hands as the man collapsed to the floor. “I’ve got it! Come on!” she shouted at the Doctor and Jack before racing down one of the side corridors with Jack hot on her heels.
The Doctor gritted his teeth, still unable to wrest the pistol from Major Loretti’s hand. He could hear Rose and Jack disappearing down the corridor. It could be so easy, he thought as he twisted the woman’s wrist to loosen her grip, feeling the cool metal against his fingers, They would never know. With a final jerk, he had the pistol in his hand, and everything grew still. She tortured an innocent woman. Just one squeeze of my finger, and she’ll never hurt anyone again. Isn’t that how I always lost in the past, by letting these monsters go?
Pressing the barrel to the Major’s forehead with a shaking hand, the Doctor glared down at her for a long moment. He had been in this position before, when Jenny died. How easily he held General Cobb’s life in his hands. Just a pull of the trigger and it would have been over. He could never murder again. However, he spared Cobb’s life. The Man Who Never Would. The Doctor wondered if he was still that man.
“You’ve tortured an innocent woman, Major,” the Doctor finally said, “Never again.”
Major Loretti tilted her head slightly, her dark eyes blazing with defiance. “Do it.”
The Doctor tightened his grip on the pistol. He could barely hear Rose and Jack calling his name off in the distance over the sound of the blood rushing to his head. Now or never. There was no more time to think it over. With a soft growl, he dropped the pistol on the floor with a clatter, and then got to his feet and ran. Behind him, he heard the click of a pistol hammer being pulled. Then there was a loud pop and he felt himself thrown forward by the force of the blow.
“Doctor!” Rose shouted as she rushed towards him, but he waved her off, scrambling back to his feet.
“Just my shoulder,” he said, clutching the wound.
“He’ll live! There’s no time, we have to go!” Jack shouted. The Doctor nodded to her to do as Jack said and followed after them.