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wintercompanion2012-12-31 04:42 pm
eloriekam.livejournal.com) wrote in wintercompanion2012-12-31 04:42 pm
eloriekam: Double Pain, Bound Hearts (Ten/Jack) [Teen] 2/2
Title: Double Pain, Bound Hearts 2/2
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eloriekam
Challenge: Amnesty 2012: Law.
Pairing: Ten/Jack
Rating: Teen/PG-13
Warnings/Spoilers: A few references to '42' and the S3 end arc; Doctor whump
Disclaimer: Not mine, and I'm just taking them for a spin, and will return them,perhaps slightly battered.
Word Count: ~8,500
Summary: Everyone was on the wrong side of the law this time because they couldn't let something stand. Vigilantes meet vigilantes for vengeance.
Author's Notes: So the 'law' challenge bit me twice. Written from the 'Law' challenge during Amnesty 2012 for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
wintercompanion. Set after Last of the Time Lords and before Partners in Crime. Doctor whump in the first chapter and angst; hurt/comfort is hopefully here in the second chapter. I'm not entirely happy with either part of this, but I also don't want to sit on it for an entire year; all mistakes are mine and I may edit before posting elsewhere after the challenge. fogsblue and I were virtually squishing each other during the writing of most of this story! Wrote both parts from Dec. 26 to Dec. 30 so I was only able to proof it once.
His crying turned into gasping sobs after a couple of minutes, and Jack stood, reaching for the railing and realizing they hadn't even come fully up the ramp. He needed to dematerialize the TARDIS, get the Doctor at least some basic medical scans and care, and get remnants of the shackles off him... both of them. Not necessarily in that exact order. Jack looked around the room, staring at the high arched ceiling before stumbling to the console and staring at the controls. Some lights flashed and something else dinged near a few bits, and he gripped her edge hard as he reached for them. The handbrake crunched down on the chain linking his hands, and he stroked it gently.
It was a beautiful sound.
Jack staggered back to the Doctor and dropped to his knees by him, brushing his hair back from his forehead. He could see and feel the Time Lord's blood pulsing through his veins, heard the strained breathing. He closed his eyes for a moment, grasping at rationality as the flood of sequential thoughts from the escape, attack, flee receded, then carefully slipped his hands under the Doctor and lifted him, trying not to jostle him and wincing at how his head hung limply back, fully exposing his bruised throat and reopening some of the half-healed and just-clotted cuts. Blood from wounds on the Doctor's side, fresh and reopened, trickled between them and seemed to cling to Jack's clothes. He followed the light of an opened door into a medical bay with relief, even knowing that he wasn't sure how much he'd have to do himself. The scan activated as soon as he placed the Doctor on a bed, showing one heart beating as he'd suspected, the Doctor unconscious, in shock, sleep-deprived and in need of fluids and injured all sorts of ways.
One readout scrambled for a moment, then resolved into English, and a nearby cabinet opened with a soft snick. Jack pulled out the first thing and stared at it blankly for a moment before realizing it was a cutter. He hesitated, then shifted it to one hand and pointed it at the restraint on the other. Better for him to... ah, ow. He grimaced, then repeated the process and moved swiftly back to the Doctor's bed. With a little more control this time, he opened up the wrist and ankle shackles and then flung them away. He tried to ignore the fact that the Doctor had cut himself down to the bone on all four limbs, and grabbed some gauze he knew was laced with antiseptics, wrapping it carefully around each one. The alternate readout informed him the TARDIS was taking the local air mixture up to a high percentage of oxygen, but she couldn't exchange instantaneously. He nodded, and cast about for a place to set up a drip into the Doctor, hoping the lack of reminders from the readouts meant that doing so wasn't costing the Doctor crucial minutes. There was confirmation of this, of a sort, when he got out a tissue regenerator: the readouts began flashing mauve. He put it back, and may have screamed at the TARDIS in several languages before wrapping more of the gauze around the Doctor's neck and going to the cabinet again, still trying to watch the single pulse on the scan.
He knit broken ribs next, muttering again at the TARDIS, who flashed up a deeper scan showing rib fragments in one lung, and dangerously close to the other and one heart; the ship removed most of the pieces herself, groaning deeply. Jack didn't ask where they went, just went back to get out the next thing he'd need. He attached another drip bag full of nutrients and anti-inflammatories and other anti-things and scraped away flesh seared by the shot the Doctor had received to the thigh, then packed it in pro-something or other. His world was only the readouts, the bed, and the supply cabinet the TARDIS kept rearranging. He licked his lips, braced himself against a counter for a moment, then kept going.
Jack rearranged the Doctor's limbs, propping some up, retrieving cold packs for his swollen hands. He painted salve on the whip marks marring his legs, jumping with the first few as they opened back up a little, oozing blood and occasionally pus. The Doctor turned his head a little, tried to clench his fists, then seemed to relax again. The Captain let out a breath and kept going. He was on the Doctor's chest before his lover stirred again, carefully drawing the odd mixture along gashes and trying to avoid burn marks and bruises. The Time Lord twitched, flinched, tried to squirm on the bed, and the TARDIS took the lights down.
"Ah." He smacked his lips together a few times, grimacing, panting, breath still too strained, eyes open and flickering around. "Re-regen... ah, no, oh... no, not... pl-plea... Mar... Mar... I..." Jack leaned over and brushed his hair with one hand again, for lack of anywhere else he dared have contact with the Doctor, wondering where the Doctor was thinking of and his gut clenching at the mention of regeneration. His Doctor, always, ancient, wise, childlike, but he wanted to have time to know this body, its soft spots and reflexes and what made his head tip back and his mouth open as his eyes fell shut.
"Doctor," Jack said softly, keeping up the steady stroking. "It's... it'll be all right. We're safe. We're all safe, on the TARDIS. Nothing more will happen to you. It's all right, Doctor, I promise." He leaned over and kissed the Doctor's hair, then squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment, tears dripping away to dampen the lank brown strands beneath him. Finally, he sat up, and kept repeating that they were all right now, they were safe, everything would be fine. The Doctor's eyes closed again, and the lights brightened.
Every monitor flashed mauve a moment before the single pulse on the monitor staggered. It slowed, then beat steadily a few more times, then skipped three beats. Jack jumped away, listening to the air hiss as the TARDIS upped the rate of exchange, wincing a little as the air pressure increased. He grabbed the emergency kit stowed under the bed as a pulse went across, then another, but most of the kit wouldn't budge. "No, no, no, nononono..." He tugged frantically, then looked to the other monitor, frowned at the image, then opened his mouth a little as he figured it out.
It definitely wasn't a way he'd ever imagined massaging the Doctor, he thought to himself several minutes later, letting his sore arms fall to his sides and watching the slower, but steady beat with relief and satisfaction. He'd reopened cuts, aggravated bruises and the awful splotch of a burn left by electric shock, but... he was still alive, Jack's beloved, loved, so much more. Slowly, Jack staggered toward the cabinet, cleaning his hands on the way, and resumed his work: salve for the cuts, rolling the Doctor onto his side to address the back, the TARDIS sliding some of those soft cushions at him, then something that smelled truly terrible coated thickly over his burns.... not just burns, he'd seen those symbols before, for the most part not quite as fresh, some old and puckered, a couple of them rotten and oozing. Another pair of tears dropped, and slid down the Doctor's arm. He unwound the first rough bandages, fingers gentle, sneaking in a swift caress of skin wherever he could, then rearranged the Doctor's arms again, trying to put his injured shoulders in a position to heal muscles and tendons and ligaments, thinking the hands looked a little less swollen already. Jack kissed some of the Doctor's fingertips, then leaned against the bed.
A third monitor flashed with an image of running water, then a plate of toast. He eyed the other two readouts warily, but one just showed him an image of tea, then a large comfortable bed. Still, he hovered for another long moment before staggering away from the Doctor's bed. No sleep, and certainly not away from the Doctor even if he did get tired, but he could eat a little, clean up, see if he could find something to help the aching in his muscles.
He didn't want to feel better... he just needed it, for his Time Lord.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Doctor moved a bandage-swathed arm, and Jack jerked awake from his nap on the floor, sitting up against a cabinet. He stood, cautiously, and eyed the readouts, noticing the TARDIS had dimmed the lights again.
"Go back to sleep," he whispered from several feet away, looking at his Time Lord, who was covered almost entirely in bandages from neck to toes. "Shh, stay asleep, keep healing." He tensed, leaning toward the Doctor a little, face pained, thinking of the first time the Doctor had really woken up. He'd eagerly cradled the other's face as his eyelids fluttered, rejoicing when they surveyed the ceiling and then turned to him. He'd smiled, and stroked the Doctor's face with one thumb. The Doctor had recoiled, panting, then coughing, responding to Jack's additional attempts to soothe him with his touch by jerking away again, and falling off the bed, landing awkwardly and crying out in pain, then sobbing as he crawled away from Jack, panic and fear and Time Lord reaction in every line of his face, eyes drowning in it.
Jack had tried to follow, at first, but the Doctor wedged himself into a corner, curled up as he tried to protect his more injured leg, cradling his arms in front of him, eyes wide and panicky and terrified as he kept trying to push himself away with his other foot, frantically scrabbling, whispering "no no no" all the while. It had taken Jack and the TARDIS at least half an hour to get him unconscious and back on the bed again before he retreated to the hallway and let the tears run. He should have remembered. In the cell, the Doctor hadn't recognized him either, blinded and deafened, or he had recognized him, but just that he was a fixed point in time for his Doctor's senses to rebel against and run from.
He rubbed his face, then watched the Doctor again. He wanted to hold him, cup his face, kiss him firmly everywhere unmarked and feather his lips and tongue against all the other spots, wrap his arms firmly around the slender frame and protect him from anything and everything, sleep next to him to hug and spoon during the nightmares....but he didn't dare, held in place by fear of terror.
Fists clenched with held breath as the Doctor's eyes opened. The lights came up a little, and Jack looked to the ceiling, then readouts where the TARDIS occasionally tried to explain things to him, but no clues were offered. He hoped increased light was a good sign.
"Feels same," the Doctor muttered, then tried to turn. "Oh, ow.... what?" He flailed anxiously for a moment, fingers scraping at the bandaging, then laid back. "Hi, old girl," he whispered. He winced as he turned his head to face Jack, who had to force himself to not run away for fear of a repeat of earlier and just stand there, a mixture of fear and worry and love and patience and concern on his face and in his posture. The Doctor looked at him and tensed, then blinked slowly and kept looking, eyes moving up and down. "Jack?" he finally said softly. "I, oh," and Gallifreyan syllables tumbled roughly out of him for a few moments. "Ow. Jack?"
"I'm here," Jack reassured him, but didn't move.
