Chapter Text
THE DOCTOR WAS alone.
Very alone. Undeniably so. It had all happened very quickly, and unexpectedly, she was willing to admit. She was used to having to face situations with no warning, but this - being captured by the Judoon, leaving Yaz, Graham and Ryan alone in Sheffield, being thrown into a space prison - this was quite a lot to handle in one day. She'd just come straight from Gallifrey, too, found out that her entire life had been a lie, faced off with the Master and the Cybermen both at once - oh dear. This had been a no good, terribly, terribly long day.
"Okay, Doctors," she spoke aloud, her voice bouncing off the dull walls. "How are we getting out of this?"
The Doctor could feel the exhaustion of all her lives weighing down her bones. How she’d love to have a nice day out for once - maybe take the fam to Apalapucia for a picnic. So long as there was no killer plague there this time. One day, the Doctor hoped, she’d be able to have a nice day out, with no baddies hidden round the corners, no monsters disguised as friends, no hidden horrors waiting to lure them into another terrifying adventure.
She hoped.
But for now, the Doctor reminded herself, she needed to find a way out of the predicament she found herself in. She pulled her sonic screwdriver from her inside pocket in one swift, practiced move, held down the button, scanned the entirety of the room, and -
Nothing. No weaknesses in the structure, deadlock seal on the door. The Doctor huffed. There seemed to be no escaping this one. She hurried to the window once more, again being met by only the darkness and stars blinking back at her through the bars, and then to the door. Slowly, she ran her hand along the smooth metal, a million different thoughts running through her mind. Well, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration. A bit less than a million - in the past ten seconds alone, the Doctor had had precisely three thousand, six-hundred and fifty-one thoughts in her brain, most of them primarily focused on how she was going to get out of the situation she’d found herself in.
A few of her thoughts were about topics which were irrelevant in the Doctor’s current predicament, but how could she be expected to stay focused on one thing at a time? It was a ludicrous suggestion. As well as focusing on the best way to escape, she was also thinking about the repairs she needed to do on the TARDIS - when she eventually got back to the old box, anyway - and Ryan, Yaz and Graham.
Oh, she wished they were with her now. They always managed to keep the Doctor’s spirits up, keep her smiling, even when she didn’t want to. Her fam. She’d promised them she’d be right back to pick them up - the thought of their disappointed faces when she didn’t turn up, all those lightyears away, felt like a blow to the stomach.
“Focus, Doctor,” she whispered to herself. “Find a way out.”
***
THE DOCTOR WAS still alone. It must have been hours since she’d found herself in the cell, and no one had arrived to check on her, no Judoon or prison guards to yell at her. All she had was silence, her own mind, and the bed in the corner - which, the Doctor thought to herself as she shifted in place, was very uncomfortable.
She’d be putting a complaint in, absolutely.
As though something had shocked her, she jumped up from her seat, and marched over to the door. The Doctor wasn’t exactly sure what she was trying to achieve. One thing she did know, however, was that she was bored.
This wasn’t exactly a thrilling environment to be in. Four grey, metallic walls, a matching floor that blended in with the door. A limited view of the outside, due to the bars in place over the small window. There was a hatch in the door, one that was locked, and try as she might, the Doctor couldn’t shift it open with the sonic. Deadlock-sealed too, she assumed.
“C’mon, Doctor,” she muttered to herself. She began to pace back and forth across the length of the small cell, kicking out her legs dramatically as she did. From hand to hand she tossed her sonic, watching absent-mindedly as the tip glowed orange. Really, she ought to invent a setting that unlocked deadlock seals. Far too often, the Doctor found herself in places where the only barrier between her and saving the day was a deadlock seal. It was becoming a problem.
Another problem that the Doctor was currently facing was the passage of time. Of course, the passage of time was an illusion - but everything was moving very slowly, and she suspected that she would regenerate because of boredom if she didn’t get out of this cell soon. The Doctor liked to think she had too much self-respect and dignity to simply yell and scream for her captors to release her, but then she remembered her twelfth (sort of) regeneration, and how she, as a white-haired Scotsman, had engaged in a screaming battle with Robin Hood.
How times changed.
“Oi! I know somebody’s out there!” the Doctor began to yell. It wasn’t nearly as fun without someone to compete with. “Can you at least tell me what I’ve done? Come on!”
To her great surprise, the door began to clang and judder as somebody unlocked it. Two guards stepped into the room, one of them holding what appeared to be a tray of food. They were wearing uniforms which didn’t appear too dissimilar from the Judoon’s, and for a moment the Doctor wondered if they were, in fact, Judoon, but soon realised that they were far too short and, not to mention, humanoid, to be rhinoceros police from outer space.
“I really didn’t expect that to work,” the Doctor muttered to herself. Then, she lifted her chin up, threw her shoulders back, and put on her best intimidating face. “I hope you don’t mind, but I have some questions. Who are you? What facility is this, and why, exactly, am I here?”
“We do not answer questions,” one of the pair said. Inwardly, the Doctor decided to call him Thing One, at least until she learned his name. Thing One had a low, masculine sort of voice, a bit like crunching gravel, a voice that echoed inside the helmet which completely obscured his face.
