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wintercompanion2008-04-29 12:32 am
sarkywoman.livejournal.com) wrote in wintercompanion2008-04-29 12:32 am
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sarkywoman: Overlords and Time Gods 2/5 (Jack/10) [NC-17]
Title: Overlords and Time Gods 2/5
Author:sarkywoman
Challenge: Power
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Last of the Time Lords'. AU after that.
Warnings: This is part two of a fic about 50 pages long in Word. It's quite dark, contains dubious-consent (drug-use), slightly dodgy use of slightly underage slaves. There's some blasphemy and worshipping of false idols too. Insanity. Character death.
Summary: The Doctor returns to Earth after a long absence to find power has corrupted a once-noble friend.
Part One
In the first few moments of consciousness, the Doctor couldn’t remember where he was. It was only when he sat up and got a good look at the large bedroom that his drowsy memory threw up the information. Jack’s bedroom in Jack’s palace on Jack’s Earth. The Doctor glanced under the warm blanket to see if the blurred sensations of last night had been some twisted dream, but his nudity told him otherwise. Jack had drugged him and taken advantage of him.
However, before he could dwell on that horror, the Doctor noticed he was not alone in the room. Over by the door, two young servants were kneeling in their skimpy clothing. One was a skinny male brunette, the other a curvy blonde girl. Both of them looked to be in their teens. Both were facing the floor.
“Hello?” The Doctor called them, wondering whether they were allowed to respond. They flinched at the sound of his voice.
“Good morning to you, our Lord,” they replied in unison without looking up.
“You can look at me, you know,” he said gently. The girl’s head immediately shot up and she stared at him with a look of innocent glee. The boy was more hesitant and raised his head only slightly, peering up through his eyelashes at the Doctor. Well, it was a start.
“So what are you two doing here? Jack ordered you to keep an eye on me?”
“We are to serve you, my Lord,” replied the boy.
“The Overlord cannot return until his business is dealt with,” the girl added. “We are to cater to your every whim, my Lord.”
They seemed more like slaves than servants. “Well that won’t be necessary, I can take care of myself. Thanks anyway, but you can go and do whatever it is you do with your spare time.”
The two looked at each other nervously. The boy found the confidence to speak first. “We are to accompany you in all places and assist you in all things, my Lord.”
“Well I’m sure Jack won’t mind if I send you on your merry way,” the Doctor argued. He wanted some time alone. He had a lot to think about. Besides which, who knew how much time these poor things had to themselves? They could use a break.
“The Overlord will kill us if we leave you, my Lord,” the girl replied, voice shaking.
The Doctor was once again taken aback by the brutality in Jack’s regime. “What?!? Are you sure? Did he explicitly say that?”
Both slaves nodded. “Yes, my Lord.”
“What, even if I send you away?”
“The Overlord said that if you have no use for us, then neither does he, my Lord. He will have us sacrificed.”
“Sacrificed?” The Doctor echoed, horrified. “Sacrificed to what God?”
They both looked up at him with confused expressions. Then, in tandem, they replied.
“To you, my Lord.”
*
The Doctor stormed down the halls of Jack’s glamorous palace. He didn’t take in any of the depressing and horrifying sights of human degradation along the way. He was going to stop this at its source, not be sidetracked by the symptoms of the disease. Behind him the boy and girl servants jogged to keep up with his long strides. Their names were Drakton and Reyma, apparently. They were both nineteen. They had been in Jack’s ‘service’ for five years.
They reached a large and imposing set of doors that stretched from the floor to the high ceiling. “This the one?” he asked Drakton.
The boy nodded, his brown eyes wide with fear. “Yes, but my Lord we really shouldn’t…”
The Doctor ignored the boy’s panic and shoved the heavy doors wide open, revealing a big room. There were two rows of circular seats surrounding a podium, giving the room an atmosphere of an official authority meeting place. Every seat was full with smartly-dressed men and women. At the podium stood…the Doctor could have guessed before now…Captain Jack Harkness, Overlord of Earth.
All eyes were fixed on the Oncoming Storm in the doorway. Jack just smiled. “And here he is, as I promised. Our Lord and God, the Doctor.”
There were murmurs and whispers and the sounds of movement as all attending officials dropped off of their chairs onto their knees. Jack raised an eyebrow as if to say ‘see? Isn’t it great?’ Then he too, dropped to one knee. Only one, though.
Then the Captain’s expression changed to a frown. “Drakton! Reyma! Do you not kneel before our Lord?”
The Doctor glimpsed sudden movement behind him as both servants dropped to their knees with such haste it must have hurt them. “That’s enough!” he yelled at Jack. “I don’t ask for anyone to kneel before me!”
“No, but I ask them to,” Jack said in response. “And my word is law.”
“Your word is wrong,” the Doctor said in a low voice. Although he had spoken quietly, his words echoed around the room and caused a gasp in everyone who heard them.
Jack rose to his feet. “I’m your messenger. I speak your word.”
“Violence and depravity aren’t words of mine,” replied the Doctor.
“I’m talking about the rightful rule of humanity!” Jack cried out. “Their inherent brilliance and innate excellence. You champion our race. That you would devote your glory to us…” Jack shrugged. “That must mean we’re superior.”
The Doctor was lost for words. Had he done this to Jack? The Captain had once said, before even being cursed with immortality, that he wished he had never met the Doctor. Back then the Doctor had never expected that he might one day reciprocate the notion. This was why Time Lords were forbidden to meddle. Everything he touched, he twisted and broke. Everyone he loved, he lost.
Jack walked over to him, through the rows of awed officials. The immortal took hold of his hand. “It isn’t all bad.”
“Isn’t it?” the Doctor asked with a hint of desperation in his voice.
“No. Let me take you somewhere. There’s something you ought to see.”
*
They sat in a small private shuttle, a soundproof panel between them and the driver. As soon as they began moving, Jack reached into a side compartment. “Hypervodka?” he offered as he poured one for himself.
“It’ll be a long time before I accept another drink from you,” the Doctor replied coldly.
“Suit yourself,” Jack said with a shrug before downing the glass of blue liquid.
They continued the journey in silence for a few minutes before the Doctor spoke up again. “They said you sacrificed people in my honour. Tell me they were lying. Tell me that’s not true.”
“It’s not as simple as that.”
The Doctor’s hearts sank. “Oh Jack… How could you? You must know I would never want people to die in my name.”
