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wintercompanion2008-04-29 07:27 pm
sarkywoman.livejournal.com) wrote in wintercompanion2008-04-29 07:27 pm
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sarkywoman: Overlords and Time Gods 5/5 (Jack/10) [NC-17]
Title: Overlords and Time Gods 5/5
Author:sarkywoman
Challenge: Power
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Last of the Time Lords'. AU after that.
Warnings: It's quite dark, contains dubious-consent (drug-use), slightly dodgy use of slightly underage slaves. Insanity. Character death.
Summary: The Doctor returns to Earth after a long absence to find power has corrupted a once-noble friend. Thanks again to all the people I thanked in the notes of the first chapter, especiallyvail_kagami.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Alone once more in the TARDIS, the way it should be. The way it should have always been. He couldn’t help but think about how many people would have been better off if he had just locked himself away after the Time War like some sort of artefact, the last relic of Gallifrey gathering dust as a one-of-a-kind antique.
At least Earth was on a road to recovery now. Of course it was entirely possible that the population would take the road in the wrong direction and wind up even more depraved, nonsensical and barbaric than Jack, but that was up to them. If they didn’t bring their armies home and they chose to exploit their new freedom at the expense of others, the Doctor would return and…
He sighed heavily at the thought of having to return. He couldn’t put it off this time. The Doctor had promised in yesterday’s global broadcast to return frequently to check up on their progress. They had established a sort of temporary theocracy whereby the temple leaders were local leaders until a global democracy could be established. It was far from perfect, but it was an attainable improvement on the tyranny they had previously been part of.
Everyone had begged him to stay. They defied their Overlord – oh Jack… – so that they might benefit under the rule of their God. Instead he had to abandon them to their own devices. Typical that the Time Lord insistence on non-interference had only started making sense to him now that none of his species were around to see him abiding by the rules.
The Doctor was sitting on the grid floor of the TARDIS, his back against the console. By his feet the Xaan Royal Bloom lay on top of the sketch he had found in the shrine on his way to the TARDIS. Jack had vastly understated his own artistic ability. The Doctor had never seen such a beautiful and idealised representation of himself on paper. It was just another in a long line of examples showing how Jack’s obsessive love had warped him more than hatred ever could.
He had no idea where to go. He had taken Drakton back to the colony on Morsnok 12, along with Reyma’s body. Apparently Drakton and Reyma were cousins who had lived in the Morsnok region until Jack took a shining to them during an invasion. Reyma hadn’t lived to see her home freed from the rule of the New Human Empire. She could only be buried there by her grieving family. Drakton had been obviously pleased to see the last of the Doctor. Whether it was Stockholm Syndrome or a sincere affection, Drakton had cared for Jack and could not understand the Doctor’s actions.
Now the Doctor floated alone in the Vortex, only the TARDIS to keep him company and his faithful ship had been very quiet for the past fifty years or so. He couldn’t seem to gather the motivation to go anywhere. After seeing his long-term impact on Earth and on Jack, he could no longer kid himself that he made things better. His name was a lie.
He wrapped his arms around his knees and tried to keep it together. For one-hundred years he had tried to put Earth out of his mind. It hadn’t worked even half of the time, but he’d been doing okay, on the scale of things. He’d kept moving, kept finding new wonders to occupy his time and his brain. He’d saved people. He hardly remembered their faces though, clouded as they were by the faces of those he had failed to save. For a century he had wondered what became of them, his dear humans. He’d seen their accusing stares whenever he closed his eyes, heard the voices of Rose and Martha…
He actually gasped and clambered to his feet as the idea burst fully-grown into his brain. It was terrible and wonderful and impossible but so tempting…
He ran to the room on the TARDIS where he had left Martha’s mobile phone. Bless his old ship, she had kept it fully charged and functional for him. He had one missed call, the time and date of his shameful abandonment flashing up on the screen. He could go back. He could fix things. He was the Doctor, he could cure Jack before madness set in. And Jack had been inadvertently forming a paradox in the future, so the Doctor’s changes would be excusable!
You only needed excuses if you were doing something wrong.
But the Doctor pushed that logic away and went back to the console room. Sensible thinking wasn’t helping anyone. As a Time Lord he knew that Jack’s Empire did not have to be Earth’s future. It was a point of flux. The Doctor would be immune to the Paradox Effect and nobody else would have to be. He could save them all.
At Jack’s expense.
His hand hovered over the TARDIS lever. His hand that was covered in blood. He’d washed it of course, scrubbed himself raw. No human would be able to see the blood. It was only visible to Time Lord eyes. If the Master was here, he’d see it. The Master had always seen it.
Could he do it again? Could he take a blade in his hands and stab a dear friend through the heart for the second time? Knowing how the blood stained his very soul, seeped in through his pores and soaked into him until his moral fibre was a deep crimson? Could he do that for the sake of the Universe?
He’d already done it once. And if Jack knew what he was doomed to become, he would welcome respectable oblivion.
The Doctor took a deep breath and pulled the lever, rushing back through time to the year 2008.
*
“Jack, he’s not coming!”
The Captain met Martha’s panicked brown eyes. The UNIT medic still clutched the phone in her hand, even though she had made her call over fifteen minutes ago. As if the Doctor would call to explain his delay.
“He has a lousy sense of time-keeping for a Time Lord,” Jack said in an attempt to reassure her. “I’m sure he’ll turn up at the last minute.”
“We’re rapidly approaching the last minute!” Owen yelled as he ran past them carrying a veritable arsenal of weaponry.
They ignored him. Martha put her phone away, still not looking confident. “But Jack, he didn’t even answer. How can we trust him to show up when he can’t even answer the phone?”
“He’ll save us,” Jack said firmly. “The Doctor wouldn’t abandon us unless there was a damn good reason.”
Ianto jogged past them to access a nearby computer. “That isn’t what you’ve told me in the past,” he said, eager to add his viewpoint to the conversation.
“He had his reasons,” Jack insisted. Sure at times he had doubted their validity, but he liked to think he had grown to accept that the Doctor’s alien nature could lead him to make decisions that mere mortals (and mere immortals) could not comprehend. Jack figured he had a long time ahead of him in which he could devote himself to considering the Doctor’s thought processes.
“Jack,” Toshiko called from her computer. “I’m not liking these readings at all. The fluctuations are taking place at the higher end of the spectrum!”
He ran to her side, followed by Martha. “I thought you were scrambling the multi-signal?”
“I’m trying,” the tech-whiz cried, “but their systems are adapting!”