The Doctor’s shoulders slumped in disappointment. “Well that’s a bit rubbish, isn’t it? How do you expect people to be able to feel guilty about committing crimes if they aren’t even sure what crime they’ve committed?”
“We do not answer questions. Food,” Thing One said simply, then thrust the tray towards her. The Doctor’s face scrunched up in disgust as she assessed the food situation. In one corner was a pile of blue mush, with what looked like green cubes of jelly placed next to it. She doubted that it was even really food at all - it was more likely to be pure nutrients, processed into digestible matter. Her mouth practically watered at the thought of a custard cream.
“Thanks, I think,” the Doctor took the tray, placing it on the bed behind her. “Is there no one I can talk to that will answer questions? Because, and I think most reasonable species would agree, this situation is completely unfair. I don’t even know what I’ve done!”
“We do not answer questions,” Thing One repeated.
“Oh, you sound like a broken record,” the Doctor shook her head. “Is there not, like, a warden or a governor I can speak to, please? Someone a bit higher up?”
“We do not -” Thing One began again, but was quickly cut off by Thing Two, who up until now, had remained completely still beside him. The Doctor watched in shock as Thing Two pulled an energy gun from its holster, raising it and taking aim at Thing One, who didn’t have time to react before his colleague pulled the trigger, stunning him and watching as he fell to the ground.
“What did you do that for?!” the Doctor began to demand, becoming more bewildered by the second. Admittedly, she didn’t know what was going on, and she hated not knowing. Absolutely detested it.
“Well,” came a very familiar accent, as Thing Two lifted his helmet off, “you know what they say. A friend in need, and all that.”
“Jack?!” the Doctor gasped. She was face-to-face with her old friend, a wide grin on his face as he looked at her. Silently, she mouthed words which didn’t seem to want to leave her mouth, until finally, she exclaimed: “What are you doing here?!”
“Saving you, of course. And, Doctor, I have to say...I am loving this new look. Being a woman suits you,” Jack chuckled, looking her up and down. “Not to mention the accent. Where’d you pick that up?”
“Sheffield,” she said, somewhat defensively. She shook her head, becoming distracted. “Why are you here? Why now?”
“Heard you had some business with the Cybermen,” he turned away from her, pushing the heavy metal door shut and securing it. “Did you not get my warning? You had one job: ‘don’t give the lone Cyberman what it wants’, and what do you do? Exactly what I told you not to!”
“I didn’t really have much of a choice!” the Doctor defended herself. Her brains were whirring, attempting to process the fact that Jack was even here at all. “Jack, what’s going on? Why are you here? Better yet, why am I here?”
“I told you, I’m here to rescue you,” he repeated, looking as though he revelled in saying those words. “Not often you’re the one who needs rescuing, but in your hour of need, here I am. Where’d you get that shirt, by the way? I gotta buy one.”
The Doctor scoffed, racing over to where he stood, still fiddling with the door. “How did you know that I’d be here?”
“Miraculous thing, time travel,” Jack shook his head. “We got a message with the coordinates for this prison, Stormcage, as well as a date. Still don’t know who from,” he gave her a pointed look. “Thought I’d come see what all the fuss was about. I’ve been here for almost a week, undercover as a guard, was just about to get up and leave when I started hearing stuff about the Doctor. Had to stick around and find you.”
“Do you know why I’m here?” she asked again, her eyes wide as she gazed up at him. He hadn’t changed too much in the however many years it had been since they last saw each other, just a few fine lines here and there.
“No,” Jack shook his head. “They don’t tell the guards stuff like that here. Something to do with their ultra-security.”
“Of course,” the Doctor sighed.
Finally, Jack stopped his tampering with the door, turning his attention instead to the Vortex Manipulator on his wrist. The Doctor tutted when she saw it.
“How long has it been for you? Since I last saw you,” Jack asked. “How many regenerations?”
The Doctor sniffed, attempting to avoid his gaze. “Hard to say, exactly. This is my third new face since then. I suppose, if we’re being really precise...about a thousand years. Give or take a lot.”
“So what you’re saying...is it’s been a while?” Jack looked up from his wrist, apparently finished for now with the time-travel device. He finally managed to lock eyes with her, taking in the changes since he’d last looked at the skinner, brown-haired version of the Doctor all that time ago. As different as they were, her eyes still held the same intelligence and history, all the pain and heartbreak, as well as the optimism and courage. Jack didn’t think that anyone else he would ever know would be able to carry on after all she’d been through - at least, not in this universe.
“Yeah,” she spoke sadly. Her memories of her friends always ended up bittersweet. “It’s been a while.”
“C’mere,” Jack instructed her, and in a second he’d wrapped her in a huge hug, so dramatic that her feet left the floor. Momentarily, the Doctor tensed up, and it occurred to her that she couldn’t easily recall the last time she’d been hugged like this. Nevertheless, she wrapped her arms around him, finding that she’d missed him a lot more than she’d ever let on.
“It’s good to see you again,” she told him, a reluctant smile on her face once he let her go.
“You too, Doctor. Now c’mon, let’s get outta here. Oh - we gotta make a pit stop on the way. I know someone in here who's just dying to see you.”