tardis_stowaway (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tardis_stowaway) wrote2011-02-09 06:11 pm
tardis_stowaway) wrote2011-02-09 06:11 pm
Entry tags:
Fic: Mercy of the Fallen (3/4)
Title: Mercy of the Fallen (3/4)
Author: TARDIS_stowaway
Rating: Teen
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Nine, Jack/Ten, Jack/original character
Spoilers: Through Children of Earth and The Waters of Mars.
Warnings: None other than angst in this chapter, story as a whole contains descriptions of violence, cursing
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit here. Do I look like the BBC?
Summary: If wishes were horses, this spaceship would be even more crowded and smelly. Trying to escape his past, Jack instead comes face to face with it in the form of the Doctor, on the run from his own recent tragedies.
Author's notes: Huge thanks to my ever-helpful beta reader, the fantastic![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wendymr.
Previous chapter
Chapter 3
BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!
Jack groaned. That banging probably qualified as the worst timed door knock in his long life. He wondered how many millennia he would have to wait before getting another moment like this, alone with the Doctor without a wall, an apocalypse, or most of the layers of emotional armor they both usually wore. Even if it happened, it wouldn't be with this incarnation. Common sense told him that it was a good thing they'd been interrupted before crossing any lines. The Doctor might never remember, but Jack would have to live with the memory. Jack was still angry at the interruption, common sense be damned.
“How is the plumbing broken again? It’s the middle of the night. How many people are using the john right now?”
“We don’t have to answer, you know,” the Doctor said, propping himself on an elbow. It was obviously not a plea to ignore the knock, just a test to see what Jack would do.
“Don’t tempt me, Doc. I might go and hide outside the airlock and leave you to fix everything,” Jack grumbled, but he was already fumbling for the light switch.
The Doctor rolled off the other side of the bed and answered the door with a demanding, “What?”
“Uh, Doctor?” squeaked the young crewmember, obviously cowed by the Time Lord’s grumpy glare. “Are you really a, I mean, is your doctorate, uh, are you a doctor doctor? Of medicine?”
“When I have to be,” said the Doctor, crossing his arms. “What’s the problem?”
“One of the refugees was pregnant. Is pregnant, that is, but not for long. She’s gone into labor. She needs help.”
“Doesn’t this ship have a medical officer?” Jack asked, padding up behind the Doctor.
“Yeah, most of the time. It’s just that tonight he’s drunk as a shipful of cadets on their first shore leave. The stress of getting through that evacuation, you know. He’s down there and trying to sober up, but, errr, not very successfully. Sir.” She stood at attention, perhaps trying to make up for the medic’s drunkenness with her own nervous professionalism. Jack wondered if he’d ever been that young.
“Right then. One baby, coming right up. Or more, if that’s what she has to deliver. You coming, Jack?”
“Think I’ll stay here,” Jack said. He should not be around babies right now. Or ever. Also, more space between him and the Doctor was probably safer.
“Come with me. Might need the help,” the Doctor said evenly, looking at Jack as if he could see straight through his skin and observe the way Jack’s heart clenched at the thought.
“I’ll just get in the way,” Jack claimed. Pleaded.
“Jack.” The Doctor stretched out a hand.
The sound of his name spoken so gently in that Northern accent was like a leash tied around his core. Of course Jack followed it.
* * * * *
The father-to-be was rambling.
“The baby’s not really mine, genetically speaking. Or babies, I suppose—Mabi and I want a surprise on the sex, and we asked our doctor not to tell us anything except whether whatever was in her womb was healthy, not even how many she's carrying. Anyway, we had to go to a sperm bank. I’m a Vodzwyrth, and we’re not cross-fertile with Meeviopites at a cellular level. The external physiology is quite compatible, thank goodness, but the gametes just don't mesh. I’ll be the child’s father in everything but genes, so it doesn’t matter, but I wish I could have given Mabi a pregnancy more like my people’s. We have litters when the young are much smaller. Births are a lot easier on the mother, although carrying five babies around when they get a little larger becomes quite a production. Still, this business of one or two huge children trying to get out of an opening that small makes me nervous. People still die of it sometimes! It’s appalling. Is your species that way?”
It took Jack a moment before he realized that he had to say something. The father, Zyxryx, seemed to be coping with the stress of his wife’s labor by producing a continuous stream of words and pacing rapidly, his hairless skin constantly changing colors with his shifting emotions. His wife had kicked him out into the corridor for causing excessive distraction before Jack and the Doctor arrived, so Jack’s job was to occupy him while the Doctor delivered the baby. Jack had accepted this task gratefully.
“Yeah. It’s a problem,” Jack responded tersely. He was thinking of Alice’s birth. He hadn’t been there, not even to cause distractions and talk some poor stranger’s ear off. The rift had chosen that day to spit out two dozen temporally displaced Vikings, and he had to get them off the streets before they beheaded someone. Lucia said she understood. After all, she was Torchwood too. Nevertheless, Jack was pretty sure that was the day he began to lose her. Alice (Melissa, then) was someone Lucia could love completely who would be able to return that love just as fully. Things with Jack were more complex.
Alice hadn't invited him to come when Steven was born. She'd finally relented to his requests to meet the baby a week after Steven's birth. Jack wished she'd held out.
“No way for a civilized species to function, if you ask me. Still, we can’t help our evolutionary heritage.” Zyxryx’s enormous fan-shaped ears drooped down. “Even once you’ve got the blasted thing out safely, you’ve got to raise it. Hard enough to do that well under normal circumstances, and here we are birthing a child without a home. One pointless, random disaster, and all those lives are gone and the rest of us are refugees. How can we justify bringing a new life into a world where things like this happen?”
How indeed. One ordinary day, one childhood mistake, and all of a sudden your brother is gone, setting in motion a river of grief that will flow across millennia and wash away so much else that is dear to you. One routine mission takes an unexpected turn and you are made into a bomb, and even when the literal explosion is finished you are doom to those you love. Jack had very deliberately left Earth before Gwen gave birth. He couldn’t answer Zyxryx’s question, since he was the last person to have a clue about the answer.
“Jack?” asked Zyxryx. (Jack had given his old name to the people on this spaceship for consistency with what the Doctor called him, though he was considering going back to a pseudonym when the Doctor was gone. He wasn't yet sure if he was ready to be Captain Jack to the universe.) Zyxryx's skin was pale purple, which Jack thought meant concern. “Are you all right?”
Jack realized he’d been letting his maudlin thoughts show on his face. He schooled his expression into something more neutral. “Of course.”
“I appreciate the thought, but you don’t have to lie for my sake. I could use the distraction of someone else’s problems.”
“You really don’t want to hear mine right now.”
Zyxryx twitched his ears forward and examined Jack. “So be it. Is there anything I can do?”
“Just…just sit down a minute. Watching you makes me tired.” Jack took his own advice and slid down the wall of the corridor.
“For you, I will keep still.” Zyxryx sat down beside Jack and patted his hand awkwardly. “I don’t mean to be unreasonably negative. Better to bring up a child with no home than no family. It could have been so much worse. We owe that to you and the Doctor, I hear, along with the great luxury of flush toilets on this ship.”
Jack shrugged. “I’m sorry we couldn’t save Parnialus Station.”
“We can rebuild everything in time, everything except those lives that were lost. You did what you could. Now, your friend the Doctor and my wife do what they can, and we two are left with empty hands. So let us sit together and keep vigil for those we have lost, and for those who will yet be thanks to you.”
Zyxryx finally fell silent. Jack stared down the corridor pensively, but eventually the quiet hum of the ship coming through the floor and the presence of another warm body sitting next to him began to soothe his nerves. He closed his eyes, trying to hear the Doctor’s voice through the wall, but no sound came through. Without intending it, Jack found himself falling asleep.
* * * * *
He awoke when the shoulder under his head stirred. “I’m sorry, Jack, but I really must get up. The Doctor says that the baby is born, and I must go to my wife and daughter. I can’t do that while you use me as a pillow.”