Jack cursed. Loudly. “The Doctor would know what to do,” he muttered to himself.
It seemed that Gwen heard him. She put a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Well he’s not here. You are. Lead us, Jack.”
The immortal growled under his breath. If only it were that simple. Hadn’t Gwen noticed that everything he had tried today had failed in the face of this new threat? All he knew was their name and hostility. Nothing about their strengths or weaknesses or technology. Did Gwen think he was holding back for the sake of suspense and drama? He was all out of ideas! But he looked around the room at the anxious faces and knew he couldn’t possibly admit that out loud. “Ianto, how long until they get here?”
His part-time lover started tapping on the keyboard of the computer. “Um…it’s tricky. The randomised patterns of energy expenditure mean they’re tough to track. They could be here in a few hours or they might be here in…”
A noise like popping bubble-wrap sounded around the Hub, a prelude to the appearance of hordes of Xaan warriors. They were humanoid, but looked more like the Futurekind Jack and Martha had encountered at the end of the Universe. They were all snarling and carrying heavy alien weaponry.
“Oh God…” Gwen whispered with audible terror. Jack subtly shifted so she was behind him, though the amount of Xaan warriors in the room meant she was provided little protection by his gesture. It was almost standing-room-only in the centre of the Hub.
“What do you want?” Martha said bravely, stepping forward. “Why are you on Earth?”
The Xaan all narrowed their eyes at her with distaste. “The creature dares to address us!” screamed a short alien of female appearance at the front. “She dies first!”
Jack tried to jump forward to shield Martha, but like the rest of his team he was dragged away by burly Xaan guards. Martha was held in a firm grip by guards on either side, her struggles proving futile. Everyone shouted and pleaded for the invaders to have mercy, but the cold-hearted warriors ignored them.
As the Xaan took aim at the ex-companion, another strange noise began to echo around the Hub.
“Ready…” called the Xaan woman in front “…FIRE!”
Beams zapped across the room from their weapons in a flash of blinding light. When the afterimage cleared, an unexpected sight greeted all present.
A blue box had appeared between the Xaan and Martha. A familiar face poked out of the door.
“Blimey,” said the Doctor, “that was good parking.”
The Xaan all lowered their weapons, looking stunned at the peculiar occurrence. Even the guards holding onto the team weakened their grasp. The Doctor wandered over to the female giving the orders – did the Time Lord look tired or was Jack imagining that?
“Princess Xaansha, it’s been a while.”
“Who are you?” snarled the angry young woman.
“Oh come on,” the Doctor said with exasperation, “How many people do you know who travel the Universe in a big, blue box?”
The princess’ brow furrowed. “You are not the Doctor! The Doctor is not so meagre in frame!”
“Oi!” the Doctor cried out, looking offended. “I’ll have you know that some people consider this regeneration to be rather fetching.” The cheeky bugger actually glanced at Jack when he said that.
“You cannot be the Doctor!” shouted the princess again. She seemed a bit distressed.
“Sorry,” the Doctor shrugged, hands in his pockets. “I don’t know what to tell you except I am me. I’m that annoying Time Lord who sang ‘300 sneegos on the mountain’ for two hours when we were stuck in the cell on Hziak.” His expression softened. “Xaansha, you know I’m telling you the truth.”
The Princess took a step back and pulled a flat circular device from her pocket. It was the size of her palm. She held it up to her mouth and spoke into it. “Brother, the Doctor is here.”
The Time Lord held out his hand to take the communicator and Xaansha handed it over to him without fuss. The Doctor spoke into the device clearly. “Gilvagh! It’s been too long! How are you, old friend?” He put the disc to his ear, clearly listening to speech from the other side. Then he spoke into it again. “Well for starters, this is Earth.” He listened once more, frowning and pursing his lips. While he kept his ear to the disc, he looked around the Hub. Jack immediately tensed at the thought of the Doctor examining the artefacts Torchwood had ‘acquired’.
“Found your problem!” The Doctor said exuberantly into the disc, bounding over to a small cylindrical tube on the floor. “Earth has this organisation see, called Torchwood…”
Jack felt the need to step in at this point. “Doctor, do you mind not telling the Universe about us?” He noticed that every time he took a step towards the Doctor, the Time Lord moved away, like they were both circling the cylinder.
“Anyway,” the Doctor continued, ignoring Jack’s objections, “this Torchwood pick up gizmos and gadgets from all over the Universe that find their way to Earth. They’ve picked up a Hziak data collection pod, but it’s way past its prime. Whoever brought it here must be long gone.” He put the disc to his ear and smiled faintly before speaking into it once more. “It was nice chatting to you too. I keep meaning to pay a visit to Xaan, just like the good old days.”
The Doctor handed the communicator over to the Princess, who listened to it briefly before slipping it into her pocket. Then she picked up the Hziak cylinder from the floor.
“Hey, hang on a minute,” Jack said, moving towards her. “That’s not yours.”
“It’s not yours either,” said the Doctor, putting a hand on Jack’s chest to hold him back, but then drawing it back as though he’d been burnt. “It’s best you let the Xaan take it. It’s useless to you, but they’ll keep it for sentimental value. Like a trophy, I suppose.”
“But…”
“And they’ll have no reason to stay,” the Doctor said slowly.
Jack realised that he was not going to win this argument. “Fine,” he muttered angrily.
The Princess beamed at the Doctor before teleporting away with the same bubble-wrap noise as before. The horde of Xaan warriors disappeared immediately after.
The first one to speak was Ianto. “Well that was…simpler than I’d expected.”
“It’s violence that makes things difficult,” the Doctor replied wisely. “Talking the problem through can make everything easier. Well…” he seemed to reconsider this. “In most circumstances.”
“I’m sure we’ll all bear that in mind next time a Weevil’s chewing on our genitals,” Owen said sarcastically. “Jack, is business done for the day? Can I go home? I have been running up and down stairs for no less than three hours now. I’m a doctor, not an athlete.”
“We’ve noticed,” said Martha with a barely-veiled smirk.
Jack spoke up to stop an argument from developing. “Yeah, yeah, everyone can head off home. I can deal with the day’s paperwork.” He turned to the Doctor with a faint hope. “You sticking around for a chat or do you have worlds to save?”
“I do have worlds to save,” the Doctor said as if thinking it over, “but all in good time.”
Jack glanced around the Hub to see who was still here. Owen was already gone, Gwen was on her way to the door while putting her coat on and Toshiko was closing down her computer. “Ianto, could you make the Doctor a cup of tea?”