“I died for you,” Jack countered, and the Doctor could find no answer. The immortal shifted closer so there was no space between them on the comfortable seat. “I don’t just pick people off of the street and throw them into some blood-soaked ritual. It’s a subtle way of dealing with undesirable elements. Sacrifice is just another word for execution. Serious criminal offenders like serial killers are destroyed in your name because what they’ve done goes directly against what you stand for. They’re destroyed for crimes that you would find unforgivable. It was just legal practise that became kinda ritualised over the years. Now people glorify it.”
“I can understand your need to be rid of serial killers,” the Doctor said carefully, “though I might disagree with the method. But Drakton and Reyma said you would sacrifice them, merely because I had no use for them.”
Jack laughed. “It was a scare tactic. They’re young. I would never dream of getting rid of them, they’re so well-trained.”
“I should imagine so, what with them being called into your service aged fourteen,” the Doctor said angrily.
“Planetary age of consent. It’s been that way for over a thousand years. Sex is great, why make ‘em wait?” Jack nudged him with a chuckle. “That was the slogan we used for the campaign. We were theoretically a democracy at that point, but I was pulling all the strings even then. Just had to be more careful with the public image.”
“And now it doesn’t matter,” the Doctor observed. “Now you can live in decadence and depravity with your harem and your xenophobic policies and everyone’s too scared to argue.” The Jack he knew would never have stood for this. That man had been so open-minded and loving. The Doctor suspected centuries stuck on Earth fighting for the human race in the name of Torchwood had narrowed Jack’s mind.
“They’re not all scared,” Jack said. “They respect me. And I don’t know how many citizens you’ve spoken to, but most of them are proud of me. They have an undying champion, how many other races can claim that? Besides, I’m not just their ruler. I’m their prophet.”
“Prophet?” the Doctor repeated. That did not bode well.
“I’m your messenger,” Jack explained with a smile. “I brought them your word. And for that, they love me.”
“Jack, I’m not sure I’m hearing this right. You brought them my word? What word?”
The shuttle landed softly outside a glamorous building. It was one of the golden temples that the Doctor had spied earlier on his first journey to the palace. The glow of the planetary shielding shimmered on the temple’s surface. “Where are we?” the Doctor asked curiously.
“I wanted you to see the most beautiful product of my Empire. These temples are dotted over the planet. This is the major one, because it’s closest to my palace. I built it on the remains of the Torchwood base. I think it was Torchwood…three that was centred here? I forget.”
Jack held his hand out to the Doctor in a gentlemanly fashion, but the Time Lord put his hands in his pockets. Jack didn’t seem to take offence at the gesture. “So what do you call this temple?” the Doctor asked curiously.
“Well, we try to keep it simple. Since society has been based around Time Theology for over a thousand years and this Temple is devoted to the worship of the last of the Time Lords, we simply called it ‘the Temple of Time’.” Jack smiled and dropped an arm casually around the Doctor’s shoulders. “Come on, you’ll love it.”
The Doctor seriously doubted that, but allowed himself to be led inside.
If he had been at all narcissistic, the Doctor would have called the Temple of Time a beautiful landmark. Having spent one-hundred years sinking into treacherous depths of self-loathing, he just found it abysmal.
The Time Lord stood before the statue of his current regeneration. Around the large, circular room there were similar statues of his former regenerations, each one made with a different alien element. It was with some small relief that he noted there was no replica of his original body in its youth. Other regenerations were represented in their prime, but even Jack’s obsessive research could not take him that far back into the Doctor’s past.
There were many questions he wanted to ask, but they mostly concerned details. The major query he had could be voiced in a single word. He turned to Jack, who was looking around at his people’s handiwork with pride.
“Why?”
For a moment, Jack looked confused, but then he seemed to understand. “I wanted to unite people under your name. I wanted humanity to be grateful for all that you’ve done, to earn your attention. And what better way to spread your word than to make it religion? I’ve always had what could be called a religious faith in you. And I remember…” Jack’s brow furrowed as his mind struggled to access events of their long-past history. “…People prayed to you and it saved them. Didn’t it?”
The Doctor winced. Even at the time, on board the Valiant, he’d felt that plan was a little sanctimonious. There had been no other choice, of course. He’d saved the human race through prayer, though in the process he’d lost the devil he sought to save. “I used the Archangel network to give me that power, it didn’t come naturally. Don’t you remember?”
Jack’s blank stare suggested he had forgotten that part and had no intention of recalling it now. He just shrugged. “They prayed to you and you saved them. That’s one more miracle than any other god has shown me.”
The grand doors of the Temple opened and people began to file in, walking in single file behind a man the Doctor assumed to be a priest. The man looked strangely like the Doctor’s eighth form.
Jack must have noticed him staring because he said in a whisper, “they aspire to any of your images. I’ve told them it isn’t necessary, but it’s a prevailing trend among the Preachers.”
The large group were almost halfway across the room before the Preacher saw Jack and the Doctor. He gasped and dropped to his knees immediately. The crowd following him took a glance at what he had seen then did the same. “Overlord!” the man cried out in a surprised voice, though he continued to avert his eyes. “What a pleasant surprise to bless us with your presence in today’s ceremony!”
“I’ve also brought a good friend,” Jack said warmly, his possessive hand on the Doctor’s shoulder reminding the Time Lord of the previous night.
The Preacher glanced up to see the friend. His jaw dropped. “Is…is that…?”
Jack nodded slowly, clearly pleased with the Preacher’s shock. “Our treasured Time Lord has finally deigned to honour us with a visit.”
It made the Doctor’s stomach churn to see the looks of wonderment and awe on the faces of all the humans present. One woman in the line actually started weeping tears of joy. “Jack…” He was about to say he couldn’t stay here with these people who thought he controlled their sun and stars.
But Jack interrupted him. “I think, Preacher, that today would be best honoured by individual prayer to the idols. Instead of giving a ceremony, perhaps you could just speak with the Doctor.”
The kneeling man looked as though he was about to have a heart attack. “Speak to his Holiness?”
“He’s intrigued by our methods of worship and I expect he would like to hear how we have interpreted his word in his absence,” Jack said smoothly. The Doctor realised that this was not just a sight-seeing trip. Jack had brought him here for an education.
“Well, we can speak in one of the back-chambers,” the Preacher said hesitantly, shuffling along on his knees.
Jack laughed. “I’m sure our Lord will consider it no disrespect if you rise at this point, Preacher.”
Hesitantly, as though the Doctor might smite him at any moment, the Preacher rose to his feet. He told the congregation to pray for the safety of their Lord, now that he was on their planet, and to give thanks for his visit. The Doctor really was beginning to feel ill from it all.
As they made their way to the back-chamber, the Doctor was hindered by a kneeling middle-aged woman grabbing hold of his trousers. “Please, my Lord…”
Jack stormed forward and shoved her back. “You dare touch the Almighty?!?” He lifted his hand as if to strike her.
