Men Of The Stars
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“So,” said the Doctor, “we’re back on Earth. What happens now? We can’t stay here.”
“Well, I’ve got the keys to a car and my own credit card. It’s a start,” she replied with a grin.
The Doctor stared at her. “We?”
“What, me?” Rose asked. She held up her hands in defense of herself. “I thought we were staying together.”
He sighed, his eyes still following her movements as she stood by the side of the TARDIS. “I was thinking that. I don’t know what happened to change your mind but, right now, you and I together wouldn’t stand a chance against these two.
And that’s before they start shooting things or setting stuff on fire or whatever else they might do in the name of justice. No offense but I’m not about to leave this ship in your hands.” He shook his head and stepped towards her, placing an arm around her shoulder and drawing her into him.
Rose smiled at him as he rested his head against hers for a moment, then she turned and kissed his cheek. “You’re not mad, are you? That was the last of the TARDIS’s supplies, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, yeah. The TARDIS is full of sweets again, so that’s fine. As long as there’s no more of those blue ones,” he said as she pushed past him to get inside. “How do you even know what a blue sweet is, anyway? Are they really called blue sweets? Do the people who eat them have blue teeth?”
She ignored him as she pulled the door closed behind her, heading up the steps to the control console. “I just thought if we stayed together we might stand a better chance. But if you really think it’ll be safer alone… I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right. If we both stay together…” She shook her head, then stopped. “Hey!”
The Doctor looked over her shoulder at her, concern crossing his face. “What?”
She shrugged. “Just a feeling I had, that’s all.”
He stared at her, his eyebrows furrowed, then he shook his head and made his way into the TARDIS, pulling himself up the steps. Rose waited until she heard the door close firmly behind him before she turned and went back down the steps.
***
They spent the afternoon walking along the banks of the river Thames and watching the world go by. There was so much to see and do but the Doctor couldn’t bring himself to go near any of it. The idea of having a normal life seemed like too big a dream.
It reminded him of the things he’d given up – a job he loved and good friends that meant everything to him. His life on Gallifrey had been perfect in every way. How could he possibly want to take part in all these crazy adventures with this woman when he knew he wouldn’t be able to do any of them justice?
She was so much more than he’d expected. A friend, perhaps, but he didn’t think he could love her. It would never work between them. She needed to find someone else and have a family of her own.
The Doctor sighed as he leaned against a nearby wall, his mind wandering as he watched the sun setting across the cityscape. They were so far from home and still had so many questions to answer. Why didn’t his time machine have a map to lead them straight back?
Why hadn’t he brought a compass to help him get back? Did he have to go with the flow or was there a way to stop the universe from going back to how it had been before he stepped inside? Why did it seem like everyone they met wanted to kill them? Who was the Doctor? And why did he always feel so angry all the time?
And if there wasn’t, what was to become of the TARDIS?
He shook his head and sighed again as Rose wandered off to the side, leaning against one of the buildings overlooking the water, talking to some young men playing chess. He watched her for a moment, seeing how beautiful she looked despite the fact that the last two hours had seen them running away from a police force intent on shooting them down at any opportunity, hiding from an evil scientist who’d tried to destroy London and fighting for their lives.
The Doctor smiled sadly as he watched her talking to the boys. Maybe it was her natural charm, or maybe she just had something about her that drew people to her. Whatever the case, she seemed happy with life. It was all too easy to imagine what it would be like to live in her world.
She’d made him feel normal for the first time in years. It was almost enough to make him forget why he really was here, and where he needed to go. Almost.
As the Doctor stood staring after Rose, he caught sight of a man walking over towards them. He recognized him immediately but the look on his face was nothing like the man he thought he remembered. He’d worn a dark blue suit that day and the man he was now wearing an expensive, dark brown one.
The color looked good on him, making his pale complexion even whiter. His hair had grown longer since then and now hung around his shoulders, but his face looked familiar. There was no denying that he knew who this man was, or at least, who he looked like. It was impossible to forget that kind of face.
The Doctor straightened up, looking across at the stranger as he approached, smiling slightly as he realized where he recognized him from. He turned back to Rose and waved her over, gesturing for her to come closer. “Rose… This is Jack Harkness.”
“Who’s he?” asked Rose.
“Jack Harkness,” said the Doctor, smiling fondly as he watched her shake his hand. “I don’t know if you remember, but we met before, in New York City.”
Harkness smiled at the Doctor and put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re looking well,” he said softly.
The Doctor grinned. “Thanks. You too.”
“So,” said Harkness, nodding towards Rose, “you’ve brought company.”
