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They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Since these are the same people who keep insisting that you can keep a pot of water from boiling just by looking at it, you might not be too hasty to believe everything they say.
In this case, though, they are at least partially right. Good intentions cause a good amount of the trouble in the world.
When it comes to raising hell, though, you can't beat simple, honest mistakes.
It happens like this: two men are running. Neither of them knows about the other; they are running from two very different people, from two very different locations. The only commonality is that they are running for the same reason – escape – and towards the same place.
One of the pursuers is holding a gun. The other is not, and it wouldn't do him any good if he had one.
Our two runners enter the same alleyway from opposite ends. The meet in the middle and stop, unsure of where to go. Their confusion lasts just long enough for their pursuers to catch up. The one with the gun shoots quickly, too quickly to aim, and so we should not be too surprised to discover he has shot the wrong man.
The man is dead, instantly. His fellow quarry, thoughtlessly, catches his body as it falls.
All hell breaks loose.
-
The Doctor liked the twenty-first century for a number of reasons – catchy music, the invention of the Segway, the Harry Potter franchise; it was an fun and exciting time to be on Earth, if you went to the right places. Even if you went to the wrong places, it was still an exciting time to be on Earth.
It was also, unbeknownst to many, the home of the best pies ever made. From most, that claim would have sounded like ridiculous hyperbole, but the Doctor had the credentials back it up, having eaten a good deal more pie on a good deal more planets than most humans would ever be able to. He'd stumbled across the Pie Hole and it's marvelous desserts largely by accident, but ever since, he'd made sure to visit frequently. It would have been irresponsible, after all, to have such powerful information and not use it properly.
Today, he's stopped by the Pie Hole for a slice of triple berry, chatted with the lovely woman who seemed to be the only one ever working there, and picked up a banana crème pie for the road.
He returned to the TARDIS after only a short stop and decided he could use a bit of a vacation; minimal running around, and a nice soothing location. What was that moon, the one with all the waterfalls? He entered the coordinates for the next destination, guided the ship in for a landing, and threw open the door to reveal –
"What?"
– the empty lot down the street from the Pie Hole.
The Doctor stepped out to look around. Yes, this was definitely the place he had just left.
He crossed his arms and glanced back at the TARDIS. "If you want me to get you a slice of pie, you could have just asked."
-
Ned picked himself up from the ground, groaning slightly at the pain. Standing up was an elusive goal, so for now, he settled for sitting propped up against the wall of – whatever wall this was.
He couldn't immediately think where he was or how he'd gotten there. He must have hit his head pretty hard when he fell. Frightful scenarios of brain damage and amnesia started playing through his mind.
Fortunately, his quiet panic was interrupted before it could gather much momentum. "Did you get the number of that hovercraft?" someone grumbled.
Ned looked over and spotted another man who looked to be in the same state he was. "What did you say?"
"Nothing," the guy answered, patting himself down as if checking for holes. "I feel like hell."
"I know what you mean," Ned commiserated.
The stranger looked him over and smiled in a way that made him slightly nervous. "Well, you don't look too bad." He held out his hand. "Hi. Captain Jack Harkness."
Ned looked at him and down at his hand, distracted by the nagging sensation that there was something very important he was forgetting about. He reached over tentatively and shook Jack's hand, both relieved and disappointed when nothing happened. "Ned. Just Ned."
"Well, Ned, I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm missing something. Where are we?"
"I really wish I knew that, because that would mean I had one less thing to worry about." Although, as Ned looked around, the alley started to look familiar. He couldn't place it, though. "As it is, I'm starting to take bets with myself about whether we're going to be kidnapped and held for ransom or harvested for our organs."
"Whoa, slow down, pretty boy, don't you think that's moving a bit fast for a first date?" Somehow, Jack managed to pull himself off the ground and pull Ned upright, as well.
Being on his feet didn't make matters better; if anything, he felt worse. "I think I was being chased."
Jack didn't sound surprised, only curious. "Do you remember who was chasing you?"
"It's not so much a memory as the lingering and overwhelming urge to run away."
Ned could practically see Captain Jack reevaluating him. It was times like these that he needed Emerson around to tell him to stop shooting his mouth off, damn it, people were trying to think. He had to be his own Emerson for now.