The Doctor grabbed his hand as it descended towards the frightened woman. “No!”
Jack drew his arm back from the Doctor and stepped away. He didn’t look at all ashamed. “She shouldn’t have…”
“She did nothing wrong,” the Doctor said firmly, before kneeling to the woman’s level. “Yes? What was it you wanted to say?”
The woman tried to avert his gaze so he reached out and tilted her face up to his. A tear trickled down her cheek. “Oh my Lord, I was too presumptuous and the Overlord may punish me however he will for my crime. But I beg of you, save my daughter!”
The Doctor glanced up at Jack suspiciously, but the Overlord shrugged. He didn’t seem to know what she meant either. “I’ll try,” he offered hesitantly. His existence had done enough damage to these poor people. He ought to help wherever he could. “Where is she? What do I need to save her from?”
“She has the Blood Fever,” the woman cried despairingly. “Please my Lord, I will make any sacrifice if you will only deliver her from harm.”
The Doctor’s chest tightened. Sickness was a monster he could not vow to vanquish. “I…I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t do anything…”
“Until you have prayed sufficiently to earn his exertion,” Jack said loudly behind him. “Pray to the Tenth Altar until midnight, consuming no food or drink. Give half of your money to the Temple. Then perhaps tomorrow, the Doctor may see it worth his time and power to cure your ailing daughter.”
The woman nodded and ran to the statue of the Doctor’s current regeneration, falling to her knees and praying fervently.
The Doctor turned to Jack with a look of utter horror. “How could you promise her that?”
Jack didn’t respond until the two of them were following the Preacher into the luxurious back-chambers. “We have a steady supply of manufactured nanogenes. The Empire’s best-kept secret. Some of them have been engineered to fight the Blood Fever. If the woman follows my orders, I’ll send round an agent to her address tonight and have them administer the nanogenes to her daughter without anybody noticing. Tomorrow, her daughter will be all better.” Jack beamed. “A miracle.”
“Why attribute all these things to me?” the Doctor asked. “Why not keep the credit for yourself?”
“You’re the ‘Lonely God’,” Jack said. “It suits you. I’ll be their law, you be their hope. I can play the ruler while you play the saviour. A beautiful partnership.”
“Sounds more like a devil’s pact,” the Doctor muttered. In the back-room of the Temple, he sat on a big fluffy cushion while the Preacher knelt before him and Jack leant against the wall with his arms folded.
“Where would my Lord like me to begin?” the Preacher asked quietly.
“At the beginning,” the Doctor replied, equally as hushed. “Tell me the origins of your faith.”
With hesitant and nervous formality, the Preacher began telling the tale, frequently glancing up to see the Doctor’s face, which the Time Lord kept consistently blank. The story began when the prophet Jack Harkness sinned against the people and the nature of Time, but was offered redemption by the Doctor. The Doctor was the sole survivor of the holy war between the Gods and the creatures of darkness. Only he had the power to bring light to the Universe. After making the supreme sacrifice of his own life in the name of faith, the prophet Jack was rewarded with immortality, so that he might live to remain with his beloved Doctor for all time. This gift, along with the moral teachings bestowed on him by the Doctor, elevated Jack Harkness to the position of human Overlord, that he might bring truth, wisdom and power to humanity, favoured race of the Doctor.
Hearing such a warped vision of his own past almost broke the Doctor’s hearts. Whenever he glanced at Jack throughout the story-telling, the immortal was nodding with a pleased smile. There were no signs of deception on his face and the Doctor was forced to acknowledge the horrific idea that maybe Jack was delusional enough to believe this. Had the Captain lived too long to distinguish fact from hopeful fiction?
“Jack, I don’t suppose you could step out for a second?” The Doctor asked sweetly. “Not that I doubt the Preacher’s ability to speak truth while you’re standing there looking so imposing, but…”
Jack glanced at the Preacher, then back at the Doctor. Then he smiled. “Okay. I’ll supervise the prayers.”
He left the two men to their conversation. The Doctor waited until the footsteps had faded before assuming they could speak safely. The Preacher was looking up at him with confusion. “You doubt the sanctity of my word, my Lord? I assure you it is the sacred word as dictated to us by the Prophet Jack Harkness, dear Overlord of blessed humanity.”
The Doctor suddenly remembered, with a startling clarity, how six words had brought down Harriet Jones’ reign over a century ago. So much power in words. And even though Jack had risen to greater heights than Harriet could have dreamed of, it would take the same amount of words to begin the end of his empire. The Time Lord got down on his knees so that he was eye-level with the Preacher.
“The Overlord is a false prophet.”
*
It was a peculiar day. The Doctor had seen his fair share of peculiar days, but none quite so strange as this. Once he’d returned to Jack with understanding of Earth’s only religious doctrine, they hadn’t stayed for long. Jack had been eager to take the Doctor away from the other worshippers. After all, their adoration distracted the Doctor from his.
The Temple was only their first stop. Apparently the Doctor’s disapproval of Jack’s regime had driven the Immortal into a frenzy of showing-off. Jack had put all of his business on hold for a day so that he might show the Doctor around the nicer side of the planet. Show him the ‘tourist’ surface that coated the rotten Empire. Luxury houses with no clear divide between the rich and the poor, breathtaking landscapes, laboratories of immense scientific study, amazingly efficient rehabilitation centres for minor criminals…
They visited schools and examined educational statistics. The children were learning things vastly ahead of their time and there were no signs of intellectual stragglers. The Doctor refused to be impressed with this though, when Jack alluded briefly to a genetic selection program that he had put in place a couple of centuries ago.
“Can’t build a future with idiots, after all,” he’d chuckled. It sent chills down the Doctor’s spine, even as children handed them pictures they had drawn with as much reverence as their little selves could manage. The Doctor noticed that images of him were always drawn in gold colour-sticks, whereas the cartoon Overlords were always drawn in black with frowning faces.
“Kids are cute, aren’t they?” Jack asked rhetorically as he dropped the sketches in the bin on their way out of the school. The Doctor folded his and slipped them into his pocket. He thought he’d been subtle about it, but Jack smiled in a condescending way at him, so maybe he hadn’t.
Jack held the shuttle door open for him to climb in. Something about the gesture, the casual control in it, made the Doctor stop in his tracks, his spine rigid, his mind saying a firm ‘NO’. Jack eyed him curiously.
“Something the matter?”
“Yes,” the Doctor said decisively, though it took him another moment to co-ordinate his thoughts enough to elaborate. He’d wanted to address this issue hours ago, but his mind had been hiding in all these social crimes of the Overlord, avoiding Jack’s betrayal of the night before. “Do you even remember last night, Jack?”