Jack sat up straight and rubbed at his eyes. He was in quite a state if he was falling asleep on someone he barely knew without even having sex first. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t apologize. When I am uneasy, I find that nothing settles me quite so well as taking care of another. Also, unlike the little one who now requires my care, you hardly drooled at all.” Zyxryx smiled gently.
“Zyxryx! Get in here! There’s another one on the way, and I need you to hold the first now,” the Doctor yelled through the open door.
“Twins?! My heavens!” Zyxryx exclaimed, practically levitating as he leapt up and sprinted into the med bay.
Jack snorted. Had he been that undignified when he finally finished with the Vikings and got to see baby Alice? He didn’t think so. Well, not for long, at any rate. He was fairly certain he’d had enough presence of mind to put down the battleaxe before he made it into the maternity ward.
He stretched, then got up and paced for a bit. He wondered whether he could get away with sneaking back to the cabin, decided the answer was no, and eventually sat back down on the floor. While he was occupying himself by checking the calibration of his wrist strap, the med bay door slid open again.
“Jack! Get in here!” called the Doctor. Jack heard the command in his voice and hurried in.
“What’s the matter?” he asked urgently as he skidded into the room. Everything looked under control. The Doctor was running the sonic screwdriver over one baby while Zyxryx and his wife Mabi cooed over another. The perky young officer who had fetched the Doctor was tidying up, and a chair in the corner held a loudly snoring man in a medical officer’s uniform, evidently the drunken medic.
“Nothing. Both babies are born and everyone’s healthy. I just thought it was time you stopped hiding in the corridor.” The Doctor looked at Jack, daring him to challenge this judgment. Jack took the dare.
“Great! If everything’s fine, I’ll just run to the bridge and ask how long until we reach port,” he said, turning on his heel.
“Come over here, Jack,” the Doctor said, very quiet but firm as stone. Jack stepped closer reluctantly. “Hold him. I need my hands free to record his health data.”
“I shouldn’t…”
“Hold him.” The Doctor stretched out the baby toward Jack. Reluctantly, Jack accepted the burden.
The infant squirmed in Jack’s awkward grasp. Jack adjusted his hold, the movement automatic even after the years since he’d held a newborn. It settled down slightly, staring up at Jack with wide, confused eyes. Like its mother, the child had the darker version of Meeviopite skin, chocolate brown except for a sprinkling of bright yellow freckles. Its fists waved in the air, so tiny and so terribly fragile. Jack fought to keep the shiver that ran up his spine from manifesting on the outside.
“The timelines around a newborn are fantastic,” the Doctor murmured, standing close behind Jack. “They’re so unsettled. Anything’s possible. There are thousands of ways this little boy could die before he reaches adulthood. Thousands more that he could grow up deeply messed up, turning out bitter or mean or even violent. Still, all of those are outnumbered by the timelines where he ends up decently well-adjusted and lives out a normal life, working and playing and falling in love. All those possible lives are so incredibly short to the likes of you and me, gone as fast as butterflies. In a few timelines, though, he might grow up to be a butterfly whose fluttering wings change the winds of the world for the better. In others it's his sister, or one of Suriana’s children, or one of all the other lives that will come into being because their parents lived instead of died on that space station.”
“Which one is real? What becomes of him?” Jack whispered, fearing the answer.
“I don’t know!” The Doctor grinned, apparently delighted with his uncertainty. “It’s all in flux, even more so than with an adult. There are very few fixed events in time, and this child shows no signs of being involved in any of them, as far as I can tell. I wish you could see his timelines, Jack. They’re beautiful.”
“I’m fixed. Should I keep away from him?”
“Different sort of fixed. Your existence is fixed, but most of your path is changeable, not like a fixed event that has to occur just so. You burn like a sun to my senses, but that doesn’t mean you scorch everything that you touch.”
Jack watched the baby. He was nuzzling against Jack’s coat, searching for nonexistent milk. Alice had done the same thing once upon a time, and later Steven. He’d laughed and told his grandson, “Sorry, little man. Not doing that again, even for you.” Now, he’d do almost anything for Steven’s sake. Anything except darken the potential timelines of all those millions of other children.
The newborn had a surprising amount of hair, and the drying he’d received before Jack came into the room left the hair sticking straight up from his head.
“He’s got hair like yours in your next life,” Jack informed the Doctor. The current Doctor looked slightly horrified. The baby expressed its feelings on the comparison by making a small unhappy noise.
“I think he wants his mummy,” Mabi said, passing the baby girl to her husband and holding out her arms for her son. Jack passed him over. As the child left his arms, it began to wail.
“He likes you!” Zyxryx pointed out, amused.
“He doesn’t know what I am,” Jack muttered, but not quite quietly enough.
“He knows you well enough,” the Doctor said, resting a hand for a moment on the small of Jack’s back. Jack shivered.
“Doctor, Jack," Zyxryx said, "Mabi and I have discussed it, and we would like the two of you to have the naming of the babies.”
Jack froze. He should say something. He should be polite and pick a name for the baby. He should, but he didn’t dare. Naming the baby made it his in a way, and people that were his didn’t fare well.
“Thank you. We would be honored,” the Doctor replied. “Jack, why don’t you pick the first name?”
Jack shook his head, trying to make the Doctor understand. The Doctor refused to back down.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure Zyxryx and Mabi will tell you if you pick something culturally inappropriate. It will be okay, Jack,” he reassured Jack, the compassion in his eyes making clear that he knew Jack’s reluctance. He stood close beside Jack, a tower of strength in a ridiculous t-shirt. Jack took courage from his presence. The Doctor needed him do this, so he would manage.
Jack took a deep breath. He realized that he knew what to say. “The boy’s name is Steven.” Within him, there was a feeling like something dissolving. A dam collapsed, and a river ran free at last. “After my grandson.”
“Steeeeven. Exotic, but pleasant. I like it.” Zyxryx rolled the name around in his mouth, oblivious to the moisture building in Jack’s eyes.
The Doctor noticed. Looking more at Jack than at the baby he was naming, he offered something equally momentous. “The girl’s name is Susan. After my granddaughter.”
* * * * *
An hour later, Jack found himself alone in the officers' lounge, watching the planet where they would disembark growing larger in the windows. The Doctor was gone, off to check on Mabi and the children again and then hide from further attempts to make him solve domestic problems. This planet was more like Earth than most places Jack went by choice these days, with broad azure seas and puffs of white cloud drifting over the green and brown of the continents. He forced his mind to quiet down to nothing more than the contemplation of the planet’s beauty, not allowing himself to think about how every mile brought them closer to a way to find the TARDIS and the Doctor's departure. He now understood that one day he would face the pinstriped Doctor and be able to accept his forgiveness, but he wasn't yet prepared to seek him out. Besides, Jack didn’t want to give up the big-eared face he had fallen for so profoundly so long ago and once again in the past day.
Enough of that. Look at the beauty out there, Jack reminded himself. Breathe in, breathe out. Repeat until the end of time.
“Thought I might find you here,” the Doctor said from just behind Jack, having approached silently.
Jack spun around and broke into a grin. “You cut your hair!”
The Doctor fingered his newly buzzed head, looking oddly abashed. “Suppose I did. Never made major hair changes without regenerating since I was a lad, but I really looked at myself in the mirror for the first time and realized it was all wrong. Not sure about this, though. I didn’t realize it would emphasize the ears quite so much.”
“It’s perfect,” Jack said, laying one hand on the Doctor’s shoulder. “It suits you, goofy ears and all.”
“Oi! Who said they were goofy?”
“Me, just now.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes and sighed eloquently.
“Anyway, I think it’s good that you cut your hair. A haircut’s a classic way to mark a break in your life, and I think you needed to do this yourself, not leave it to regeneration. Plus, if you hadn’t changed it by the time you meet me again, there could've been some sort of hair paradox.”
“Hair paradox? Just what did they teach you in Time Agent training? Anyway, if you've finished with the pop psychology, we’re beginning our descent in just a few minutes.”
“Do you need to go and be backseat driver on the bridge, or will you stay here and watch with me?”