The Welshman nodded politely. “Of course.”
“Actually I’m fine, thank you,” the Doctor claimed quickly.
“That’s not like you,” Martha said, wandering over to sit on the table beside them. “Turning down a cuppa? Are you feeling alright?”
“I’ve…uh…gone off tea,” the Doctor said, ruffling his hair in a nervous way. “Bad experience.”
Jack and Martha shared a worried look. “And it’s put you off tea?” Jack said with disbelief. “What happened,” he joked, “someone stick rohypnol in your PG Tips?”
The Doctor laughed loudly, louder than Jack had ever heard him laugh. “Oh don’t be so ridiculous,” he said, shoving Jack playfully. Jack didn’t want to believe it, but he had a hunch that he’d been too close to the truth.
“Seriously Doctor,” Martha said, patting the Time Lord’s hand. “Did something happen? You look tired.” It wasn’t just Jack who had noticed then.
The Doctor tutted at her condescendingly. “That’s the problem with doctors, they see health problems everywhere they turn. More often than not, they try to fix things that aren’t broken and break them in the process! Mad, isn’t it?” His eyes held a touch of mania that wasn’t entirely unusual for him, but it was a little unnerving.
Jack crossed the room to Ianto. “Think you could head home?” he whispered into the Welshman’s ear. “I know we had plans, but I’m a bit worried about him.”
“Of course,” Ianto replied, glancing over Jack’s shoulder at the Time Lord watching them. “Don’t let him hurt you.”
Since nobody else had spoken, Jack could only assume the Doctor’s hysterical laughter was a result of Ianto’s words. Martha looked at Jack with panic as the Doctor doubled over laughing.
Ianto made a hasty departure from the Hub with Toshiko as Jack rushed to the Doctor’s side. “Doc, come on, what happened?”
The Time Lord straightened and sobered, shaking his head. “Sorry, it’s just…it’s…I’ve had a really rough few days,” his voice cracked on the last word and he buried his face in his hands. His shoulders started to shake. The Doctor was crying. What could have made such an impact on such a psychologically powerful man?
His world-view shaken, Jack stepped forward to embrace the Time Lord. But the second his arms went around the Doctor, the man shoved him away forcefully and backed away in a panic, his eyes wide with fear and anger. “Oh yes Jack, that’s the solution to everything isn’t it, grab me and hold me so I can’t get away, because you always know what’s best for me because you love me so much it hurts us both! Well you can back off! I don’t need your comfort or your suffocating love! It’s a bloody death sentence, your love! It’s insane and obsessive…” the Doctor was pulling at his own hair almost brutally, ignorant of the effect his words had on Jack.
“Doctor,” Martha went over to him and gently took his fingers from his scalp. “Doctor, come on now, calm down.” Wearing her white lab-coat, she looked for all the world like a psychiatrist with a tricky patient. “Talk to us slow. We’re only silly humans, remember?” she encouraged him with a smile that didn’t quite hide her worry. “You have to dumb it down for us so we understand.”
For a moment the Doctor was completely still, looking at Martha’s face. “You died. You must have done. I never took the time to ask, but you must have died.”
Martha took a step back, uneasy with the quiet statement. “What do you mean I died? I’m right here.”
“I mean the first time,” the Doctor said in a muddled attempt to explain. “The first time, when I didn’t answer your call. The TARDIS wouldn’t have been in the way, you must have died. I’m so sorry.”
The poor woman looked terrified now. This wasn’t their Doctor. This man was broken and confused. Martha might have been trained to deal with shocking situations, but the Doctor lived in a different realm of experience. Jack put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, aware of the Doctor’s wary gaze on his every movement. “Head home, get some rest. I’ll talk to him.”
“I don’t think he wants that,” Martha said, eyes on the Time Lord. Her demeanour was that of a person faced with a wounded animal. It should be helpless and she wanted to help, but it kept lashing out.
“Don’t assume you know what I want,” the Doctor snapped. “As it happens, I need to talk to Jack. It’s very important.”
“Alright then,” Jack said, keeping his voice calm and steady. “Martha’s gonna head home so me and you can have a chat.”
“You’ve got my number, Doctor,” Martha said as she went and put her coat on. “You call me at any time if you need anything, okay?” Once she was suitably prepared for the cold evening outside, she hugged the Time Lord and kissed him on the cheek. Jack noted with some bitterness that she was not subject to the same screaming rant that he had received for daring to touch the Doctor.
The Doctor smiled weakly. “You’re too good to me. I left you for dead, you know.”
“That was me,” Jack said, remembering being alone on the Gamestation.
“Don’t be stupid Jack, you didn’t die. You can’t. Well, not from neglect. Takes energy relocation and a knife to the heart.” He laughed. “But you can probably see that,” he said, holding his palms out to them. “Blood everywhere.”
There was a silence, then Martha opened her mouth to say something. Jack squeezed her shoulder lightly. “Why don’t you leave it to me. Go home, rest. I’ll take care of him.”
“Oh I bet you will,” the Doctor leered, taking Jack aback slightly.
Martha looked far from sure about leaving them, but at Jack’s insistence, she too left the Hub. Now Jack and the Doctor were alone. He didn’t know what to say. “Maybe we should go sit down,” he suggested tentatively.
The Doctor nodded reasonably. “Do you have a room here?”
“Yeah, up that way.” Jack gestured to his office, which held the entrance down to his room. “But there’s not a sofa or anything…”
“We’ll sit on the bed,” replied the Doctor simply before walking in the direction Jack had indicated.
Jack followed him up to the office, not at all surprised when the Doctor seemed to instinctively know the way down to Jack’s room. He followed the Time Lord down the ladder, skipping the bottom rungs. He joined the Doctor sitting on the bed, though a more accurate description of his position would be sprawling. It was as though he meant to tempt Jack. But that behaviour directly contradicted his panic before when Jack had tried to hug him. The Time Lord was a state, no two ways about it.
“So what happened?” he asked. Straight to the point.
“I didn’t respond to Martha’s phone call,” the Doctor replied softly, eyes staring at the floor.
“Yeah you did,” Jack argued with confusion. “You came here and convinced the Xaan to get out of town.”
“I have a time machine, Jack. I didn’t need to hurry. I could abandon you all for a hundred years then run back with my tail between my legs, seeking redemption.”
“Is that what you did?” Jack asked quietly.
“Yep.”
One-hundred years. The man Jack had saluted on the Plass was one-hundred years older. What had he seen? Who had kept him company? What had kept him sane? “Well I guess we’re even now then,” he chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. “I missed you for a hundred years, now you’ve done the same.”
