Broken: A Time Lord's Story (Doctor Who Novel)

Chapter 35 Let's Get Our Princess

"Go through his pants pockets and get his money, credit stick, whatever you can find," Jack ordered a stunned River.

"What?" River muttered. Little in life shocked her but she now stood in the middle of the floor watching in utter disbelief at Jack buzzing around the room.

"We need this to look like a robbery. Make sure the system looks like he forgot to turn it on when he came home." Leaving Manton where he laid crumpled in the bed, Jack moved quickly to rifle through the old man's belongs. He stuffed what jewellery the old man had in his pockets

"River," Jack hissed. "Snap out of it."

"Right." She shook her head and moved to help arrange the scene of a break in.  Rifling through Manton's dresser she stopped and. This whole scene wasn't real; it couldn't be real. Before she could think her hand punched a hole in the wall in frustration then turned toward Jack. "I needed to interrogate him, to find out what else he knew, Jack."

"Yeah, I know" Jack answered as he dumped the drawer of the bedside table  on the floor, "but he grabbed the gun, River. He didn't leave me a choice. Have to say, I underestimated how fast that old man could move." He stood with his hands on his hips.

She glared first at Jack and then the dead man on the bed. Hatred well from deep within her. "Bloody bastard took his dirty secrets to hell with him. Come on that's enough, we need to knock stuff over in the lounge. I'll reset the system's time once we're out.

"Good," Jack glanced around the room. "Not overdone."

River glared at him. "Done this before, have you; arrange murder scenes?"

He flashed a weary smile. "A time or two,"  he answered with a heavy sigh born of one too many times at such scenes. "I usually lead the clean up. Let's get out of here."

The two headed out of the room without so much as a backward glance only stopping long enough to reset the alarm's codes and time as they left the house. When the local constabulary arrived, it would look an old man forgot to set his security system.  The moonless night made and perception filters made it easy to hide their retreat back to the TARDIS. River rushed into the control room, put the ship into the vortex without so much as a word.  "River?" Jack called after her as she stormed off for parts unknown into the depths of the ship, leaving him by the console. Other than a few choice words of profanity informing him where he could stick his immortality, she had said nothing since leaving Manton's house. He inhaled sharply as he watched the curly-haired woman rapidly disappear.

"Blew that one, eh, old girl," he murmured to the ship. "Must be getting careless in my old age."

He scratched the now healed spot where the bullet tore into his chest. The dried blood on his skin   dried was beginning to itch, prompting the need for a hot shower. If nothing else, he thought as he walked to his room, we accomplished most of our objectives, eh. Even if it didn't entirely go according to plan. Getting Varak will have to wait, at least for now.

One thing was certain; this particular mishap needed to be erased from everyone’s memory banks, especially the TARDIS’. He knew River would handle the TARDIS without difficulty. He wasn’t too sure about River. He wondered what the ramifications were for retconning an angry curly-headed force like River. It didn't work so well with Gwen, and she wasn't nearly as upset as River. He pulled his braces off on the way to his room and started stripping his grimy clothes off the instant the door closed behind him.

The blood soaked shirt was tossed into a corner followed by his tee as he headed for the shower. He dropped heavily into the bedside chair and pulled his boots off followed by his trousers. When he entered the en-suite, he looked at his body in the full length mirror. Dried blood caked his otherwise muscular chest. Jack snorted at his image. Not bad for an old man,  he thought. How many times? was his next.