“Watch with you, of course,” the Doctor said, slipping his hand into Jack’s like it was the most natural thing in the world. Jack held the hand like a delicate bird. Later, the leather jacketed Doctor offered his hands mostly to Rose, and pinstriped Doctor was too closed-off to offer many hands by the time Jack met him. It was astonishing and painfully temporary to find himself entrusted with the Doctor's hand, so strong yet so in need of someone to hold onto. For now, though, he could treasure the unexpected grace of a universe that could take, and take, and take some more, but then place this long-lost hand in his. He could try to anchor the Doctor as he sailed his stormy sea, and let the Doctor anchor him in return.
* * * * * *
The ship’s doors opened into bright sunlight that made Jack squint after the dimness of the shipboard lighting. Crowds of anxious relatives and charitable types were waiting for the passengers. The Doctor slipped away on a mission to find transportation back to the wreckage of Parnialus Station to search for the TARDIS, having arranged to meet Jack later. Jack allowed himself to join the anonymous line of refugees being routed past the line of aid workers who asked if he needed housing (no), a job (not now, but he recorded some contact info for future reference), a cup of soup (sure, why not?), grief counseling (Jack scared the earnest matronly lady at the desk with the way he laughed at this offer), and some extra clothing (his goal). Having lost the few possessions he didn’t have in his pockets, Jack wanted to pick up a few spare pairs of socks and underwear, a clean shirt, and a small bag to carry it. While rummaging through the bins of donated clothing for a shirt, Jack found something that made a smile blossom on his face.
An hour later, the Doctor strolled up to their prearranged meeting spot looking satisfied. “I rented a speedy little ship that will get us back in a quarter of the time it took us to get here. I’ve stocked it and modified the sensors to find the TARDIS. What have you done with your time?”
“I got you a present,” Jack said. He held up a leather jacket. The leather jacket. The Doctor’s eyes widened slightly. He’d never seen it before, but his interest was clearly piqued. He took the jacket from Jack and shrugged it on over the yodeling competition t-shirt.
“This is a step up from your last attempt to be my personal shopper,” the Doctor quipped, moving his arms around to check the fit. As expected, it was perfect.
“Yeah, well, it was this or some coat that looked like it was vomited up by a rainbow. I flipped a coin.”
The Doctor looked unexpectedly lost in thought. “You know, I think I might have been on this planet before.”
Jack gave him a concerned look but decided not to ask. It was time to be underway.
* * * * *
Four fairly uneventful hours later, the conversation consisting mostly of the Doctor teaching Jack the engineering tricks he was using on the ship’s sensors to increase their ability to home in on the TARDIS, they reached the wreckage of Parnialus Station. The explosion after the evacuation fleet departed had torn the space station into three large pieces and a huge field of debris orbiting over uninhabitable Parnial below. Several rough-looking salvage ships were already picking through the wreckage. Jack hoped none of them had salvaged a little blue box yet. That could get messy.
The Doctor flicked the switch to turn on the high-powered scans, looking for his beloved time machine. For the first time since delivering the babies, the Doctor’s cheerful mask slipped off completely, allowing Jack to read the tension in his stance.
“We’re going to find her, Doctor,” Jack said. He was certain of it. After all, he was a fixed point, and he couldn’t have become fixed if the Doctor never introduced Rose Tyler to the TARDIS. Time insisted that the Doctor have his TARDIS.
“I know,” the Doctor said with a thin smile that implied that even for Time Lords there was a difference between knowing something logically and believing it in one’s bones.
The scan came up empty. The Doctor recalibrated, broadened the search field, and scanned again. Still nothing. He looked up at Jack with a chilly bleakness in his eyes that tore at Jack’s heart.
“Would we be able to tell if one of the salvage ships had the TARDIS aboard?” Jack asked.
“No ship in this sector of space should have shielding enough to block the artron energy…but a cloud of plutonium dust just might mask it, and that’s exactly the weather on the northern hemisphere of the planet! If I adjust to compensate for the dust storms….” The Doctor fiddled with controls, fingers moving so fast Jack could barely follow. Suddenly his face lit up with a grin as broad as the sky. “Yes! Look! The TARDIS is on the planet!”
A faint speck glowed on the sensor’s display. Caught up in the Doctor’s joy, Jack whooped and gave the Time Lord a high-five.
“Just a few more minutes, Doc, and you’ll be home,” Jack said ebulliently. The Doctor’s face fell.
Home. He’d said home. Mistake. Jack always thought of the Doctor’s home as the TARDIS. (Truth be told, a lot of days he still thought of the TARDIS as his own home, albeit a home he never expected to live in again.) With the wound of Gallifrey’s destruction still raw, however, “home” must be a word loaded with pain for the Doctor. Jack kicked himself for his stupidity, but there was no taking it back now.
“Sorry,” Jack said quietly.
“Yeah.” The Doctor closed his eyes for a second, then opened them to begin the landing sequence.
They brought the tiny rental ship, barely bigger than the Chula ship Jack had piloted lifetimes ago, down through Parnial’s atmosphere. Clouds of radioactive dust, scouring winds, and flickering lighting buffeted the craft.
“Nice place for a holiday, huh?” Jack commented, trying to hold the throttle steady.
“If it were any more pleasant we’d need cocktails with umbrellas. Little farther to the north,” the Doctor said, watching their course.
Finally, Jack caught sight of a patch of blue on the surface below. The craft bucked wildly on the winds as Jack fought to hold them directly over the TARDIS. The Doctor hit the button to turn on the tractor beam and bring the TARDIS rising up toward them. Instead, sparks flew up from the console. The TARDIS stayed where it was.
The Doctor said a few emphatic words that weren’t translated into any languages Jack knew. “Must have crossed the power supply when I was rewiring the sensors. Tractor beam’s fried.”
“Can you fix it?”
“ ‘Course I can fix it! I’m the Doctor. Problem is, it’ll take five hours, maybe longer if this ship is short on spare parts.”
“Probably easier just to land nearby and walk over. Do we have suits?” Jack brought the little craft to a landing near the TARDIS so he didn’t have to worry about crashing while they conversed.
“Nothing that’ll block out these radiation levels.”
“There’s me,” Jack offered, looking over his shoulder to meet the Doctor’s gaze.
“Don’t be daft. The radiation levels are high enough to kill anybody within moments…” The Doctor trailed off, fixing Jack with a slightly horrified stare.
“Once I get into the TARDIS, I can expand the energy shielding enough to let you cross,” Jack said, trying for an all-business attitude that would force away the Doctor’s shock and pity at the reminder of what Jack’s fixed point status meant.
“Are you sure?”
“Geez, Doc, you know the TARDIS’s capabilities better than I do. You tell me if it won’t work.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know. Of course I’m sure.” Jack held the Doctor’s gaze a moment, then jumped up and headed for the airlock.
“Use a spacesuit, Jack. Even ignoring the radiation, the atmosphere is high in sulfur dioxide and chlorine with no oxygen. The dust is blowing at over a hundred miles an hour.”
“Dust! Good point.” Jack rummaged around in the ship’s emergency equipment until he found a pair of goggles and a small oxygen mask. A little bit of oxygen would keep him from wasting time by dying halfway to the TARDIS, but there was no point losing the deposit on the rental ship by contaminating an entire spacesuit with Parnial's radioactive dust. The atmosphere was corrosive, but nothing he wouldn't heal from about as fast as the damage was done, and radiation usually didn't affect him at all.
Now came the slightly awkward part. Jack's TARDIS key had been blown up with the Hub. Jack's pride made it hard to ask for one, but he had to. "I need to borrow a key."
The Doctor fixed him with an unreadable stare and declared, "No."
"Err, Doc, this plan won't work if I can't get into the TARDIS," Jack said, trying to ignore the sudden knot in his belly at the Doctor's refusal.
"Obviously. But there's no way you're borrowing a key. You're keeping it," the Doctor said, tossing a key to Jack.
Jack caught it and nodded, not trusting himself to speak right away. He draped his beloved coat safely over a seat, stepped into the airlock, and closed the inner door.
The Doctor hit the button to turn on the comms as the air around Jack began to be slowly replaced with the poisonous atmosphere. “You’re a bit mad, you know.”
“That’s the pot calling the kettle black if I’ve ever heard it,” Jack shot back cheerfully, his voice slightly muffled by the mask. He felt a tingle from the corrosive gases on his skin, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.