“I saw you,” the Doctor said, eyes still staring through the room, through the walls of the Hub, out at the Universe.
If the Doctor had grabbed Jack’s attention any more, he’d have been throttling it. “Yeah? Was it those Time Agency days I’ve forgotten?”
“No. It was far away. You’d forgotten so much more.”
“Now hang on, you aren’t telling me my future. You know better than that.” Jack didn’t want to hear his fate. Not if it had put such a deep sadness in the Doctor’s eyes.
“I thought I did,” the Doctor murmured. His voice was increasingly dream-like and low. “I thought I always knew better. Thought I could fix Earth. Then I thought I could leave Earth. Everything I did made things worse. My living and breathing makes things worse. Look.” He held his palms out again for Jack to examine. There was nothing there. “Don’t ask me how it got there, I can’t say.”
Jack took hold of the Doctor’s hands, running his fingers lightly over the Time Lord’s palms. “I don’t see anything,” he said, his voice dropping to the same volume as the Doctor’s, making the room feel hushed.
“Of course you don’t,” the Doctor replied with a fond smile. “You never could. You never will. My blind Jack.” He laughed. “I won’t let them burn your eyes out with hot pokers though! No, this Samson gets to die by Delilah’s hand.”
“You’re talking in riddles,” Jack said, his concern for the Time Lord constantly reaching new heights. “Just tell me what happened. Who hurt you?” Because someone or something had damaged his Doctor over the long years they had spent apart. The Doctor had been left vulnerable after the events on the Valiant and while one-hundred years was a long time, it was still possible that someone had taken advantage of the Doctor’s wounded heart.
The Doctor was just staring at him, so Jack squeezed his hands and asked again. “Doctor, who hurt you?”
“I did,” answered the Doctor after a long pause. “I ruined everything. I broke something. Just once, by accident. I was careless. I didn’t know I broke it, so I didn’t stay to fix it. By the time I came back it was just jagged shards, cutting into everyone who went near it. I’ve got to go back and pick up the glass before people get hurt.”
As Jack struggled to find some sort of reassurance he could give, the Doctor moved his hands up over Jack’s wrists. Powerful fingers traced the faint blue veins under his skin. “Do you want me, Jack?” He stared in shock at the Doctor’s coy expression as the Time Lord went on to say, “because I want you.”
Jack drew his hands back sharply. “No you don’t.”
“I do,” insisted the Time Lord, kneeling on the bed, looking keen. “I do want you. I know it’s hard to believe, but I do want you. I want you to make love to me. We can have one glorious night.”
“Why only one night?”
That seemed to be the wrong question (or the right one, depending on your point of view). The Doctor looked nervously around the room as though looking for an answer. He became more agitated the longer he was speechless. Eventually he said uncertainly, “One night is all we need.”
Then the Doctor shifted over so that he was virtually in Jack’s lap. “I’ve missed you.” His hands began to roam Jack’s body, those dextrous fingers working at the buttons on Jack’s shirt.
This was a fantasy come true, but Jack had to understand why it was happening. To that end, he grabbed the Doctor’s wrists and stopped the Time Lord from further exposing the Captain’s skin. “Doctor, please. Tell me what happened. What’s made you behave like this?”
The Doctor sighed heavily. “I know you must think I’ve gone insane, but you have to remember my non-linear lifestyle.”
Jack nodded. “Yeah, I get that. You’ve grown older and things have happened. But you have to remember that I can’t see that. All I see is you acting weird and it’s scaring me, to be honest. What’s changed your mind about a sexual relationship with me?”
“Not a relationship,” the Doctor corrected him.
“Just a night of sex. Right. That’s so unlike you I’m beginning to think you aren’t my Doctor.”
“But I am yours, Jack. I gave myself to you, thousands of years from now. You gave me your mind so I gave you my body.”
Jack took a while to think that through, still clutching the Doctor’s wrists in his hands. What an amazing future lay ahead of him if the Doctor’s words were true. Okay, so it was thousands of years away, but one day the Doctor would be his. “So why come back here to this time? Can’t you use my future self for a booty call?”
“He died,” the Doctor whispered.
“So? I’m always dying. I died on my way to get lunch yesterday. It was busy and I thought if I took a short cut across the…main…road…” his explanation trailed off when he saw the look in the Doctor’s eyes. “You mean permanently. Fuck. How? No, don’t tell me!” Jack let go of the Doctor’s hands and stood from the bed so that he could pace up and down the bedroom. “Why are you telling me this? You know you’re not supposed to tell me this!”
“He died for me,” the Doctor said softly. Jack stopped his pacing to see the Doctor was crying silently. It wasn’t proper crying, with sobs and gasps and messy eyes. The Doctor simply sat motionless as tear after tear poured down his cheeks. He didn’t even seem to realise he was crying.
Jack sat back down on the bed. This time when the Doctor lunged forward onto his lap, Jack caught him in his arms and held him in a secure embrace. Things were starting to make sense now, though barely. Clearly the Doctor had become intimate with a future Jack, presumably a wiser and more mature Jack. And that man had done what Jack liked to think he would do at any point in his life – sacrificed himself for the Doctor’s sake. And now the Doctor was alone and needing comfort from the closest thing he had to the man he’d lost. Jack felt his eyes tearing up just thinking about it.
“Ssh, I’m here,” he murmured soothingly, rocking the Doctor in his arms. He knew this went against so many rules of time-travel, but for the Doctor he would break any rules without regret.
The Doctor’s lips on his came as a surprise and Jack was kissing back before he realised it. The Doctor’s cool mouth tasted so unique and holding him felt like holding the TARDIS, that sense of barely-contained power that urged the alien and his ship to keep moving, keep running, keep hiding…
Cold fingers sliding up Jack’s chest under his shirt gave the Captain a shock and he pulled back. “Doctor, you’re not…” ‘well’, he wanted to say. The Doctor wasn’t well, not while he was in such a grief-stricken state. But the look in the Time Lord’s eyes stopped Jack’s voice in his throat. It was the most affectionate look he had ever received from the Time Lord. A part of him wanted to look round to check the Doctor wasn’t looking at Rose or the Master, either of whom might have suddenly appeared behind him. The rest of him wanted to push the Doctor down on the bed and make him feel better.
“Jack, I need you to make love to me. Please.”
