From Bad To Worse | Doctor Who Fanfiction

11. The Fire's Starting

"Is it just me or is the TARDIS slightly different?" Jack wondered upon seeing the familiar, but slightly different, police box.

"Wait until you see the inside!" Martha told him in an excited whisper as she was walking towards the TARDIS door armed with the key to open it.

"Oh just open the bloody door!" Mickey grumbled, trailing slightly behind them.

"Yeah okay fine," Martha mumbled back as she opened the TARDIS' door.

"Oh wow, this is rather nice!" Jack exclaimed while examining the, for him, new console room. "Why did he change it, you think?"

"I don't know, but you can ask him about it later," Martha suggested.

Jack nodded.

"Fair enough, where is he anyway?" He wondered.

"I left him in his room and I doubt he has moved from there since I left," Martha informed him.

"He's got a room?" Jack turned to Martha questioningly.

"Course he does Jack, it's his ship!" Martha told him as if it was obvious, which, to be fair, it arguably is.

"Oh, can we just go!" Mickey snapped, being done with their banter.

"Right, yeah." Martha nodded and headed towards the corridor. "This way."

-----------------------------------------

The Doctor woke from a pleasant dream when the door to his bedroom opened.

He slowly opened his eyes and turned his head to the door to see Martha, Jack and Mickey entering.

"Morning," He said with a sleep filled voice.

"It's afternoon, sleeping beauty." Jack corrected The Doctor, earning him a glare from the sleepy Time Lord.

"Jack, don't you dare ever call me that again!" He said in the most threating voice he could muster while still partly asleep.

"What are you gonna do? Me?" Jack asked cheekily.

"You don't want to find out Jack, but I can promise you one thing, it won't be in that area." The Doctor told the ex-Time Agent firmly, now fully awake.

"Well, I was hoping you'd changed your mind on that," Jack admitted.

"You'd better stop hoping for that," The Time Lord said casually, "A lot of things change during regeneration but that's never one of them."

"That's a shame," Jack commented.

"Not really, it does save me one more thing I need to figure out again right after regeneration." The Doctor confided.

"Still." Jack declared.

"Jack, didn't you have a boyfriend!?" Martha interrupted them.

"So...?" Jack challenged Martha, causing the Time Lord to chuckle and shake his head.

"51st-century guy," The Time Lord muttered with a smile, earning him a wink from the immortal, which earned the Immortal an eye roll back.

"Anyway," Martha said with a raised eyebrow and turned towards The Doctor, "How did you sleep?"

"Nice, thanks." He answered cheerily.

"Do you need anything?" She asked him.

"Errrrr... I'd like some water." The Time Lord answered.

None of them had noticed Mickey, who was still standing in the doorway, feeling left out and it was causing him to feel more annoyed by the second.

"Right, okay, I'll be right back." Matha nodded and left the room, Mickey quickly following her slamming the door closed behind them.

The Time Lord frowned at this and looked at Jack with a questioning look, the immortal could only answer with a shrug.

"Right," The Doctor started, "So Jack, I haven't heard the story of what happened in Germany yet." He looked expectingly at the immortal.

"Okay, then." Jack nodded decisively, sat down on the bed and started telling about the alien that had temporally terrorized Berlin.

---------------------------------------------------------

About halfway through Jack's story, both men got startled by a loud bang coming from somewhere in the TARDIS.

The Doctor turned to Jack and asked. "What the hell was that?"

"I don't know, it's your ship, shouldn't you know?" Jack counter-asked.

The Time Lord had to concede that Jack had a point.

Sexy? What happened? He asked the TARDIS mentally.

He got a shrug from her and a mental reminder that she was on half power since a certain Time Lord had destroyed the library which caused damage that she needed to fix.

"Right... The TARDIS doesn't know either." The Doctor relayed to Jack after his mental conversation with his ship.

"Great, I suppose it's up to me to go check it out then." Jack sighed as he moved to get up.

"Well, I would've gone with you but errrr, that might not be a very good idea right now." The Time Lord shrugged holding up his arms to prove his point.

"I guess I'm gonna investigate then, at least, we're on the TARDIS, it can't be too dangerous," Jack said as he walked towards the door. "I'll be right back."

The Time Lord nodded as the immortal left the room.

------------------------------------------------

Jack returned a couple of minutes later with a glass of water.

"So, that bang was Mickey and Martha not getting along very well." The immortal stated. "It's probably best to let them sort it out together. Anyway, I decided to just get the water you requested myself cause if you have to wait on those two you could wait until the next century." He continued as he presented the straw he had gotten with the glass to The Doctor's lips, enabling the Time Lord to take some grateful gulps from it.

"Thanks, Jack," The Time Lord said, grateful that the dryness in his throat was finally solved.

"No problem, Doc," Jack acknowledged him. "Anyway, I believe I was telling you a story." The immortal added as he sat back down on the bed.

"Yes, you were," The Doctor confirmed, curious about it as Jack had just gotten to the interesting part before he had been interrupted.

"Okay, let me see, where was I?" Jack wondered to himself, "Oh yeah, I remember... so the Iagar had just escaped and ..."

Then an alarm sounded interrupting the immortal's story once again.

The Time Lord stiffened at the sound of the alarm. "Jack! We need to get to the console room, now!" He told the ex-Time Agent in an urgent tone.

"Why? What's that alarm?" The immortal asked worriedly.

"Jack! That's a bloody mauve environment alarm!" The Doctor told Jack through clenched teeth, there weren't many things that could trigger that alarm, but none of them were good and that might be a bit of an understatement.

"Damn," The Immortal muttered, knowing what that kind of alarm implied.

"Yeah, can you now help me up, so we can go to the console room?" The Time Lord requested annoyed at the unnecessary delay in sorting out the alarm.

" Right, yeah." Jack nodded and quickly helped his alien friend up.

When the two men got to the console room they immediately started to run diagnostics, or well basically The Doctor told Jack which buttons to push while he read the Gallifreyan script.

When the Time Lord learned what the alarm meant he cursed out loud, something he hadn't done in front of someone else in years.

"What's it?" Jack asked worriedly, causing the Time Lord to turn to him with a shocked look.

"Jack, Donna's mind is burning." He finally told the Immortal seriously after a few moments of silence.