The corner of the Doctor’s mouth twitched upwards, but quickly settled. “Suppose you’re right.” The Doctor shrugged. “You know what I think’s interesting?”
“Brain-splittingly complex physics, bananas, mocking humans, making things more sonic, blondes…want me to go on?”
“You haven’t asked me to go back and change anything. I’ve got a time machine, you’ve had a huge loss, and you’ve never even hinted that I might go back and fix things.”
“Gimme a break, Doc. I learned how dangerous it is to change your personal timeline in the first week of Time Agent training,” Jack snapped. The tightness in his chest had nothing to do with poisonous air.
“I’ve cleaned up after enough messes from Time Agents who decided those rules didn’t apply to them. Most of them were good people who got desperate. Everyone has a breaking point, but somehow yours didn’t make you so careless.”
“Yeah, well, everyone also dies, and look at me.” Jack chewed on his lip, searching for the words to explain. “I couldn’t risk the integrity of time, no matter what I lost. It’s something I learned from you.”
If the Doctor had anything to say in reply to that, it was lost in the sound of the airlock’s outer door opening. The wind struck Jack like an angry mother’s slap. He leaned into it and headed onto the planet’s surface.
Outside, he was surrounded by a landscape of rocks sculpted into improbable shapes by the incessant wind. Every arch and twisted tower glittered with the mineral wealth that had brought the robotic mining operations to this forbidding rock in the first place. The wind played a wild music as it whistled over the jagged land. Overhead, the sky swirled with colorful clouds illuminated by an astonishing firework display of lightning. Jack could feel the pain as his cells succumbed to the formidable radiation and the answering shock of healing welling up from inside him. Bits of him were dying, but Jack felt dizzyingly alive. No other human would ever stand on this spot without a thick protective suit. This pain and this beauty were for him alone.
His wrist strap crackled. “You okay?” the Doctor asked, having evidently figured out how to transmit to the wrist computer. A poisonous atmosphere could carry sound as well as a safe one.
Jack moved closer to a window to give the Doctor a good view of him. He straightened himself against the powerful wind (which was doubtless tousling his hair artfully), gave a thumbs-up sign, and pulled the mask aside long enough to flash a huge, slightly lopsided grin of genuine glee.
“I love a storm!” he shouted into the wind. The Doctor pointed at his wrist, trying to indicate that Jack needed to transmit in order to be heard. Jack just grinned a little wider and readjusted his mask, declining to translate. He leaned into the wind and shuffled toward the TARDIS.
He pulled his new key out of his pocket and slipped it into the lock. The TARDIS greeted him with a worried whine from her engines.
“Easy, beautiful. I know I’m wrong, but I’m not going to hurt you. Just let me help your Doctor get back to you.” Jack paused with his hands resting on the console, giving the TARDIS a minute to scan him before he began working. He felt the ship’s tension setting his own nerves on edge, which wasn’t helping his inevitable sense of hurt at the rejection. When the tension eased slightly, Jack set to work.
It only took a few minutes to set up a protective corridor to allow the Doctor to walk to the TARDIS: blocking out the radiation, exchanging the atmosphere, damping the wind, and even laying a force field underfoot to keep the Doctor’s steps from stirring up radioactive dust. A blurry shimmer in the air delineated the edges of the safe area. He also took a minute to step into a little room the TARDIS brought to just off the console room, where a blast of air and specially calibrated energy fields got rid of the radioactive dust clinging to him. When he was done, Jack addressed the TARDIS.
“I’m going to give you a suggestion for where to take the Doctor some time when he sets you on random, or whenever you feel like ignoring him. It doesn’t have to be right away; maybe take him to a South Pacific beach, or on a cruise, or go and solve some historical mystery first. But I think you’ll like this destination.” Jack went to the keyboard, but instead of entering coordinates he typed two words: bad wolf.
The TARDIS’s engine sounded out strange new harmonies. The hairs on the back of Jack’s arms prickled.
“I thought you’d know who I meant by that,” Jack said, satisfied. Winking at the TARDIS, he switched on the comms to call over the Doctor. The Time Lord strode out of the little spaceship. Halfway to the TARDIS, he broke into a run.
Jack chuckled as the Doctor dashed through the door and straight to the center console, excited as someone reunited with a lover at the airport arrivals’ gate. The engines purred in welcome. The Doctor starting flipping switches to run diagnostics, cooing to his ship the whole time. Jack was tempted to sneak away quietly, but he knew too well that wasn’t an acceptable way to take leave of somebody.
Jack cleared his throat. “I’ll be going, then.”
“Where’re you off to?” The Doctor seemed to be sizing him up. Jack really hoped he wasn’t about to offer a lift, because he didn’t want to have to muster up the willpower to turn it down.
“Oh, you know. There’s so much universe still to see. Return the rental ship, work enough to finance the travel. Kiss some strangers, save some planets. The usual.” Jack shrugged and spoke in a carefully casual tone.
“Looking for future me?” The Doctor’s expression was neutral. He might have been asking what Jack would have for dinner.
“Eventually. Not quite yet. I’m doing a lot better than I was before, but I still need a little more time to get my feet back under me.”
“Fair enough. Intending to sweep someone else off theirs?” the Doctor asked with raised eyebrows, inexplicably grabbing Jack’s wrist.
“Maybe.” Jack tried to tug his wrist away when the Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and aimed it at the wristcomp. “Hey! The teleport is already nonfunctional. What are you trying to do?”
The Doctor squinted at Jack, confused. “Fix it, obviously. Why, do you like it broken?”
“I, uh…” Jack stammered, floored by the trust. “Thanks, Doc. I owe you one.”
“I already owed you for the leather jacket, not to mention pulling me out of a burning room. Other things, too. If we’re keeping score, I’m in your debt.” A fleeting moment of eye contact, then the Doctor dropped Jack’s wrist.
“Nuh-uh. From my place in the timeline, I owe you for so much more. Too much to quantify.” He should come up with something witty, something like the “wish I’d never met you” he’d used to say goodbye to the Doctor lifetimes ago, but he just couldn’t manage anything other than the truth. Jack owed the Doctor more than he could ever repay: all that he was that was good, his life (when he was mortal), even Ianto and all the other people he’d had a chance to love (and lose) that he would never have met if that misguided con had never led him to Rose and the Doctor.
“Start making it up to me: have a fantastic life, Captain.”
Jack wasn’t sure he could breathe enough to answer, so threw his arm up in a trembling salute. He had more than half a mind to give the Doctor a parting kiss, as he had so long ago on the Game Station, but he didn’t. If he kissed him, he would find out whether or not the Doctor would respond. One result might prevent him from ever letting their timelines untangle, and the other might break his heart. Better to leave that Schrödinger’s cat in the box.
Jack spun on his heels and walked out of the TARDIS, closing the door behind him. He stopped just outside of the rental ship and waved. His bones began to vibrate as the engines ground to life. The blue light on top of the police box flashed like the lightning above. With the sound that always haunted Jack’s dream, the TARDIS vanished and the sound began to fade away.
Strangely, the sound of the TARDIS seemed to echo for far longer than it should. In fact, it stopped fading and began to grow louder. Moments later, the TARDIS reappeared in precisely the same spot.
Jack stared. The wind died down again as the TARDIS projected another protective forcefield. As soon as the ship was solid, the door opened.
“What happened, Doc? You forget something?” Jack called out.
“You,” said the Doctor, hands stuffed in the pockets of his long brown coat as he emerged from the TARDIS. Red converse scuffed the soil of the planet as Jack’s second Doctor ambled over.
* * * * *
Continued in chapter 4
Author: TARDIS_stowaway
Rating: Teen
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Nine, Jack/Ten, Jack/original character
Spoilers: Through Children of Earth and The Waters of Mars.
Warnings: None other than angst in this chapter, story as a whole contains descriptions of violence, cursing
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit here. Do I look like the BBC?
Summary: If wishes were horses, this spaceship would be even more crowded and smelly. Trying to escape his past, Jack instead comes face to face with it in the form of the Doctor, on the run from his own recent tragedies.