He knew he shouldn’t. The Doctor needed a cuddle and a strong friend. But Jack couldn’t be that strong. Not when the Doctor was so willing and wanton. Not when each touch and caress felt like the Doctor was lost, in need of guidance that only Jack could give.
So he gave into him. Jack was so focused on pleasing and helping the Doctor that he lost all sense of time. It could have been minutes or hours later that he found himself on his back, the Doctor moving on top of him like an incubus, as though he was there to steal Jack’s life through seduction.
Jack arched his hips up, his cock sinking deeper into the Doctor’s cool, tight flesh. He never thought this would happen. He’d dreamt of it, fantasised about it, closed his eyes and pictured it some nights with Ianto, but he’d never honestly believed it was possible. And now he was here, the Doctor’s hands sliding up so that each palm covered a nipple, his right hand virtually above Jack’s heart.
Jack covered both hands with his and stared up into the Doctor’s beautiful eyes. “I love you so much. I’d do anything for you. Anything.”
A tear trickled down the Time Lord’s cheek and the Doctor moved his hands up to Jack’s shoulders so that he could lean down for a kiss. Jack took advantage of the move to twist their position, bringing the Doctor down to lay on the bed beneath him. He kissed away the salty tear on the Doctor’s face and continued worshipping the man’s body. Every thrust was a prayer, every kiss a sacrifice. The Doctor’s fingers pressed patterns into Jack’s back, digging deeper every time Jack moved in a certain way.
“I can’t do it,” whispered the Doctor.
Jack stilled. “Okay.” He started to pull away, his body trembling with denied pleasure. But the Doctor grabbed onto his arms, held him in place.
“No. This is fine. This is nice. But I can’t… I can’t do what I was supposed to. I just can’t. I…” Teary brown eyes stared up at him imploringly. “I need you tonight, Jack. I need this. Please.”
The ‘please’ was hardly necessary. Jack would have continued on an implied offer, let alone a plea. He resumed his movements, gentler and slower than before. He wanted to comfort and relax the Doctor. This had nothing to do with his own pleasure, though his cock ached and throbbed inside the Time Lord’s trembling body.
They came together, the Doctor with a soft cry and Jack with whispers of adoration. Then he wrapped his arms around the Time Lord and held him close. The Doctor began to sob again in his arms.
“Ssh, ssh…”
“I’m so sorry Jack, I can’t do it. I can’t save you. I want to, so badly, but the blood, there’s too much… I’m sorry… I can’t bear anymore…”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Jack murmured in the Time Lord’s ear. “Just rest. You can relax with me.”
His words seemed to calm the Doctor down and the Time Lord snuggled against his side. His breath tickled the skin on Jack’s chest when he spoke. “I won’t let you down,” the Doctor whispered. “It’s violence that makes things difficult, I won’t let it happen again. Time will clean my hands if I look after you. I won’t run away again.”
Jack’s heart ached to hear his beloved Time Lord so damaged. “Whatever’s happened, whatever you’ve done, I forgive you,” he said softly. “I’d forgive you anything. And if you need to run, just run. I’d wait for you.”
Despite his best efforts at consoling the Time Lord, Jack could do nothing to stop the Doctor from sobbing his hearts out all through the night.
He could only hold his beautiful and broken Time God and hope that his love was powerful enough to put him back together some day.
Author:
sarkywomanChallenge: Power
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Up to and including 'Last of the Time Lords'. AU after that.
Warnings: It's quite dark, contains dubious-consent (drug-use), slightly dodgy use of slightly underage slaves. Insanity. Character death.
Summary: The Doctor returns to Earth after a long absence to find power has corrupted a once-noble friend. Thanks again to all the people I thanked in the notes of the first chapter, especially
vail_kagami.Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Alone once more in the TARDIS, the way it should be. The way it should have always been. He couldn’t help but think about how many people would have been better off if he had just locked himself away after the Time War like some sort of artefact, the last relic of Gallifrey gathering dust as a one-of-a-kind antique.
At least Earth was on a road to recovery now. Of course it was entirely possible that the population would take the road in the wrong direction and wind up even more depraved, nonsensical and barbaric than Jack, but that was up to them. If they didn’t bring their armies home and they chose to exploit their new freedom at the expense of others, the Doctor would return and…
He sighed heavily at the thought of having to return. He couldn’t put it off this time. The Doctor had promised in yesterday’s global broadcast to return frequently to check up on their progress. They had established a sort of temporary theocracy whereby the temple leaders were local leaders until a global democracy could be established. It was far from perfect, but it was an attainable improvement on the tyranny they had previously been part of.
Everyone had begged him to stay. They defied their Overlord – oh Jack… – so that they might benefit under the rule of their God. Instead he had to abandon them to their own devices. Typical that the Time Lord insistence on non-interference had only started making sense to him now that none of his species were around to see him abiding by the rules.
The Doctor was sitting on the grid floor of the TARDIS, his back against the console. By his feet the Xaan Royal Bloom lay on top of the sketch he had found in the shrine on his way to the TARDIS. Jack had vastly understated his own artistic ability. The Doctor had never seen such a beautiful and idealised representation of himself on paper. It was just another in a long line of examples showing how Jack’s obsessive love had warped him more than hatred ever could.
He had no idea where to go. He had taken Drakton back to the colony on Morsnok 12, along with Reyma’s body. Apparently Drakton and Reyma were cousins who had lived in the Morsnok region until Jack took a shining to them during an invasion. Reyma hadn’t lived to see her home freed from the rule of the New Human Empire. She could only be buried there by her grieving family. Drakton had been obviously pleased to see the last of the Doctor. Whether it was Stockholm Syndrome or a sincere affection, Drakton had cared for Jack and could not understand the Doctor’s actions.
Now the Doctor floated alone in the Vortex, only the TARDIS to keep him company and his faithful ship had been very quiet for the past fifty years or so. He couldn’t seem to gather the motivation to go anywhere. After seeing his long-term impact on Earth and on Jack, he could no longer kid himself that he made things better. His name was a lie.
He wrapped his arms around his knees and tried to keep it together. For one-hundred years he had tried to put Earth out of his mind. It hadn’t worked even half of the time, but he’d been doing okay, on the scale of things. He’d kept moving, kept finding new wonders to occupy his time and his brain. He’d saved people. He hardly remembered their faces though, clouded as they were by the faces of those he had failed to save. For a century he had wondered what became of them, his dear humans. He’d seen their accusing stares whenever he closed his eyes, heard the voices of Rose and Martha…
He actually gasped and clambered to his feet as the idea burst fully-grown into his brain. It was terrible and wonderful and impossible but so tempting…
He ran to the room on the TARDIS where he had left Martha’s mobile phone. Bless his old ship, she had kept it fully charged and functional for him. He had one missed call, the time and date of his shameful abandonment flashing up on the screen. He could go back. He could fix things. He was the Doctor, he could cure Jack before madness set in. And Jack had been inadvertently forming a paradox in the future, so the Doctor’s changes would be excusable!
