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Fic: Future-Perfect-In-Past, chapter 4/6
Title: Future-Perfect-In-Past
Author: Veldeia
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Spoilers: All the way through S4 of Doctor Who and S2 of Torchwood. Takes place post Journey's End for the Doctor, but after A Day in the Death for the Torchwood team.
Characters/Pairings: 10th Doctor, Jack, Ianto, Owen, Tosh, Gwen. Slight Jack/Ianto.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I'm sure that somewhere out there, there's a wonderful parallel universe where I own all the stuff I write about - but it definitely isn't this one.
Author's Note: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cytherea999 for the beta, and to my anonymous alpha for everything. This is a finished story, but I'm posting it one chapter at a time over the next week or so.
Summary: Dead Weevils and an unconscious Doctor amount to a mystery more challenging and less straightforward than usual for the Torchwood team.
4.
The body was still warm when the Doctor and the Torchwood team arrived at the scene. Judging from the dead man's clothing, he was a maintenance worker of some sort. Owen quickly declared that since there were no signs of trauma, the most likely verdict was death by Ood.
The place wasn't far from where Torchwood had found the latest dead Weevil, so it was just within the realms of possibility that the dead Ood had killed this man. Possible, but unlikely, especially since the Ood were extremely sociable and altruistic beings. They were never alone, if they could avoid it. It was far more likely that there were more than one of them around, which meant that even though the Doctor had failed to save one Ood, he might still be able to do some good. Ood, good. That rhymed nicely.
"Over here," Ianto shouted.
The Doctor turned around, and saw the young man motioning at a rectangular hole in the ground, its cover resting nearby.
"Well, what are we waiting for, then?" the Doctor said, walked over, and started climbing down the rusty rungs into the depths of the sewers, ignoring Jack, who was telling him to wait, and issuing orders to his team.
He reached the concrete floor, and took a few steps into the darkness around the patch of sunlight shining in from above. Before he'd managed to find his torch from his pockets, it struck him - the Ood song, but unlike he'd ever heard it before. This was not the sad, wistful hymn of oppressed slaves, but a sound so raw with desperation, fear and loneliness that it felt like cold hands were tearing his hearts out of his chest. He leaned on the wall, and bowed his head.
He couldn't really tell how long he stood there. Only when Jack's warm, steady hand grasped his shoulder, he was finally able to snap out of it, doing his best to shut out the song.
"Doctor, what's wrong?" Jack asked, shining a torch right into his face.
"Can't you hear it?"
Jack frowned, and closed his eyes. A pained expression crossed his face, he shuddered, and shook his head forcefully. "I bet I can't hear it half as well as you can, but even that's almost too much. What the hell is that?"
"That's them, the Ood, unfathomably far from home, one of them already dead," the Doctor said softly.
Jack let out a sympathetic sigh. "I'm sorry, I had no idea."
"Yes, I know you didn't. That's why you should think before you shoot. The good thing is, since we can hear them, we should be able to track them down easily."
The Doctor found his torch, and started walking towards the source of the unsettling sound. Jack stayed close by, with Tosh and Gwen following him. Apparently, Owen had stayed behind to examine the body, and Jack had ordered Ianto to remain above ground as well, which was probably for the best. Perhaps the Doctor had been too hard on Ianto - the young man had seemed genuinely sorry and clearly troubled by the fact that he'd shot the Ood, and he had only done it because of his feelings for Jack. Then again, maybe not, the Doctor thought, concentrating on the song again. Maybe not.
As they walked on in silence, he tried to work out what he was going to do once they found the Ood. He couldn't even know what period of time these Ood were from until he met them. The dead Ood had had a translator sphere, which meant that he had worked for humans, but whether he was a slave, or one of the many that had been liberated when the Doctor and Donna had visited the Ood homeworld, he couldn't tell. That detail might make a world of difference on whether or not he'd be able to reason with them. The one thing he knew for sure was that these Ood were so far away from their hive brain that their behaviour might be completely irrational. He'd just have to hope for the best, and improvise.