"Well, in my experience," Jack said, making 'experience' sound like a very weighted word, "When the body tells you to get away, you should probably listen to it. Let's see if we can't find somewhere more comfortable to try and think things through."
-
The Doctor was completely baffled. He'd checked every system on the TARDIS, right down to the smoothie maker, and everything was working find. He'd asked her politely but firmly to take him somewhere else. And yet no matter how many times he tried to leave, he kept ending up in the exact same spot.
Something was wrong, and it looked like the trouble was with the world outside. So he did what he did best; set off to find the trouble and poke his nose into it.
He couldn't detect it from within the TARDIS, but as he stepped outside again he began to pick up a faint temporal disturbance. The source was quite close by; just across the street from the Pie Hole, in fact.
He'd been to the shop across the street when it had been a candy store – because it would take a stronger Time Lord than he to refuse the lure of salt water taffy – but now it was a modest boutique selling women's clothing and odd brick-a-brack.
"Hello, sir!" he was greeted warmly at the door. "How can I help you today?"
"No thanks, I've got it covered." He looked down at his timey-wimey detector. "I'm just here for..." He glanced up and found the source of the temporal disturbance. "Her, actually."
The woman in question looked, at first glance, like a mannequin in the shop, beautifully clothed in a bright floral dress and standing motionless by the window. She came to life as he spoke (and as the shop attendant sniffed at him disapprovingly).
"Me?" She looked mildly concerned, pulling the brim of her hat down low over her eyes as though she were trying to hide.
He held up the detector. "This is the little invention of mine. I've been told it doesn't look like much, but you can't always tell from the way things look, can you? And while I still haven't been able to figure out how to get it to pick up the radio, it's dreadfully useful when it comes to finding things. And people," he added. "Thing and people who stand out in some way. And it pointed me to you – sorry, what's your name?"
She sounded amused. "Chuck."
"Right then, Chuck. This pointed me to you. So why is that, Chuck? What's special about you?"
She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Well, I like bees."
"Bees!" the Doctor exclaimed. "It does keep coming back to them, doesn't it? Except – no, I don't think that's what's wrong this time."
"What is wrong?" she asked, peeking at the detector. He obligingly held it out so she could get a better look at it.
"I haven't quite sorted that part out, I'm afraid. All I know is something is very wrong here."
"Oh good, I thought I was the only one who noticed!"
That threw him for a loop. "What?"
Chuck grabbed him by the arm and pulled him closer to the window. "Do you see that shop over there?" She pointed at the Pie Hole's rather distinctive store front.
"Yeah, I love their pies."
"So you've been there?" When he nodded, she pressed on. "And you know who owns it?"
"Er..." That required a little more thought. He usually just talked to the blonde waitress, though on a few occasions he'd seen the master baker himself. "That'd be the nervous-looking bloke in the apron?"
"Yes, exactly! That's Ned's shop. But when I went today, he wasn't the one working there. It was my aunts – well, my aunt and – well, never mind. The important thing is, it wasn't Ned. So I went to the next shop and I asked if something had happened, because I couldn't ask my aunts, and they didn't know what I was talking about. They said Lily and Vivian had owned it for years."
"That can't be right." The Doctor knew the date; he'd checked it a thousand times in trying to figure out why he couldn't escape 21st century Earth. It should still be the same shop he'd visited before, with the same owner.
"And that's not the only one," Chuck sighed. "Things are different than they were yesterday, but every time I try to ask someone what's going on, they act like this is normal."
"That is serious," the Doctor mused, his mind racing. Something had gone wrong here, and Chuck might be able to help him figure out what, exactly, that was. "I've got a question for you: how would you like to see a spaceship?"
-
Ned and Jack took refuge in a strange little diner that Ned didn't remember ever having seen before. He knew this part of town well – it wasn't so far from the Pie Hole – and he could have sworn this wasn't here before. He upgraded his likelihood of trauma-induced brain damage from "possible" to "quite likely."
"I don't suppose you've got your wallet on you?" Jack asked as they slid into their seats. "I must have lost mine somewhere."
Ned reached into his own pockets and found them empty. "I guess we were mugged."
"Hm, this is turning out to be a bit of an adventure that we've forgotten." Jack grabbed a menu anyway. "Never mind that, I've charmed my way out of checks before."