You only needed excuses if you were doing something wrong.
But the Doctor pushed that logic away and went back to the console room. Sensible thinking wasn’t helping anyone. As a Time Lord he knew that Jack’s Empire did not have to be Earth’s future. It was a point of flux. The Doctor would be immune to the Paradox Effect and nobody else would have to be. He could save them all.
At Jack’s expense.
His hand hovered over the TARDIS lever. His hand that was covered in blood. He’d washed it of course, scrubbed himself raw. No human would be able to see the blood. It was only visible to Time Lord eyes. If the Master was here, he’d see it. The Master had always seen it.
Could he do it again? Could he take a blade in his hands and stab a dear friend through the heart for the second time? Knowing how the blood stained his very soul, seeped in through his pores and soaked into him until his moral fibre was a deep crimson? Could he do that for the sake of the Universe?
He’d already done it once. And if Jack knew what he was doomed to become, he would welcome respectable oblivion.
The Doctor took a deep breath and pulled the lever, rushing back through time to the year 2008.
*
“Jack, he’s not coming!”
The Captain met Martha’s panicked brown eyes. The UNIT medic still clutched the phone in her hand, even though she had made her call over fifteen minutes ago. As if the Doctor would call to explain his delay.
“He has a lousy sense of time-keeping for a Time Lord,” Jack said in an attempt to reassure her. “I’m sure he’ll turn up at the last minute.”
“We’re rapidly approaching the last minute!” Owen yelled as he ran past them carrying a veritable arsenal of weaponry.
They ignored him. Martha put her phone away, still not looking confident. “But Jack, he didn’t even answer. How can we trust him to show up when he can’t even answer the phone?”
“He’ll save us,” Jack said firmly. “The Doctor wouldn’t abandon us unless there was a damn good reason.”
Ianto jogged past them to access a nearby computer. “That isn’t what you’ve told me in the past,” he said, eager to add his viewpoint to the conversation.
“He had his reasons,” Jack insisted. Sure at times he had doubted their validity, but he liked to think he had grown to accept that the Doctor’s alien nature could lead him to make decisions that mere mortals (and mere immortals) could not comprehend. Jack figured he had a long time ahead of him in which he could devote himself to considering the Doctor’s thought processes.
“Jack,” Toshiko called from her computer. “I’m not liking these readings at all. The fluctuations are taking place at the higher end of the spectrum!”
He ran to her side, followed by Martha. “I thought you were scrambling the multi-signal?”
“I’m trying,” the tech-whiz cried, “but their systems are adapting!”
Jack cursed. Loudly. “The Doctor would know what to do,” he muttered to himself.
It seemed that Gwen heard him. She put a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Well he’s not here. You are. Lead us, Jack.”
The immortal growled under his breath. If only it were that simple. Hadn’t Gwen noticed that everything he had tried today had failed in the face of this new threat? All he knew was their name and hostility. Nothing about their strengths or weaknesses or technology. Did Gwen think he was holding back for the sake of suspense and drama? He was all out of ideas! But he looked around the room at the anxious faces and knew he couldn’t possibly admit that out loud. “Ianto, how long until they get here?”
His part-time lover started tapping on the keyboard of the computer. “Um…it’s tricky. The randomised patterns of energy expenditure mean they’re tough to track. They could be here in a few hours or they might be here in…”
A noise like popping bubble-wrap sounded around the Hub, a prelude to the appearance of hordes of Xaan warriors. They were humanoid, but looked more like the Futurekind Jack and Martha had encountered at the end of the Universe. They were all snarling and carrying heavy alien weaponry.
“Oh God…” Gwen whispered with audible terror. Jack subtly shifted so she was behind him, though the amount of Xaan warriors in the room meant she was provided little protection by his gesture. It was almost standing-room-only in the centre of the Hub.
“What do you want?” Martha said bravely, stepping forward. “Why are you on Earth?”
The Xaan all narrowed their eyes at her with distaste. “The creature dares to address us!” screamed a short alien of female appearance at the front. “She dies first!”
Jack tried to jump forward to shield Martha, but like the rest of his team he was dragged away by burly Xaan guards. Martha was held in a firm grip by guards on either side, her struggles proving futile. Everyone shouted and pleaded for the invaders to have mercy, but the cold-hearted warriors ignored them.
As the Xaan took aim at the ex-companion, another strange noise began to echo around the Hub.
“Ready…” called the Xaan woman in front “…FIRE!”
Beams zapped across the room from their weapons in a flash of blinding light. When the afterimage cleared, an unexpected sight greeted all present.
A blue box had appeared between the Xaan and Martha. A familiar face poked out of the door.
“Blimey,” said the Doctor, “that was good parking.”
The Xaan all lowered their weapons, looking stunned at the peculiar occurrence. Even the guards holding onto the team weakened their grasp. The Doctor wandered over to the female giving the orders – did the Time Lord look tired or was Jack imagining that?
“Princess Xaansha, it’s been a while.”
“Who are you?” snarled the angry young woman.
“Oh come on,” the Doctor said with exasperation, “How many people do you know who travel the Universe in a big, blue box?”
The princess’ brow furrowed. “You are not the Doctor! The Doctor is not so meagre in frame!”
“Oi!” the Doctor cried out, looking offended. “I’ll have you know that some people consider this regeneration to be rather fetching.” The cheeky bugger actually glanced at Jack when he said that.
“You cannot be the Doctor!” shouted the princess again. She seemed a bit distressed.
“Sorry,” the Doctor shrugged, hands in his pockets. “I don’t know what to tell you except I am me. I’m that annoying Time Lord who sang ‘300 sneegos on the mountain’ for two hours when we were stuck in the cell on Hziak.” His expression softened. “Xaansha, you know I’m telling you the truth.”
The Princess took a step back and pulled a flat circular device from her pocket. It was the size of her palm. She held it up to her mouth and spoke into it. “Brother, the Doctor is here.”