Estimating distances based on the volume of a telepathic song wasn't exactly easy, and far sooner than the Doctor would've expected, the beam of his torch fell on the back of a humanoid being facing away from them, at the far end of the tunnel. As the light hit the alien, he turned around, revealing that he was indeed one of the Ood, with the red eyes telling that he was going berserk. He started walking towards the Doctor. Another Ood appeared from behind the first one, joining him, looking equally frenzied.
The Doctor spread his hands, palms facing backwards, to keep Jack and his team behind him. "Fall back," he whispered to them. "Let me handle this."
"I really hope you know what you're doing," Jack muttered, and stayed much closer than the Doctor would've liked. Of course, the truth was, even though he had a vague idea of what he was doing, he had no idea of whether it would work.
"Hello!" he shouted at the two Ood. "It's all right. I'm a friend. I'm here to help you."
The two aliens kept moving, slowly but determinedly, their faces showing no trace of intelligence, let alone emotion. The Doctor couldn't risk actually listening to the song, but as far as he could tell, it was unchanged.
"It's all right," he repeated, making his voice as steady and as friendly as he could. He put his torch on the ground and held out his hands, upturned palms towards the Ood. "I'm unarmed. I won't hurt you. I'm a friend. You may have heard of me. The Doctor, that's who I am."
The Ood were still approaching, barely twenty feet away from him now.
"Doctor?" Jack whispered behind him.
"I'll tell you to run, if we have to," the Doctor answered, not changing his tone at all, and turned his attention to the Ood again. "The Doctor. Doctor, Donna, friends, have you heard of them?"
The Ood stopped in their tracks, so close to the Doctor that he could've touched their tentacles if he had reached out with his hand. They blinked slowly, their eyes fading from red to the normal, lighter colours.
One of the Ood held out its translator sphere. Both Jack and Gwen called out a warning. The Doctor raised a hand and made a sharp "Shh!" at them. They could ruin everything!
Luckily, the Ood only tilted their heads quizzically. "You are not the Doctor-Donna," one of them said, in the unnaturally polite tone of the translator device.
"No, I am not," the Doctor admitted, with a pang of regret. "But I am the Doctor. I'm a friend of the Ood. Please, let me help you."
"Can you bring us the Doctor-Donna?" the second Ood asked.
"I can't. I'm sorry." The Doctor shook his head. "But I can help you, if you let me. I know you're lost and afraid, but it's going to be all right."
"Help us," the first Ood said.
"Help us," the second one repeated.
"Yes, I'll help you. Everything's going to be all right. Now, tell me, how many are you? Just the two of you?"
"The others are not with us," the two Ood answered almost simultaneously.
The Doctor frowned. That could mean anything. "Your people are far away, yes, but who's us? Are you singing this song, or are there others nearby?"
"The others are not with us," one of the Ood repeated. The two aliens turned around, and started walking away.
The Doctor faced the Torchwood team. "You'd better stay here. They don't trust you, it's not safe - for you or for them."
"Like I'm letting you go after them on your own," Jack answered. "Gwen, Tosh, stay in sight, but keep your distance."
There was no time to argue, so the Doctor let it go and turned to follow the Ood. The song was growing even louder inside his head as they walked, so piercing that ignoring it was getting impossible. He was half afraid he might just fall apart and burst into tears any minute, but he plodded on, unable to keep track of the turns they took, barely aware of anything but the song and the backs of the two aliens ahead of him.
Eventually, the two Ood stopped in front of a small doorway leading to the right, to a maintenance space of some sort.
"The others," the first Ood said.
"They are not with us," the second Ood said.
Not knowing what to expect, the Doctor stepped forth and pointed the beam of his torch into the room. It wasn't big, maybe ten foot by ten. Two Ood were cowering in the two back corners, curled up - two completely free, natural Ood, holding their hind brain in their hands.
He walked closer. "Hello? I'm here to help," he said, but the two Ood didn't react at all. The song, their song, was now so loud that he couldn't even hear the sound of his own voice.