"You're there." He took another breath. "Oh, Jack, so glad to see you, please, please..." He slowly lifted one arm and gestured clumsily. Jack hesitated, then moved slowly toward him, focusing on keeping his hands at his sides. He reached the Doctor's bed, and looked down, trying to smile. "Jack... I'm all right, really. Don't," his voice broke, "don't leave me alone."
"I'm here," Jack repeated. The Doctor looked up at him. "You're not all right, you weren't, one heart beating and you were terrified of me when you woke up before..." he trailed off, choking down tears, knowing they'd come through in his voice.
"Jack, I could never..." he whispered. Jack looked at him, eyes shining with the memory of coaxing his heart to keep beating, hours bent over his abused body working on the damage, and hesitantly reached out one hand to the Doctor's bandaged one. He touched it, lightly, and started to wrap his fingers around the Doctor's. Sudden panic rose on the Doctor's face, and he jerked back hard, scooting and scrabbling and scrambling for the opposite edge of the bed, face going even whiter. "No, no, not again, no...." Soft siding snapped up from the opposite edge, catching him, and Jack stepped back, looking at the ground, and listened to the whimpers and grunts as the Doctor calmed enough to rearrange himself on the bed, lying on the proper pillows again.
"You asked for Martha, before," Jack offered, trying to control his voice, keep every bit of pain out of it and clamp it down and forget that part of his heart. "Maybe that would be better, for her to take care of you."
"No," the Doctor objected. "She doesn't... I can't do... no, Jack. I can't, she can't..." He tried to sit up a little, then laid back down, breathing hard.
"You can't stand my touch, Doctor," the Captain replied, flicking one glance up at him before returning his gaze to the floor. "I can't look after you."
"They, they... when we were... blinded and deafened, Jack, and shackled to some floor like an animal about to be slaughtered, all I had was touch and time and...." he stopped, weeping.
"I know, I--" Jack stopped, leaned harder against the cabinet he'd backed himself up to, and rubbed one hand across his face as he looked to the Doctor's bed. "The touch was on your knee."
"Yes, little place that didn't hurt, but that made it like fire, fixed, immovable, lancing through, thrashing to run, couldn't shouldn't exist..." Jack lowered his head again and waited for the broken words and weeping across from him to stop, the Doctor's breath to calm a little.
"That was me. I... I wanted you to know I was there, Doctor, that it was just a little... oh, just a little bit safe, not that I could protect you, but that I would try, try with everything..." he cut himself off on a harsh sob of his own, and turned, bracing his elbows on the counter and letting his body be heaved and wracked with what he'd felt locked and shackled in that cell. He wanted the Doctor to say something to him, almost anything, but there was silence except for his own tears. When he calmed and turned back, blowing his nose, the Doctor had his face turned partway toward him, dark eyes unreadable except for the pain and memory of pain. "I really am still wrong to you, Doctor. An impossible thing. You've said you could hardly look at me. I... what do you have to do to yourself, this you is so tactile, how can you stand to touch me? You can't, unless you really concentrate, can you?"
The Doctor blinked, and looked to the other side of the room. His fingers wiggled in the bandages, and then he took several deep breaths and closed his eyes. Jack stood there a moment longer, tears tracking down his face again, hands clenched into fists, then left.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jack entered the medical bay two days later, watching the readouts and the Doctor's bed cautiously. Still just one heart beating, but it had been steady for the last day, and a bit faster. The TARDIS had reduced the oxygen levels again, bringing them closer to normal. The Doctor was sitting up partway with a light blanket pulled up to his chest, arms folded oddly to help some of the muscles in his shoulders come back together properly; his eyes were closed, but Jack could see the change in his breathing, a little bit of tension in his still-pale face.
As he had each time he'd removed the Doctor's swathing of bandages and cared for the remaining wounds and rearranged him to help other injuries heal before wrapping him up again, Jack reached for a vial of sedative, identical to the one he'd found the first time he'd come back in. The Doctor couldn't stand the touch, awake; wouldn't let them go find someone else to help. When he came over to the bed, the Doctor's eyes were open, and he was staring at the ceiling. Jack reached for him automatically, to caress his hair, and stopped, sucked in a breath, then dropped his hand back to his side. He reached over carefully with the other hand, ready to deploy the sedative, send the Doctor into blissful sleep he still needed so badly, knowing little of the time he spent in here with his eyes closed involved real rest.
"Don't." The Time Lord's voice broke the silence, tapped it, sent their not-quite-truce spilling to the ground. Jack stared at him, incredulous. "I'm... I can take it, Jack, I don't want to be asleep for this. I don't."
"You can take it?" the Captain repeated. "You can take it? You took being beaten, whipped, chained, oh, almost strangled, whipped, electrocuted, dragged and kicked and bound like an animal, burned, blindfolded and deafened and gagged, held in positions that tore your shoulders worse than anything I've ever seen, struggled so hard you cut yourself to the bone and maybe some of that is my fault, but you think you can take it when my hands are on you, applying salves and bandages, trying to help you heal?!" He sucked in a breath and shut his mouth firmly. He didn't know where all that had come from, and he shouldn't have said it, shouldn't have brought any of it up, not yet, but the words were out there and being in a time machine wouldn't take them back.
The Doctor stared steadily at the ceiling, blinking rapidly. Jack didn't dare move. "Not here," the Doctor finally said in a whisper.
"Pardon?" Jack inquired when the Doctor didn't elaborate.
"I don't want to wake up in here again, Jack." He drew a long breath and twisted his head restlessly from side to side. "I... don't."
"You don't want to be unconscious and then you don't want to come awake in here... which is it, Doctor?" He kept his voice gentle, tried to push the caresses he still wanted to give the Doctor through in his voice.
The Doctor's face twisted and he looked away for a moment, blinking hard again. "Let me touch you?" he whispered, turning his face to Jack, finally making eye contact. "Oh, Jack, just one touch before sleep, please." He had the look that was almost impossible to resist: begging, lonely, hurt, loving. Jack hesitated, then stepped closer. The Doctor winced a little as he moved his arm toward Jack, and clasped his forearm in one hand. He paused, swallowed, took a breath, then slid his hand down.
"Don't hurt yourself," the Captain whispered, his voice shaking. "My Doctor... don't make that pain worse."
"Readjusting," the Time Lord said, clasping Jack's hand in his as they both trembled. "I love the impossible, Jack, you know that."
"That makes two of us," Jack returned, smiling faintly for the first time in much too long.
"Okay," the Doctor said a moment later. "Oooh." He let go of Jack's hand and moved his arm back. The Captain made another abortive gesture toward stroking his hair.
"You all right from that?" he asked instead. The other nodded, a little hesitantly.
"Move me home when you're done?" he requested, turning that look on his lover again.
"Only if the TARDIS agrees," Jack said after a brief hesitation. "I'm not arguing with your ship again."
"Me neither," the Doctor muttered as the sedative was injected. The Captain paused, cocked an eyebrow at the readouts the TARDIS had used before and then at the ceiling, and made a note to himself to ask the Doctor about that sometime when they weren't both traumatized and shuddering and uncertain of even each other, before finally brushing a hand through the Doctor's hair and starting to remove the bandages.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He was limp in warm arms. Limp and unseeing, feeling bound but without the dreadful weight and pulling, arms carefully laid on his stomach and chest rather than being yanked or hanging, face fully open to air, mouth comfortably slack. The immediate motion stopped, and adjusted him, his head now tipping against a strong shoulder. The TARDIS hummed at him about thieves and paradoxes and fixed points and paying a little more attention, and he silently leaned against her, feeling the Vortex again. He could feel timelines, Time, drawn around the arms carrying him, the shoulder and torso he rested against, a painful familiar swirling. Yes, the universe, maybe even the multiverse, was quite interested in this entity, and had increased its interest several times fairly recently. He stuck his tongue out, just a little bit, and then drew in a breath.
Memory reared up in front of him and he was being stroked gently everywhere in succession and the wrong pressed at uninjured skin as he lay on the floor helpless waiting for more pain and he watched and felt someone run toward him and they gripped hands for one of the most desperate jumps of all...
Jack. Jack Harkness. Impossible Jack.
He opened his eyes, slowly, and looked up, his dear one's sometimes cheerfully dimpled face very close and now grim. Oh Jack. Jack, I am so sorry...
"Jack," he whispered. The other jumped, but kept moving.
"Oh, God, I'm sorry, Doctor, I didn't think you would wake up yet, we're almost there, then I can set you down," the Captain babbled, panicky, voice strained.
The Doctor tried to relax more against Jack, and another memory rose. "You carried me, before."
"I've carried you lots of times, Doc, never like this, trust me. Don't panic, we're almost there."
"That was you," the Doctor tried again. "Death, then more death, anger smelled more than I did, then I was being carried by something or someone in which the Universe had recently taken a very personal interest. My leg hurt, other things hurt, oh, they hurt, but that someone wanted to protect me, get me out of there, you had to let me fall a few times and there was more death, then TARDIS said hello...." He trailed off, exhausted, and tucked his face against Jack's shoulder, closing his eyes again.
"That was me," Jack agreed. "Almost there." Tears tracked down his face and dripped into the Doctor's hair, his folded-up arms. He burrowed his face harder into Jack in response. A door opened, and Jack's gait slowed, changed, then went back to normal again. He was lowered gently, oh so gently, onto a large bed with comfortable pillows, and blankets were drawn over him. He opened his eyes and looked up, watching the worried blue eyes as they watched the Captain's own hands fuss at the blankets for a moment before withdrawing. Jack looked at him, and his face morphed into an odd frown and smile. "Sleep, Doctor."
"I just woke up."
"You've hardly been sleeping," he pleaded. "I don't know when your other heart is going to start, and you need to rest. Please."
"They wouldn't let me," the Doctor said abruptly. He tried to pull back one of the blankets. "Hot. Please. Jack, wouldn't..." he stopped, squeezed his eyes shut, then looked at the ceiling. Jack slowly peeled back one blanket.
"They wouldn't let you?" he repeated softly, remembering the Doctor plead that he needed sleep, the first time they brought him back, all bruised but before they muffled his head.
"Meditated to help hold myself up," the Doctor muttered. "But I was tired, Jack, and you'd fallen asleep twice, and it didn't seem like so much, later, but then my shoulders hurt..."
"I... I know, I'm sorry," Jack whispered, reaching out hesitantly to stroke the Doctor's hair. The Doctor neither moved away nor tensed nor turned into it as he usually did, and Jack withdrew his hands, clasping them awkwardly.
He almost left before the Doctor spoke again. "It was hot, and bright, and much too small. I couldn't get away from the light. They wouldn't let me sleep. Too small to turn, even. And sometimes it'd be just a few seconds, other times ten, fifteen minutes, I couldn't concentrate enough..." His voice never changed, but his slender limbs twitched under the blanket. He could still feel the all-encompassing heat pressing against him, the ruthless light... it reminded him of that sun, back with Martha, the living sun, beautiful and angry. But when he relaxed, he kept waiting for the shock again, the jolt, and sometimes the low chuckle he could hear outside the cage.