Their waiter arrived a minute later, an impossibly tall, bulky guy covered in tattoos. Ned gulped and just asked for a cup of water. Captain Jack was still grinning his toothpaste commercial smile.
-
The Doctor gave Chuck a few moments to marvel at the TARDIS. He was rather fond of that first moment when someone saw her for what she truly was; he couldn't help it, he liked showing off his ship.
Awe gave way to curiosity, and the Doctor did his best fielding questions while setting up some more sophisticated detection equipment. That garnered its own set of questions, of course.
"Okay, it goes ding when there's stuff," Chuck laughed. "But what kind of stuff?"
"Well, you, for example."
"What about me?"
"You're generating an anomalous temporal field."
She bit her lip. "Does that mean that I caused this?"
"Nah, it's a fairly low-level," he assured her. "Harmless, and it certainly wouldn't cause anything on this large of a scale. But it's probably interfering with whatever is going on, which is why you aren't affected the same as everything else. Now, if I can figure out what kind of temporal field you have, that could help me figure out what it's working against."
"What do you need me to do?"
"What you've been doing," the Doctor told her. "Should just take a moment, stand there...all right, say cheese!"
"Brie!"
"Oh, I like that," the Doctor grinned, though the smile slipped off his face as he analyzed the readings he'd gotten from her. "Hang on a minute, these look sort of familiar..."
He glanced up at her. Not the exact same, but close enough.
"Excuse me, Chuck, this might sound like a bit of an odd question, but...have you ever been dead?"
She looked uncomfortable, possibly guilty. "Why do you ask?"
"Unless I'm very much mistaken – and I don't think I am – the temporal disturbance around you comes from you having been resurrected."
"That sounds about right," she admitted.
He shook his head and sighed dramatically. "You used to be dead, and you didn't think to mention that when I asked if there was anything unusual about you?"
"Well it would hardly be a secret if I went around telling every guy with an time machine who asked me, would it?" She smiled a little nervously, like she thought he'd be mad at her.
"How did you come back, if you don't mind my asking?" She looked hesitant, so he added, "It could be important to figuring out what's going on here."
"That would be Ned," she explained.
"Ned the pie maker Ned?"
"Yes. I don't know how it works, but when he touches someone or something that's dead, they come back."
The Doctor frowned. "That can't be right. I mean, one person coming back from the dead, you can cheat a little with the numbers, but if every single thing he touches comes back? That would wreck the balance. The universe wouldn't stand for it."
"It only comes back for a minute. Then something else dies. Or someone, depending." She looked more uncomfortable still, and the Doctor thought perhaps it would be against resurrection etiquette to ask her about what had happened when she'd been brought back.
Instead, he declared brightly, "This can't be a coincidence! Or, well, it could, but I don't think that's likely. Whatever's going on here, I'm betting your Ned is involved somehow, and we might need him to put it back to rights. What's say we track him down?"
Cheered, Chuck followed the Doctor out of the TARDIS, but the world outside was not as they had left it. It wasn't the one they were trying to get back to, either.
"What?" they exclaimed simultaneously.
-
Ned's head was feeling better, but there was a trade off: everything around him was getting worse.
"Lighten up," Jack advised, slapping him on the back. "It's not that bad."
"This is different," Ned protested. "I don't like different."
Different was an understatement. Looking back over his shoulder, Ned could see a saloon that had, only moments before, been the diner. Everything else was similarly changed. Ned kept peering around here, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't spot any hidden cameras.
Still, it had to be some kind of trick.
"What's not to like?" Jack gestured at the scene around them; it was like something straight out of an old Western. "All right, the road is a bit dusty, but the place definitely has more character like this. Not to mention all the guys wearing chaps and spurs; hello, cowboy," he whistled appreciatively at a passerby. "Boy, this takes me back."
"Horses."
"Sure, I've known some good horses in my time – "
"No, I mean horses, now." Ned pointed, but he needn't have bothered. In only a few moments, he and Jack both were forced off the road as two riders raced past. He nearly breathed a sigh, but his relief was short lived; they'd escaped being trampled, but now the riders were slowing their mounts and turning back to face him and Jack.