The Time Lord held out his hand to take the communicator and Xaansha handed it over to him without fuss. The Doctor spoke into the device clearly. “Gilvagh! It’s been too long! How are you, old friend?” He put the disc to his ear, clearly listening to speech from the other side. Then he spoke into it again. “Well for starters, this is Earth.” He listened once more, frowning and pursing his lips. While he kept his ear to the disc, he looked around the Hub. Jack immediately tensed at the thought of the Doctor examining the artefacts Torchwood had ‘acquired’.
“Found your problem!” The Doctor said exuberantly into the disc, bounding over to a small cylindrical tube on the floor. “Earth has this organisation see, called Torchwood…”
Jack felt the need to step in at this point. “Doctor, do you mind not telling the Universe about us?” He noticed that every time he took a step towards the Doctor, the Time Lord moved away, like they were both circling the cylinder.
“Anyway,” the Doctor continued, ignoring Jack’s objections, “this Torchwood pick up gizmos and gadgets from all over the Universe that find their way to Earth. They’ve picked up a Hziak data collection pod, but it’s way past its prime. Whoever brought it here must be long gone.” He put the disc to his ear and smiled faintly before speaking into it once more. “It was nice chatting to you too. I keep meaning to pay a visit to Xaan, just like the good old days.”
The Doctor handed the communicator over to the Princess, who listened to it briefly before slipping it into her pocket. Then she picked up the Hziak cylinder from the floor.
“Hey, hang on a minute,” Jack said, moving towards her. “That’s not yours.”
“It’s not yours either,” said the Doctor, putting a hand on Jack’s chest to hold him back, but then drawing it back as though he’d been burnt. “It’s best you let the Xaan take it. It’s useless to you, but they’ll keep it for sentimental value. Like a trophy, I suppose.”
“But…”
“And they’ll have no reason to stay,” the Doctor said slowly.
Jack realised that he was not going to win this argument. “Fine,” he muttered angrily.
The Princess beamed at the Doctor before teleporting away with the same bubble-wrap noise as before. The horde of Xaan warriors disappeared immediately after.
The first one to speak was Ianto. “Well that was…simpler than I’d expected.”
“It’s violence that makes things difficult,” the Doctor replied wisely. “Talking the problem through can make everything easier. Well…” he seemed to reconsider this. “In most circumstances.”
“I’m sure we’ll all bear that in mind next time a Weevil’s chewing on our genitals,” Owen said sarcastically. “Jack, is business done for the day? Can I go home? I have been running up and down stairs for no less than three hours now. I’m a doctor, not an athlete.”
“We’ve noticed,” said Martha with a barely-veiled smirk.
Jack spoke up to stop an argument from developing. “Yeah, yeah, everyone can head off home. I can deal with the day’s paperwork.” He turned to the Doctor with a faint hope. “You sticking around for a chat or do you have worlds to save?”
“I do have worlds to save,” the Doctor said as if thinking it over, “but all in good time.”
Jack glanced around the Hub to see who was still here. Owen was already gone, Gwen was on her way to the door while putting her coat on and Toshiko was closing down her computer. “Ianto, could you make the Doctor a cup of tea?”
The Welshman nodded politely. “Of course.”
“Actually I’m fine, thank you,” the Doctor claimed quickly.
“That’s not like you,” Martha said, wandering over to sit on the table beside them. “Turning down a cuppa? Are you feeling alright?”
“I’ve…uh…gone off tea,” the Doctor said, ruffling his hair in a nervous way. “Bad experience.”
Jack and Martha shared a worried look. “And it’s put you off tea?” Jack said with disbelief. “What happened,” he joked, “someone stick rohypnol in your PG Tips?”
The Doctor laughed loudly, louder than Jack had ever heard him laugh. “Oh don’t be so ridiculous,” he said, shoving Jack playfully. Jack didn’t want to believe it, but he had a hunch that he’d been too close to the truth.
“Seriously Doctor,” Martha said, patting the Time Lord’s hand. “Did something happen? You look tired.” It wasn’t just Jack who had noticed then.
The Doctor tutted at her condescendingly. “That’s the problem with doctors, they see health problems everywhere they turn. More often than not, they try to fix things that aren’t broken and break them in the process! Mad, isn’t it?” His eyes held a touch of mania that wasn’t entirely unusual for him, but it was a little unnerving.
Jack crossed the room to Ianto. “Think you could head home?” he whispered into the Welshman’s ear. “I know we had plans, but I’m a bit worried about him.”
“Of course,” Ianto replied, glancing over Jack’s shoulder at the Time Lord watching them. “Don’t let him hurt you.”
Since nobody else had spoken, Jack could only assume the Doctor’s hysterical laughter was a result of Ianto’s words. Martha looked at Jack with panic as the Doctor doubled over laughing.
Ianto made a hasty departure from the Hub with Toshiko as Jack rushed to the Doctor’s side. “Doc, come on, what happened?”
The Time Lord straightened and sobered, shaking his head. “Sorry, it’s just…it’s…I’ve had a really rough few days,” his voice cracked on the last word and he buried his face in his hands. His shoulders started to shake. The Doctor was crying. What could have made such an impact on such a psychologically powerful man?
His world-view shaken, Jack stepped forward to embrace the Time Lord. But the second his arms went around the Doctor, the man shoved him away forcefully and backed away in a panic, his eyes wide with fear and anger. “Oh yes Jack, that’s the solution to everything isn’t it, grab me and hold me so I can’t get away, because you always know what’s best for me because you love me so much it hurts us both! Well you can back off! I don’t need your comfort or your suffocating love! It’s a bloody death sentence, your love! It’s insane and obsessive…” the Doctor was pulling at his own hair almost brutally, ignorant of the effect his words had on Jack.
“Doctor,” Martha went over to him and gently took his fingers from his scalp. “Doctor, come on now, calm down.” Wearing her white lab-coat, she looked for all the world like a psychiatrist with a tricky patient. “Talk to us slow. We’re only silly humans, remember?” she encouraged him with a smile that didn’t quite hide her worry. “You have to dumb it down for us so we understand.”
For a moment the Doctor was completely still, looking at Martha’s face. “You died. You must have done. I never took the time to ask, but you must have died.”
Martha took a step back, uneasy with the quiet statement. “What do you mean I died? I’m right here.”
“I mean the first time,” the Doctor said in a muddled attempt to explain. “The first time, when I didn’t answer your call. The TARDIS wouldn’t have been in the way, you must have died. I’m so sorry.”
The poor woman looked terrified now. This wasn’t their Doctor. This man was broken and confused. Martha might have been trained to deal with shocking situations, but the Doctor lived in a different realm of experience. Jack put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, aware of the Doctor’s wary gaze on his every movement. “Head home, get some rest. I’ll talk to him.”