"Oh, Doctor, Doctor, I am..." Jack paused, apparently running out of words. He covered his face with his hands.
"Still, I'm here, we're here," the Time Lord declared, abruptly shifting his facade. "I'll try to sleep, Jack."
"Promise me?"
"I'll try."
"I'll, um, I'll wait," Jack said, and fled. The lights lowered, and cool air brushed across the Doctor. He closed his eyes and went limp, mind drifting. Eventually, he found himself reviewing the movement of Venusian aikado, then the odd gestures of the Gofs' self-defense, and the hybrid motion of the Cheetah People.
Though he was a little more refreshed, mentally, when Jack came in several hours later with some food, he still had not slept.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Thirty-four days," the Doctor said a couple of days later, flexing his hand as Jack removed the last of the bandages on his leg and torso. "Ow. That bit stuck, Jack."
"Sorry," Jack said, putting more goo on the spot. "I'll leave it open to the air again, this time." He propped up the Doctor's leg again, fussing around the Doctor's arms. The Doctor could tell, by the way Jack's eyes went to his face, that he was still too pale. Pale and uncomfortable, to be honest; his still heart had tried beating a few times, but the pain was worse than it was when it didn't beat. He could tell when his words registered: the Captain stopped moving, making a sudden move to withdraw his hands, then forced himself to sit still.
"Thirty-four days?" he repeated.
"Earth standard in the 21st century, yes." He shifted a little against the pillows propping him up.
"That we were there," Jack clarified.
"Yeah."
Jack's lips moved for a moment before he handed the Doctor a cup of water, supporting it in case the Time Lord's grip failed.
"A month," he said when he had set the glass down again.
"Basically, well, yeah."
His lover closed his strong hands briefly over his slender limp ones before stepping back. "I need a walk. And then a shower."
The Doctor sat up a little, watching the retreating back, covered with cloth that hid unmarred skin. "Jack!"
Later, he slept for twenty minutes before jerking awake and panting with a confused stare into the cool dimness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Mind if I join you?" Jack asked as he came in with a tray of food and some tea, some time later. The Doctor looked up from his book, where he'd been doing some light reading on the Eternals and theories of cross-universal travel, the volume braced against his good leg, and shook his head wordlessly.
"Mmm," he said when Jack set the tray down, then sat up a little, surveying it more closely. "Jack, have we landed?"
"What? No, we're still in the Vortex. Why?"
"There are two things on this tray that I know for a fact we've run out of some time ago," he objected, smiling crookedly after with the realization that he sounded almost normal, not the tortured, battered creature Jack had carried into the TARDIS twelve days ago. His Captain looked at him sharply, then smiled, almost a leer, and that had been rare around the TARDIS recently as well.
"The TARDIS likes me now. And, I've found that if you say 'hello' to your food storage in just the right way, they give up the most interesting things." He waggled his eyebrows, wondering if the Doctor would take the old bait.
"Jaaaaack."
"I'm just saying hello!"
"Well, your hello is..."
"Very enjoyable for everyone and anyone involved." Jack waggled his eyebrows and then aimed a fork and spoon at some of the dishes on the tray. "Do you want me to feed you, or can you manage?"
"If it's one-handed. And, uh, uh, not too hot."
Jack shot him a mournful look. "I remember."
"Right. Sorry." The Doctor set his book down and rubbed his forehead with one hand.
"Don't apologize, Doctor, please." Jack arranged a plate and bowl for him, then poured some tea and set it aside for later. He ate a little hesitantly, avoiding things still hot, shifting uneasily when too much heat penetrated the blanket. Jack rescued the bowl once without comment, shooting him a worried look.
"Mmm," he said a little while later after a sip of tea. "Thank you, Jack. That was delicious." He leaned his head back, then rolled it to one side, watching his Captain.
"There's more," Jack noted as he reached for his own cup of tea.
"I'm full. Very full, if I'm honest." It was true. His stomach felt a little stretched, not quite unbearably full to bursting, but hovering at the warning point that advised him not to put anything more down there for a while. It was also comfortably warm, with a sensation he hadn't felt in some time, and the warmth didn't trouble him: it was gentle, not far above his own body temperature, and spoke of love and sharing, Jack's careful preparation of the different dishes. He reached out, clasped one of Jack's hands with one of his own, and gave him a slight smile. Jack squeezed his hand in return, very lightly, still afraid of hurting him. He focused on relaxing, continuing to hold hands, sitting there and feeling Time and change and immovable points, accepting it wouldn't burn him.
"I should take these back," the Captain said after a while, looking at the dishes. The Doctor blinked and looked at him, realizing his eyes had been drifting shut.
"Come back?" he requested, letting Jack's hand slip from his. The Captain looked at him, briefly made a motion toward him as if to kiss him, then stopped. "Stay while I try to sleep?"
"I'll come back," Jack promised, pressing one hand to his chest, above where his heart beat. He returned swiftly, holding a small covered bowl in his hands. The Doctor raised one eyebrow at him. "She closed the door until I'd bring it with me."
"Oh?" The Doctor sniffed cautiously at it. "Ah. Well, I'll have a little bit of it." He tipped the bowl slightly, swallowed, and reached to put it on a side table. Jack took the bowl, smelled it himself, then set it down. "Sleeping aid," the Time Lord said briefly. "Not a sedative, though. She's hoping for real, honest, natural sleep this time. Help me lie down?"
Jack gently slid an arm under his shoulders and lifted. The Doctor winced at the pressure against wounds still healing, but let his head rest against the nook of his lover's shoulder as he reached with the other arm to move pillows and then slide his whole body down the bed. He relaxed more as Jack rearranged his legs, feeling his brain slow down, pleasantly buzzing with a soothing cocktail. A comfortable pillow was tugged under his head, then a broad familiar hand stroked his hair, moving the floppy strands back from his forehead. He kissed the hand, murmured "fixed, promises, so much more" in a language only he knew, now, and let himself drift off as the weight settled familiarly next to him.
He spiraled in dreams. Exploring Jack's mouth with a long flexible tongue, the Captain's fingers stroking and pressing his nipples, sitting naked as they fed each other chocolate sauce. Lifting the wounded, running, walking in a market, across from each other at dinner, hands reaching to twine with the other's.
His sonic buzzed as flames and shrapnel erupted nearby. One alive, the other not. He reached out to cradle the first one in sure arms, then saw the imprint on the upper arm, opposite side of the torso.
His flesh was cut. He could feel the movement of feet, tried not to struggle from where he was strapped against a curved frame, arms twisted up and behind, unseeing, unhearing. Another lash.
Heat had a smell. He squirmed, trying to move away, but it sank down, searing. He was trapped, again, locked and shackled and caged, hardly room to struggle. Warmth, heat, surrounded him, stifling, the air filled with hot metal shapes, stalking him, waiting to scar and batter him.
"He'll make such a good standard," a voice penetrated the drowning closeness where he again sweated in permanent light. "Don't touch his face again, you fool. We hired you for this. We're not going to tolerate mistakes in our work." A grumbling assent. He tried to twist, could smell the liquid about to come in, but it was warm, hot, too hot, the cage squeezing him...
He came awake, trying to thrash, couldn't force his way past strong arms, couldn't get away from the heat covering him, what were they doing now, he couldn't...
Time's song gently hummed and chimed in his head as the arms moved.
"Doctor? What is it, what's wrong?" He couldn't move his arms enough, couldn't get leverage, it was dim but hot, much too hot...
"Noooo," he groaned, trying to stifle sobs. "Don't, oh don't, not in there again, please.... dying trapped, no..."
"Shh-shhh," a voice whispered, oddly familiar and soft, with a strikingly soft caress of his damp forehead and hair. He thought he heard a gasp, then some of the stifling warmth went away just before he was lifted up, cradled in those familiar arms, warm and full of Time, so much Time, too much. He groaned, and twisted away a little, squeezing his eyes shut as they went into another room. The arms left him carefully on something hard and cool, and a rushing noise filled his ears. He groaned again and tried to curl up, his leg spasming in response, jabbing agony up to his abdomen and down to his foot. He wrapped one arm over his head, sobbing and whimpering.
Factual arms cupped him, laid him against a broad chest as his top was undone and peeled away, then laid him back along shoulder and ribs as his pyjama bottoms were carefully pushed off, the coolness welcoming for a moment. He was picked up again, and he pushed, but it hurt his shoulders, suspended and twisted. He kicked out and around with his good leg, and thought he heard a grunt above him. The arms shifted him a little, and he tensed, then tried to go limp, accept the hard throw and the impact. The rushing noise was closer, then his feet met moving coolness. He was held there for a moment, eyes still shut and tears tracking down his face, then his calves and buttocks and thighs and torso met the coolness as well, until it surrounded him up to his neck, welcoming, accepting, soothing. His leg twinged again, but he was floating away from the agonizing heat, unbearable warmth, one hand somewhere anchoring him, rapidly cooling. It ran through his hair and dripped away, then across his face, a heavenly caress. He sank into it. The bracing hand moved a few times, then changed angle, and a warm body came into his peaceful pool. Coolness draped his face and hair again, and he turned into it, conceding the invasion was acceptable if he could continue floating in the slight chill, submerging. It hit his tongue, and he realized it was water. Cool water, to him. Colder to the warm memorable body supporting him as he hung limply.
He opened his eyes and looked up, licking his lips. Coral lay above him, and he felt the water bouncing off the sides, a little ways from him. Loving arms cradled him again, letting his head submerge partway in the water. It felt glorious against his hair and scalp, and he murmured under his breath, eyes closing again briefly. "Jack," he whispered, opening them again and finding the knotted spiral of Time watching him, physical body clenching against the cold water, but deep inner heart waiting, warming, always there.
Always. Forever. So much more.
"Hi," Jack responded, running cool fingers through the Doctor's hair again. "Do you know where you are?"
"TARDIS. Tub. With you." He tried to smile on the last. Jack stroked his cheek, other hand still holding him up. "Thermo..." he started. "Thermoregulation. It's off, now. Only one heart."
"Yeah." Jack kept running his fingers along him, carefully, not too hard. It felt nice. They watched each other's faces, Jack carefully not lowering his gaze below the Doctor's chin.
"Can feel them," he said finally, several minutes later, and Jack flinched, but kept caressing him. "I have to admit that the leg is pretty comfortable right now."
"That's my fault," Jack whispered, voice agonized, and leaned forward a little as if to kiss him, but arrested the motion. The water sloshed a little, disturbed.
"We both stopped them," he answered, firmly meeting Jack's eyes. The Captain eventually looked down and sniffled a little. "Jack..."