The Doctor smiled again. “Yes. This is Rose Tyler. I hope she’s okay.”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” answered Harkness, taking Rose by the arm and pulling her away from the group of chess players. “Come with me. We need to talk.”
Harkness led them through a side street, past an old pub, and down another road before turning left at the junction and stopping in front of a large black car. He opened the door for them both, letting Rose in first before stepping around her and opening his own door for the Doctor. Harkness slid into the driver’s seat, looking over at Rose.
“You okay?” he asked, giving her a gentle smile.
She nodded. “Yeah. Are we going anywhere in particular?”
He shook his head as he pulled away from the curb. “I need to go and meet someone in person, but it can wait a bit longer. Let’s go for a drive instead.”
The Doctor was about to say something when a voice behind him cut him off. “Doctor! It’s been such a long time…”
The Doctor turned in his seat, glancing back at Rose and seeing how nervous she looked. He could understand why, though he felt like she’d never done anything to deserve her fears. Jack Harkness, on the other hand… The Doctor smiled, knowing this would be easier than he thought. It seemed that even the best of friends had their problems.
“It has, hasn’t it? I’d better be getting a good story out of you this time!”
Harkness smiled slightly before turning his attention back to the road. “Not really much to tell,” he admitted. “We’ve mostly been traveling from one place to another, doing odd jobs for various people to stay alive.”
“What happened to your world? To Torchwood?”
Harkness took a sharp right, driving past another pub, then turned left down a quieter side street. “They were destroyed by the same thing that nearly did us in too,” he said grimly. “The whole planet was wiped out by the Daleks.”
The Doctor stared at him, not believing what he’d heard. “What?!”
“I know it sounds unbelievable, but that’s where we’ve been. We’re still looking for somewhere safe to go and settle down.”
Rose frowned, feeling confused. “That doesn’t make sense,” she told Harkness. “You don’t have a home planet anymore and your world is gone. You should just move on to somewhere new.”
“Like you did?” asked Harkness softly.
The Doctor looked over at him. “Of course like me. What kind of answer was that?”
“We’re still searching for a place we can call our own,” added Harkness, “but until then, I’ll make do with what we’ve got, here and now, and you should be doing the same.”
The Doctor nodded slowly. That was the kind of reasoning he’d expected from Jack. He sighed inwardly as he remembered why they’d fallen out in the first place and how easily things had ended up this way. It didn’t help when Rose interrupted them, speaking up for the first time since their reunion.
“And you haven’t told me why you left in the first place.”
Harkness shrugged. “It wasn’t any great loss,” he replied simply.
“Oh yes, I can see that,” she agreed sarcastically. “So why don’t you just get to the point? Why are you even talking to us? Did Rose tell you about that girl in the alleyway?”
Harkness laughed. “I saw her myself. I didn’t kill her either.”
The Doctor sighed, remembering his last conversation with Jack. The anger flared inside him again. “Yes, you did! You left her there all night!”
“Well, that’s just the point!” shouted Rose, leaning forward and grabbing hold of the armrest of the seat. “That girl was scared and crying and I thought she needed some help!”
Jack turned towards them and frowned slightly before turning back to the road. “You’re a good person, Rose, but sometimes people do need to learn about taking care of themselves and not relying on others.”
“What does that have to do with you leaving her alone?!” asked Rose angrily. “How can you say that it isn’t your problem?!”
Harkness held up his hands in defence. “It’s my problem because I know what will happen if I’m around. She’ll get taken in by someone else who can offer her something more. It happened to me once; I let myself be distracted, thinking someone would come along and help out.” He shook his head, then added in an even gentler tone, “But no one ever came to me until it was too late.”
“It was different for you, though, wasn’t it?” asked Rose softly, trying to make him understand. “Because you were a hero, so everyone expected you to take care of them. It didn’t matter if they took advantage of you. No one would blame you.”
Harkness shook his head sadly. “That doesn’t mean that other people shouldn’t be given the chance to find their own way,” he countered. “I’m not a hero anymore, not like I was when we were younger.
There are times when I wish I could go back and redo some things, but then there are moments when I’m glad I never did. Life’s been tough since the war ended; people don’t appreciate what they’ve got. They don’t think beyond tomorrow anymore.”
Rose sat back, her mouth open. “Oh. I see now.”
The Doctor looked at her in surprise. He couldn’t help wondering why she hadn’t picked up on this earlier if she really had read that newspaper report properly. He was beginning to have doubts about her story. He wondered whether Jack Harkness really knew more than he was telling. He decided to ask. “And your parents?” he asked. “What did they do in the war?”
“They worked for the government,” said Harkness quickly. “My dad was in the army and my mum was a civil servant.”