Author's notes: Huge thanks to my ever-helpful beta reader, the fantastic
wendymr.Previous chapter
Chapter 3
BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!
Jack groaned. That banging probably qualified as the worst timed door knock in his long life. He wondered how many millennia he would have to wait before getting another moment like this, alone with the Doctor without a wall, an apocalypse, or most of the layers of emotional armor they both usually wore. Even if it happened, it wouldn't be with this incarnation. Common sense told him that it was a good thing they'd been interrupted before crossing any lines. The Doctor might never remember, but Jack would have to live with the memory. Jack was still angry at the interruption, common sense be damned.
“How is the plumbing broken again? It’s the middle of the night. How many people are using the john right now?”
“We don’t have to answer, you know,” the Doctor said, propping himself on an elbow. It was obviously not a plea to ignore the knock, just a test to see what Jack would do.
“Don’t tempt me, Doc. I might go and hide outside the airlock and leave you to fix everything,” Jack grumbled, but he was already fumbling for the light switch.
The Doctor rolled off the other side of the bed and answered the door with a demanding, “What?”
“Uh, Doctor?” squeaked the young crewmember, obviously cowed by the Time Lord’s grumpy glare. “Are you really a, I mean, is your doctorate, uh, are you a doctor doctor? Of medicine?”
“When I have to be,” said the Doctor, crossing his arms. “What’s the problem?”
“One of the refugees was pregnant. Is pregnant, that is, but not for long. She’s gone into labor. She needs help.”
“Doesn’t this ship have a medical officer?” Jack asked, padding up behind the Doctor.
“Yeah, most of the time. It’s just that tonight he’s drunk as a shipful of cadets on their first shore leave. The stress of getting through that evacuation, you know. He’s down there and trying to sober up, but, errr, not very successfully. Sir.” She stood at attention, perhaps trying to make up for the medic’s drunkenness with her own nervous professionalism. Jack wondered if he’d ever been that young.
“Right then. One baby, coming right up. Or more, if that’s what she has to deliver. You coming, Jack?”
“Think I’ll stay here,” Jack said. He should not be around babies right now. Or ever. Also, more space between him and the Doctor was probably safer.
“Come with me. Might need the help,” the Doctor said evenly, looking at Jack as if he could see straight through his skin and observe the way Jack’s heart clenched at the thought.
“I’ll just get in the way,” Jack claimed. Pleaded.
“Jack.” The Doctor stretched out a hand.
The sound of his name spoken so gently in that Northern accent was like a leash tied around his core. Of course Jack followed it.
* * * * *
The father-to-be was rambling.
“The baby’s not really mine, genetically speaking. Or babies, I suppose—Mabi and I want a surprise on the sex, and we asked our doctor not to tell us anything except whether whatever was in her womb was healthy, not even how many she's carrying. Anyway, we had to go to a sperm bank. I’m a Vodzwyrth, and we’re not cross-fertile with Meeviopites at a cellular level. The external physiology is quite compatible, thank goodness, but the gametes just don't mesh. I’ll be the child’s father in everything but genes, so it doesn’t matter, but I wish I could have given Mabi a pregnancy more like my people’s. We have litters when the young are much smaller. Births are a lot easier on the mother, although carrying five babies around when they get a little larger becomes quite a production. Still, this business of one or two huge children trying to get out of an opening that small makes me nervous. People still die of it sometimes! It’s appalling. Is your species that way?”
It took Jack a moment before he realized that he had to say something. The father, Zyxryx, seemed to be coping with the stress of his wife’s labor by producing a continuous stream of words and pacing rapidly, his hairless skin constantly changing colors with his shifting emotions. His wife had kicked him out into the corridor for causing excessive distraction before Jack and the Doctor arrived, so Jack’s job was to occupy him while the Doctor delivered the baby. Jack had accepted this task gratefully.
“Yeah. It’s a problem,” Jack responded tersely. He was thinking of Alice’s birth. He hadn’t been there, not even to cause distractions and talk some poor stranger’s ear off. The rift had chosen that day to spit out two dozen temporally displaced Vikings, and he had to get them off the streets before they beheaded someone. Lucia said she understood. After all, she was Torchwood too. Nevertheless, Jack was pretty sure that was the day he began to lose her. Alice (Melissa, then) was someone Lucia could love completely who would be able to return that love just as fully. Things with Jack were more complex.
Alice hadn't invited him to come when Steven was born. She'd finally relented to his requests to meet the baby a week after Steven's birth. Jack wished she'd held out.
“No way for a civilized species to function, if you ask me. Still, we can’t help our evolutionary heritage.” Zyxryx’s enormous fan-shaped ears drooped down. “Even once you’ve got the blasted thing out safely, you’ve got to raise it. Hard enough to do that well under normal circumstances, and here we are birthing a child without a home. One pointless, random disaster, and all those lives are gone and the rest of us are refugees. How can we justify bringing a new life into a world where things like this happen?”
How indeed. One ordinary day, one childhood mistake, and all of a sudden your brother is gone, setting in motion a river of grief that will flow across millennia and wash away so much else that is dear to you. One routine mission takes an unexpected turn and you are made into a bomb, and even when the literal explosion is finished you are doom to those you love. Jack had very deliberately left Earth before Gwen gave birth. He couldn’t answer Zyxryx’s question, since he was the last person to have a clue about the answer.
“Jack?” asked Zyxryx. (Jack had given his old name to the people on this spaceship for consistency with what the Doctor called him, though he was considering going back to a pseudonym when the Doctor was gone. He wasn't yet sure if he was ready to be Captain Jack to the universe.) Zyxryx's skin was pale purple, which Jack thought meant concern. “Are you all right?”
Jack realized he’d been letting his maudlin thoughts show on his face. He schooled his expression into something more neutral. “Of course.”
“I appreciate the thought, but you don’t have to lie for my sake. I could use the distraction of someone else’s problems.”
“You really don’t want to hear mine right now.”
Zyxryx twitched his ears forward and examined Jack. “So be it. Is there anything I can do?”
“Just…just sit down a minute. Watching you makes me tired.” Jack took his own advice and slid down the wall of the corridor.
“For you, I will keep still.” Zyxryx sat down beside Jack and patted his hand awkwardly. “I don’t mean to be unreasonably negative. Better to bring up a child with no home than no family. It could have been so much worse. We owe that to you and the Doctor, I hear, along with the great luxury of flush toilets on this ship.”
Jack shrugged. “I’m sorry we couldn’t save Parnialus Station.”
“We can rebuild everything in time, everything except those lives that were lost. You did what you could. Now, your friend the Doctor and my wife do what they can, and we two are left with empty hands. So let us sit together and keep vigil for those we have lost, and for those who will yet be thanks to you.”
Zyxryx finally fell silent. Jack stared down the corridor pensively, but eventually the quiet hum of the ship coming through the floor and the presence of another warm body sitting next to him began to soothe his nerves. He closed his eyes, trying to hear the Doctor’s voice through the wall, but no sound came through. Without intending it, Jack found himself falling asleep.
* * * * *
He awoke when the shoulder under his head stirred. “I’m sorry, Jack, but I really must get up. The Doctor says that the baby is born, and I must go to my wife and daughter. I can’t do that while you use me as a pillow.”
Jack sat up straight and rubbed at his eyes. He was in quite a state if he was falling asleep on someone he barely knew without even having sex first. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t apologize. When I am uneasy, I find that nothing settles me quite so well as taking care of another. Also, unlike the little one who now requires my care, you hardly drooled at all.” Zyxryx smiled gently.
“Zyxryx! Get in here! There’s another one on the way, and I need you to hold the first now,” the Doctor yelled through the open door.
“Twins?! My heavens!” Zyxryx exclaimed, practically levitating as he leapt up and sprinted into the med bay.
Jack snorted. Had he been that undignified when he finally finished with the Vikings and got to see baby Alice? He didn’t think so. Well, not for long, at any rate. He was fairly certain he’d had enough presence of mind to put down the battleaxe before he made it into the maternity ward.