Jack let the door close again and leant back against the shuttle, his hands in his pockets and his blue eyes focused firmly on the Doctor. “How could I forget? It was heaven.”
“It was rape.”
Now Jack just looked confused. “How so?”
“What?!?” The Doctor couldn’t believe his ears. “What do you mean ‘how so’?!? You drugged me!”
Jack nodded. “Right, so it felt good. And I know it did because you moaned my name like it was fucking holy. You held onto me so tight and thanked me over and over for taking the decision out of your hands. You even slept in my arms.”
“Of course I did!” the Doctor cried. “I was drugged! My reactions weren’t my own. You forced me into a mental state of hedonism, any behaviour that resulted was not my own. That means you forced me into sex, which is rape.”
Jack shrugged with an unconcerned expression on his face. “I’m gonna do whatever makes you feel good. You can call it what you like. All I care about is taking the weight of the Universe off of your skinny shoulders.” He stepped closer and took the Doctor’s hand. “Last night I managed that. You were in ecstasy. I can’t regret that, no matter what spin you put on it.”
The Doctor closed his eyes to Jack’s fond look. There was no reasoning with him anymore. Whatever logic you threw at him, he twisted it around himself. “I never asked exactly what you intend to do with me,” he said quietly, wondering if he would long to have that ignorance back once it was gone.
“I would have thought it was clear by now to your genius intellect,” Jack flattered him shamelessly. “Get in the shuttle, I’ll explain on the way home.”
“Your palace is not my home,” the Doctor said flatly.
“You prefer wandering? Never having a place to call your own?”
“I have my TARDIS,” argued the Doctor.
“No, I have your TARDIS. Don’t worry, I won’t damage it. I’ll even dust it when I’m in the shrine-room.” Jack squeezed his hand gently, not seeing the Doctor’s mental image of his beloved TARDIS gathering dust in a closet while the Doctor gathered dust elsewhere in captivity. “I’ll show you your room when we get back. Would you like that?”
“Does it matter?” the Doctor asked tonelessly. “You seem to think you can make me want whatever you want. Surely that makes my opinions meaningless.”
Jack ran his free hand gently over the Doctor’s cheekbone. “I can’t help it if you don’t know what’s good for you.” He turned back to the shuttle and tugged the Doctor along. “Come on, let’s go home. On the way, I’ll tell you exactly what our future holds.”
The Doctor allowed himself to be manhandled into the transport this time. On the return trip to the palace he didn’t speak a word, just listened to Jack’s speech with a sort of fascinated horror.
Apparently, Jack required the Doctor for more than just personal reasons. He believed that having the personification of their God amongst them would be extremely good for the morale of the population. Already he had begun to proclaim that the Time Lord had descended to them due to their show of courage in declaring war on a large portion of the Universe. The Doctor’s presence had reinforced the belief of the people in a time when their loyalty was beginning to waver.
That all tied in neatly with Jack’s long-running dream of having the Doctor by his side. He theorised that the Doctor could be the friendly face of the oppressive authority, while having no real power. Jack would ensure the Time Lord retained his image of a merciful and generous God and would let people believe that their saviour was running the show, when in fact Jack would be completely in charge. The Doctor’s position in the hierarchy would be an illusion. Reading between the lines, the Doctor could see he would be little more than a glorified and pampered consort, a figure for public consumption who could do no real damage to the status quo. And it would work too, because the public adored him without reason. Time Theology had been the definitive belief system for over a thousand years, they would die before they lost faith in him. Just like their ruler.
Unbeknownst to the Overlord, the Doctor had already established a clear understanding of the current religious, political and social systems in his mind. The Time Lord had seen so many Empires rise and fall that it wasn’t difficult for him to pick out the weak points in existing regimes. This was different for two major reasons. Firstly, Jack was the ruler. Not only did that make the matter painfully personal, it also meant that he could not be stopped by the masses. Only the Doctor was capable of permanently ending the Overlord’s immortal existence. Secondly, an entire religion and way of life had been based around the Doctor. Again that made it painful because he felt every casualty and act of madness was his fault. They all trusted him to make it right and he didn’t have those kind of solutions.
But at the same time, it made things easier in other ways. Because Jack, poor confused and insane Jack, had left a gap in his Empire for the Doctor to fill. A role that had to be played. And in his fanatic adoration, he had built the Doctor’s reputation higher than his own. Jack had named himself ‘Lord’, but a part of him that insisted he was still inferior had led him to rename the Doctor as ‘God’. And he thought that he could guide the Doctor’s light from the shadows. Like the Master’s need for an equal had allowed the Doctor to win, Jack’s need for an idol would be his downfall. In public, the Doctor would be revered by the masses. If the Overlord made any attempt to dominate him, it would directly insult the belief system and the people would revolt. Behind closed doors it would be a different matter, but the Doctor suspected he knew how best to deal with Jack there now that the initial shock had worn off.
“So what do you say?” Jack asked hopefully as the shuttle landed on the palace grounds. “I’ll give you anything. I’ll cater to your every whim. You will be the glorious figurehead of the New Human Empire. Our benevolent God. The rest of the Universe won’t stand a chance against you and me.” Jack clasped the Doctor’s hands in his, a pleading look in his mad blue eyes. “We’ll rule them together, guide one another. We’ll be brilliant.”
“Oh Jack,” the Doctor couldn’t stop the sad whisper. “You were brilliant, once. You’ve gotten so lost…”
“So save me,” Jack replied. “I’ve been lost before and you’ve saved me. I know you have the power to do it again. I’ve waited so long for you.”
For a moment the Doctor was tempted to tell Jack the truth, that he could do nothing to save a mind so far gone. But that wouldn’t help anyone. He had already decided on a plan, now he had to follow it through. Billions of people were counting on him.
It was no effort to look nervous. In such a situation it came naturally to him. “Don’t expect me to submit to your authority on everything,” he said.
“I wouldn’t expect that straight away,” Jack said softly. He clearly expected to gain the Doctor’s full submission eventually.
“Then…perhaps I can stay for a while. See if I can help in some way.”
It physically pained him to see the joy on Jack’s face. The sheer, overwhelming happiness that appeared just because the Doctor had agreed to stay. At least it proved that Jack’s acquired psychic ability was incapable of breaching the Doctor’s reinforced mental barriers and finding out his true intentions.
“Thank you,” Jack said, dropping to his knees on the carpeted shuttle floor, grasping the Doctor’s hand and kissing it fervently. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, I swear you won’t regret it. I’ll give you the Universe and it’ll be perfect.”