“But they helped win the war?”
“Of course! That’s what made my father such a good soldier. My mother kept his spirits up when times got bad. They both died when a Dalek crashed through the roof of our house. It destroyed everything.”
He shrugged, looking down at the floor. “It wasn’t a very nice time, but there was nowhere else for me to go, so I started traveling.” He glanced up at the Doctor once again. “I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you, Doctor, and especially for the trouble I’m sure to cause in the future, but I won’t let you come to any harm, I promise.”
“We’ve heard that before, haven’t we?” said Rose darkly. She glared at him, trying to decide whether or not to trust his words. The Doctor didn’t know quite how to respond to that, so he changed the subject again.
“How long ago was it?” he asked. “Did you lose anyone recently?”
Harkness looked away. “Yes. I lost someone recently, actually.”
The Doctor could tell from his tone of voice that it wasn’t an easy story to share. He’d been expecting something along those lines; the way Harkness had acted back in the alleyway had given him some idea as to what was going on. Now he finally got to hear the whole tale.
“You met her during the war,” he guessed.
Harkness nodded. “She was a nurse in a military hospital,” he replied. “It was where she found me when the rest of the family had died. We became lovers; I was a hero then, just like I told you. No one would have dared cross me. She knew what my reputation meant to me.”
He paused a moment before continuing. “Well, it was more that I used it to protect her and the rest of the world from harm. And it worked too until it came to my own flesh and blood.” He shook his head sadly. “I thought we were happy.
But after a while, I started to feel trapped, just as I did on the night you came here last month. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I couldn’t bear to see her suffer anymore either.” He glanced up at the Doctor again, then went on, “I left her behind with a promise to return, then took off and never looked back. The next time I saw her was in the street when I’d saved you from that creature.”
The Doctor was trying to work out exactly what all this had to do with his missing friend, but he couldn’t make sense of it. He tried again, saying, “Then what happened? You said she had a son. Did he know who his father was?”
Harkness frowned and shook his head. “He was born long after I disappeared,” he replied. “My mother always talked about him fondly, even though she never told him that it was his real dad.” He paused for a moment, looking uncomfortable as if he wasn’t sure how to go on.
He glanced at Rose before going on. “There’s a lot I don’t remember about my life,” he added. “Some memories are there, but the things that made them mean something have gone. I think they got wiped out when that thing attacked me.” He shrugged.
“It was an alien weapon of some sort. It can probably make anything disappear.” He smiled. “That’s not really important right now. What’s important is finding out what happened to Steven, then making sure I can never find myself in such a situation again.”
He turned away from the Doctor and stared into space for a moment, before turning back and smiling again. “You’ve already seen what it means to me to be trapped.”
The Doctor felt himself relax at those words, although he still couldn’t help feeling like there were more questions than answers here. And Harkness knew a hell of a lot more than he was letting on. He decided to change tack, trying to draw the storyteller back to its core.
“So who or what did you say the creature was?” he asked.
Harkness gave him a funny look. “What’s that? It looked like some kind of alien.”
“No,” the Doctor insisted. “I mean who built it.”
Harkness smiled, clearly thinking he’d scored another point over his rival, and went on, “Well, the government has been trying for years to build a better version of it themselves. There’ve been lots of failed attempts in the past, and this time they had a big team working on it.
That’s how they thought they could stop us.” He chuckled, then grew serious once again. “But we knew about their plans, and we were ready for them.” He paused again, looking troubled. “That thing isn’t the only weapon the government has.”
There was something odd about the way he said that. It reminded the Doctor of someone else who had made similar claims; Rose’s uncle, apparently. But the Doctor was no expert in military matters, so he didn’t dare ask any more questions on the subject. It was all too easy to get himself into trouble that way.
“How many weapons are there?” he asked instead. “You must have an idea, surely?”
Harkness looked at him oddly for a moment, then shrugged. “All of them,” he replied. “The whole universe is one vast arsenal of weapons just waiting to be unleashed. Some of them are used by the government; others by aliens; still more by the forces of nature. All of them were developed for a reason.”
Now the Doctor was starting to feel worried. Whatever had happened to Steven, it seemed that the people behind it all wanted him to stop Harkness from finding out what it was. But there was nothing the Doctor could do except to listen while Harkness carried on.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the War on Terra?” he asked.
Rose nodded, saying, “It’s the planet with the weird-looking buildings where the government has its secret labs.” She paused, then added, “But they haven’t got a war going on there now. Have they?”
Harkness shook his head. “The whole thing was staged to give people something to focus on while the alien weapons were developed.” He smiled, as though he’d already told her this story before and couldn’t be bothered telling it again.