He stretched, then got up and paced for a bit. He wondered whether he could get away with sneaking back to the cabin, decided the answer was no, and eventually sat back down on the floor. While he was occupying himself by checking the calibration of his wrist strap, the med bay door slid open again.
“Jack! Get in here!” called the Doctor. Jack heard the command in his voice and hurried in.
“What’s the matter?” he asked urgently as he skidded into the room. Everything looked under control. The Doctor was running the sonic screwdriver over one baby while Zyxryx and his wife Mabi cooed over another. The perky young officer who had fetched the Doctor was tidying up, and a chair in the corner held a loudly snoring man in a medical officer’s uniform, evidently the drunken medic.
“Nothing. Both babies are born and everyone’s healthy. I just thought it was time you stopped hiding in the corridor.” The Doctor looked at Jack, daring him to challenge this judgment. Jack took the dare.
“Great! If everything’s fine, I’ll just run to the bridge and ask how long until we reach port,” he said, turning on his heel.
“Come over here, Jack,” the Doctor said, very quiet but firm as stone. Jack stepped closer reluctantly. “Hold him. I need my hands free to record his health data.”
“I shouldn’t…”
“Hold him.” The Doctor stretched out the baby toward Jack. Reluctantly, Jack accepted the burden.
The infant squirmed in Jack’s awkward grasp. Jack adjusted his hold, the movement automatic even after the years since he’d held a newborn. It settled down slightly, staring up at Jack with wide, confused eyes. Like its mother, the child had the darker version of Meeviopite skin, chocolate brown except for a sprinkling of bright yellow freckles. Its fists waved in the air, so tiny and so terribly fragile. Jack fought to keep the shiver that ran up his spine from manifesting on the outside.
“The timelines around a newborn are fantastic,” the Doctor murmured, standing close behind Jack. “They’re so unsettled. Anything’s possible. There are thousands of ways this little boy could die before he reaches adulthood. Thousands more that he could grow up deeply messed up, turning out bitter or mean or even violent. Still, all of those are outnumbered by the timelines where he ends up decently well-adjusted and lives out a normal life, working and playing and falling in love. All those possible lives are so incredibly short to the likes of you and me, gone as fast as butterflies. In a few timelines, though, he might grow up to be a butterfly whose fluttering wings change the winds of the world for the better. In others it's his sister, or one of Suriana’s children, or one of all the other lives that will come into being because their parents lived instead of died on that space station.”
“Which one is real? What becomes of him?” Jack whispered, fearing the answer.
“I don’t know!” The Doctor grinned, apparently delighted with his uncertainty. “It’s all in flux, even more so than with an adult. There are very few fixed events in time, and this child shows no signs of being involved in any of them, as far as I can tell. I wish you could see his timelines, Jack. They’re beautiful.”
“I’m fixed. Should I keep away from him?”
“Different sort of fixed. Your existence is fixed, but most of your path is changeable, not like a fixed event that has to occur just so. You burn like a sun to my senses, but that doesn’t mean you scorch everything that you touch.”
Jack watched the baby. He was nuzzling against Jack’s coat, searching for nonexistent milk. Alice had done the same thing once upon a time, and later Steven. He’d laughed and told his grandson, “Sorry, little man. Not doing that again, even for you.” Now, he’d do almost anything for Steven’s sake. Anything except darken the potential timelines of all those millions of other children.
The newborn had a surprising amount of hair, and the drying he’d received before Jack came into the room left the hair sticking straight up from his head.
“He’s got hair like yours in your next life,” Jack informed the Doctor. The current Doctor looked slightly horrified. The baby expressed its feelings on the comparison by making a small unhappy noise.
“I think he wants his mummy,” Mabi said, passing the baby girl to her husband and holding out her arms for her son. Jack passed him over. As the child left his arms, it began to wail.
“He likes you!” Zyxryx pointed out, amused.
“He doesn’t know what I am,” Jack muttered, but not quite quietly enough.
“He knows you well enough,” the Doctor said, resting a hand for a moment on the small of Jack’s back. Jack shivered.
“Doctor, Jack," Zyxryx said, "Mabi and I have discussed it, and we would like the two of you to have the naming of the babies.”
Jack froze. He should say something. He should be polite and pick a name for the baby. He should, but he didn’t dare. Naming the baby made it his in a way, and people that were his didn’t fare well.
“Thank you. We would be honored,” the Doctor replied. “Jack, why don’t you pick the first name?”
Jack shook his head, trying to make the Doctor understand. The Doctor refused to back down.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure Zyxryx and Mabi will tell you if you pick something culturally inappropriate. It will be okay, Jack,” he reassured Jack, the compassion in his eyes making clear that he knew Jack’s reluctance. He stood close beside Jack, a tower of strength in a ridiculous t-shirt. Jack took courage from his presence. The Doctor needed him do this, so he would manage.
Jack took a deep breath. He realized that he knew what to say. “The boy’s name is Steven.” Within him, there was a feeling like something dissolving. A dam collapsed, and a river ran free at last. “After my grandson.”
“Steeeeven. Exotic, but pleasant. I like it.” Zyxryx rolled the name around in his mouth, oblivious to the moisture building in Jack’s eyes.
The Doctor noticed. Looking more at Jack than at the baby he was naming, he offered something equally momentous. “The girl’s name is Susan. After my granddaughter.”
* * * * *
An hour later, Jack found himself alone in the officers' lounge, watching the planet where they would disembark growing larger in the windows. The Doctor was gone, off to check on Mabi and the children again and then hide from further attempts to make him solve domestic problems. This planet was more like Earth than most places Jack went by choice these days, with broad azure seas and puffs of white cloud drifting over the green and brown of the continents. He forced his mind to quiet down to nothing more than the contemplation of the planet’s beauty, not allowing himself to think about how every mile brought them closer to a way to find the TARDIS and the Doctor's departure. He now understood that one day he would face the pinstriped Doctor and be able to accept his forgiveness, but he wasn't yet prepared to seek him out. Besides, Jack didn’t want to give up the big-eared face he had fallen for so profoundly so long ago and once again in the past day.
Enough of that. Look at the beauty out there, Jack reminded himself. Breathe in, breathe out. Repeat until the end of time.
“Thought I might find you here,” the Doctor said from just behind Jack, having approached silently.
Jack spun around and broke into a grin. “You cut your hair!”
The Doctor fingered his newly buzzed head, looking oddly abashed. “Suppose I did. Never made major hair changes without regenerating since I was a lad, but I really looked at myself in the mirror for the first time and realized it was all wrong. Not sure about this, though. I didn’t realize it would emphasize the ears quite so much.”
“It’s perfect,” Jack said, laying one hand on the Doctor’s shoulder. “It suits you, goofy ears and all.”
“Oi! Who said they were goofy?”
“Me, just now.”
The Doctor rolled his eyes and sighed eloquently.
“Anyway, I think it’s good that you cut your hair. A haircut’s a classic way to mark a break in your life, and I think you needed to do this yourself, not leave it to regeneration. Plus, if you hadn’t changed it by the time you meet me again, there could've been some sort of hair paradox.”
“Hair paradox? Just what did they teach you in Time Agent training? Anyway, if you've finished with the pop psychology, we’re beginning our descent in just a few minutes.”
“Do you need to go and be backseat driver on the bridge, or will you stay here and watch with me?”
“Watch with you, of course,” the Doctor said, slipping his hand into Jack’s like it was the most natural thing in the world. Jack held the hand like a delicate bird. Later, the leather jacketed Doctor offered his hands mostly to Rose, and pinstriped Doctor was too closed-off to offer many hands by the time Jack met him. It was astonishing and painfully temporary to find himself entrusted with the Doctor's hand, so strong yet so in need of someone to hold onto. For now, though, he could treasure the unexpected grace of a universe that could take, and take, and take some more, but then place this long-lost hand in his. He could try to anchor the Doctor as he sailed his stormy sea, and let the Doctor anchor him in return.
