Chapter Text
The cacophony of sounds suddenly hit him as he blinked his eyes open. A group of aliens streamed past and around him where he was sitting on the ground, huddled against a wall and a couple other people. How did he get to sitting there?
There was a flash of panic when he realised that he had no idea. Not even a single clue.
Who was he?
This luckily had an answer, fuzzy as it was.
John Smith. So back to his first problem then. How did he get there?
Another huddle of people passed him by and he clocked their rugged appearance and tattered clothes. Refugees. He was in a refugee camp. That made him a refugee. It wouldn’t be extremely unlikely for a refugee to have amnesia, would it? But what would have caused it?
It was only at this moment that John noticed he was clutching an arm. He followed the arm up to a face. John stared blankly at the man beside him for a couple seconds before he hesitantly let go of the man’s arm. Did he know him?
“Sorry, who are you?” John asked tentatively. Amnesia was going to make him sound stupid.
The other man studied John’s face for a long moment. “Harold Saxon, I think?”
“You think?” John repeated nearly hysterical. No way. No way that both of them had amnesia.
Harold frowned. “I’m afraid that I might have a case of amnesia."
This time John did bark out a laugh. “Lovely.”
“Excuse me,” Harold said, sounding like he was trying to be polite, “amnesia is not usually a laughing matter.”
“Oh no, I really didn’t mean to offend,” John placated immediately. “I just mean that, I fear that I too have amnesia.”
Harold took his own turn to blink a few times in rapid succession. “I see.”
“Yes, indeed.”
They both sat there in companionable silence for a couple minutes watching the variety of colours stream past them. So many people.
“And we’re refugees,” Harold noted after a moment.
“Yes, I suppose we are.”
“Do you have any idea what we are refugees of?”
John didn’t. He honestly didn’t. “No.”
Harold’s face twisted into a pensive look. “I guess we could ask around?”
John felt another jolt of panic at the suggestion. “Together, right?”
“What?” Harold turned to look at him.
“We could ask around together,” John clarified.
“What, amnesiacs need to stick together?”
John smiled at Harold. “Sounds good to me.”
Harold rolled his eyes but extended his hand and John automatically reached out his own to meet it. “To a successful partnership, then.” Harold paused for a moment before speaking again, “Do you remember your name?”
John’s smile was replaced by a petulant frown. “Of course I remember my name, how would I not- oh. Reasonable question, actually. My name is John Smith.”
Harold grinned at John. “Well met, John. Any ideas on who we should ask first?”
John swiveled his head to look around for anyone important looking and found that Harold actually looked the best dressed of the refugees. He was dressed in an expensive looking suit. It certainly looked like it had been through a fight or two, but nothing that John would have expected for a refugee.
“Do you have anything on you that might explain our situation?” John asked after a moment. What if Harold was important and accidentally got zapped by something that made him forget what he was doing? “You seem to be dressed officially. Maybe you were on a mission?”
Harold looked down at his clothes as if he was surprised at this observation. Harold’s eyes flashed between his own outfit and John’s.
“I could, but you might want to as well. You’re dressed just as well.”
John looked down. It seemed he was. Huh.
John felt in the pockets of his coat. Oddly enough, there seemed to be more room inside the pockets than there should have been. It was probably nothing. Just a trick of his mind. He did get amnesia somehow. Maybe it was from a good whack to the head.
He pulled out a slender device that looked like a modified sonic screwdriver and a pair of glasses. John looked at the two items and then examined the outside of his pocket. There was no way. It was impossible. The items shouldn’t have fit comfortably in his pocket.
John stuck his hand back inside to feel the inner pocket again and his eyes widened as he realised that there were even more items in said pocket.
John drew out the next item and forgot all about the larger-on-the-inside pocket at the new item. It was a fold of leather that looked similar to a wallet. John turned to Harold who seemed to be examining his own pockets with another screwdriver-looking device in his hand as well. Maybe John and Harold had been working together as agents of some kind.
“Harold! I might have found something.”
Harold whipped his head up and his eyes landed on the wallet too.
“What does it say?”
John unfolded the leather and stared at the sheet of paper that greeted him. In very formal text it spelled out: ‘John Smith and Harold Saxon approved for transit to Twaro II; No restrictions.’ Underneath the text was an official looking seal.
John looked at and then tilted it so that Harold could read it as well.
Harold pulled his focus away and scanned their surroundings. “Do you reckon this is Twaro II?”
John pointed to the flood of people descending from a nearby ship. “Probably.”
Harold slipped his screwdriver back into his front pocket so that he could take their identification papers straight from John’s hand.