"Don't you two know to stay the hell out of the road?" the first rider yelled at them.
Ned gaped. "Emerson?"
Olive grinned down at him from atop the second horse. "This a friend of yours, Cod?"
Emerson looked odd, dressed just like everyone else in this weird Twilight Zone Ned had fallen into, but he sounded exactly the same. "Am I normally in the habit of befriending skinny white boys without a lick of sense?"
"No, sir," she answered cheerfully. "But there's a first time for everything."
"That's just what the idiots say to keep themselves happy."
"Actually, it's pretty incredible how many things happen sooner or later." Jack winked at Olive, who gave him a little half-wave. "Hi there. Captain Jack Harkness."
"I don't care who you are," Emerson snapped, "You're in my way, and that's a punishable offense in this town. I ought lock you both up until you learn better."
Ned peered closer and noticed a sheriff's badge pinned to Emerson's shirt. Clearly, he was having some sort of dream, possibly in a coma. Once he'd decided that, everything seemed a lot simpler. "No need for locking anyone up," he declared. "We're fast learners."
"You don't know the half of it, partner," Jack interjected; Olive laughed, while Emerson's scowl deepened.
Ned coughed. "We'll stay out of the way."
"You do that, or I'll just let the bandits have their go at you."
Ned looked over at Jack, uneasily, but found that the Captain's composure was still unruffled. "Bandits?" he asked.
As if on cue, gunshots rang out.
-
"That should do the trick!" the Doctor exclaimed. They were holed up back in the TARDIS while he fiddled with the guidance systems, trying to see if they could get the ship to locate Ned based on Chuck's temporal anomaly. "Shall we see where we've landed?"
"We shall," Chuck grinned. "Fingers crossed!" She held up her own hands in demonstration.
"After you," he swung the door of the TARDIS open and stepped outside –
following closely after the girl named Chuck.
The Doctor and his newest companion were disappointed but not wholly surprised to discover that they had once again failed to arrive at the correct destination. While the street appeared just as they had each seen it many times before, devoid of any erstwhile cattle or tumbleweeds –
"Do you notice that?" the Doctor whispered, barely moving his lips.
– the difference was obvious.
"I thought maybe I was imagining it," Chuck answered, just as quietly.
"No, not unless we're both imagining it."
Chuck cast a wary eye around her surroundings while the Doctor raced back inside to check on the TARDIS.
"We're talking about the same thing, right?" Chuck didn't want to raise her voice, so she followed the Doctor halfway, leaning on the TARDIS's doorframe.
"I hope so."
The Doctor dashed about his time machine in a frantic whirl of energy, but he could find nothing that would account for the anomaly. As before, the TARDIS was insisting it had landed on the street in front of the Pie Hole in the Doctor's universe.
"You don't think anyone's pulling a trick on us, do you?"
"Do you?"
Chuck waved at the world outside. A few passengers strolled idly down the road in the distance, but there was no one nearby. She craned her neck to look in every direction, pirouetting back into the world.
"That wasn't exactly a pirouette," pointed out Chuck, who had spent several months of her childhood twirling around her aunts' house in a tutu and powder blue tights.
It looked like a pirouette.
"No, I think she's right on this one."
But 'pirouette' sounds good, and that's my job. It's not just good enough to say what's happening. Anyone could do that. I'm just trying to add flair.
The Doctor thought the disembodied voice sounded a little sad and thought it could use some bolstering of whatever spirits it had. "Okay. Flair's good. We like flair, don't we Chuck?"
"Of course! You keep doing your thing, er...Mr. Voice?"
Very well. Ahem. The Doctor and his newest companion were disappointed –
"Wait, you've done that bit already!" the Doctor protested.
You interrupted me. I don't remember where I left off, I have to start all over again.
"Oh, no you don't," the Doctor muttered. "Look, best of luck to you, really, Voice, but we're just going to step back in the TARDIS and try this again, all right?"
-
"Okay, this time I'm with you on thinking different is not good."
Ned was not heartened by having his opinion agreed with. "At least the bandits are gone. And that weird...disembodied voice thing."
The look Jack gave him was pained, at best. "Ned, can I share some wisdom with you, as a man of the world?"
"Sure?"