"I didn't eat fast enough. You, you, I didn't think they'd fed you at all, I couldn't keep eating...."
"Ah." He swallowed, then pursed his lips. "You got us out of there, Jack. I'd be dead, otherwise, locked up and dead..."
The caressing fingers stopped. Above him, Jack squeezed his eyes shut. "Doctor..."
"Jack, I can feel the spots on my chest and oh, everywhere, the metal seared. I hope they'll go away, sometime, but they might not. Parts of my back are still tender. My shoulders are always jolting and jabbing and spasming. But you got me out of there. Thank you."
"After a month."
"Human time sense."
"I should have tried harder from the start."
"Jack. Stop it, please." He smiled faintly. "Make a lap, instead?"
Jack didn't move for a long moment, staring at nothing. "Before," he said finally. "You've said... there was a place you were hot, and trapped, and it was too bright, and they wouldn't let you sleep."
He tensed in the water, away from Jack's supporting hand, and tried to relax again. "Yep."
"Trapped and dying in there?" Jack asked, voice shaking a little.
The Time Lord turned his head away from Jack and squeezed his eyes shut. "No..." Jack didn't respond, just let them sit and drift in the cool water. "They were going to put me back in there to die," the Doctor said finally, feeling himself tremble. "Because... their slaver friends had died by my hand, some locked in their own cages. So they were going to do the same to me." He felt Jack freeze up completely, one hand spasming slightly, almost letting him slip down in the water.
"That was me," the Captain said at last. His voice was an absolute monotone. "I did that. I locked them up and started setting off explosions."
"I know." He let his head hang back in the water again, letting the motion of hair in water and the water itself massage his scalp.
"Aren't you angry?"
"You trapped them. I didn't know you trapped them." He stared at the ceiling, relishing its distance, the slight air circulation against his face.
He felt Jack draw a huge breath, then another. "I found four cages full of children. Little children. They were... were, to each other, to the sides. And one of them saw me looking, saw the look on my face, saw the tears, and laughed before he got out his weapon to shoot me." He paused, waiting, then said, "Doctor..."
What was there to say?
"Doctor," Jack prompted again. "Please." A pause. "Are you angry with me?"
Young children, so curious, so... oh, children, unable to understand their shackles or the brands that would have descended on their skin. He moved, aware the water had pleasantly dulled most of his pain, and gripped Jack's arm, leveraging with it, leaning forward. He rested his forehead on Jack's smooth chest, felt the single heartbeat compete with his, sensed Jack move one arm to keep holding him, and started crying. Raw, angry, devastated tears, fully unchecked, blocking up his nose as he shuddered, thin chest heaving, letting loose gasping, wracking sobs. He slung one arm around Jack's shoulders, and felt his Captain, his forever, bring his other arm around to wrap him in a firm hug. He didn't rub the Doctor's back, just clasped the Time Lord to him and lowered his head to bury his face in the Doctor's hair.
A long while later, he drew a shaky breath and lifted his head, letting his hand slide away from Jack's shoulder. Jack looked at him and touched one cheek gently, smiling cautiously. He gave a wobbly smile back, and almost started crying again.
"Hey," Jack said gently. "You're definitely allowed." He ran his fingers along the Doctor's ear and down his neck, ghosting over a remaining mark. "Could we get out, though? You might be wrinkle-proof, but even 51st century humans aren't...."
He laughed on a short sob. "Yeah. Still need some help, though." Keeping hold of him, Jack backed up, reaching for a washcloth on the side, and let some lukewarm water soak it before bringing it toward him. He reached for it with one hand, but Jack simply raised an inquiring eyebrow and let it brush against his jaw; he tilted his face up and closed his eyes, letting his Captain run the wet cloth over it. The slightly rough material rubbed gently over his nose and cheeks, then dipped away before coming back to run across his forehead, touching lightly against his lowered eyelashes. Finally the Captain's thumb rubbed against his cheek again, and he opened his eyes.
"Easy," the Captain said, maneuvering himself out of the tub and reaching for the Doctor. "Relax, I've got you, nothing is going to happen to you..." His face dipped to the Doctor's hair as he cradled the Time Lord before wrapping them both in towels, gently rubbing or patting to dry off the Doctor, who then sat there with his hair sticking up everywhere, watching Jack dry himself off. The Captain paused while he was working on his thighs to flex his leg muscles and shoot the Doctor a cheeky grin, eyes dancing.
"Jaaaaack," the Doctor complained. But his eyes darted to Jack's inner thighs and upward, and his tongue swiped briefly across his lips as he smirked.
"I saw that," Jack said, pointing a mock-accusing finger at him as he rubbed the towel across his bottom, smiling a little himself.
"Well..." the Doctor trailed off and leaned back against the wall, half-closing his eyes.
"Do you want pyjamas on again?" the Captain asked when he'd finished drying himself off. The Doctor looked down at himself, bit his lip, and shook his head.
He shook his head again when Jack started to pick him up. The Captain leaned back in surprise, not sure if he should be offended, worried they'd somehow lost some ground in the last few minutes. "I want to see," he said, licking his lips again and looking up at Jack. "I... couldn't, lots of reasons, but Jack, hold me up for a few minutes, for this?"
He was scooped up and held close, as Jack searched for a long mirror. He found a set of three full ones, clearly set up to see the whole body at once, and the Doctor closed his eyes as Jack brought him into their view and lowered him gently, then braced him firmly with hands and arms.
"Oh, Jack," the Doctor sighed, upon opening his eyes. "I am so sorry you saw me like that."
"Don't apologize," Jack said, though his eyes were averted and the Doctor saw a tear track down his face. He faced the mirror again, seeing himself duplicated, propped up by Jack, poor loyal Jack... oh, he supposed one could say the revenge had been taken on him for Jack's actions, but none of the slavers had been inclined to mercy or chances offered. He let his eyes track slowly down his body from all angles, but broke the pattern and focused on his wrists and ankles, remembering Jack's broken words days ago in the medical bay.
"Oooh," he sighed, looking at the deep scars. "Might be stuck with some of that for a while." Jack gave him a brief, curious glance. "I'll work on it, once my other heart gets going, see if a healing coma will take care of it." He looked up at his neck again, then let his eyes trace down his slender body, one he had to admit was exceptionally thin at the moment, even for this him. A couple of other hims would have... well, he'd fit in their clothes twice over, at the moment, but didn't especially want to try. His thigh wound made him wince, but it was mostly soft tissue, just healing slow for lack of resources. He had to admit he hoped that was the case with the other marks he could see, and was almost glad he'd been blindfolded for most of the physical damage. "Well," he said at last. "Thank you for taking care of me, Jack." He closed his eyes again and sagged a bit, feeling Jack scoop him up, tucking his face against Jack's shoulder for the trip to their bedroom.
"Not too warm?" Jack asked after he pulled the blanket up over him. He shook his head and closed his eyes briefly, then looked up at Jack. He wasn't quite sure what he wanted, but here was Jack, sitting awkwardly next to him, hesitantly running one hand through his damp hair. "Are your shoulders stiff?"
He moved them a little. "They hurt a bit, yeah. Sorry." The TARDIS tsked at him, sending him an image of Jack carefully rearranging his arms. The Captain ran one hand along his face, then got up and searched a drawer. He sat back down, holding up a bottle and looking at the Doctor inquiringly.
"Can I do this for you?" he asked quietly, voice just above a whisper.
"Oh," the Doctor sighed, pressing against Jack's fact-ness, the universe's interest, and relaxing. He smiled. "Yes, please, Jack. I'd like that very much." The Captain tugged the covers back, then uncapped the bottle and poured the oil on his hands, then rubbed them together to get them well-covered. He placed his fingers against the Doctor's cheeks, and rubbed gently, then stroked down to his neck. Pressure increased, then gentled on the stroke. He breathed deeply, enjoying the loosening tension in his neck. Jack stroked his palms along the top of the Doctor's shoulders, lightening to a caress on his deltoids, then brought his hands back and repeated it, gently varying the pressure each time, sometimes sliding his fingers under the Doctor. After several repetitions, he ran his hands down the Doctor's arms, then up, working tight muscles with thumbs or a finger or sometimes a palm. The Doctor sighed. Jack put more oil on his hands, then returned, soothing arm and shoulders more. He glided to the Doctor's hands, and threaded their fingers together, then slowly pulled them apart. He sighed again as two fingers unkinked that he didn't even know had been stuck, and Jack's hands skimmed up along his arms again, then brushed across his chest.
The sensations were lovely, marvelous, fantastic. He closed his eyes lazily, feeling Jack's hands against his body, every press and stroke and light caress. The hands came up to his shoulders again, and they relaxed a little more. He sighed as Jack's warm slick fingers traced his jaw.
"I think that's enough for now," the Captain said, and he opened his eyes. "I don't want you getting any more sore," he added.
"Mmm," he responded, turning his head a little. The Captain hesitated as he leaned over the Doctor, then began to move back. He reached up with one relaxed, oil-slicked arm, and wrapped his fingers around the back of Jack's neck, encouraging his face closer. Bracing with his good leg, he sat up a bit, meeting Jack partway, and their lips met for the first time in weeks. Jack parted his, and the Doctor felt his teeth, his tongue, playfully meeting, then drew on Jack's lower lip with both his own. Too tired to stay up, he broke the kiss, laying back and rubbing Jack's cheek and jaw with his thumb as his arm slipped back down.
The Captain smiled. "Thank you."
"Oh, thank you," he smiled back. Jack slipped under the covers, and pulled them up over both of them. "Mmm," he sighed again. "That's perfect." The Captain lay next to him, their bodies a few inches apart, connected by Jack's caressing of his arm.
"You do want me with you?" Jack checked. He looked over and nodded, feeling himself smile freely.
"Oh yes."
"That's a relief," the Captain responded, almost joking, but the uncertainty came through in his eyes. He adjusted, relaxing his position more, closed his eyes, but didn't break contact with the Doctor.
"Oh, Jack. Where would I be without you?" The stroking on his arm slowed, and he realized Jack was falling asleep. His breath evened out, and the Doctor assessed himself, then slid his good leg toward Jack a little and pivoted onto his side, then his chest. The Captain's eyes popped open in surprise at the movement, which had placed the Doctor's chin squarely in his shoulder.
"Doctor...?"
The Doctor wriggled a bit, gave a soft 'oof', then wrapped one arm around to cup Jack's shoulder with his hand and rested his head on Jack's chest, above his heart. He sighed against Jack, contentedly, and squeezed the Captain gently. Jack brought his hands up, rubbing them a few times against the Doctor's back. The Time Lord nestled his face deeper into his Captain's chest and closed his eyes, breathing in and out steadily, listening to Jack's heart, his breathing.
They dreamed of skies and starlight.
Author:
eloriekamChallenge: Amnesty 2012: Law.
