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I bring life.
He wishes he could say that coming back to life is like waking up in a movie; in slow, long blinks accompanied by yawning and light confusion.
Coming back to life is nothing like that.
The first thing Jack knows is pain. Electric, sharp pain coursing all throughout his body. The next thing he knows is that he can breathe.
He remembers the Dalek, knows what that means; he shouldn’t be able to breathe. He shouldn’t be able to think. He should, for all accounts and purposed, be dead.
But he’s not, and he doesn’t know what that means. (And that scares him. That scares him more than a lot of things in his life have scared him – god, that fucking scares him (what did you do, what did they remove from your memories?).)
The oxygen rushes through his lungs, agitating his already sore body (is it getting better? The pain seems to be lessening.) and logically he knows that he should get up. He should find the Doctor.
The Doctor.
It’s the thought of him, him and Rose both, which forces him to his feet in the end. They’re here somewhere – even if nobody else is (everyone else on the Game Station is dead, the Daleks seem to be gone).
There’s something in the middle of the hallway. He spots it through the pain of trying to get his legs to cooperate with the rest of his body, and slowly, very slowly, manages to walk towards it, crouching down (oh fuck, his knees) to get a closer look.
It’s… dust.
Jack blinks. He’s almost certain that five-ten-twenty minutes ago there was not dust there (how long has it been?). He would know – he’d scouted this whole area before the Daleks came, ran through it when the Daleks did come, died fallen in this very corridor. There was not dust there.
I— br—n— l—
He shakes his head. There’s no use speculating on it now; he can always bring it up to the Doctor when they’re leaving this godforsaken place (and isn’t that a wonderful thought, leaving).
Would he still be on the five hundredth floor? It’s as good a place as any to start his search. He can’t imagine it’ll take long – the other man is practically a magnet for trouble. All he has to do is follow the chaos, and inevitably he’ll find the Doctor.
He’s so deep in thought that he almost misses the loud clang from somewhere deeper in the Station.
He’s almost so deep in thought that he doesn’t realise immediately what it means.
No.
All thoughts of pain in legs forgotten, he swiftly gets up, turning and running before he’s even straightened himself properly.
No.
He was right – the Doctor didn’t go far. It takes Jack about twenty seconds to reach the room he was in. To reach the room the TARDIS is currently dematerialising from.
No.
Please, god, no.
(God has never listened. He should know this by now.)
The blue box – the Doctor’s blue box, the one Jack has called home for a few weeks now – finally fades fully, taking that annoying grating rasping beautiful noise with it.
And Jack’s alone.
He’s not fool enough to think the Doctor will come back. As far as the man is concerned, Jack is dead.
(Why isn’t Jack dead?)
He’s alone on a satellite, with five hundred floors and just as many dead bodies. No way out, no way to ask for help, no way to contact the Doctor.
He was wrong. He was very wrong.
Jack knows he won’t be leaving the Game Station for a long time.