"Bandits and harmless little voices are always preferable to being covered in slime and bound head to toe."
"You know, my headache is mostly gone," Ned continued, morose despite his own efforts at cheering himself up.
"He picks now to become an optimist," Jack said in disbelief.
"I still don't remember where any of this started," Ned continued. "I can't help but think it's important. I mean, weird things happen, they have to start somewhere, and that starting place is probably also weird, and yet the last thing I remember is brushing my teeth this morning, which is probably the single most mundane experience in life."
"You sure are boring me talking about it," Jack agreed. He was struggling against the fiber that bound them, but wasn't making much progress.
"I think they're too well tied for that," Ned told him. "Or not tied. Whatever they are."
"Spun," Jack informed him. "Like spiders or silkworms do."
Ned couldn't hide his disgust. "I really wish I didn't know that."
"You asked." Jack shrugged.
"I shouldn't have." A thought occurred to him. "How did you know that?"
"Because I recognized our little friends before they knocked us out. The creepy looking bug guys? They're aliens who, well, are basically creepy bug guys. But they shouldn't be here."
"No kidding," Ned said weakly.
"No, I mean, they can't possibly be here. Their galaxy is on the other end of the universe. They shouldn't have the technology to reach Earth until the 40th century, at best."
"Yes, and what was Emerson doing playing Clint Eastwood?" Ned demanded. "There's something else going on here."
"Agreed." At that, the fibers around Jack dissolved. "What's say we find out what it is and fix it, hm?"
"How – "
Jack held up something that looked like a ray gun from some sort of sci-fi show. "This should take care of that; the silly bugs didn't think to check for weapons." Jack aimed and then casually advised, "You might want to hold still."
Ned gaped. "What exactly are you a Captain of?"
-
"Maybe we should just look for Ned out there," Chuck gestured. "He's got to be somewhere, right?"
"Well, technically, he's got to be somewhere, but it's a big universe outside and right now I don't trust our ability to find Polaris with a sextet and a star chart." The Doctor fiddled a bit more with the controls, which sparked. He swore absentmindedly in Czech before putting his fingers in his mouth.
Chuck was giving him a funny look. "What?" he said, as intelligibly as he could manage. "It stings." Though the stinging was fading a bit. He took his hand out of his mouth and inspected it for damage; it looked all right.
"Kind of harsh language to use in front of a lady, don't you think?" she teased.
"Oops." The TARDIS wasn't supposed to translate that, but nobody was perfect. "You got that, did you?"
She tried to sound stern, but her eyes were full of laughter. "Just because you think no one can understand you doesn't mean they can't."
"Oh, you speak Czech?" Mentally, he apologized to the TARDIS.
"I know a bit. I have a thing for languages."
"Well, it's a habit. Picked it up from an old companion of mine." He poked at the controls again, a bit more cautiously, and got everything back into shape.
"Right! Let's try this again." The TARDIS made her reassuringly familiar noises, and it wasn't such a long trip.
Once she'd landed, Chuck poked her head out the door. "Houston, we have flamingos."
"Really?" The Doctor was intrigued in spite of himself. "Funny looking birds, flamingos." He looked outside and sure enough, there were a flock of them loitering not far away.
There wasn't much else to see, though. "I suppose it's too much to hope that he's hiding behind a bush somewhere?" He and Chuck were the only sentient creatures in sight.
"Couldn't hurt to take a little walk and check," Chuck shrugged. "You know, this would be the perfect time for a parasol, and I haven't got one on me."
The Doctor beamed at her. "Funny you should mention that."
-
"It looks like our luck is turning around!" Jack declared. "I admit, things were looking pretty bad, but anytime you're not being chased by a crocodile is a good time, right?"
Ned, doubled over and out of breath, didn't answer.
"You're a deceptively fast runner, you know."
"Yeah, well," Ned wheezed. "Always end up – running more than – want to – "
Jack hardly looked winded, and Ned was a little too bitter – and a little too focused on not having a heart attack – to immediately notice their new surroundings. He didn't look up until he heard Jack mutter, "All right, this is what I'm talking about."
Ned straightened up enough to get a glimpse of the surroundings, and then straightened up all the way to get a second look.