The Doctor crouched next to one of the Ood, studying his face. His eyes were closed, and he was perfectly still. The Doctor touched his arm softly, but the Ood still didn't move. Instead, he thought he heard a new note in the song. "Help us," it said. "Please help us."
"I will," the Doctor whispered. He retreated from the room.
"The others are not with us. Help us," the two Ood with translator spheres pleaded.
"I will," the Doctor repeated. "I'll take you home, I promise."
The problem was, it was easier said than done. Before he could do anything at all to help the Ood, he'd need to get his TARDIS key back, and that was a whole other mystery. He'd have to solve it as fast as possible, since he didn't know how long these Ood could hold on.
"What's going on with them?" Jack asked. The Doctor could see that his face was tense with the effort of fighting back the strong emotions the song evoked.
"It's a long story, I'll explain later. We should return to the surface now."
"Wait," Gwen said. She and Tosh were standing right behind Jack now, despite the earlier orders he had given them. "We can't just leave them here. They might kill more people."
"They're not killers, they're just desperate and confused," the Doctor said.
"But you've got to admit they're dangerous," Jack said.
The two formerly enslaved Ood had stepped into the maintenance room, joining their two unresponsive brothers. The Doctor walked back to the doorway to address them. "Will you stay here if we leave?"
"The others are not with us," one of them repeated once more. The other simply blinked, and blinked again - and the Doctor realised the Ood's eyes had turned red.
"Oops. That's not good," the Doctor said. "We'd better -"
He was about to say "run!" of course, but Tosh grabbed his arm, pointing at the heavy metallic door of the maintenance room. "Come on, if we can get this to move..." she said, and the Doctor and Gwen quickly joined her in the effort to close it.
"I'll hold them back," Jack said, and placed himself at the side of the doorway opposite to the hinge. Both red-eyed Ood were now staring at him menacingly.
The heavy, rusty door began to turn with a loud creak. One of the Ood lunged towards Jack, but he didn't just stand there and wait. Instead, he tackled the Ood, who crashed into the second one. Jack drew back, and the Doctor and the two women pushed the door shut. The Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at the door to make sure it stayed closed.
"Whew," Jack said.
"Great thinking. Brilliant, in fact," the Doctor said to Tosh, who smiled, nodded and thanked him politely.
"I told you they're good," Jack said. "So, care to explain now?"
"We should find the nearest exit first, I don't know how long they've got," the Doctor said.
"Oh, that's easy, I've been here before. This way," Jack said, gesturing at the tunnel to their right.
"So, the thing about Ood is," the Doctor began as they walked. "Basically, they have three brains. There's the one you'd call normal, inside their heads, like with many other humanoids, but there's also the hind brain, which is outside their body. They hold it in their hands. Then, there's the hive brain, the centre of their telepathic consciousness. Now, these Ood are thousands of years and some 1500 light years away from home, completely separated from the hive brain. To make things worse, two of these four are former slaves, who've had their hind brain replaced with a translation device."
"I've met a lot of aliens, but that sounds really weird," Tosh commented. "That evolution should even create such a system..."
"At least that makes it easy to understand that they're so lost and lonely it drives them mad. Can you really help them?" Gwen asked.
"I'll do my best," the Doctor said.
"Ah, here it is," Jack declared, and stopped, motioning at a ladder in the wall. He ascended it first, to push the manhole cover out of the way.
The Doctor climbed up after him, leaving behind the darkness and the harrowing song of the Ood. He found himself in a narrow side street, with a few people walking by, minding their own business.
Someone had stuck a familiar-looking note on the brick wall right next to where he stood. It read,
"Doctor. Now's the time. You'll know what to do."
He grabbed the piece of paper, and turned it around in his hands, but it was nothing more than that, just a regular Post-it note with a quizzical message. He looked at the brick wall again. Where the note had been, there were a few holes in the mortar, and he saw a glint of metal in one of them. The gap was so narrow that it took some effort to pull the object out, but finally, he got it. There it was, his TARDIS key. So much for solving that problem - except that it was still a complete mystery.