* * * * * *
The ship’s doors opened into bright sunlight that made Jack squint after the dimness of the shipboard lighting. Crowds of anxious relatives and charitable types were waiting for the passengers. The Doctor slipped away on a mission to find transportation back to the wreckage of Parnialus Station to search for the TARDIS, having arranged to meet Jack later. Jack allowed himself to join the anonymous line of refugees being routed past the line of aid workers who asked if he needed housing (no), a job (not now, but he recorded some contact info for future reference), a cup of soup (sure, why not?), grief counseling (Jack scared the earnest matronly lady at the desk with the way he laughed at this offer), and some extra clothing (his goal). Having lost the few possessions he didn’t have in his pockets, Jack wanted to pick up a few spare pairs of socks and underwear, a clean shirt, and a small bag to carry it. While rummaging through the bins of donated clothing for a shirt, Jack found something that made a smile blossom on his face.
An hour later, the Doctor strolled up to their prearranged meeting spot looking satisfied. “I rented a speedy little ship that will get us back in a quarter of the time it took us to get here. I’ve stocked it and modified the sensors to find the TARDIS. What have you done with your time?”
“I got you a present,” Jack said. He held up a leather jacket. The leather jacket. The Doctor’s eyes widened slightly. He’d never seen it before, but his interest was clearly piqued. He took the jacket from Jack and shrugged it on over the yodeling competition t-shirt.
“This is a step up from your last attempt to be my personal shopper,” the Doctor quipped, moving his arms around to check the fit. As expected, it was perfect.
“Yeah, well, it was this or some coat that looked like it was vomited up by a rainbow. I flipped a coin.”
The Doctor looked unexpectedly lost in thought. “You know, I think I might have been on this planet before.”
Jack gave him a concerned look but decided not to ask. It was time to be underway.
* * * * *
Four fairly uneventful hours later, the conversation consisting mostly of the Doctor teaching Jack the engineering tricks he was using on the ship’s sensors to increase their ability to home in on the TARDIS, they reached the wreckage of Parnialus Station. The explosion after the evacuation fleet departed had torn the space station into three large pieces and a huge field of debris orbiting over uninhabitable Parnial below. Several rough-looking salvage ships were already picking through the wreckage. Jack hoped none of them had salvaged a little blue box yet. That could get messy.
The Doctor flicked the switch to turn on the high-powered scans, looking for his beloved time machine. For the first time since delivering the babies, the Doctor’s cheerful mask slipped off completely, allowing Jack to read the tension in his stance.
“We’re going to find her, Doctor,” Jack said. He was certain of it. After all, he was a fixed point, and he couldn’t have become fixed if the Doctor never introduced Rose Tyler to the TARDIS. Time insisted that the Doctor have his TARDIS.
“I know,” the Doctor said with a thin smile that implied that even for Time Lords there was a difference between knowing something logically and believing it in one’s bones.
The scan came up empty. The Doctor recalibrated, broadened the search field, and scanned again. Still nothing. He looked up at Jack with a chilly bleakness in his eyes that tore at Jack’s heart.
“Would we be able to tell if one of the salvage ships had the TARDIS aboard?” Jack asked.
“No ship in this sector of space should have shielding enough to block the artron energy…but a cloud of plutonium dust just might mask it, and that’s exactly the weather on the northern hemisphere of the planet! If I adjust to compensate for the dust storms….” The Doctor fiddled with controls, fingers moving so fast Jack could barely follow. Suddenly his face lit up with a grin as broad as the sky. “Yes! Look! The TARDIS is on the planet!”
A faint speck glowed on the sensor’s display. Caught up in the Doctor’s joy, Jack whooped and gave the Time Lord a high-five.
“Just a few more minutes, Doc, and you’ll be home,” Jack said ebulliently. The Doctor’s face fell.
Home. He’d said home. Mistake. Jack always thought of the Doctor’s home as the TARDIS. (Truth be told, a lot of days he still thought of the TARDIS as his own home, albeit a home he never expected to live in again.) With the wound of Gallifrey’s destruction still raw, however, “home” must be a word loaded with pain for the Doctor. Jack kicked himself for his stupidity, but there was no taking it back now.
“Sorry,” Jack said quietly.
“Yeah.” The Doctor closed his eyes for a second, then opened them to begin the landing sequence.
They brought the tiny rental ship, barely bigger than the Chula ship Jack had piloted lifetimes ago, down through Parnial’s atmosphere. Clouds of radioactive dust, scouring winds, and flickering lighting buffeted the craft.
“Nice place for a holiday, huh?” Jack commented, trying to hold the throttle steady.
“If it were any more pleasant we’d need cocktails with umbrellas. Little farther to the north,” the Doctor said, watching their course.
Finally, Jack caught sight of a patch of blue on the surface below. The craft bucked wildly on the winds as Jack fought to hold them directly over the TARDIS. The Doctor hit the button to turn on the tractor beam and bring the TARDIS rising up toward them. Instead, sparks flew up from the console. The TARDIS stayed where it was.
The Doctor said a few emphatic words that weren’t translated into any languages Jack knew. “Must have crossed the power supply when I was rewiring the sensors. Tractor beam’s fried.”
“Can you fix it?”
“ ‘Course I can fix it! I’m the Doctor. Problem is, it’ll take five hours, maybe longer if this ship is short on spare parts.”
“Probably easier just to land nearby and walk over. Do we have suits?” Jack brought the little craft to a landing near the TARDIS so he didn’t have to worry about crashing while they conversed.
“Nothing that’ll block out these radiation levels.”
“There’s me,” Jack offered, looking over his shoulder to meet the Doctor’s gaze.
“Don’t be daft. The radiation levels are high enough to kill anybody within moments…” The Doctor trailed off, fixing Jack with a slightly horrified stare.
“Once I get into the TARDIS, I can expand the energy shielding enough to let you cross,” Jack said, trying for an all-business attitude that would force away the Doctor’s shock and pity at the reminder of what Jack’s fixed point status meant.
“Are you sure?”
“Geez, Doc, you know the TARDIS’s capabilities better than I do. You tell me if it won’t work.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know. Of course I’m sure.” Jack held the Doctor’s gaze a moment, then jumped up and headed for the airlock.
“Use a spacesuit, Jack. Even ignoring the radiation, the atmosphere is high in sulfur dioxide and chlorine with no oxygen. The dust is blowing at over a hundred miles an hour.”
“Dust! Good point.” Jack rummaged around in the ship’s emergency equipment until he found a pair of goggles and a small oxygen mask. A little bit of oxygen would keep him from wasting time by dying halfway to the TARDIS, but there was no point losing the deposit on the rental ship by contaminating an entire spacesuit with Parnial's radioactive dust. The atmosphere was corrosive, but nothing he wouldn't heal from about as fast as the damage was done, and radiation usually didn't affect him at all.
Now came the slightly awkward part. Jack's TARDIS key had been blown up with the Hub. Jack's pride made it hard to ask for one, but he had to. "I need to borrow a key."
The Doctor fixed him with an unreadable stare and declared, "No."
"Err, Doc, this plan won't work if I can't get into the TARDIS," Jack said, trying to ignore the sudden knot in his belly at the Doctor's refusal.
"Obviously. But there's no way you're borrowing a key. You're keeping it," the Doctor said, tossing a key to Jack.
Jack caught it and nodded, not trusting himself to speak right away. He draped his beloved coat safely over a seat, stepped into the airlock, and closed the inner door.
The Doctor hit the button to turn on the comms as the air around Jack began to be slowly replaced with the poisonous atmosphere. “You’re a bit mad, you know.”
“That’s the pot calling the kettle black if I’ve ever heard it,” Jack shot back cheerfully, his voice slightly muffled by the mask. He felt a tingle from the corrosive gases on his skin, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.
The corner of the Doctor’s mouth twitched upwards, but quickly settled. “Suppose you’re right.” The Doctor shrugged. “You know what I think’s interesting?”
“Brain-splittingly complex physics, bananas, mocking humans, making things more sonic, blondes…want me to go on?”
“You haven’t asked me to go back and change anything. I’ve got a time machine, you’ve had a huge loss, and you’ve never even hinted that I might go back and fix things.”
“Gimme a break, Doc. I learned how dangerous it is to change your personal timeline in the first week of Time Agent training,” Jack snapped. The tightness in his chest had nothing to do with poisonous air.