Pairing: Ten/Jack
Rating: Teen/PG-13
Warnings/Spoilers: A few references to '42' and the S3 end arc; Doctor whump
Disclaimer: Not mine, and I'm just taking them for a spin, and will return them,
Word Count: ~8,500
Summary: Everyone was on the wrong side of the law this time because they couldn't let something stand. Vigilantes meet vigilantes for vengeance.
Author's Notes: So the 'law' challenge bit me twice. Written from the 'Law' challenge during Amnesty 2012 for
wintercompanion. Set after Last of the Time Lords and before Partners in Crime. Doctor whump in the first chapter and angst; hurt/comfort is hopefully here in the second chapter. I'm not entirely happy with either part of this, but I also don't want to sit on it for an entire year; all mistakes are mine and I may edit before posting elsewhere after the challenge. fogsblue and I were virtually squishing each other during the writing of most of this story! Wrote both parts from Dec. 26 to Dec. 30 so I was only able to proof it once.His crying turned into gasping sobs after a couple of minutes, and Jack stood, reaching for the railing and realizing they hadn't even come fully up the ramp. He needed to dematerialize the TARDIS, get the Doctor at least some basic medical scans and care, and get remnants of the shackles off him... both of them. Not necessarily in that exact order. Jack looked around the room, staring at the high arched ceiling before stumbling to the console and staring at the controls. Some lights flashed and something else dinged near a few bits, and he gripped her edge hard as he reached for them. The handbrake crunched down on the chain linking his hands, and he stroked it gently.
It was a beautiful sound.
Jack staggered back to the Doctor and dropped to his knees by him, brushing his hair back from his forehead. He could see and feel the Time Lord's blood pulsing through his veins, heard the strained breathing. He closed his eyes for a moment, grasping at rationality as the flood of sequential thoughts from the escape, attack, flee receded, then carefully slipped his hands under the Doctor and lifted him, trying not to jostle him and wincing at how his head hung limply back, fully exposing his bruised throat and reopening some of the half-healed and just-clotted cuts. Blood from wounds on the Doctor's side, fresh and reopened, trickled between them and seemed to cling to Jack's clothes. He followed the light of an opened door into a medical bay with relief, even knowing that he wasn't sure how much he'd have to do himself. The scan activated as soon as he placed the Doctor on a bed, showing one heart beating as he'd suspected, the Doctor unconscious, in shock, sleep-deprived and in need of fluids and injured all sorts of ways.
One readout scrambled for a moment, then resolved into English, and a nearby cabinet opened with a soft snick. Jack pulled out the first thing and stared at it blankly for a moment before realizing it was a cutter. He hesitated, then shifted it to one hand and pointed it at the restraint on the other. Better for him to... ah, ow. He grimaced, then repeated the process and moved swiftly back to the Doctor's bed. With a little more control this time, he opened up the wrist and ankle shackles and then flung them away. He tried to ignore the fact that the Doctor had cut himself down to the bone on all four limbs, and grabbed some gauze he knew was laced with antiseptics, wrapping it carefully around each one. The alternate readout informed him the TARDIS was taking the local air mixture up to a high percentage of oxygen, but she couldn't exchange instantaneously. He nodded, and cast about for a place to set up a drip into the Doctor, hoping the lack of reminders from the readouts meant that doing so wasn't costing the Doctor crucial minutes. There was confirmation of this, of a sort, when he got out a tissue regenerator: the readouts began flashing mauve. He put it back, and may have screamed at the TARDIS in several languages before wrapping more of the gauze around the Doctor's neck and going to the cabinet again, still trying to watch the single pulse on the scan.
He knit broken ribs next, muttering again at the TARDIS, who flashed up a deeper scan showing rib fragments in one lung, and dangerously close to the other and one heart; the ship removed most of the pieces herself, groaning deeply. Jack didn't ask where they went, just went back to get out the next thing he'd need. He attached another drip bag full of nutrients and anti-inflammatories and other anti-things and scraped away flesh seared by the shot the Doctor had received to the thigh, then packed it in pro-something or other. His world was only the readouts, the bed, and the supply cabinet the TARDIS kept rearranging. He licked his lips, braced himself against a counter for a moment, then kept going.
Jack rearranged the Doctor's limbs, propping some up, retrieving cold packs for his swollen hands. He painted salve on the whip marks marring his legs, jumping with the first few as they opened back up a little, oozing blood and occasionally pus. The Doctor turned his head a little, tried to clench his fists, then seemed to relax again. The Captain let out a breath and kept going. He was on the Doctor's chest before his lover stirred again, carefully drawing the odd mixture along gashes and trying to avoid burn marks and bruises. The Time Lord twitched, flinched, tried to squirm on the bed, and the TARDIS took the lights down.
"Ah." He smacked his lips together a few times, grimacing, panting, breath still too strained, eyes open and flickering around. "Re-regen... ah, no, oh... no, not... pl-plea... Mar... Mar... I..." Jack leaned over and brushed his hair with one hand again, for lack of anywhere else he dared have contact with the Doctor, wondering where the Doctor was thinking of and his gut clenching at the mention of regeneration. His Doctor, always, ancient, wise, childlike, but he wanted to have time to know this body, its soft spots and reflexes and what made his head tip back and his mouth open as his eyes fell shut.
"Doctor," Jack said softly, keeping up the steady stroking. "It's... it'll be all right. We're safe. We're all safe, on the TARDIS. Nothing more will happen to you. It's all right, Doctor, I promise." He leaned over and kissed the Doctor's hair, then squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment, tears dripping away to dampen the lank brown strands beneath him. Finally, he sat up, and kept repeating that they were all right now, they were safe, everything would be fine. The Doctor's eyes closed again, and the lights brightened.
Every monitor flashed mauve a moment before the single pulse on the monitor staggered. It slowed, then beat steadily a few more times, then skipped three beats. Jack jumped away, listening to the air hiss as the TARDIS upped the rate of exchange, wincing a little as the air pressure increased. He grabbed the emergency kit stowed under the bed as a pulse went across, then another, but most of the kit wouldn't budge. "No, no, no, nononono..." He tugged frantically, then looked to the other monitor, frowned at the image, then opened his mouth a little as he figured it out.
It definitely wasn't a way he'd ever imagined massaging the Doctor, he thought to himself several minutes later, letting his sore arms fall to his sides and watching the slower, but steady beat with relief and satisfaction. He'd reopened cuts, aggravated bruises and the awful splotch of a burn left by electric shock, but... he was still alive, Jack's beloved, loved, so much more. Slowly, Jack staggered toward the cabinet, cleaning his hands on the way, and resumed his work: salve for the cuts, rolling the Doctor onto his side to address the back, the TARDIS sliding some of those soft cushions at him, then something that smelled truly terrible coated thickly over his burns.... not just burns, he'd seen those symbols before, for the most part not quite as fresh, some old and puckered, a couple of them rotten and oozing. Another pair of tears dropped, and slid down the Doctor's arm. He unwound the first rough bandages, fingers gentle, sneaking in a swift caress of skin wherever he could, then rearranged the Doctor's arms again, trying to put his injured shoulders in a position to heal muscles and tendons and ligaments, thinking the hands looked a little less swollen already. Jack kissed some of the Doctor's fingertips, then leaned against the bed.
A third monitor flashed with an image of running water, then a plate of toast. He eyed the other two readouts warily, but one just showed him an image of tea, then a large comfortable bed. Still, he hovered for another long moment before staggering away from the Doctor's bed. No sleep, and certainly not away from the Doctor even if he did get tired, but he could eat a little, clean up, see if he could find something to help the aching in his muscles.
He didn't want to feel better... he just needed it, for his Time Lord.
The Doctor moved a bandage-swathed arm, and Jack jerked awake from his nap on the floor, sitting up against a cabinet. He stood, cautiously, and eyed the readouts, noticing the TARDIS had dimmed the lights again.
"Go back to sleep," he whispered from several feet away, looking at his Time Lord, who was covered almost entirely in bandages from neck to toes. "Shh, stay asleep, keep healing." He tensed, leaning toward the Doctor a little, face pained, thinking of the first time the Doctor had really woken up. He'd eagerly cradled the other's face as his eyelids fluttered, rejoicing when they surveyed the ceiling and then turned to him. He'd smiled, and stroked the Doctor's face with one thumb. The Doctor had recoiled, panting, then coughing, responding to Jack's additional attempts to soothe him with his touch by jerking away again, and falling off the bed, landing awkwardly and crying out in pain, then sobbing as he crawled away from Jack, panic and fear and Time Lord reaction in every line of his face, eyes drowning in it.
Jack had tried to follow, at first, but the Doctor wedged himself into a corner, curled up as he tried to protect his more injured leg, cradling his arms in front of him, eyes wide and panicky and terrified as he kept trying to push himself away with his other foot, frantically scrabbling, whispering "no no no" all the while. It had taken Jack and the TARDIS at least half an hour to get him unconscious and back on the bed again before he retreated to the hallway and let the tears run. He should have remembered. In the cell, the Doctor hadn't recognized him either, blinded and deafened, or he had recognized him, but just that he was a fixed point in time for his Doctor's senses to rebel against and run from.
He rubbed his face, then watched the Doctor again. He wanted to hold him, cup his face, kiss him firmly everywhere unmarked and feather his lips and tongue against all the other spots, wrap his arms firmly around the slender frame and protect him from anything and everything, sleep next to him to hug and spoon during the nightmares....but he didn't dare, held in place by fear of terror.
Fists clenched with held breath as the Doctor's eyes opened. The lights came up a little, and Jack looked to the ceiling, then readouts where the TARDIS occasionally tried to explain things to him, but no clues were offered. He hoped increased light was a good sign.
"Feels same," the Doctor muttered, then tried to turn. "Oh, ow.... what?" He flailed anxiously for a moment, fingers scraping at the bandaging, then laid back. "Hi, old girl," he whispered. He winced as he turned his head to face Jack, who had to force himself to not run away for fear of a repeat of earlier and just stand there, a mixture of fear and worry and love and patience and concern on his face and in his posture. The Doctor looked at him and tensed, then blinked slowly and kept looking, eyes moving up and down. "Jack?" he finally said softly. "I, oh," and Gallifreyan syllables tumbled roughly out of him for a few moments. "Ow. Jack?"
"I'm here," Jack reassured him, but didn't move.
"You're there." He took another breath. "Oh, Jack, so glad to see you, please, please..." He slowly lifted one arm and gestured clumsily. Jack hesitated, then moved slowly toward him, focusing on keeping his hands at his sides. He reached the Doctor's bed, and looked down, trying to smile. "Jack... I'm all right, really. Don't," his voice broke, "don't leave me alone."
"I'm here," Jack repeated. The Doctor looked up at him. "You're not all right, you weren't, one heart beating and you were terrified of me when you woke up before..." he trailed off, choking down tears, knowing they'd come through in his voice.