Chapter 5
Author: Veldeia
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Spoilers: All the way through S4 of Doctor Who and S2 of Torchwood. Takes place post Journey's End for the Doctor, but after A Day in the Death for the Torchwood team.
Characters/Pairings: 10th Doctor, Jack, Ianto, Owen, Tosh, Gwen. Slight Jack/Ianto.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I'm sure that somewhere out there, there's a wonderful parallel universe where I own all the stuff I write about - but it definitely isn't this one.
Author's Note: Thanks to
cytherea999 for the beta, and to my anonymous alpha for everything. This is a finished story, but I'm posting it one chapter at a time over the next week or so.Summary: Dead Weevils and an unconscious Doctor amount to a mystery more challenging and less straightforward than usual for the Torchwood team.
4.
The body was still warm when the Doctor and the Torchwood team arrived at the scene. Judging from the dead man's clothing, he was a maintenance worker of some sort. Owen quickly declared that since there were no signs of trauma, the most likely verdict was death by Ood.
The place wasn't far from where Torchwood had found the latest dead Weevil, so it was just within the realms of possibility that the dead Ood had killed this man. Possible, but unlikely, especially since the Ood were extremely sociable and altruistic beings. They were never alone, if they could avoid it. It was far more likely that there were more than one of them around, which meant that even though the Doctor had failed to save one Ood, he might still be able to do some good. Ood, good. That rhymed nicely.
"Over here," Ianto shouted.
The Doctor turned around, and saw the young man motioning at a rectangular hole in the ground, its cover resting nearby.
"Well, what are we waiting for, then?" the Doctor said, walked over, and started climbing down the rusty rungs into the depths of the sewers, ignoring Jack, who was telling him to wait, and issuing orders to his team.
He reached the concrete floor, and took a few steps into the darkness around the patch of sunlight shining in from above. Before he'd managed to find his torch from his pockets, it struck him - the Ood song, but unlike he'd ever heard it before. This was not the sad, wistful hymn of oppressed slaves, but a sound so raw with desperation, fear and loneliness that it felt like cold hands were tearing his hearts out of his chest. He leaned on the wall, and bowed his head.
He couldn't really tell how long he stood there. Only when Jack's warm, steady hand grasped his shoulder, he was finally able to snap out of it, doing his best to shut out the song.
"Doctor, what's wrong?" Jack asked, shining a torch right into his face.
"Can't you hear it?"
Jack frowned, and closed his eyes. A pained expression crossed his face, he shuddered, and shook his head forcefully. "I bet I can't hear it half as well as you can, but even that's almost too much. What the hell is that?"
"That's them, the Ood, unfathomably far from home, one of them already dead," the Doctor said softly.
Jack let out a sympathetic sigh. "I'm sorry, I had no idea."
"Yes, I know you didn't. That's why you should think before you shoot. The good thing is, since we can hear them, we should be able to track them down easily."
The Doctor found his torch, and started walking towards the source of the unsettling sound. Jack stayed close by, with Tosh and Gwen following him. Apparently, Owen had stayed behind to examine the body, and Jack had ordered Ianto to remain above ground as well, which was probably for the best. Perhaps the Doctor had been too hard on Ianto - the young man had seemed genuinely sorry and clearly troubled by the fact that he'd shot the Ood, and he had only done it because of his feelings for Jack. Then again, maybe not, the Doctor thought, concentrating on the song again. Maybe not.
As they walked on in silence, he tried to work out what he was going to do once they found the Ood. He couldn't even know what period of time these Ood were from until he met them. The dead Ood had had a translator sphere, which meant that he had worked for humans, but whether he was a slave, or one of the many that had been liberated when the Doctor and Donna had visited the Ood homeworld, he couldn't tell. That detail might make a world of difference on whether or not he'd be able to reason with them. The one thing he knew for sure was that these Ood were so far away from their hive brain that their behaviour might be completely irrational. He'd just have to hope for the best, and improvise.