“You see, the real war started when a bunch of terrorists stole the prototype for an alien weapon from our scientists,” he said, and Rose could tell he was about to change the subject. “We sent troops to retrieve it, but they never came back. When we found the bodies, it was clear what had happened.”
“You’re kidding,” she said, surprised. “They blew themselves up with it?”
The Doctor frowned at Harkness. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Why would anyone do that? Wasn’t it a pretty important weapon?”
“Well, yes, but we thought that would happen. So we took some precautions beforehand. We knew they’d want to take the weapon home with them once they’d captured it, so we sent some of our best operatives ahead to try and get it away from them before they could use it.
But they didn’t make it. The government was very careful to keep everything on Terra under wraps until after the fact, and it was easy to bury the story, even though it happened right in front of our eyes.” He glanced around at the other people.
“As for how that particular terrorist group got hold of one of the weapons…” He looked back at them all and went on. “You should know all about it.”
“What are you talking about?” the Doctor insisted. “I don’t think any of us know anything about Terra.”
Harkness gave him an unpleasant look and shrugged his shoulders. “No? Then maybe you need to listen more closely when you’re out here on your missions, Doctor.”
There was something very unsettling about Harkness’s expression. His face was still perfectly friendly, but there was a coldness to it that was very disturbing indeed. Rose could sense something dangerous behind that smile. It wasn’t like anyone else they had met on the planet.
“I’ll take my chances,” he said. “Maybe you were just making this up.”
“Oh no,” Harkness replied, giving him another unpleasant smile. “It really did happen.”
There was something about the way he spoke which reminded the Doctor of someone else. Rose couldn’t quite place who or what she thought he reminded her of. But as soon as Harkness mentioned Terra, her unease grew even stronger.
“So what happened to them?” Rose asked, feeling uneasy at the same time as she was growing more curious.
Harkness gave her an amused look. “Do I have to spell it out for you, Miss Tyler?” he said, looking at her like he knew more than he was telling her. “We blew them all to hell!”
The Doctor and Rose looked at each other as they realized what must have happened. They had been in the presence of terrorists and they had blown them up before they could get hold of their own secret weapon.
“So you’re the people who’ve been causing trouble on Earth?” Rose asked, still thinking about it. “What’s all that about, then?”
Harkness looked down at his hands again as though they were suddenly very interesting to him, then glanced over at the Doctor. “You should have guessed,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, but I have to do this.” He looked up and smiled again. “The government is afraid of me.”
Rose didn’t know what he meant by that. She just wanted to find Steven and stop him from doing anything stupid. It had started to become clear what they were after from listening to Harkness so far.
They seemed to be worried about some kind of alien device that the Doctor himself had seen on a TV program once. If Harkness was telling them the truth about this then, well… Rose wondered what it could be.
“And what have you got to say for yourself, Doctor?” Harkness went on, turning to the Doctor again and giving him an unfriendly look.
“Why don’t we sit down first?” the Doctor replied, looking around for a chair.
“No!” Rose exclaimed before the Doctor could get to his feet. “Let’s keep running. This has to stop!”
Harkness laughed as though the idea was funny. “It’s too late for that,” he said. “We have our hands on everything now. Your precious human government is under our control, and you are in no position to challenge us anymore. All of those weapons which the terrorists took from your people?
They’ve all been returned safely to us. Now you know what the weapon can do. Now you know why we need to make sure that no one gets hold of it ever again.”
Rose glared at him. “You’re going to use it against the government on Earth, aren’t you? Just like you did to that group of terrorists on Terra?”
Harkness shrugged his shoulders again, making it look as though he thought it was nothing special. “Yes,” he said quietly.
“Then we have to stop you,” Rose said defiantly.
Harkness gave her a dark smile. “Oh yes? Who says you can?”
Before either Rose or the Doctor could reply, there was a loud crash from nearby and they both turned to see what had made the noise. Rose saw a man standing in the middle of a large room, with the floor and ceiling falling in around him as though they were about to collapse any second.
The Doctor was already running across the open space towards him. As Rose followed him, she wondered whether anyone else had heard the same crashing sound which had alerted them to the problem.
They certainly hadn’t seen anything which looked as though it had caused it. And now they couldn’t help but feel as if they were walking straight into something that they really shouldn’t be seeing.
As she got closer to the man, Rose noticed that he wasn’t a man at all. He was a woman who looked very old and wrinkled. Her hair was white, and the skin of her face looked as though it had been stretched tight over her bones.
But there was something wrong with her appearance. Something odd about the way her eyes looked out of her sockets, for example, and the way she seemed to stare straight past Rose without looking at her.