The Doctor was forced to endure Jack’s rambling until they were inside the palace.
Author:
sarkywomanChallenge: Power
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Last of the Time Lords'. AU after that.
Warnings: This is part two of a fic about 50 pages long in Word. It's quite dark, contains dubious-consent (drug-use), slightly dodgy use of slightly underage slaves. There's some blasphemy and worshipping of false idols too. Insanity. Character death.
Summary: The Doctor returns to Earth after a long absence to find power has corrupted a once-noble friend.
Part One
In the first few moments of consciousness, the Doctor couldn’t remember where he was. It was only when he sat up and got a good look at the large bedroom that his drowsy memory threw up the information. Jack’s bedroom in Jack’s palace on Jack’s Earth. The Doctor glanced under the warm blanket to see if the blurred sensations of last night had been some twisted dream, but his nudity told him otherwise. Jack had drugged him and taken advantage of him.
However, before he could dwell on that horror, the Doctor noticed he was not alone in the room. Over by the door, two young servants were kneeling in their skimpy clothing. One was a skinny male brunette, the other a curvy blonde girl. Both of them looked to be in their teens. Both were facing the floor.
“Hello?” The Doctor called them, wondering whether they were allowed to respond. They flinched at the sound of his voice.
“Good morning to you, our Lord,” they replied in unison without looking up.
“You can look at me, you know,” he said gently. The girl’s head immediately shot up and she stared at him with a look of innocent glee. The boy was more hesitant and raised his head only slightly, peering up through his eyelashes at the Doctor. Well, it was a start.
“So what are you two doing here? Jack ordered you to keep an eye on me?”
“We are to serve you, my Lord,” replied the boy.
“The Overlord cannot return until his business is dealt with,” the girl added. “We are to cater to your every whim, my Lord.”
They seemed more like slaves than servants. “Well that won’t be necessary, I can take care of myself. Thanks anyway, but you can go and do whatever it is you do with your spare time.”
The two looked at each other nervously. The boy found the confidence to speak first. “We are to accompany you in all places and assist you in all things, my Lord.”
“Well I’m sure Jack won’t mind if I send you on your merry way,” the Doctor argued. He wanted some time alone. He had a lot to think about. Besides which, who knew how much time these poor things had to themselves? They could use a break.
“The Overlord will kill us if we leave you, my Lord,” the girl replied, voice shaking.
The Doctor was once again taken aback by the brutality in Jack’s regime. “What?!? Are you sure? Did he explicitly say that?”
Both slaves nodded. “Yes, my Lord.”
“What, even if I send you away?”
“The Overlord said that if you have no use for us, then neither does he, my Lord. He will have us sacrificed.”
“Sacrificed?” The Doctor echoed, horrified. “Sacrificed to what God?”
They both looked up at him with confused expressions. Then, in tandem, they replied.
“To you, my Lord.”
*
The Doctor stormed down the halls of Jack’s glamorous palace. He didn’t take in any of the depressing and horrifying sights of human degradation along the way. He was going to stop this at its source, not be sidetracked by the symptoms of the disease. Behind him the boy and girl servants jogged to keep up with his long strides. Their names were Drakton and Reyma, apparently. They were both nineteen. They had been in Jack’s ‘service’ for five years.
They reached a large and imposing set of doors that stretched from the floor to the high ceiling. “This the one?” he asked Drakton.
The boy nodded, his brown eyes wide with fear. “Yes, but my Lord we really shouldn’t…”
The Doctor ignored the boy’s panic and shoved the heavy doors wide open, revealing a big room. There were two rows of circular seats surrounding a podium, giving the room an atmosphere of an official authority meeting place. Every seat was full with smartly-dressed men and women. At the podium stood…the Doctor could have guessed before now…Captain Jack Harkness, Overlord of Earth.
All eyes were fixed on the Oncoming Storm in the doorway. Jack just smiled. “And here he is, as I promised. Our Lord and God, the Doctor.”
There were murmurs and whispers and the sounds of movement as all attending officials dropped off of their chairs onto their knees. Jack raised an eyebrow as if to say ‘see? Isn’t it great?’ Then he too, dropped to one knee. Only one, though.
Then the Captain’s expression changed to a frown. “Drakton! Reyma! Do you not kneel before our Lord?”
The Doctor glimpsed sudden movement behind him as both servants dropped to their knees with such haste it must have hurt them. “That’s enough!” he yelled at Jack. “I don’t ask for anyone to kneel before me!”
“No, but I ask them to,” Jack said in response. “And my word is law.”
“Your word is wrong,” the Doctor said in a low voice. Although he had spoken quietly, his words echoed around the room and caused a gasp in everyone who heard them.
Jack rose to his feet. “I’m your messenger. I speak your word.”
“Violence and depravity aren’t words of mine,” replied the Doctor.
“I’m talking about the rightful rule of humanity!” Jack cried out. “Their inherent brilliance and innate excellence. You champion our race. That you would devote your glory to us…” Jack shrugged. “That must mean we’re superior.”
The Doctor was lost for words. Had he done this to Jack? The Captain had once said, before even being cursed with immortality, that he wished he had never met the Doctor. Back then the Doctor had never expected that he might one day reciprocate the notion. This was why Time Lords were forbidden to meddle. Everything he touched, he twisted and broke. Everyone he loved, he lost.
Jack walked over to him, through the rows of awed officials. The immortal took hold of his hand. “It isn’t all bad.”
“Isn’t it?” the Doctor asked with a hint of desperation in his voice.
“No. Let me take you somewhere. There’s something you ought to see.”
*
They sat in a small private shuttle, a soundproof panel between them and the driver. As soon as they began moving, Jack reached into a side compartment. “Hypervodka?” he offered as he poured one for himself.
“It’ll be a long time before I accept another drink from you,” the Doctor replied coldly.
“Suit yourself,” Jack said with a shrug before downing the glass of blue liquid.
They continued the journey in silence for a few minutes before the Doctor spoke up again. “They said you sacrificed people in my honour. Tell me they were lying. Tell me that’s not true.”
“It’s not as simple as that.”
The Doctor’s hearts sank. “Oh Jack… How could you? You must know I would never want people to die in my name.”
“I died for you,” Jack countered, and the Doctor could find no answer. The immortal shifted closer so there was no space between them on the comfortable seat. “I don’t just pick people off of the street and throw them into some blood-soaked ritual. It’s a subtle way of dealing with undesirable elements. Sacrifice is just another word for execution. Serious criminal offenders like serial killers are destroyed in your name because what they’ve done goes directly against what you stand for. They’re destroyed for crimes that you would find unforgivable. It was just legal practise that became kinda ritualised over the years. Now people glorify it.”