"Jack, I could never..." he whispered. Jack looked at him, eyes shining with the memory of coaxing his heart to keep beating, hours bent over his abused body working on the damage, and hesitantly reached out one hand to the Doctor's bandaged one. He touched it, lightly, and started to wrap his fingers around the Doctor's. Sudden panic rose on the Doctor's face, and he jerked back hard, scooting and scrabbling and scrambling for the opposite edge of the bed, face going even whiter. "No, no, not again, no...." Soft siding snapped up from the opposite edge, catching him, and Jack stepped back, looking at the ground, and listened to the whimpers and grunts as the Doctor calmed enough to rearrange himself on the bed, lying on the proper pillows again.
"You asked for Martha, before," Jack offered, trying to control his voice, keep every bit of pain out of it and clamp it down and forget that part of his heart. "Maybe that would be better, for her to take care of you."
"No," the Doctor objected. "She doesn't... I can't do... no, Jack. I can't, she can't..." He tried to sit up a little, then laid back down, breathing hard.
"You can't stand my touch, Doctor," the Captain replied, flicking one glance up at him before returning his gaze to the floor. "I can't look after you."
"They, they... when we were... blinded and deafened, Jack, and shackled to some floor like an animal about to be slaughtered, all I had was touch and time and...." he stopped, weeping.
"I know, I--" Jack stopped, leaned harder against the cabinet he'd backed himself up to, and rubbed one hand across his face as he looked to the Doctor's bed. "The touch was on your knee."
"Yes, little place that didn't hurt, but that made it like fire, fixed, immovable, lancing through, thrashing to run, couldn't shouldn't exist..." Jack lowered his head again and waited for the broken words and weeping across from him to stop, the Doctor's breath to calm a little.
"That was me. I... I wanted you to know I was there, Doctor, that it was just a little... oh, just a little bit safe, not that I could protect you, but that I would try, try with everything..." he cut himself off on a harsh sob of his own, and turned, bracing his elbows on the counter and letting his body be heaved and wracked with what he'd felt locked and shackled in that cell. He wanted the Doctor to say something to him, almost anything, but there was silence except for his own tears. When he calmed and turned back, blowing his nose, the Doctor had his face turned partway toward him, dark eyes unreadable except for the pain and memory of pain. "I really am still wrong to you, Doctor. An impossible thing. You've said you could hardly look at me. I... what do you have to do to yourself, this you is so tactile, how can you stand to touch me? You can't, unless you really concentrate, can you?"
The Doctor blinked, and looked to the other side of the room. His fingers wiggled in the bandages, and then he took several deep breaths and closed his eyes. Jack stood there a moment longer, tears tracking down his face again, hands clenched into fists, then left.
Jack entered the medical bay two days later, watching the readouts and the Doctor's bed cautiously. Still just one heart beating, but it had been steady for the last day, and a bit faster. The TARDIS had reduced the oxygen levels again, bringing them closer to normal. The Doctor was sitting up partway with a light blanket pulled up to his chest, arms folded oddly to help some of the muscles in his shoulders come back together properly; his eyes were closed, but Jack could see the change in his breathing, a little bit of tension in his still-pale face.
As he had each time he'd removed the Doctor's swathing of bandages and cared for the remaining wounds and rearranged him to help other injuries heal before wrapping him up again, Jack reached for a vial of sedative, identical to the one he'd found the first time he'd come back in. The Doctor couldn't stand the touch, awake; wouldn't let them go find someone else to help. When he came over to the bed, the Doctor's eyes were open, and he was staring at the ceiling. Jack reached for him automatically, to caress his hair, and stopped, sucked in a breath, then dropped his hand back to his side. He reached over carefully with the other hand, ready to deploy the sedative, send the Doctor into blissful sleep he still needed so badly, knowing little of the time he spent in here with his eyes closed involved real rest.
"Don't." The Time Lord's voice broke the silence, tapped it, sent their not-quite-truce spilling to the ground. Jack stared at him, incredulous. "I'm... I can take it, Jack, I don't want to be asleep for this. I don't."
"You can take it?" the Captain repeated. "You can take it? You took being beaten, whipped, chained, oh, almost strangled, whipped, electrocuted, dragged and kicked and bound like an animal, burned, blindfolded and deafened and gagged, held in positions that tore your shoulders worse than anything I've ever seen, struggled so hard you cut yourself to the bone and maybe some of that is my fault, but you think you can take it when my hands are on you, applying salves and bandages, trying to help you heal?!" He sucked in a breath and shut his mouth firmly. He didn't know where all that had come from, and he shouldn't have said it, shouldn't have brought any of it up, not yet, but the words were out there and being in a time machine wouldn't take them back.
The Doctor stared steadily at the ceiling, blinking rapidly. Jack didn't dare move. "Not here," the Doctor finally said in a whisper.
"Pardon?" Jack inquired when the Doctor didn't elaborate.
"I don't want to wake up in here again, Jack." He drew a long breath and twisted his head restlessly from side to side. "I... don't."
"You don't want to be unconscious and then you don't want to come awake in here... which is it, Doctor?" He kept his voice gentle, tried to push the caresses he still wanted to give the Doctor through in his voice.
The Doctor's face twisted and he looked away for a moment, blinking hard again. "Let me touch you?" he whispered, turning his face to Jack, finally making eye contact. "Oh, Jack, just one touch before sleep, please." He had the look that was almost impossible to resist: begging, lonely, hurt, loving. Jack hesitated, then stepped closer. The Doctor winced a little as he moved his arm toward Jack, and clasped his forearm in one hand. He paused, swallowed, took a breath, then slid his hand down.
"Don't hurt yourself," the Captain whispered, his voice shaking. "My Doctor... don't make that pain worse."
"Readjusting," the Time Lord said, clasping Jack's hand in his as they both trembled. "I love the impossible, Jack, you know that."
"That makes two of us," Jack returned, smiling faintly for the first time in much too long.
"Okay," the Doctor said a moment later. "Oooh." He let go of Jack's hand and moved his arm back. The Captain made another abortive gesture toward stroking his hair.
"You all right from that?" he asked instead. The other nodded, a little hesitantly.
"Move me home when you're done?" he requested, turning that look on his lover again.
"Only if the TARDIS agrees," Jack said after a brief hesitation. "I'm not arguing with your ship again."
"Me neither," the Doctor muttered as the sedative was injected. The Captain paused, cocked an eyebrow at the readouts the TARDIS had used before and then at the ceiling, and made a note to himself to ask the Doctor about that sometime when they weren't both traumatized and shuddering and uncertain of even each other, before finally brushing a hand through the Doctor's hair and starting to remove the bandages.
He was limp in warm arms. Limp and unseeing, feeling bound but without the dreadful weight and pulling, arms carefully laid on his stomach and chest rather than being yanked or hanging, face fully open to air, mouth comfortably slack. The immediate motion stopped, and adjusted him, his head now tipping against a strong shoulder. The TARDIS hummed at him about thieves and paradoxes and fixed points and paying a little more attention, and he silently leaned against her, feeling the Vortex again. He could feel timelines, Time, drawn around the arms carrying him, the shoulder and torso he rested against, a painful familiar swirling. Yes, the universe, maybe even the multiverse, was quite interested in this entity, and had increased its interest several times fairly recently. He stuck his tongue out, just a little bit, and then drew in a breath.
Memory reared up in front of him and he was being stroked gently everywhere in succession and the wrong pressed at uninjured skin as he lay on the floor helpless waiting for more pain and he watched and felt someone run toward him and they gripped hands for one of the most desperate jumps of all...
Jack. Jack Harkness. Impossible Jack.
He opened his eyes, slowly, and looked up, his dear one's sometimes cheerfully dimpled face very close and now grim. Oh Jack. Jack, I am so sorry...
"Jack," he whispered. The other jumped, but kept moving.
"Oh, God, I'm sorry, Doctor, I didn't think you would wake up yet, we're almost there, then I can set you down," the Captain babbled, panicky, voice strained.
The Doctor tried to relax more against Jack, and another memory rose. "You carried me, before."
"I've carried you lots of times, Doc, never like this, trust me. Don't panic, we're almost there."
"That was you," the Doctor tried again. "Death, then more death, anger smelled more than I did, then I was being carried by something or someone in which the Universe had recently taken a very personal interest. My leg hurt, other things hurt, oh, they hurt, but that someone wanted to protect me, get me out of there, you had to let me fall a few times and there was more death, then TARDIS said hello...." He trailed off, exhausted, and tucked his face against Jack's shoulder, closing his eyes again.
"That was me," Jack agreed. "Almost there." Tears tracked down his face and dripped into the Doctor's hair, his folded-up arms. He burrowed his face harder into Jack in response. A door opened, and Jack's gait slowed, changed, then went back to normal again. He was lowered gently, oh so gently, onto a large bed with comfortable pillows, and blankets were drawn over him. He opened his eyes and looked up, watching the worried blue eyes as they watched the Captain's own hands fuss at the blankets for a moment before withdrawing. Jack looked at him, and his face morphed into an odd frown and smile. "Sleep, Doctor."
"I just woke up."
"You've hardly been sleeping," he pleaded. "I don't know when your other heart is going to start, and you need to rest. Please."
"They wouldn't let me," the Doctor said abruptly. He tried to pull back one of the blankets. "Hot. Please. Jack, wouldn't..." he stopped, squeezed his eyes shut, then looked at the ceiling. Jack slowly peeled back one blanket.
"They wouldn't let you?" he repeated softly, remembering the Doctor plead that he needed sleep, the first time they brought him back, all bruised but before they muffled his head.
"Meditated to help hold myself up," the Doctor muttered. "But I was tired, Jack, and you'd fallen asleep twice, and it didn't seem like so much, later, but then my shoulders hurt..."
"I... I know, I'm sorry," Jack whispered, reaching out hesitantly to stroke the Doctor's hair. The Doctor neither moved away nor tensed nor turned into it as he usually did, and Jack withdrew his hands, clasping them awkwardly.
He almost left before the Doctor spoke again. "It was hot, and bright, and much too small. I couldn't get away from the light. They wouldn't let me sleep. Too small to turn, even. And sometimes it'd be just a few seconds, other times ten, fifteen minutes, I couldn't concentrate enough..." His voice never changed, but his slender limbs twitched under the blanket. He could still feel the all-encompassing heat pressing against him, the ruthless light... it reminded him of that sun, back with Martha, the living sun, beautiful and angry. But when he relaxed, he kept waiting for the shock again, the jolt, and sometimes the low chuckle he could hear outside the cage.
"Oh, Doctor, Doctor, I am..." Jack paused, apparently running out of words. He covered his face with his hands.
"Still, I'm here, we're here," the Time Lord declared, abruptly shifting his facade. "I'll try to sleep, Jack."
"Promise me?"