“I’ll hold onto it.” Harold waved the wallet but cut in before John could argue, “And John, you’re smudging your glasses.”
John looked down to his clenched hand and noticed that, unfortunately, Harold was right. John took the opportunity to pocket his own screwdriver along with his glasses. Since when did he need glasses?
John decided to pretend like that hadn’t happened. “And why should you have our paper, especially when I started with it?”
“Because,” Harold gestured to behind John, “I found where we are supposed to go.”
John turned and looked. There was a long, winding line of aliens over the hill that led to what looked like interplanetary transports. “Ah.”
Harold stepped forward and John reached out in the same moment in order to grab Harold’s hand. Harold turned to him and raised a brow.
“So that we don’t get separated,” John said quickly, looking away from Harold’s searching gaze.
Harold looked out into the sea of refugees, “Right.”
John laced his hand with Harold’s as Harold dragged them both into the crowd. Harold had seemed to have mapped out a path and as he navigated through the people. Before no time at all, they were both in line.
John couldn’t see the end of the line from where he was standing. What better time to ask people about what was going on?
John tapped the shoulder of the person in front of him with the hand that wasn’t still laced with Harold’s.
“Excuse me, but this is Twaro II, isn’t it?”
The person’s exasperated look shifted into something more suspicious. “Yes. And I have all my papers in order.”
John frowned, “Sorry?”
“I have all my proper certification. I’m all legal.”
“Right, good for you.”
The alien seemed to search his face for something and their eyes even flicked over to Harold for a moment. “Don’t rich people like you and your friend usually avoid,” the person gestured to the masses of people, “this.”
“Oh, no. My,” what did Harold count as? “friend and I are refugees too.”
The alien snorted. “How’d that happen?”
John scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t remember.”
“Aw, no need to be private. We’re all in this together now,” the alien encouraged.
Harold decided that this was when he was going to join the conversation. “No, he means he really doesn’t remember. Amnesia.”
“Oh, really? Who does that make you then?”
Harold shrugged. “Harold.”
The alien shook their head. “No, I meant to the amnesiac.”
“No idea.”
“So you’re supposed to be an amnesiac too?”
Harold nodded. “Can’t remember anything other than my name. And how to talk, I suppose.”
The alien seemed to consider that. “Are you sure that the two of you weren’t some of the elite that came to laugh at the poor and unfortunate and then got hit on the head?”
“Maybe,” Harold considered, “but I hope not.”
“Why? That would mean you had somewhere to go after we get processed.”
“What kind of person would I have been to be laughing at refugees?”
“You wouldn’t have been the first.”
Would John have gone to laugh at the poor? Probably not. But he didn’t remember. Lovely.
“Well, why are we on Twaro II?” John asked.
“Can’t speak for two rich boys, but most of us are here because of the mining operation on Tek that forced everyone living there to move. Now the homeless have been spread across the system. Everyone who had the money went to Twaro III rather than Twaro II. Maybe you two got on the wrong transport?”
“Nope,” Harold answered confidently and waved their paper in the alien’s face. “It clearly says John and Harold for Twaro II.”
“Maybe you two drew the shortest nails?”
“Who drew the shortest nails?” the person in front of the alien asked, turning back to look at them. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of John and Harold. “Them?”
The first alien nodded. “They must have drawn the shortest nails and been sent to Twaro II.”
The other alien nodded. “Makes sense. But why are we guessing?”
“Pair of amnesiacs.”
“Huh.” She turned to John, “Do you happen to have any money on you?”
John shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“They would be red thin disks with a hole in the center.”
The other alien stared at the woman with wide eyes. “Do you have any?”
John stuck his hand into his unnaturally large pocket and brushed his fingers against a few things other than his glasses and screwdriver but none of them felt like how the woman had described.
“No.”
“And you?” the woman asked Harold.
Harold shook his head.
Both aliens sighed. “So much for that.”
Harold turned to John and whispered, “We were a bit gullible with that, weren’t we?”
“Yes,” John agreed.
The line continued and by the time the sun was dipping on the horizon, bathing the blue world in purple, the processing building had finally come into view.
“One might call this inhumane,” the woman who had introduced herself as Tria noted as people started to settle in for the night.
“The captain of my transport said that sometimes the lines can be days long and that if someone falls asleep, you’re allowed to skip them in line,” the alien who had introduced themself as Drix added.
“I personally haven’t slept in forty-eight hours with all the movement and stress, I call dibs on sleeping tonight,” Tria said quickly.
“Oh, and I’m doing so much better?” Drix asked sarcastically. “You know, since I’ve only gone like forty hours without sleep.”