“I can understand your need to be rid of serial killers,” the Doctor said carefully, “though I might disagree with the method. But Drakton and Reyma said you would sacrifice them, merely because I had no use for them.”
Jack laughed. “It was a scare tactic. They’re young. I would never dream of getting rid of them, they’re so well-trained.”
“I should imagine so, what with them being called into your service aged fourteen,” the Doctor said angrily.
“Planetary age of consent. It’s been that way for over a thousand years. Sex is great, why make ‘em wait?” Jack nudged him with a chuckle. “That was the slogan we used for the campaign. We were theoretically a democracy at that point, but I was pulling all the strings even then. Just had to be more careful with the public image.”
“And now it doesn’t matter,” the Doctor observed. “Now you can live in decadence and depravity with your harem and your xenophobic policies and everyone’s too scared to argue.” The Jack he knew would never have stood for this. That man had been so open-minded and loving. The Doctor suspected centuries stuck on Earth fighting for the human race in the name of Torchwood had narrowed Jack’s mind.
“They’re not all scared,” Jack said. “They respect me. And I don’t know how many citizens you’ve spoken to, but most of them are proud of me. They have an undying champion, how many other races can claim that? Besides, I’m not just their ruler. I’m their prophet.”
“Prophet?” the Doctor repeated. That did not bode well.
“I’m your messenger,” Jack explained with a smile. “I brought them your word. And for that, they love me.”
“Jack, I’m not sure I’m hearing this right. You brought them my word? What word?”
The shuttle landed softly outside a glamorous building. It was one of the golden temples that the Doctor had spied earlier on his first journey to the palace. The glow of the planetary shielding shimmered on the temple’s surface. “Where are we?” the Doctor asked curiously.
“I wanted you to see the most beautiful product of my Empire. These temples are dotted over the planet. This is the major one, because it’s closest to my palace. I built it on the remains of the Torchwood base. I think it was Torchwood…three that was centred here? I forget.”
Jack held his hand out to the Doctor in a gentlemanly fashion, but the Time Lord put his hands in his pockets. Jack didn’t seem to take offence at the gesture. “So what do you call this temple?” the Doctor asked curiously.
“Well, we try to keep it simple. Since society has been based around Time Theology for over a thousand years and this Temple is devoted to the worship of the last of the Time Lords, we simply called it ‘the Temple of Time’.” Jack smiled and dropped an arm casually around the Doctor’s shoulders. “Come on, you’ll love it.”
The Doctor seriously doubted that, but allowed himself to be led inside.
If he had been at all narcissistic, the Doctor would have called the Temple of Time a beautiful landmark. Having spent one-hundred years sinking into treacherous depths of self-loathing, he just found it abysmal.
The Time Lord stood before the statue of his current regeneration. Around the large, circular room there were similar statues of his former regenerations, each one made with a different alien element. It was with some small relief that he noted there was no replica of his original body in its youth. Other regenerations were represented in their prime, but even Jack’s obsessive research could not take him that far back into the Doctor’s past.
There were many questions he wanted to ask, but they mostly concerned details. The major query he had could be voiced in a single word. He turned to Jack, who was looking around at his people’s handiwork with pride.
“Why?”
For a moment, Jack looked confused, but then he seemed to understand. “I wanted to unite people under your name. I wanted humanity to be grateful for all that you’ve done, to earn your attention. And what better way to spread your word than to make it religion? I’ve always had what could be called a religious faith in you. And I remember…” Jack’s brow furrowed as his mind struggled to access events of their long-past history. “…People prayed to you and it saved them. Didn’t it?”
The Doctor winced. Even at the time, on board the Valiant, he’d felt that plan was a little sanctimonious. There had been no other choice, of course. He’d saved the human race through prayer, though in the process he’d lost the devil he sought to save. “I used the Archangel network to give me that power, it didn’t come naturally. Don’t you remember?”
Jack’s blank stare suggested he had forgotten that part and had no intention of recalling it now. He just shrugged. “They prayed to you and you saved them. That’s one more miracle than any other god has shown me.”
The grand doors of the Temple opened and people began to file in, walking in single file behind a man the Doctor assumed to be a priest. The man looked strangely like the Doctor’s eighth form.
Jack must have noticed him staring because he said in a whisper, “they aspire to any of your images. I’ve told them it isn’t necessary, but it’s a prevailing trend among the Preachers.”
The large group were almost halfway across the room before the Preacher saw Jack and the Doctor. He gasped and dropped to his knees immediately. The crowd following him took a glance at what he had seen then did the same. “Overlord!” the man cried out in a surprised voice, though he continued to avert his eyes. “What a pleasant surprise to bless us with your presence in today’s ceremony!”
“I’ve also brought a good friend,” Jack said warmly, his possessive hand on the Doctor’s shoulder reminding the Time Lord of the previous night.
The Preacher glanced up to see the friend. His jaw dropped. “Is…is that…?”
Jack nodded slowly, clearly pleased with the Preacher’s shock. “Our treasured Time Lord has finally deigned to honour us with a visit.”
It made the Doctor’s stomach churn to see the looks of wonderment and awe on the faces of all the humans present. One woman in the line actually started weeping tears of joy. “Jack…” He was about to say he couldn’t stay here with these people who thought he controlled their sun and stars.
But Jack interrupted him. “I think, Preacher, that today would be best honoured by individual prayer to the idols. Instead of giving a ceremony, perhaps you could just speak with the Doctor.”
The kneeling man looked as though he was about to have a heart attack. “Speak to his Holiness?”
“He’s intrigued by our methods of worship and I expect he would like to hear how we have interpreted his word in his absence,” Jack said smoothly. The Doctor realised that this was not just a sight-seeing trip. Jack had brought him here for an education.
“Well, we can speak in one of the back-chambers,” the Preacher said hesitantly, shuffling along on his knees.
Jack laughed. “I’m sure our Lord will consider it no disrespect if you rise at this point, Preacher.”
Hesitantly, as though the Doctor might smite him at any moment, the Preacher rose to his feet. He told the congregation to pray for the safety of their Lord, now that he was on their planet, and to give thanks for his visit. The Doctor really was beginning to feel ill from it all.
As they made their way to the back-chamber, the Doctor was hindered by a kneeling middle-aged woman grabbing hold of his trousers. “Please, my Lord…”
Jack stormed forward and shoved her back. “You dare touch the Almighty?!?” He lifted his hand as if to strike her.
The Doctor grabbed his hand as it descended towards the frightened woman. “No!”