"I'll try."
"I'll, um, I'll wait," Jack said, and fled. The lights lowered, and cool air brushed across the Doctor. He closed his eyes and went limp, mind drifting. Eventually, he found himself reviewing the movement of Venusian aikado, then the odd gestures of the Gofs' self-defense, and the hybrid motion of the Cheetah People.
Though he was a little more refreshed, mentally, when Jack came in several hours later with some food, he still had not slept.
"Thirty-four days," the Doctor said a couple of days later, flexing his hand as Jack removed the last of the bandages on his leg and torso. "Ow. That bit stuck, Jack."
"Sorry," Jack said, putting more goo on the spot. "I'll leave it open to the air again, this time." He propped up the Doctor's leg again, fussing around the Doctor's arms. The Doctor could tell, by the way Jack's eyes went to his face, that he was still too pale. Pale and uncomfortable, to be honest; his still heart had tried beating a few times, but the pain was worse than it was when it didn't beat. He could tell when his words registered: the Captain stopped moving, making a sudden move to withdraw his hands, then forced himself to sit still.
"Thirty-four days?" he repeated.
"Earth standard in the 21st century, yes." He shifted a little against the pillows propping him up.
"That we were there," Jack clarified.
"Yeah."
Jack's lips moved for a moment before he handed the Doctor a cup of water, supporting it in case the Time Lord's grip failed.
"A month," he said when he had set the glass down again.
"Basically, well, yeah."
His lover closed his strong hands briefly over his slender limp ones before stepping back. "I need a walk. And then a shower."
The Doctor sat up a little, watching the retreating back, covered with cloth that hid unmarred skin. "Jack!"
Later, he slept for twenty minutes before jerking awake and panting with a confused stare into the cool dimness.
"Mind if I join you?" Jack asked as he came in with a tray of food and some tea, some time later. The Doctor looked up from his book, where he'd been doing some light reading on the Eternals and theories of cross-universal travel, the volume braced against his good leg, and shook his head wordlessly.
"Mmm," he said when Jack set the tray down, then sat up a little, surveying it more closely. "Jack, have we landed?"
"What? No, we're still in the Vortex. Why?"
"There are two things on this tray that I know for a fact we've run out of some time ago," he objected, smiling crookedly after with the realization that he sounded almost normal, not the tortured, battered creature Jack had carried into the TARDIS twelve days ago. His Captain looked at him sharply, then smiled, almost a leer, and that had been rare around the TARDIS recently as well.
"The TARDIS likes me now. And, I've found that if you say 'hello' to your food storage in just the right way, they give up the most interesting things." He waggled his eyebrows, wondering if the Doctor would take the old bait.
"Jaaaaack."
"I'm just saying hello!"
"Well, your hello is..."
"Very enjoyable for everyone and anyone involved." Jack waggled his eyebrows and then aimed a fork and spoon at some of the dishes on the tray. "Do you want me to feed you, or can you manage?"
"If it's one-handed. And, uh, uh, not too hot."
Jack shot him a mournful look. "I remember."
"Right. Sorry." The Doctor set his book down and rubbed his forehead with one hand.
"Don't apologize, Doctor, please." Jack arranged a plate and bowl for him, then poured some tea and set it aside for later. He ate a little hesitantly, avoiding things still hot, shifting uneasily when too much heat penetrated the blanket. Jack rescued the bowl once without comment, shooting him a worried look.
"Mmm," he said a little while later after a sip of tea. "Thank you, Jack. That was delicious." He leaned his head back, then rolled it to one side, watching his Captain.
"There's more," Jack noted as he reached for his own cup of tea.
"I'm full. Very full, if I'm honest." It was true. His stomach felt a little stretched, not quite unbearably full to bursting, but hovering at the warning point that advised him not to put anything more down there for a while. It was also comfortably warm, with a sensation he hadn't felt in some time, and the warmth didn't trouble him: it was gentle, not far above his own body temperature, and spoke of love and sharing, Jack's careful preparation of the different dishes. He reached out, clasped one of Jack's hands with one of his own, and gave him a slight smile. Jack squeezed his hand in return, very lightly, still afraid of hurting him. He focused on relaxing, continuing to hold hands, sitting there and feeling Time and change and immovable points, accepting it wouldn't burn him.
"I should take these back," the Captain said after a while, looking at the dishes. The Doctor blinked and looked at him, realizing his eyes had been drifting shut.
"Come back?" he requested, letting Jack's hand slip from his. The Captain looked at him, briefly made a motion toward him as if to kiss him, then stopped. "Stay while I try to sleep?"
"I'll come back," Jack promised, pressing one hand to his chest, above where his heart beat. He returned swiftly, holding a small covered bowl in his hands. The Doctor raised one eyebrow at him. "She closed the door until I'd bring it with me."
"Oh?" The Doctor sniffed cautiously at it. "Ah. Well, I'll have a little bit of it." He tipped the bowl slightly, swallowed, and reached to put it on a side table. Jack took the bowl, smelled it himself, then set it down. "Sleeping aid," the Time Lord said briefly. "Not a sedative, though. She's hoping for real, honest, natural sleep this time. Help me lie down?"
Jack gently slid an arm under his shoulders and lifted. The Doctor winced at the pressure against wounds still healing, but let his head rest against the nook of his lover's shoulder as he reached with the other arm to move pillows and then slide his whole body down the bed. He relaxed more as Jack rearranged his legs, feeling his brain slow down, pleasantly buzzing with a soothing cocktail. A comfortable pillow was tugged under his head, then a broad familiar hand stroked his hair, moving the floppy strands back from his forehead. He kissed the hand, murmured "fixed, promises, so much more" in a language only he knew, now, and let himself drift off as the weight settled familiarly next to him.
He spiraled in dreams. Exploring Jack's mouth with a long flexible tongue, the Captain's fingers stroking and pressing his nipples, sitting naked as they fed each other chocolate sauce. Lifting the wounded, running, walking in a market, across from each other at dinner, hands reaching to twine with the other's.
His sonic buzzed as flames and shrapnel erupted nearby. One alive, the other not. He reached out to cradle the first one in sure arms, then saw the imprint on the upper arm, opposite side of the torso.
His flesh was cut. He could feel the movement of feet, tried not to struggle from where he was strapped against a curved frame, arms twisted up and behind, unseeing, unhearing. Another lash.
Heat had a smell. He squirmed, trying to move away, but it sank down, searing. He was trapped, again, locked and shackled and caged, hardly room to struggle. Warmth, heat, surrounded him, stifling, the air filled with hot metal shapes, stalking him, waiting to scar and batter him.
"He'll make such a good standard," a voice penetrated the drowning closeness where he again sweated in permanent light. "Don't touch his face again, you fool. We hired you for this. We're not going to tolerate mistakes in our work." A grumbling assent. He tried to twist, could smell the liquid about to come in, but it was warm, hot, too hot, the cage squeezing him...
He came awake, trying to thrash, couldn't force his way past strong arms, couldn't get away from the heat covering him, what were they doing now, he couldn't...
Time's song gently hummed and chimed in his head as the arms moved.
"Doctor? What is it, what's wrong?" He couldn't move his arms enough, couldn't get leverage, it was dim but hot, much too hot...
"Noooo," he groaned, trying to stifle sobs. "Don't, oh don't, not in there again, please.... dying trapped, no..."
"Shh-shhh," a voice whispered, oddly familiar and soft, with a strikingly soft caress of his damp forehead and hair. He thought he heard a gasp, then some of the stifling warmth went away just before he was lifted up, cradled in those familiar arms, warm and full of Time, so much Time, too much. He groaned, and twisted away a little, squeezing his eyes shut as they went into another room. The arms left him carefully on something hard and cool, and a rushing noise filled his ears. He groaned again and tried to curl up, his leg spasming in response, jabbing agony up to his abdomen and down to his foot. He wrapped one arm over his head, sobbing and whimpering.
Factual arms cupped him, laid him against a broad chest as his top was undone and peeled away, then laid him back along shoulder and ribs as his pyjama bottoms were carefully pushed off, the coolness welcoming for a moment. He was picked up again, and he pushed, but it hurt his shoulders, suspended and twisted. He kicked out and around with his good leg, and thought he heard a grunt above him. The arms shifted him a little, and he tensed, then tried to go limp, accept the hard throw and the impact. The rushing noise was closer, then his feet met moving coolness. He was held there for a moment, eyes still shut and tears tracking down his face, then his calves and buttocks and thighs and torso met the coolness as well, until it surrounded him up to his neck, welcoming, accepting, soothing. His leg twinged again, but he was floating away from the agonizing heat, unbearable warmth, one hand somewhere anchoring him, rapidly cooling. It ran through his hair and dripped away, then across his face, a heavenly caress. He sank into it. The bracing hand moved a few times, then changed angle, and a warm body came into his peaceful pool. Coolness draped his face and hair again, and he turned into it, conceding the invasion was acceptable if he could continue floating in the slight chill, submerging. It hit his tongue, and he realized it was water. Cool water, to him. Colder to the warm memorable body supporting him as he hung limply.
He opened his eyes and looked up, licking his lips. Coral lay above him, and he felt the water bouncing off the sides, a little ways from him. Loving arms cradled him again, letting his head submerge partway in the water. It felt glorious against his hair and scalp, and he murmured under his breath, eyes closing again briefly. "Jack," he whispered, opening them again and finding the knotted spiral of Time watching him, physical body clenching against the cold water, but deep inner heart waiting, warming, always there.
Always. Forever. So much more.
"Hi," Jack responded, running cool fingers through the Doctor's hair again. "Do you know where you are?"
"TARDIS. Tub. With you." He tried to smile on the last. Jack stroked his cheek, other hand still holding him up. "Thermo..." he started. "Thermoregulation. It's off, now. Only one heart."
"Yeah." Jack kept running his fingers along him, carefully, not too hard. It felt nice. They watched each other's faces, Jack carefully not lowering his gaze below the Doctor's chin.
"Can feel them," he said finally, several minutes later, and Jack flinched, but kept caressing him. "I have to admit that the leg is pretty comfortable right now."
"That's my fault," Jack whispered, voice agonized, and leaned forward a little as if to kiss him, but arrested the motion. The water sloshed a little, disturbed.
"We both stopped them," he answered, firmly meeting Jack's eyes. The Captain eventually looked down and sniffled a little. "Jack..."
"I didn't eat fast enough. You, you, I didn't think they'd fed you at all, I couldn't keep eating...."
"Ah." He swallowed, then pursed his lips. "You got us out of there, Jack. I'd be dead, otherwise, locked up and dead..."
The caressing fingers stopped. Above him, Jack squeezed his eyes shut. "Doctor..."
"Jack, I can feel the spots on my chest and oh, everywhere, the metal seared. I hope they'll go away, sometime, but they might not. Parts of my back are still tender. My shoulders are always jolting and jabbing and spasming. But you got me out of there. Thank you."