There was no sign of a face on the woman’s head, just a hole where there should have been hair, and what looked like a thin black tube that connected up to an empty socket on her neck.
Rose tried to keep focused on what was going on. She was still in danger here and she knew it. “Doctor,” she called out to him in a panic. “What’s happening?”
But he was already reaching the old woman.
He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away from the wall of the corridor. The floor and ceiling of the room had already started to collapse and Rose thought they were all going to get buried.
The woman stared straight into his face and seemed to recognize him. Rose was sure she didn’t look pleased with being interrupted while she was doing whatever it was that she was doing.
“Hello, old friend,” the woman said softly, in a voice that seemed to echo from all around them. “I don’t think you’ll be seeing me again.”
“We are all very glad to see you,” the Doctor replied as he dragged the old woman through the dust and debris of the collapsed floor.
They found themselves at the back of another large room which appeared to be full of strange machines. A metal cage hung above them on some kind of crane-like mechanism, suspended by a series of thick cables which ran along the ceiling and disappeared into a dark hole above their heads.
Rose saw several other cages hanging from the ceiling too, and there were also more crates scattered across the floor. But the whole place seemed almost deserted now, and there was nobody else in sight apart from the two of them and the woman.
“Doctor!” Rose yelled. “What’s happening?”
He ignored her as he continued pulling the old woman away from the walls of the corridor, and then through one of the metal cages towards another part of the room. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’ll all be fine.”
He reached up to a lever on a nearby machine and began turning it, causing another section of the floor to start to sink slowly under its own weight. “Come on,” he called out. “We’re safe now. Just hang on a minute and everything will be okay.”
As they moved away from the collapsing wall of the corridor, Rose saw a large red button that had been pushed next to the door leading to the control room. As they approached the machine with the levers, she could see that it was connected to the controls for the crane which was swinging the cages and crates above them.
And if anyone had used that button, the whole crane would have dropped straight onto the heads of everyone who was still standing near the cages when the ground finally gave way.
“So,” the Doctor said as he pulled himself up onto a small seat inside one of the cages, “you really have something special here? Something which the government will want to know about?”
The old woman laughed in delight. “Of course I do,” she said. “You think I’d have let you come down here otherwise?”
“But we thought that the whole place had been emptied,” the Doctor said. “And yet it looks like a lot of people were already living here before this happened. How did they escape?”
The woman stared at him and smiled as she replied. “I told you. There’s more than one exit, remember?”
Before he could question her any further, a loud crash from somewhere above made Rose turn back towards the corridor just in time to see one of the metal doors on the outside of the building begin to fall.
It hit the wall of the corridor and smashed apart into several pieces as it bounced back through the air, leaving a deep hole behind it as it fell down to the ground outside. Dust and debris poured into the room as the whole floor started to collapse beneath the weight of the rest of the building above it.
“Doctor!” Rose cried out as she struggled to stay on top of the cage she was clinging to, even though her legs were beginning to get tangled in the ropes which hung from the ceiling.
The Doctor was already jumping off his seat, trying to grab hold of her while she still had the strength left to cling to him. But as soon as they had touched hands, he disappeared into a swirling cloud of dust which quickly swallowed him up and sent them tumbling along on the ropes below.
Rose tried desperately to hold on, but the ropes began to loosen around her and the cage swung back and forth in the wind. And then another crash came from somewhere close by. She saw that a section of the roof was coming down now, and this time there was nothing she could do to stop it.
The roof above her was going to collapse too, just like all the walls and floors which had already been smashed apart.
“Doctor!” Rose called out. “Doctor!”
As the wind whipped through the room, the door leading to the control room slammed shut behind her and a loud grinding sound echoed through the room. The roof above the doorway crumbled into the room and the whole structure suddenly collapsed under its own weight, burying everything beneath tons of dust and rubble.
***
It was a few hours later when Rose finally stopped shaking and managed to get herself to her feet. She was lying on her back beside the remains of the machine where the Doctor had saved her. He was still lying there next to her, his eyes closed, his face bruised and bloody from where the rubble had struck him in the chest as they fell, and his legs were badly broken beneath him.
The woman’s body had already been taken away, probably by some kind of robot device, and there didn’t seem to be anyone else who wanted anything to do with her. But it was hard to know what the real truth of things was because everything around her was so confusing.
She was still very tired, and even after all this time she had spent trying to escape the nightmare that seemed to have followed them wherever they went, she still wasn’t quite sure how things had come to this.
It was one thing to try and run for her life from something which could take you by surprise; it was another entirely to see it happen over and over again until there was nothing left inside you to fight against it any longer.
The End