THE ADVENTURES OF THE DOCTOR'S AMAZING HAND

Chapter Two

The hand was thoroughly bored. It had been a little over two years since he first got shoved in the jar and he had spent that time floating aimlessly in the solution watching and listening while Jack and his team went about their daily lives. For the most part he was out of the way and couldn't see what was going on in other sections of the Hub. Occasionally, he could hear them yelling to each other and sometimes they would bring in Weevils and he would watch them take the beasts to their holding cells but that was few and far between. Most of the time the hand just floated in the jar.

One day, Jack came into the room visibly frustrated. He walked over to his jar and bent down.

"Damn it, where is he?" Jack muttered to himself. "He's gotta come back sometime to refuel. I hope I didn't miss him before I found the hand."

He grinned at the hand and waggled his index finger at him.

"You need to work harder, little buddy, so we can find your former owner," he said to him.

Jack turned and walked back out, unaware that the hand was flipping him the vees.

After a couple of months, the hand got the idea to bounce up and down in the jar and try to loosen the lid. He did it when he was sure no one was around so he wouldn't arouse suspicion. Over and over, it would go up and down and smack its fingers on the underside of the jar, trying to loosen it.

It was in the middle of yet another endless round of bounce and smack when Jack came into the room. The hand stopped what it was doing and froze. This time Jack did have a bottle of whiskey and a shot glass. He settled down in a chair beside him and the hand watched while Jack downed shot after shot of whiskey getting himself good and drunk. After he finished one bottle, he staggered out the door and came back with another. After taking what seemed like his fiftieth shot of whiskey, Jack poured another and paused, holding it in his hand and swirling the contents around in the glass.

"You know what today is?" he said, talking to the hand in a slurred voice. "This is the anniversary of the Battle of Canary Wharf. The day Rose died."

The hand knew better but there was no way to tell the drunken man so he watched while Jack downed the shot and poured another. He paused again with the drink in his hand while he stared off into space.

"I shoulda been there," he finally slurred out. "But it was Torchwood and I wasn't allowed to attack my own organization, no matter how reckless and irresponsible they were. It's their fault Rose is dead."

The hand shuddered when Jack threw the full shot glass across the room, shattering it into several large fragments.

"Damn the Doctor for leaving me behind. If I'd been with them, I coulda saved her. As much as I wanna find the Doctor so we can be together, I also wanna beat the living daylights out of him for doing that to her. He was s'posed to keep her safe! He promised he would but I should have known better. The bastard's even more reckless than I am and now Rosie's dead. Sometimes I wonder if she should have gone with him in the first place."

Jack slowly rose up out of his chair and gripped the back of it for support. He stared down at the nearly empty bottle of whiskey on the table and let out a ruthful laugh.

"Almost finished it," he slurred out, looking back at the hand. "Shoulda finished it and started on a third bottle but what's the use? If I get alcohol poisoning and die, I'll just come back to life a few minutes later."

He stared down at his arm and shook his head.

"Wish I knew why I can't die," he slurred. "Surely this wasn't acquired at birth. My people died naturally, they didn't die and come back to life a few minutes later. Was it that Dalek that did this to me?"

He shook his head and chuckled.

"Why am I even talking to you? You're just a hand in a jar. S'not like you're gonna answer back, right?"

He staggered over and patted the lid.

"Night, buddy, keep an eye on things for me. Gotta sleep this off before Yan finds out. If he finds me this drunk, I'll never hear the end of it."

The hand watched quietly while Jack staggered away, holding onto tables and chairs for support. Before he left the room, he shut off the light and in the darkness the hand was left alone with his thoughts and his memories of Rose.

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