The Story of Sally Armstrong (Doctor Who)

Chapter 23

"Well I can't think of anything I have done to you to warrant this kind of reaction, so I'm going to guess it's something I haven't done yet." he seemed very calm by the whole thing, even going as far as seeing it as a joke. "Oh, by the way, Jack, I would think twice about what you're doing. That is, if you don't want anyone you loved to be hurt."

"Don't threaten me," Jack said, still holding the gun with a steady hand.

The Doctor's eye grew large,  worried as he looking past the man with the gun. "Jack, I would really put the gun down if I was you," as he took a few steps back.

"I know he's your friend, but he doesn't deserve to live. I'm sorry but"

"JACK, put the gun down" Ianto screamed, panic flooding his voice as he did. As Jack turned around he could see Ianto holding a gun up to his own head. Horror filling his eyes as beads of sweat began to pearl on his face. "Jack, do something!" he pleaded.

Jack turned back around to the Master who had been ignoring him saying something to Sally that seemed to stop her pain. She sat there staring into the distance like a zombie as he stood up. A wicked grin on his face. "Oh, are you going to shoot me, Jack? Just so you know I'm notorious for holding grudges and can't be held responsible for anything I do."

"Don't threaten me!" Jack demanded, the hand he held the gun with beginning to shake. "Besides, a threat isn't as scary if you already made good on it."

This didn't seem to bother the Master, in fact, he seemed to be enjoying himself even more. "Then do it" his voice went deep and cold, a moment later, snapping back to his twisted cheerful disposition. "Oh, come on Jack, you're not just going to throw empty threats like that around are you, where's your backbone?"

"Don't do it" the Doctor warned, his eyes darting from Ianto to the Master back to Jack.

The Master turned his head just enough to see the Doctors reaction. "Oh, do you think I can regenerate fast enough so I watch poor little Ianto over there bleed out?"

"Stop it, you don't" the Doctor began, anger filling him.

"I don't have to do this, I don't have to do that. Oh, can you stop committing genocide for fun? God, Doctor, do you have any other words in your vocabulary. Or are you just a broken record?" he turned back to face Jack. "Well Jack, are you going to shoot me and let Ianto and potentially everyone on this ship die? Or are you going to put the gun down so me and the Doctor can resume work on defusing that bomb? You do remember there is a bomb on board right?"

"Stop it," the Doctor said under gritted teeth.

The realization he had no choice come over Jack as he slowly put his gun down. At the same time, Ianto put his down. And a moment later Jack had him in his embrace, consoling him. Ianto's eyes fixed on the Master who casually pick the metal box up, slowly walking across the room with it.

"What did you do to him?" Jack called out, his grip on Ianto tightening.

"Who, me?" he asked as if none of that had just happened, even finding himself laughing about it. "Oh, not much. You see Ianto here found out what I was up to. Taking parts from Torchwood to work on my own TARDIS." he gave a look of great annoyance "It became unusable after SOMEONE ripped an important part of it out, even though I told you that you couldn't do that." His gaze fell on the Doctor as he spoke.

"I'm not apologizing, you did the same thing to me not five mins before that." the Doctor reluctantly set next to him, knowing the best thing for everyone would be to help him.

"Oh, I don't expect you to. I just wanted to make it clear whos fail this is. But you see Ianto seen me obtaining some of your alien artifacts. And before you go and trying to reprimand him for not telling you to be aware I wiped his mind so he wouldn't remember. Oh, and I also may have set a fail-safe for myself as in if anyone threats to kill me he will not be able to stop himself from threatening or even killing himself. So in a way, his life is in my hands."