“Harold and I could stay up,” John offered. “We probably got sleep more recently. I think I was sleeping before I realised that I lost my memories.”
“A headache induced sleep is probably less healthy,” Harold pointed out.
“Too late!” Drix declared. “You’re staying up and making sure we don’t lose our place in line!”
Harold shrugged. “We’ll probably be fine.”
Tria and Drix both curled up on the ground and John sat next to them with Harold following suit. Around them, other groups of people were doing the same thing.
“So what do you think?” John asked after a long silence where only the murmurs of other refugees met their ears.
“About our situation?”
“About who we may have been.”
Harold paused for a second. “We must have known each other before we lost our memories.”
John tapped the wallet that held their identification. “Or we were randomly grouped together during the transit process.”
“I don’t know, for some reason, I feel like we knew each other.”
“We might never know,” John realised.
“They probably have doctors on Twaro II.”
“Only if we are actually rich.”
“We might be,” Harold argued as he pulled out his own modified screwdriver. “This is advanced technology and you have one too.”
John drew out his own and compared it to Harold’s. At closer inspection the screwdrivers were vastly different in design. “What do you think they do?”
Harold stared at his screwdriver. “Only one way to find out.”
He directed the screwdriver towards a patch of blue rocks and pushed the button on the side. A yellow beam shot out the tip of the screwdriver. Harold flinched and dropped the screwdriver before gingerly picking it back up. “I didn’t expect that.”
“Who would make a screwdriver laser?” John asked, staring incredulously at the smoldering rocks.
“Maybe your’s is too,” Harold disputed.
John pointed his toward the still smoking rocks and pushed the button on the side of his screwdriver. He braced for a laser but instead the bulb at the top of the screwdriver emitted a whirring sound and lit up blue.
It was Harold’s turn to sound incredulous. “Who makes a screwdriver sonic?”
“Great, so we’re both insane!”
“Speaking of,” Harold continued, not even attempting to argue John’s point, “are your pockets larger on the inside?”
“You too?”
“Maybe we were engineers?” Harold suggested.
“It’s possible. And maybe engineering paid well on Tek?”
“That could also explain the memory loss,” Harold smiled as he explained, “We could have been working on a project that accidently erased our memories.”
John nodded along. “The technology on these screwdrivers is certainly advanced enough. We must have been brilliant.”
“If we don’t remember anything, we’ll at least have a starting point of where to look for work.”
“Sounds like a plan,” John smiled at Harold. They would figure everything out. Together. Hopefully.
—
“I got a hit!”
The room went pin-drop quiet.
“Where?” Martha was beside him in an instant.
“Some planet called Twaro II, a couple thousand years in the future. It caught onto a TARDIS signature. It must be the Master’s. Though what he and the Doctor are doing on Twaro II is beyond me. If I remember correctly, the Twaro system is a mining system, nothing major.”
“Maybe the Master had a back-up army on Twaro II?” Martha suggested.
“It’s possible,” Jack agreed solemnly. “Though why neither of them would return within the two years it took for us to find them worries me.”
“Maybe Twaro II looks like Earth right now and the Doctor is fighting him.”
“Either way, we should go, Ianto, you don’t mind holding down the fort for a bit while we get the Doctor?”
“Not at all.”
Jack gave Ianto a grateful smile before inputting the coordinates of Twaro II into his Vortex Manipulator. “Alright Martha, let’s get the Doctor and finally destroy that awful Paradox Machine.”
Martha nodded which was all the prompting Jack needed to press the button.
When they had oriented themselves Jack opened his eyes and thought for a second that maybe he had accidently teleported them underwater and that he had killed them both - well, at least Martha and maybe himself a dozen times - before he realised that the planet was just very blue. The rocks were carved from what looked like some type of lapis, cobalt, sapphire and ultramarine conglomerate with striations that told of water long ago. Even the plants that were jutting up from the mostly barren landscape were in shades of an azure blue that matched the sky’s own brilliant colour.
But the oddest part was that there was no obvious sign of conflict. Nothing like Earth at least. No Toclafane hunting the skies or weapon plants constructed across the continents. Maybe there were nefarious going-ons somewhere else on the planet. Or maybe they hadn’t actually tracked a TARDIS and the Doctor and the Master were somewhere else entirely.
Martha seemed to be on the same page. “We should check civilisation.” As it was, they were in an open rock field. “I think I see some buildings that way.”
Jack followed the direction Martha was pointing and saw the same tall inorganic shapes in the distance that Martha must have clocked as the edge of a city.
“Towards the Doctor,” Jack agreed hopefully.