Jack drew his arm back from the Doctor and stepped away. He didn’t look at all ashamed. “She shouldn’t have…”
“She did nothing wrong,” the Doctor said firmly, before kneeling to the woman’s level. “Yes? What was it you wanted to say?”
The woman tried to avert his gaze so he reached out and tilted her face up to his. A tear trickled down her cheek. “Oh my Lord, I was too presumptuous and the Overlord may punish me however he will for my crime. But I beg of you, save my daughter!”
The Doctor glanced up at Jack suspiciously, but the Overlord shrugged. He didn’t seem to know what she meant either. “I’ll try,” he offered hesitantly. His existence had done enough damage to these poor people. He ought to help wherever he could. “Where is she? What do I need to save her from?”
“She has the Blood Fever,” the woman cried despairingly. “Please my Lord, I will make any sacrifice if you will only deliver her from harm.”
The Doctor’s chest tightened. Sickness was a monster he could not vow to vanquish. “I…I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t do anything…”
“Until you have prayed sufficiently to earn his exertion,” Jack said loudly behind him. “Pray to the Tenth Altar until midnight, consuming no food or drink. Give half of your money to the Temple. Then perhaps tomorrow, the Doctor may see it worth his time and power to cure your ailing daughter.”
The woman nodded and ran to the statue of the Doctor’s current regeneration, falling to her knees and praying fervently.
The Doctor turned to Jack with a look of utter horror. “How could you promise her that?”
Jack didn’t respond until the two of them were following the Preacher into the luxurious back-chambers. “We have a steady supply of manufactured nanogenes. The Empire’s best-kept secret. Some of them have been engineered to fight the Blood Fever. If the woman follows my orders, I’ll send round an agent to her address tonight and have them administer the nanogenes to her daughter without anybody noticing. Tomorrow, her daughter will be all better.” Jack beamed. “A miracle.”
“Why attribute all these things to me?” the Doctor asked. “Why not keep the credit for yourself?”
“You’re the ‘Lonely God’,” Jack said. “It suits you. I’ll be their law, you be their hope. I can play the ruler while you play the saviour. A beautiful partnership.”
“Sounds more like a devil’s pact,” the Doctor muttered. In the back-room of the Temple, he sat on a big fluffy cushion while the Preacher knelt before him and Jack leant against the wall with his arms folded.
“Where would my Lord like me to begin?” the Preacher asked quietly.
“At the beginning,” the Doctor replied, equally as hushed. “Tell me the origins of your faith.”
With hesitant and nervous formality, the Preacher began telling the tale, frequently glancing up to see the Doctor’s face, which the Time Lord kept consistently blank. The story began when the prophet Jack Harkness sinned against the people and the nature of Time, but was offered redemption by the Doctor. The Doctor was the sole survivor of the holy war between the Gods and the creatures of darkness. Only he had the power to bring light to the Universe. After making the supreme sacrifice of his own life in the name of faith, the prophet Jack was rewarded with immortality, so that he might live to remain with his beloved Doctor for all time. This gift, along with the moral teachings bestowed on him by the Doctor, elevated Jack Harkness to the position of human Overlord, that he might bring truth, wisdom and power to humanity, favoured race of the Doctor.
Hearing such a warped vision of his own past almost broke the Doctor’s hearts. Whenever he glanced at Jack throughout the story-telling, the immortal was nodding with a pleased smile. There were no signs of deception on his face and the Doctor was forced to acknowledge the horrific idea that maybe Jack was delusional enough to believe this. Had the Captain lived too long to distinguish fact from hopeful fiction?
“Jack, I don’t suppose you could step out for a second?” The Doctor asked sweetly. “Not that I doubt the Preacher’s ability to speak truth while you’re standing there looking so imposing, but…”
Jack glanced at the Preacher, then back at the Doctor. Then he smiled. “Okay. I’ll supervise the prayers.”
He left the two men to their conversation. The Doctor waited until the footsteps had faded before assuming they could speak safely. The Preacher was looking up at him with confusion. “You doubt the sanctity of my word, my Lord? I assure you it is the sacred word as dictated to us by the Prophet Jack Harkness, dear Overlord of blessed humanity.”
The Doctor suddenly remembered, with a startling clarity, how six words had brought down Harriet Jones’ reign over a century ago. So much power in words. And even though Jack had risen to greater heights than Harriet could have dreamed of, it would take the same amount of words to begin the end of his empire. The Time Lord got down on his knees so that he was eye-level with the Preacher.
“The Overlord is a false prophet.”
*
It was a peculiar day. The Doctor had seen his fair share of peculiar days, but none quite so strange as this. Once he’d returned to Jack with understanding of Earth’s only religious doctrine, they hadn’t stayed for long. Jack had been eager to take the Doctor away from the other worshippers. After all, their adoration distracted the Doctor from his.
The Temple was only their first stop. Apparently the Doctor’s disapproval of Jack’s regime had driven the Immortal into a frenzy of showing-off. Jack had put all of his business on hold for a day so that he might show the Doctor around the nicer side of the planet. Show him the ‘tourist’ surface that coated the rotten Empire. Luxury houses with no clear divide between the rich and the poor, breathtaking landscapes, laboratories of immense scientific study, amazingly efficient rehabilitation centres for minor criminals…
They visited schools and examined educational statistics. The children were learning things vastly ahead of their time and there were no signs of intellectual stragglers. The Doctor refused to be impressed with this though, when Jack alluded briefly to a genetic selection program that he had put in place a couple of centuries ago.
“Can’t build a future with idiots, after all,” he’d chuckled. It sent chills down the Doctor’s spine, even as children handed them pictures they had drawn with as much reverence as their little selves could manage. The Doctor noticed that images of him were always drawn in gold colour-sticks, whereas the cartoon Overlords were always drawn in black with frowning faces.
“Kids are cute, aren’t they?” Jack asked rhetorically as he dropped the sketches in the bin on their way out of the school. The Doctor folded his and slipped them into his pocket. He thought he’d been subtle about it, but Jack smiled in a condescending way at him, so maybe he hadn’t.
Jack held the shuttle door open for him to climb in. Something about the gesture, the casual control in it, made the Doctor stop in his tracks, his spine rigid, his mind saying a firm ‘NO’. Jack eyed him curiously.
“Something the matter?”
“Yes,” the Doctor said decisively, though it took him another moment to co-ordinate his thoughts enough to elaborate. He’d wanted to address this issue hours ago, but his mind had been hiding in all these social crimes of the Overlord, avoiding Jack’s betrayal of the night before. “Do you even remember last night, Jack?”