"After a month."
"Human time sense."
"I should have tried harder from the start."
"Jack. Stop it, please." He smiled faintly. "Make a lap, instead?"
Jack didn't move for a long moment, staring at nothing. "Before," he said finally. "You've said... there was a place you were hot, and trapped, and it was too bright, and they wouldn't let you sleep."
He tensed in the water, away from Jack's supporting hand, and tried to relax again. "Yep."
"Trapped and dying in there?" Jack asked, voice shaking a little.
The Time Lord turned his head away from Jack and squeezed his eyes shut. "No..." Jack didn't respond, just let them sit and drift in the cool water. "They were going to put me back in there to die," the Doctor said finally, feeling himself tremble. "Because... their slaver friends had died by my hand, some locked in their own cages. So they were going to do the same to me." He felt Jack freeze up completely, one hand spasming slightly, almost letting him slip down in the water.
"That was me," the Captain said at last. His voice was an absolute monotone. "I did that. I locked them up and started setting off explosions."
"I know." He let his head hang back in the water again, letting the motion of hair in water and the water itself massage his scalp.
"Aren't you angry?"
"You trapped them. I didn't know you trapped them." He stared at the ceiling, relishing its distance, the slight air circulation against his face.
He felt Jack draw a huge breath, then another. "I found four cages full of children. Little children. They were... were, to each other, to the sides. And one of them saw me looking, saw the look on my face, saw the tears, and laughed before he got out his weapon to shoot me." He paused, waiting, then said, "Doctor..."
What was there to say?
"Doctor," Jack prompted again. "Please." A pause. "Are you angry with me?"
Young children, so curious, so... oh, children, unable to understand their shackles or the brands that would have descended on their skin. He moved, aware the water had pleasantly dulled most of his pain, and gripped Jack's arm, leveraging with it, leaning forward. He rested his forehead on Jack's smooth chest, felt the single heartbeat compete with his, sensed Jack move one arm to keep holding him, and started crying. Raw, angry, devastated tears, fully unchecked, blocking up his nose as he shuddered, thin chest heaving, letting loose gasping, wracking sobs. He slung one arm around Jack's shoulders, and felt his Captain, his forever, bring his other arm around to wrap him in a firm hug. He didn't rub the Doctor's back, just clasped the Time Lord to him and lowered his head to bury his face in the Doctor's hair.
A long while later, he drew a shaky breath and lifted his head, letting his hand slide away from Jack's shoulder. Jack looked at him and touched one cheek gently, smiling cautiously. He gave a wobbly smile back, and almost started crying again.
"Hey," Jack said gently. "You're definitely allowed." He ran his fingers along the Doctor's ear and down his neck, ghosting over a remaining mark. "Could we get out, though? You might be wrinkle-proof, but even 51st century humans aren't...."
He laughed on a short sob. "Yeah. Still need some help, though." Keeping hold of him, Jack backed up, reaching for a washcloth on the side, and let some lukewarm water soak it before bringing it toward him. He reached for it with one hand, but Jack simply raised an inquiring eyebrow and let it brush against his jaw; he tilted his face up and closed his eyes, letting his Captain run the wet cloth over it. The slightly rough material rubbed gently over his nose and cheeks, then dipped away before coming back to run across his forehead, touching lightly against his lowered eyelashes. Finally the Captain's thumb rubbed against his cheek again, and he opened his eyes.
"Easy," the Captain said, maneuvering himself out of the tub and reaching for the Doctor. "Relax, I've got you, nothing is going to happen to you..." His face dipped to the Doctor's hair as he cradled the Time Lord before wrapping them both in towels, gently rubbing or patting to dry off the Doctor, who then sat there with his hair sticking up everywhere, watching Jack dry himself off. The Captain paused while he was working on his thighs to flex his leg muscles and shoot the Doctor a cheeky grin, eyes dancing.
"Jaaaaack," the Doctor complained. But his eyes darted to Jack's inner thighs and upward, and his tongue swiped briefly across his lips as he smirked.
"I saw that," Jack said, pointing a mock-accusing finger at him as he rubbed the towel across his bottom, smiling a little himself.
"Well..." the Doctor trailed off and leaned back against the wall, half-closing his eyes.
"Do you want pyjamas on again?" the Captain asked when he'd finished drying himself off. The Doctor looked down at himself, bit his lip, and shook his head.
He shook his head again when Jack started to pick him up. The Captain leaned back in surprise, not sure if he should be offended, worried they'd somehow lost some ground in the last few minutes. "I want to see," he said, licking his lips again and looking up at Jack. "I... couldn't, lots of reasons, but Jack, hold me up for a few minutes, for this?"
He was scooped up and held close, as Jack searched for a long mirror. He found a set of three full ones, clearly set up to see the whole body at once, and the Doctor closed his eyes as Jack brought him into their view and lowered him gently, then braced him firmly with hands and arms.
"Oh, Jack," the Doctor sighed, upon opening his eyes. "I am so sorry you saw me like that."
"Don't apologize," Jack said, though his eyes were averted and the Doctor saw a tear track down his face. He faced the mirror again, seeing himself duplicated, propped up by Jack, poor loyal Jack... oh, he supposed one could say the revenge had been taken on him for Jack's actions, but none of the slavers had been inclined to mercy or chances offered. He let his eyes track slowly down his body from all angles, but broke the pattern and focused on his wrists and ankles, remembering Jack's broken words days ago in the medical bay.
"Oooh," he sighed, looking at the deep scars. "Might be stuck with some of that for a while." Jack gave him a brief, curious glance. "I'll work on it, once my other heart gets going, see if a healing coma will take care of it." He looked up at his neck again, then let his eyes trace down his slender body, one he had to admit was exceptionally thin at the moment, even for this him. A couple of other hims would have... well, he'd fit in their clothes twice over, at the moment, but didn't especially want to try. His thigh wound made him wince, but it was mostly soft tissue, just healing slow for lack of resources. He had to admit he hoped that was the case with the other marks he could see, and was almost glad he'd been blindfolded for most of the physical damage. "Well," he said at last. "Thank you for taking care of me, Jack." He closed his eyes again and sagged a bit, feeling Jack scoop him up, tucking his face against Jack's shoulder for the trip to their bedroom.
"Not too warm?" Jack asked after he pulled the blanket up over him. He shook his head and closed his eyes briefly, then looked up at Jack. He wasn't quite sure what he wanted, but here was Jack, sitting awkwardly next to him, hesitantly running one hand through his damp hair. "Are your shoulders stiff?"
He moved them a little. "They hurt a bit, yeah. Sorry." The TARDIS tsked at him, sending him an image of Jack carefully rearranging his arms. The Captain ran one hand along his face, then got up and searched a drawer. He sat back down, holding up a bottle and looking at the Doctor inquiringly.
"Can I do this for you?" he asked quietly, voice just above a whisper.
"Oh," the Doctor sighed, pressing against Jack's fact-ness, the universe's interest, and relaxing. He smiled. "Yes, please, Jack. I'd like that very much." The Captain tugged the covers back, then uncapped the bottle and poured the oil on his hands, then rubbed them together to get them well-covered. He placed his fingers against the Doctor's cheeks, and rubbed gently, then stroked down to his neck. Pressure increased, then gentled on the stroke. He breathed deeply, enjoying the loosening tension in his neck. Jack stroked his palms along the top of the Doctor's shoulders, lightening to a caress on his deltoids, then brought his hands back and repeated it, gently varying the pressure each time, sometimes sliding his fingers under the Doctor. After several repetitions, he ran his hands down the Doctor's arms, then up, working tight muscles with thumbs or a finger or sometimes a palm. The Doctor sighed. Jack put more oil on his hands, then returned, soothing arm and shoulders more. He glided to the Doctor's hands, and threaded their fingers together, then slowly pulled them apart. He sighed again as two fingers unkinked that he didn't even know had been stuck, and Jack's hands skimmed up along his arms again, then brushed across his chest.
The sensations were lovely, marvelous, fantastic. He closed his eyes lazily, feeling Jack's hands against his body, every press and stroke and light caress. The hands came up to his shoulders again, and they relaxed a little more. He sighed as Jack's warm slick fingers traced his jaw.
"I think that's enough for now," the Captain said, and he opened his eyes. "I don't want you getting any more sore," he added.
"Mmm," he responded, turning his head a little. The Captain hesitated as he leaned over the Doctor, then began to move back. He reached up with one relaxed, oil-slicked arm, and wrapped his fingers around the back of Jack's neck, encouraging his face closer. Bracing with his good leg, he sat up a bit, meeting Jack partway, and their lips met for the first time in weeks. Jack parted his, and the Doctor felt his teeth, his tongue, playfully meeting, then drew on Jack's lower lip with both his own. Too tired to stay up, he broke the kiss, laying back and rubbing Jack's cheek and jaw with his thumb as his arm slipped back down.
The Captain smiled. "Thank you."
"Oh, thank you," he smiled back. Jack slipped under the covers, and pulled them up over both of them. "Mmm," he sighed again. "That's perfect." The Captain lay next to him, their bodies a few inches apart, connected by Jack's caressing of his arm.
"You do want me with you?" Jack checked. He looked over and nodded, feeling himself smile freely.
"Oh yes."
"That's a relief," the Captain responded, almost joking, but the uncertainty came through in his eyes. He adjusted, relaxing his position more, closed his eyes, but didn't break contact with the Doctor.
"Oh, Jack. Where would I be without you?" The stroking on his arm slowed, and he realized Jack was falling asleep. His breath evened out, and the Doctor assessed himself, then slid his good leg toward Jack a little and pivoted onto his side, then his chest. The Captain's eyes popped open in surprise at the movement, which had placed the Doctor's chin squarely in his shoulder.
"Doctor...?"
The Doctor wriggled a bit, gave a soft 'oof', then wrapped one arm around to cup Jack's shoulder with his hand and rested his head on Jack's chest, above his heart. He sighed against Jack, contentedly, and squeezed the Captain gently. Jack brought his hands up, rubbing them a few times against the Doctor's back. The Time Lord nestled his face deeper into his Captain's chest and closed his eyes, breathing in and out steadily, listening to Jack's heart, his breathing.
They dreamed of skies and starlight.
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*dumps water on self, remembers what she's doing here*
Thank you, beachy! I was a bit surprised at the outbursts from Jack as I was writing, honestly, to the point where I was worried I'd written myself into a corner so far as finishing before the end of Amnesty was concerned. This might need a fluffy sequel, or a sequel where the roles are reversed, or a combination.
I'll try to write more whumpage--it comes easy once it gets going, it's just a question of pulling my muse away from whatever affair she's currently having elsewhere. ;-) And, my pile of plot kittens sometimes likes to torment and distract me when I'm working on another story!