They walked across the landscape in silence which Jack was more than happy to break, “Worried we won’t find the Doctor?”
Martha shrugged before shaking her head. “No, more concerned that we’ll find him instead.”
Martha didn’t have to say who. “He wouldn’t kill the Doctor,” Jack reasoned.
“Are we sure about that?”
Jack tried to give her a reassuring smile. “He wouldn’t.” At Martha’s silence he explained, “The Master seems to have a weird obsession with the Doctor.”
“I know that, I could tell. But that Timelord is insane. Who knows what he would do?”
Jack shook his head, “I think that the Master wants the Doctor to see everything he does. There would be no point without an audience.”
Martha grimaced. “He sounds more and more insane the more I hear about him.”
“Yeah, I find myself wishing that he had died in the Time War and that it was some other Timelord that survived.”
“You and all of Earth.”
They had reached the edge of what was now obviously a city and they both fell quiet for a moment.
“What’s the plan?” Martha asked.
“Maybe we could- DOCTOR!”
“I don’t think we should just scream his- DOCTOR!” Martha yelled when her eyes landed on what Jack had seen.
There was the Doctor walking along the street casually as if in no hurry at all and as if he owned the place. That was to say, very Doctor-like. But it almost seemed out of place since the Doctor should be saving Earth, not walking around Twaro II. Not to mention that he wasn’t wearing any of his usual picks for clothes. He was dressed how Jack imagined was the local style with a black leather coat and some metal cuffs that were blinking at strange intervals. It was odd. It was almost like the previous Doctor’s style and his current one had merged with a few extra Twaro-inspired accessories.
“DOCTOR!” they both shouted in since again.
The Doctor kept walking without turning towards them. Jack’s stomach sunk. Something was wrong.
They both seemed to have the same thought and started chasing after the Doctor. “DOCTOR!” Jack shouted a little more frantically.
Martha, the genius, yelled out, “HEY YOU!”
The Doctor finally turned around at that and looked around the mostly empty street before pointing to himself. “Are you talking to me?”
They caught up to where the Doctor was now standing still.
“Doctor, you have no idea how glad I am to see you,” Jack said relievedly. Everything would be fine now. They would get the Doctor, take him back to Earth and save the day.
“Do I know you?” the Doctor asked. “Because I’m afraid that you’ve got the wrong person. I’m not a doctor, don’t have the right schooling for that.”
Jack just stood there dumbfounded. This was the Doctor, right? “I know it’s been a few years but I didn’t think I’d aged that much,” Jack laughed awkwardly. The Doctor wouldn’t forget him, surely.
The Doctor’s eyes lit up and Jack thought that maybe he could have fainted in relief. “Did you know me from before my amnesia?”
Jack’s face fell and so did his hope. No. No. They needed the Doctor. He couldn’t just forget.
“Yeah,” Martha answered when Jack couldn’t, “We did. Jack here thought you would remember us.”
“Oh, sorry about that. What did you say your name was?”
“Jack Harkness,” Jack responded numbly.
“Yes, Jack, I’m sorry I just assumed that there was no one looking for me after the first couple years. I really do have a lot of questions if you’re willing to answer them.”
“Wait, how long has it been since you lost your memory?” Jack asked, perking up with the impending sense of dread.
“We’re coming up on seven years.” the Doctor eyed them suspiciously. “How come you didn’t know that?”
“It’s been an eventful couple of years for us,” Martha answered stiffly.
The Doctor raised his eyebrows. “I wasn’t involved with anything important before was I?”
Jack started laughing hysterically.
“Well, we were sort of in the middle of a big project,” Martha explained.
“Is that how I lost my memory?” the Doctor asked.
“We’re not completely sure,” Martha answered honestly.
Jack stopped laughing and looked at the Doctor desperately. “Can you come with us?”
“Well,” the Doctor hesitated for a second, “I really can’t. I’ve still got the rest of the work day and I can’t lose my job. Not to mention my husband would be concerned if I just disappeared.”
Martha and Jack blanched equally.
“You got married?!” Jack questioned with a hysterical edge.
The Doctor’s face fell, “Is that not okay? Please don’t tell me that I was already married to someone else.”
“No, no,” Jack reassured, still slightly in shock, “you just really weren’t the type.”
“Really? Not at all?”
“Well,” Martha started awkwardly, “it might have been a while since your injury, but I need to make sure you’re still in good physical health. I’m a medical student, you see.”
“Oh, everyone was right, I must have been rich to have friends like you!” The Doctor laughed good naturedly and Martha and Jack could only stare. “Please tell me we didn’t go and watch the suffering miners for fun… Oh, I haven’t thought about that in years.”