"What, did we run all the way to Vegas?" Except this wasn't even Vegas; it was what Vegas dreamed one day of becoming. It hardly mattered that it was night, there was so much light, so much neon, so many flashing billboards; even the streets were shining.
"The universe is smiling on us, Ned." Jack clapped him on the shoulder, nearly setting him off balance again. "Come on, let's get a drink."
They walked into the nearest building, an enormous skyscraper, and Jack led the way to the bar, guided as if by some instinct. "Barkeep!" he called out. "A whiskey for me and my good-looking friend."
The bartender turned to face them and Ned found himself face to face with his first real robot.
Jack looked a little flustered, as well. "Still going to try to flirt your way out of paying?" Ned whispered.
Jack smirked. "I do love a challenge."
-
"All right, so, it's a little..."
"Spooky?" Chuck suggested.
"Oh, that sounds so grim!"
"Run down? Deserted? Atmospherically challenged?"
"That's more like it!"
Chuck froze. "Did you hear that?"
"No, what – "
It was indistinct, still far off in the distance, but getting closer: the low, moaning call for Braaaains...
The Doctor thought Don't panic, over to himself five times – that Douglas Adams had the right idea more often then not – before very calming suggesting, "How about, we head back for the TARDIS now."
"Agreed!"
They took off like a shot.
-
"No," Ned shook his head. "No, no, no. I dealt with the robots, and the swamp, and the aliens, but I draw the line at pirates."
"Draw wherever you like," Jack said. "These guys aren't exactly known for coloring inside the lines."
Ned glanced around the ship's deck, looking desperately for an escape route that did not exist. The door they'd come through – which had been the entrance to a casino just a moment before, Ned was sure of it – now led straight to the captain's chambers, and its occupant was measuring them up, along with every other pirate on board.
His mouth was nearly too dry to form the words. "What do we do?"
Jack glanced down at the water far, far below. "How are you at swimming?"
-
"What now?" Chuck asked, wide-eyed but keeping her composure.
The Doctor scratched his head. "You said you like bees, yeah?"
"Well – yes, but I meant, you know, bees." She held up two fingers to indicate the size. "When you're big enough to drive a Cadillac, I don't think you count as a bee anymore."
"Now, Chuck," the Doctor admonished her jokingly. "You know that size doesn't really matter."
"It's nice to hear a guy say that for once."
He shrugged. "Eh, after 900 years or so, you get a little perspective."
-
"I'm not wearing that."
"Come on. I bet you look great in red." Jack held the dress up to his form before Ned snatched it away.
"I don't."
"Well, you don't know until you've tried, do you?"
"What about when we change over again?" Ned asked. "We keep switching from one place to the next, what about when we're somewhere where the guys aren't all wearing dresses?"
That didn't seem to dissuade Jack at all; in fact, he looked more interested than before. "So, we make a grand entrance. It'll be great."
"Then you wear one."
"Oh, I was planning to. What do you think, the blue or the green?"
-
"We're sure this is the one?" Chuck asked. She'd asked before, but after an hour of wandering, she was starting to wonder if there hadn't been some miscommunication.
"This is definitely it," the Doctor said. He looked very intensely focused, and that expression, more than his words, convinced her this was the right place.
She was still a little worried, though. "And you know how to get back to the TARDIS from here?"
"Oh sure, that's easy. It's back that way, turn right, go straight until the five way split, take the second path to the left – "
"I'll take your word for it," Chuck hastily interrupted. She glanced around her at the labyrinth's walls. It was a shame they stretched so high into the air; a walk through a maze with an interesting companion would be quite a nice afternoon if the view weren't so dismal, and if she weren't so worried about Ned. Still, every step was bringing them closer to him.
"Ahah!"
"What is it?"
"Here we are!" The Doctor pointed triumphantly at...the wall.
"It's...a wall."
"Trust a human to be so literal-minded." The Doctor shook his head and lowered his voice. "It's not a wall, Chuck. It is...a portal."
She couldn't help but get goose bumps at that. "How does it work?"
"Put your hand out, like this." He put his hand right up against the wall, and she followed suit. "Now just press lightly..."
Her hand started to sink through the wall. "Oh!" She pulled it back instinctively.
"The walls of reality are at their thinnest right in this spot," he explained. "If we pop on through it should take us right to wherever you wonderful Ned has gotten himself."