Estimating distances based on the volume of a telepathic song wasn't exactly easy, and far sooner than the Doctor would've expected, the beam of his torch fell on the back of a humanoid being facing away from them, at the far end of the tunnel. As the light hit the alien, he turned around, revealing that he was indeed one of the Ood, with the red eyes telling that he was going berserk. He started walking towards the Doctor. Another Ood appeared from behind the first one, joining him, looking equally frenzied.
The Doctor spread his hands, palms facing backwards, to keep Jack and his team behind him. "Fall back," he whispered to them. "Let me handle this."
"I really hope you know what you're doing," Jack muttered, and stayed much closer than the Doctor would've liked. Of course, the truth was, even though he had a vague idea of what he was doing, he had no idea of whether it would work.
"Hello!" he shouted at the two Ood. "It's all right. I'm a friend. I'm here to help you."
The two aliens kept moving, slowly but determinedly, their faces showing no trace of intelligence, let alone emotion. The Doctor couldn't risk actually listening to the song, but as far as he could tell, it was unchanged.
"It's all right," he repeated, making his voice as steady and as friendly as he could. He put his torch on the ground and held out his hands, upturned palms towards the Ood. "I'm unarmed. I won't hurt you. I'm a friend. You may have heard of me. The Doctor, that's who I am."
The Ood were still approaching, barely twenty feet away from him now.
"Doctor?" Jack whispered behind him.
"I'll tell you to run, if we have to," the Doctor answered, not changing his tone at all, and turned his attention to the Ood again. "The Doctor. Doctor, Donna, friends, have you heard of them?"
The Ood stopped in their tracks, so close to the Doctor that he could've touched their tentacles if he had reached out with his hand. They blinked slowly, their eyes fading from red to the normal, lighter colours.
One of the Ood held out its translator sphere. Both Jack and Gwen called out a warning. The Doctor raised a hand and made a sharp "Shh!" at them. They could ruin everything!
Luckily, the Ood only tilted their heads quizzically. "You are not the Doctor-Donna," one of them said, in the unnaturally polite tone of the translator device.
"No, I am not," the Doctor admitted, with a pang of regret. "But I am the Doctor. I'm a friend of the Ood. Please, let me help you."
"Can you bring us the Doctor-Donna?" the second Ood asked.
"I can't. I'm sorry." The Doctor shook his head. "But I can help you, if you let me. I know you're lost and afraid, but it's going to be all right."
"Help us," the first Ood said.
"Help us," the second one repeated.
"Yes, I'll help you. Everything's going to be all right. Now, tell me, how many are you? Just the two of you?"
"The others are not with us," the two Ood answered almost simultaneously.
The Doctor frowned. That could mean anything. "Your people are far away, yes, but who's us? Are you singing this song, or are there others nearby?"
"The others are not with us," one of the Ood repeated. The two aliens turned around, and started walking away.
The Doctor faced the Torchwood team. "You'd better stay here. They don't trust you, it's not safe - for you or for them."
"Like I'm letting you go after them on your own," Jack answered. "Gwen, Tosh, stay in sight, but keep your distance."
There was no time to argue, so the Doctor let it go and turned to follow the Ood. The song was growing even louder inside his head as they walked, so piercing that ignoring it was getting impossible. He was half afraid he might just fall apart and burst into tears any minute, but he plodded on, unable to keep track of the turns they took, barely aware of anything but the song and the backs of the two aliens ahead of him.
Eventually, the two Ood stopped in front of a small doorway leading to the right, to a maintenance space of some sort.
"The others," the first Ood said.
"They are not with us," the second Ood said.
Not knowing what to expect, the Doctor stepped forth and pointed the beam of his torch into the room. It wasn't big, maybe ten foot by ten. Two Ood were cowering in the two back corners, curled up - two completely free, natural Ood, holding their hind brain in their hands.
He walked closer. "Hello? I'm here to help," he said, but the two Ood didn't react at all. The song, their song, was now so loud that he couldn't even hear the sound of his own voice.