“I’ve cleaned up after enough messes from Time Agents who decided those rules didn’t apply to them. Most of them were good people who got desperate. Everyone has a breaking point, but somehow yours didn’t make you so careless.”
“Yeah, well, everyone also dies, and look at me.” Jack chewed on his lip, searching for the words to explain. “I couldn’t risk the integrity of time, no matter what I lost. It’s something I learned from you.”
If the Doctor had anything to say in reply to that, it was lost in the sound of the airlock’s outer door opening. The wind struck Jack like an angry mother’s slap. He leaned into it and headed onto the planet’s surface.
Outside, he was surrounded by a landscape of rocks sculpted into improbable shapes by the incessant wind. Every arch and twisted tower glittered with the mineral wealth that had brought the robotic mining operations to this forbidding rock in the first place. The wind played a wild music as it whistled over the jagged land. Overhead, the sky swirled with colorful clouds illuminated by an astonishing firework display of lightning. Jack could feel the pain as his cells succumbed to the formidable radiation and the answering shock of healing welling up from inside him. Bits of him were dying, but Jack felt dizzyingly alive. No other human would ever stand on this spot without a thick protective suit. This pain and this beauty were for him alone.
His wrist strap crackled. “You okay?” the Doctor asked, having evidently figured out how to transmit to the wrist computer. A poisonous atmosphere could carry sound as well as a safe one.
Jack moved closer to a window to give the Doctor a good view of him. He straightened himself against the powerful wind (which was doubtless tousling his hair artfully), gave a thumbs-up sign, and pulled the mask aside long enough to flash a huge, slightly lopsided grin of genuine glee.
“I love a storm!” he shouted into the wind. The Doctor pointed at his wrist, trying to indicate that Jack needed to transmit in order to be heard. Jack just grinned a little wider and readjusted his mask, declining to translate. He leaned into the wind and shuffled toward the TARDIS.
He pulled his new key out of his pocket and slipped it into the lock. The TARDIS greeted him with a worried whine from her engines.
“Easy, beautiful. I know I’m wrong, but I’m not going to hurt you. Just let me help your Doctor get back to you.” Jack paused with his hands resting on the console, giving the TARDIS a minute to scan him before he began working. He felt the ship’s tension setting his own nerves on edge, which wasn’t helping his inevitable sense of hurt at the rejection. When the tension eased slightly, Jack set to work.
It only took a few minutes to set up a protective corridor to allow the Doctor to walk to the TARDIS: blocking out the radiation, exchanging the atmosphere, damping the wind, and even laying a force field underfoot to keep the Doctor’s steps from stirring up radioactive dust. A blurry shimmer in the air delineated the edges of the safe area. He also took a minute to step into a little room the TARDIS brought to just off the console room, where a blast of air and specially calibrated energy fields got rid of the radioactive dust clinging to him. When he was done, Jack addressed the TARDIS.
“I’m going to give you a suggestion for where to take the Doctor some time when he sets you on random, or whenever you feel like ignoring him. It doesn’t have to be right away; maybe take him to a South Pacific beach, or on a cruise, or go and solve some historical mystery first. But I think you’ll like this destination.” Jack went to the keyboard, but instead of entering coordinates he typed two words: bad wolf.
The TARDIS’s engine sounded out strange new harmonies. The hairs on the back of Jack’s arms prickled.
“I thought you’d know who I meant by that,” Jack said, satisfied. Winking at the TARDIS, he switched on the comms to call over the Doctor. The Time Lord strode out of the little spaceship. Halfway to the TARDIS, he broke into a run.
Jack chuckled as the Doctor dashed through the door and straight to the center console, excited as someone reunited with a lover at the airport arrivals’ gate. The engines purred in welcome. The Doctor starting flipping switches to run diagnostics, cooing to his ship the whole time. Jack was tempted to sneak away quietly, but he knew too well that wasn’t an acceptable way to take leave of somebody.
Jack cleared his throat. “I’ll be going, then.”
“Where’re you off to?” The Doctor seemed to be sizing him up. Jack really hoped he wasn’t about to offer a lift, because he didn’t want to have to muster up the willpower to turn it down.
“Oh, you know. There’s so much universe still to see. Return the rental ship, work enough to finance the travel. Kiss some strangers, save some planets. The usual.” Jack shrugged and spoke in a carefully casual tone.
“Looking for future me?” The Doctor’s expression was neutral. He might have been asking what Jack would have for dinner.
“Eventually. Not quite yet. I’m doing a lot better than I was before, but I still need a little more time to get my feet back under me.”
“Fair enough. Intending to sweep someone else off theirs?” the Doctor asked with raised eyebrows, inexplicably grabbing Jack’s wrist.
“Maybe.” Jack tried to tug his wrist away when the Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and aimed it at the wristcomp. “Hey! The teleport is already nonfunctional. What are you trying to do?”
The Doctor squinted at Jack, confused. “Fix it, obviously. Why, do you like it broken?”
“I, uh…” Jack stammered, floored by the trust. “Thanks, Doc. I owe you one.”
“I already owed you for the leather jacket, not to mention pulling me out of a burning room. Other things, too. If we’re keeping score, I’m in your debt.” A fleeting moment of eye contact, then the Doctor dropped Jack’s wrist.
“Nuh-uh. From my place in the timeline, I owe you for so much more. Too much to quantify.” He should come up with something witty, something like the “wish I’d never met you” he’d used to say goodbye to the Doctor lifetimes ago, but he just couldn’t manage anything other than the truth. Jack owed the Doctor more than he could ever repay: all that he was that was good, his life (when he was mortal), even Ianto and all the other people he’d had a chance to love (and lose) that he would never have met if that misguided con had never led him to Rose and the Doctor.
“Start making it up to me: have a fantastic life, Captain.”
Jack wasn’t sure he could breathe enough to answer, so threw his arm up in a trembling salute. He had more than half a mind to give the Doctor a parting kiss, as he had so long ago on the Game Station, but he didn’t. If he kissed him, he would find out whether or not the Doctor would respond. One result might prevent him from ever letting their timelines untangle, and the other might break his heart. Better to leave that Schrödinger’s cat in the box.
Jack spun on his heels and walked out of the TARDIS, closing the door behind him. He stopped just outside of the rental ship and waved. His bones began to vibrate as the engines ground to life. The blue light on top of the police box flashed like the lightning above. With the sound that always haunted Jack’s dream, the TARDIS vanished and the sound began to fade away.
Strangely, the sound of the TARDIS seemed to echo for far longer than it should. In fact, it stopped fading and began to grow louder. Moments later, the TARDIS reappeared in precisely the same spot.
Jack stared. The wind died down again as the TARDIS projected another protective forcefield. As soon as the ship was solid, the door opened.
“What happened, Doc? You forget something?” Jack called out.
“You,” said the Doctor, hands stuffed in the pockets of his long brown coat as he emerged from the TARDIS. Red converse scuffed the soil of the planet as Jack’s second Doctor ambled over.
* * * * *
Continued in chapter 4
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“Yeah, well, it was this or some coat that looked like it was vomited up by a rainbow. I flipped a coin.”
Best description of Six's coat EVER.
There are so many aspects of this chapter that I adored, and I suspect I'd be here all night recounting them if I tried. Suffice to say, brilliant work and I look forward to the conclusion (since, YAY TEN'S BACK). :)
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Ten's appearance at the end is perfect. Can't wait to see what happens!
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(Yes, Holmes likes your story a lot. Don't question his authority. *g*)
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(I would never dream of questioning Holmes's authority or his tastes in slash.)
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I love this story. I love that they named the children Steven and Susan... I teared up a bit at that part, honestly. I love the reference to past Doctor's coat. And I love and adore all the little details in this story that make it so good. :D
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And once again, you've given us particularly beautiful insight into what it means to be Captain Jack Harkness.
I love the way the Doctor forces Jack into not a situation where he's forced to heal, but where he's forced to realize he's already begun healing. The dynamic between these two continues to be lovely and insightful, and I'm sorry to see it go, even though I knew where this chapter had to end. Very much looking forward to the next one!
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Love that Ten showed up at the end, although I was sorry that Nine and Jack had to go their separate ways. They had been good together.
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