"And it's safe?"
"It's perfectly safe," he reassured her. "Just like Platform 9 and ¾."
"Is that a real thing?" Chuck asked eagerly.
"Well," the Doctor paused. "Not so far as I know. But you know, I never have gone to check it out."
"Who knows? That could be your next stop." Smiling brightly and bracing herself for anything, Chuck stepped through the wall.
She thought she was braced for anything. She was, in fact, merely braced for almost everything.
It took a moment for her vision to clear, and when it did, she called out joyfully, "Ned!"
Followed shortly thereafter by, "What are you wearing?"
-
Ned was sulking and trying to pretend he wasn't. It was kind of adorable, in a way, and while Jack had written him off as a possibility soon after meeting him, it didn't mean he couldn't appreciate the view.
It wasn't like Ned had anything to worry about, anyway. Sure, his girlfriend had seen him in a dress, but he'd looked good. There was no shame to be had in looking good, no matter the circumstances.
Jack had his own surprise coming to him, too. He'd been unsure whether the day was going to get better or go back to hell, and then the Doctor had appeared in front of him from thin air and brought him back to the TARDIS.
It was a beautiful moment all around.
Jack and the Doctor gave Chuck and Ned some space – or maybe Chuck and Ned were giving them space, he wasn't entirely sure – and the Doctor started poking at something that looked like it had the word "thingummy" in its name. Jack alternated between watching him and spying on couple on the far side of the TARDIS.
"They have distorted temporal fields, both of them," the Doctor explained quietly. "Hers is what's keeping her alive. His created hers, but if they ever come in contact again, it will disrupt it. Permanently."
"Ah, geez," Jack looked at the couple again, seeing them through a slightly different lens. "That's rough."
"And of course, you have your own very bizarre, very uniquely Jack phenomenon," the Doctor continued, putting aside any sorrow. "When Ned came in contact with that, well. He disrupted it, same as he would disrupt Chuck's. For Chuck, that would mean her field simply blinking out of existence, but you," the Doctor shook his head, something like exasperation or affection in his voice. "You, Jack, you're just larger than life."
Jack smirked obscenely. "That's what they tell me."
"Oh, did I forget to mention? I was referring to your ego."
"You wound me, Doctor!"
"But you'll get better."
"I always do. Though it will help to be back in a universe that slightly resembles itself."
"Yes, yes, I'm working on it! Sorting out the mess is a much more difficult job than you all had making it."
He got it all straight in the end, of course; that was what he did. He fixed things.
They landed the TARDIS outside the Pie Hole, all of them holding their breathe subconsciously until they were sure that this was really it. After that, there were hugs to be had; Ned was reluctant, but Jack was more determined still.
"It was nice meeting you, Ned," Jack said. "Keep an eye on the cutie pie. And do something about your wardrobe, you should really show off those legs more often."
"Um. I'll keep that in mind." Ned waved awkwardly at him from all of two feet away.
Chuck and the Doctor seemed to have gotten rather close. "You sure I can't take you anywhere else?" he asked her. "It travels in time and space."
"The best of all dimensions, huh?" Chuck looked at the TARDIS thoughtfully for a moment, before shaking her head. "No, I'm afraid I have to look after this one. You've seen the trouble he gets into."
"At least I know he's in good hands."
"And you take care of yourself," she warned him. "Or I'll come track you down."
"Don't worry about me," the Doctor smiled. "I always seem to find my way out of trouble in the end."
"He has more lives than a cat," Jack added.
"See, and now I can't tell if you're joking or not," Chuck complained.
"A little bit of both, actually," the Doctor added. "It was fantastic meeting you, Chuck, Ned. I'll be seeing you around."
He walked back into the TARDIS and held the door open for a second. "You coming, Jack?"
Jack smiled. "Absolutely," he called out, then addressed Chuck and Ned in a stage whisper: "It sure beats catching a plane back to Wales."
"Oy!" the Doctor yelled. "My TARDIS is not a taxi!"
"Sorry, Doctor," he yelled back.
"It's not me you need to be apologizing to, is it? Now come on, before I change my mind."
Jack ran to catch the TARDIS door before it shut. From behind him, he could hear Chuck laughing.