The Doctor crouched next to one of the Ood, studying his face. His eyes were closed, and he was perfectly still. The Doctor touched his arm softly, but the Ood still didn't move. Instead, he thought he heard a new note in the song. "Help us," it said. "Please help us."
"I will," the Doctor whispered. He retreated from the room.
"The others are not with us. Help us," the two Ood with translator spheres pleaded.
"I will," the Doctor repeated. "I'll take you home, I promise."
The problem was, it was easier said than done. Before he could do anything at all to help the Ood, he'd need to get his TARDIS key back, and that was a whole other mystery. He'd have to solve it as fast as possible, since he didn't know how long these Ood could hold on.
"What's going on with them?" Jack asked. The Doctor could see that his face was tense with the effort of fighting back the strong emotions the song evoked.
"It's a long story, I'll explain later. We should return to the surface now."
"Wait," Gwen said. She and Tosh were standing right behind Jack now, despite the earlier orders he had given them. "We can't just leave them here. They might kill more people."
"They're not killers, they're just desperate and confused," the Doctor said.
"But you've got to admit they're dangerous," Jack said.
The two formerly enslaved Ood had stepped into the maintenance room, joining their two unresponsive brothers. The Doctor walked back to the doorway to address them. "Will you stay here if we leave?"
"The others are not with us," one of them repeated once more. The other simply blinked, and blinked again - and the Doctor realised the Ood's eyes had turned red.
"Oops. That's not good," the Doctor said. "We'd better -"
He was about to say "run!" of course, but Tosh grabbed his arm, pointing at the heavy metallic door of the maintenance room. "Come on, if we can get this to move..." she said, and the Doctor and Gwen quickly joined her in the effort to close it.
"I'll hold them back," Jack said, and placed himself at the side of the doorway opposite to the hinge. Both red-eyed Ood were now staring at him menacingly.
The heavy, rusty door began to turn with a loud creak. One of the Ood lunged towards Jack, but he didn't just stand there and wait. Instead, he tackled the Ood, who crashed into the second one. Jack drew back, and the Doctor and the two women pushed the door shut. The Doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver at the door to make sure it stayed closed.
"Whew," Jack said.
"Great thinking. Brilliant, in fact," the Doctor said to Tosh, who smiled, nodded and thanked him politely.
"I told you they're good," Jack said. "So, care to explain now?"
"We should find the nearest exit first, I don't know how long they've got," the Doctor said.
"Oh, that's easy, I've been here before. This way," Jack said, gesturing at the tunnel to their right.
"So, the thing about Ood is," the Doctor began as they walked. "Basically, they have three brains. There's the one you'd call normal, inside their heads, like with many other humanoids, but there's also the hind brain, which is outside their body. They hold it in their hands. Then, there's the hive brain, the centre of their telepathic consciousness. Now, these Ood are thousands of years and some 1500 light years away from home, completely separated from the hive brain. To make things worse, two of these four are former slaves, who've had their hind brain replaced with a translation device."
"I've met a lot of aliens, but that sounds really weird," Tosh commented. "That evolution should even create such a system..."
"At least that makes it easy to understand that they're so lost and lonely it drives them mad. Can you really help them?" Gwen asked.
"I'll do my best," the Doctor said.
"Ah, here it is," Jack declared, and stopped, motioning at a ladder in the wall. He ascended it first, to push the manhole cover out of the way.
The Doctor climbed up after him, leaving behind the darkness and the harrowing song of the Ood. He found himself in a narrow side street, with a few people walking by, minding their own business.
Someone had stuck a familiar-looking note on the brick wall right next to where he stood. It read,
"Doctor. Now's the time. You'll know what to do."
He grabbed the piece of paper, and turned it around in his hands, but it was nothing more than that, just a regular Post-it note with a quizzical message. He looked at the brick wall again. Where the note had been, there were a few holes in the mortar, and he saw a glint of metal in one of them. The gap was so narrow that it took some effort to pull the object out, but finally, he got it. There it was, his TARDIS key. So much for solving that problem - except that it was still a complete mystery.
Chapter 5