“No, we didn’t,” Martha told him carefully. “Now, was that an agreement for a quick assessment?”
The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. “I suppose, but what exactly are you going to do to me? We don’t really have any good doctors around here.”
What an ironic statement, Jack couldn’t help but think.
“I’m just going to lay my hand on either side of your chest,” Martha explained. What was she doing? Checking his hearts?
The Doctor smiled at Martha. “I think I can handle that.”
Martha approached and lightly rested her hand on either side of his chest, just like she said she would. She drew back and was shaking ever-so-slightly.
The Doctor stared at her carefully. “Am I okay?”
“Yeah,” Martha choked out only semi-believably, “Completely fine.”
The Doctor was frowning now. “That doesn’t sound ‘fine.’”
“It has to do with the memory loss,” Jack lied smoothly. Were the Doctor’s hearts okay? Was it something that the Master had done?
“Oh,” the Doctor seemed to come to his own conclusion, “But you already knew about that so I’m fine.”
“Yep,” Martha agreed a little more convincingly.
“Great! Well, I would love to talk to you both more, but I have work to get back to. How about you come over for dinner?”
“We’d be thrilled,” Jack accepted immediately.
“Are you sure that your husband will be okay with that?” Martha asked, giving Jack a look.
“Oh yes, of course, he loves guests. We’ve both been working on our cooking skills. He’s better than I am, I’m afraid, so he’ll probably be cooking. Anything you have a taste for in particular? We don’t have a lot of spare money but enough.”
The Doctor looked at them expectantly.
“We’re both near-human,” Jack supplied easily. “Other than that, I have no preference, Martha?”
“Anything is fine,” Martha agreed only a little hesitantly.
“Brilliant,” the Doctor said and gave them both a grin. “My address is 17. I’ll look forward to talking to you both. Why don’t you come over at 16?” The Doctor turned to walk away but then turned back, “I almost forgot, if you’re coming from Twaro III you won’t have a time piece. You can see the time at any street centre.”
“And do you have one? A time piece?” Martha asked before the Doctor could walk away.
“Of course, though funnily enough, I have two. My other one is broken, though, so I’m afraid I can’t lend it to you.”
“Right.” Martha said distantly.
The Doctor gave them one last smile before walking away down the street.
“He’s human,” Martha told him without preamble.
“What?”
“You remember how the Master was a human when we found him?”
“The Doctor said something about a machine that’s able to rewrite Timelord DNA?”
“Yeah, that one. The Doctor must have done it again. He only has one heart.”
“But why would he turn himself human with the Master running around?”
“Maybe he needed to escape the Master and as a Timelord the Master would be able to find him. Didn’t the Master have to construct the entire archangel network just to mask his identity from the Doctor?”
“Maybe.” Jack did not like any of that at all. “I guess we should just meet up with the Doctor at 16? And then if necessary we can drag him back with us.”
“Seems like our best plan.”
“We could look to see if there are any signs of the Master while we wait.”
“We shouldn’t get our hopes up,” Martha reasoned, “If he even is here he’s probably hiding behind a perception filter.”
“Can’t do any harm to look.”
—
John slipped into their shared flat and greeted Harold who must have arrived a few minutes before him.
“I hope you don’t mind, I invited some people over for dinner.”
“Who is it this time?”
“Two near-humans that recognised me.”
“What is that now, two times this week?” Harold asked with a good natured laugh. “You should be glad that I got promoted recently or else we wouldn’t be able to handle all these extra expenses.”
John smiled at Harold. “These two are actually different, they recognised me from before.”
“Really? I thought there was no one looking for you- for us. Do you think they’ll recognise me too?”
“Maybe,” John grinned at Harold, “We’ll finally learn if you were right about the two of us being coworkers. Though I personally don’t think so.”
Harold frowned. “Why not?”
“They seemed surprised to find out that I was married. I can’t imagine that if I knew you before that we wouldn’t have been involved.”
“Maybe it was against working policy?”
“Come on Harold, we would have worked around that. We are quite brilliant, after all.”
“Well,” Harold said petulantly, “I still think I’m right.”
John smirked. “You want to bet?”
“Yes, I think I would. If I’m right, you have to cook for an entire week.”
“Deal, but I think it’s more a punishment for you since we’ll only be eating easy-cook food for the entire week.”
Harold groaned dramatically, “What have I agreed to?”
John nudged his shoulder playfully. “Well, at least for now, you are cooking tonight. I told them to come over at 16.”
“Alright, alright! Will you at least help since you invited them?”
John felt a smile spread across his face. “I suppose I could.”