Jack let the door close again and leant back against the shuttle, his hands in his pockets and his blue eyes focused firmly on the Doctor. “How could I forget? It was heaven.”
“It was rape.”
Now Jack just looked confused. “How so?”
“What?!?” The Doctor couldn’t believe his ears. “What do you mean ‘how so’?!? You drugged me!”
Jack nodded. “Right, so it felt good. And I know it did because you moaned my name like it was fucking holy. You held onto me so tight and thanked me over and over for taking the decision out of your hands. You even slept in my arms.”
“Of course I did!” the Doctor cried. “I was drugged! My reactions weren’t my own. You forced me into a mental state of hedonism, any behaviour that resulted was not my own. That means you forced me into sex, which is rape.”
Jack shrugged with an unconcerned expression on his face. “I’m gonna do whatever makes you feel good. You can call it what you like. All I care about is taking the weight of the Universe off of your skinny shoulders.” He stepped closer and took the Doctor’s hand. “Last night I managed that. You were in ecstasy. I can’t regret that, no matter what spin you put on it.”
The Doctor closed his eyes to Jack’s fond look. There was no reasoning with him anymore. Whatever logic you threw at him, he twisted it around himself. “I never asked exactly what you intend to do with me,” he said quietly, wondering if he would long to have that ignorance back once it was gone.
“I would have thought it was clear by now to your genius intellect,” Jack flattered him shamelessly. “Get in the shuttle, I’ll explain on the way home.”
“Your palace is not my home,” the Doctor said flatly.
“You prefer wandering? Never having a place to call your own?”
“I have my TARDIS,” argued the Doctor.
“No, I have your TARDIS. Don’t worry, I won’t damage it. I’ll even dust it when I’m in the shrine-room.” Jack squeezed his hand gently, not seeing the Doctor’s mental image of his beloved TARDIS gathering dust in a closet while the Doctor gathered dust elsewhere in captivity. “I’ll show you your room when we get back. Would you like that?”
“Does it matter?” the Doctor asked tonelessly. “You seem to think you can make me want whatever you want. Surely that makes my opinions meaningless.”
Jack ran his free hand gently over the Doctor’s cheekbone. “I can’t help it if you don’t know what’s good for you.” He turned back to the shuttle and tugged the Doctor along. “Come on, let’s go home. On the way, I’ll tell you exactly what our future holds.”
The Doctor allowed himself to be manhandled into the transport this time. On the return trip to the palace he didn’t speak a word, just listened to Jack’s speech with a sort of fascinated horror.
Apparently, Jack required the Doctor for more than just personal reasons. He believed that having the personification of their God amongst them would be extremely good for the morale of the population. Already he had begun to proclaim that the Time Lord had descended to them due to their show of courage in declaring war on a large portion of the Universe. The Doctor’s presence had reinforced the belief of the people in a time when their loyalty was beginning to waver.
That all tied in neatly with Jack’s long-running dream of having the Doctor by his side. He theorised that the Doctor could be the friendly face of the oppressive authority, while having no real power. Jack would ensure the Time Lord retained his image of a merciful and generous God and would let people believe that their saviour was running the show, when in fact Jack would be completely in charge. The Doctor’s position in the hierarchy would be an illusion. Reading between the lines, the Doctor could see he would be little more than a glorified and pampered consort, a figure for public consumption who could do no real damage to the status quo. And it would work too, because the public adored him without reason. Time Theology had been the definitive belief system for over a thousand years, they would die before they lost faith in him. Just like their ruler.
Unbeknownst to the Overlord, the Doctor had already established a clear understanding of the current religious, political and social systems in his mind. The Time Lord had seen so many Empires rise and fall that it wasn’t difficult for him to pick out the weak points in existing regimes. This was different for two major reasons. Firstly, Jack was the ruler. Not only did that make the matter painfully personal, it also meant that he could not be stopped by the masses. Only the Doctor was capable of permanently ending the Overlord’s immortal existence. Secondly, an entire religion and way of life had been based around the Doctor. Again that made it painful because he felt every casualty and act of madness was his fault. They all trusted him to make it right and he didn’t have those kind of solutions.
But at the same time, it made things easier in other ways. Because Jack, poor confused and insane Jack, had left a gap in his Empire for the Doctor to fill. A role that had to be played. And in his fanatic adoration, he had built the Doctor’s reputation higher than his own. Jack had named himself ‘Lord’, but a part of him that insisted he was still inferior had led him to rename the Doctor as ‘God’. And he thought that he could guide the Doctor’s light from the shadows. Like the Master’s need for an equal had allowed the Doctor to win, Jack’s need for an idol would be his downfall. In public, the Doctor would be revered by the masses. If the Overlord made any attempt to dominate him, it would directly insult the belief system and the people would revolt. Behind closed doors it would be a different matter, but the Doctor suspected he knew how best to deal with Jack there now that the initial shock had worn off.
“So what do you say?” Jack asked hopefully as the shuttle landed on the palace grounds. “I’ll give you anything. I’ll cater to your every whim. You will be the glorious figurehead of the New Human Empire. Our benevolent God. The rest of the Universe won’t stand a chance against you and me.” Jack clasped the Doctor’s hands in his, a pleading look in his mad blue eyes. “We’ll rule them together, guide one another. We’ll be brilliant.”
“Oh Jack,” the Doctor couldn’t stop the sad whisper. “You were brilliant, once. You’ve gotten so lost…”
“So save me,” Jack replied. “I’ve been lost before and you’ve saved me. I know you have the power to do it again. I’ve waited so long for you.”
For a moment the Doctor was tempted to tell Jack the truth, that he could do nothing to save a mind so far gone. But that wouldn’t help anyone. He had already decided on a plan, now he had to follow it through. Billions of people were counting on him.
It was no effort to look nervous. In such a situation it came naturally to him. “Don’t expect me to submit to your authority on everything,” he said.
“I wouldn’t expect that straight away,” Jack said softly. He clearly expected to gain the Doctor’s full submission eventually.
“Then…perhaps I can stay for a while. See if I can help in some way.”
It physically pained him to see the joy on Jack’s face. The sheer, overwhelming happiness that appeared just because the Doctor had agreed to stay. At least it proved that Jack’s acquired psychic ability was incapable of breaching the Doctor’s reinforced mental barriers and finding out his true intentions.
“Thank you,” Jack said, dropping to his knees on the carpeted shuttle floor, grasping the Doctor’s hand and kissing it fervently. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, I swear you won’t regret it. I’ll give you the Universe and it’ll be perfect.”
The Doctor was forced to endure Jack’s rambling until they were inside the palace.