“I don’t think he wants that,” Martha said, eyes on the Time Lord. Her demeanour was that of a person faced with a wounded animal. It should be helpless and she wanted to help, but it kept lashing out.
“Don’t assume you know what I want,” the Doctor snapped. “As it happens, I need to talk to Jack. It’s very important.”
“Alright then,” Jack said, keeping his voice calm and steady. “Martha’s gonna head home so me and you can have a chat.”
“You’ve got my number, Doctor,” Martha said as she went and put her coat on. “You call me at any time if you need anything, okay?” Once she was suitably prepared for the cold evening outside, she hugged the Time Lord and kissed him on the cheek. Jack noted with some bitterness that she was not subject to the same screaming rant that he had received for daring to touch the Doctor.
The Doctor smiled weakly. “You’re too good to me. I left you for dead, you know.”
“That was me,” Jack said, remembering being alone on the Gamestation.
“Don’t be stupid Jack, you didn’t die. You can’t. Well, not from neglect. Takes energy relocation and a knife to the heart.” He laughed. “But you can probably see that,” he said, holding his palms out to them. “Blood everywhere.”
There was a silence, then Martha opened her mouth to say something. Jack squeezed her shoulder lightly. “Why don’t you leave it to me. Go home, rest. I’ll take care of him.”
“Oh I bet you will,” the Doctor leered, taking Jack aback slightly.
Martha looked far from sure about leaving them, but at Jack’s insistence, she too left the Hub. Now Jack and the Doctor were alone. He didn’t know what to say. “Maybe we should go sit down,” he suggested tentatively.
The Doctor nodded reasonably. “Do you have a room here?”
“Yeah, up that way.” Jack gestured to his office, which held the entrance down to his room. “But there’s not a sofa or anything…”
“We’ll sit on the bed,” replied the Doctor simply before walking in the direction Jack had indicated.
Jack followed him up to the office, not at all surprised when the Doctor seemed to instinctively know the way down to Jack’s room. He followed the Time Lord down the ladder, skipping the bottom rungs. He joined the Doctor sitting on the bed, though a more accurate description of his position would be sprawling. It was as though he meant to tempt Jack. But that behaviour directly contradicted his panic before when Jack had tried to hug him. The Time Lord was a state, no two ways about it.
“So what happened?” he asked. Straight to the point.
“I didn’t respond to Martha’s phone call,” the Doctor replied softly, eyes staring at the floor.
“Yeah you did,” Jack argued with confusion. “You came here and convinced the Xaan to get out of town.”
“I have a time machine, Jack. I didn’t need to hurry. I could abandon you all for a hundred years then run back with my tail between my legs, seeking redemption.”
“Is that what you did?” Jack asked quietly.
“Yep.”
One-hundred years. The man Jack had saluted on the Plass was one-hundred years older. What had he seen? Who had kept him company? What had kept him sane? “Well I guess we’re even now then,” he chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. “I missed you for a hundred years, now you’ve done the same.”
“I saw you,” the Doctor said, eyes still staring through the room, through the walls of the Hub, out at the Universe.
If the Doctor had grabbed Jack’s attention any more, he’d have been throttling it. “Yeah? Was it those Time Agency days I’ve forgotten?”
“No. It was far away. You’d forgotten so much more.”
“Now hang on, you aren’t telling me my future. You know better than that.” Jack didn’t want to hear his fate. Not if it had put such a deep sadness in the Doctor’s eyes.
“I thought I did,” the Doctor murmured. His voice was increasingly dream-like and low. “I thought I always knew better. Thought I could fix Earth. Then I thought I could leave Earth. Everything I did made things worse. My living and breathing makes things worse. Look.” He held his palms out again for Jack to examine. There was nothing there. “Don’t ask me how it got there, I can’t say.”
Jack took hold of the Doctor’s hands, running his fingers lightly over the Time Lord’s palms. “I don’t see anything,” he said, his voice dropping to the same volume as the Doctor’s, making the room feel hushed.
“Of course you don’t,” the Doctor replied with a fond smile. “You never could. You never will. My blind Jack.” He laughed. “I won’t let them burn your eyes out with hot pokers though! No, this Samson gets to die by Delilah’s hand.”
“You’re talking in riddles,” Jack said, his concern for the Time Lord constantly reaching new heights. “Just tell me what happened. Who hurt you?” Because someone or something had damaged his Doctor over the long years they had spent apart. The Doctor had been left vulnerable after the events on the Valiant and while one-hundred years was a long time, it was still possible that someone had taken advantage of the Doctor’s wounded heart.
The Doctor was just staring at him, so Jack squeezed his hands and asked again. “Doctor, who hurt you?”
“I did,” answered the Doctor after a long pause. “I ruined everything. I broke something. Just once, by accident. I was careless. I didn’t know I broke it, so I didn’t stay to fix it. By the time I came back it was just jagged shards, cutting into everyone who went near it. I’ve got to go back and pick up the glass before people get hurt.”
As Jack struggled to find some sort of reassurance he could give, the Doctor moved his hands up over Jack’s wrists. Powerful fingers traced the faint blue veins under his skin. “Do you want me, Jack?” He stared in shock at the Doctor’s coy expression as the Time Lord went on to say, “because I want you.”
Jack drew his hands back sharply. “No you don’t.”
“I do,” insisted the Time Lord, kneeling on the bed, looking keen. “I do want you. I know it’s hard to believe, but I do want you. I want you to make love to me. We can have one glorious night.”
“Why only one night?”
That seemed to be the wrong question (or the right one, depending on your point of view). The Doctor looked nervously around the room as though looking for an answer. He became more agitated the longer he was speechless. Eventually he said uncertainly, “One night is all we need.”
Then the Doctor shifted over so that he was virtually in Jack’s lap. “I’ve missed you.” His hands began to roam Jack’s body, those dextrous fingers working at the buttons on Jack’s shirt.
This was a fantasy come true, but Jack had to understand why it was happening. To that end, he grabbed the Doctor’s wrists and stopped the Time Lord from further exposing the Captain’s skin. “Doctor, please. Tell me what happened. What’s made you behave like this?”
The Doctor sighed heavily. “I know you must think I’ve gone insane, but you have to remember my non-linear lifestyle.”
Jack nodded. “Yeah, I get that. You’ve grown older and things have happened. But you have to remember that I can’t see that. All I see is you acting weird and it’s scaring me, to be honest. What’s changed your mind about a sexual relationship with me?”
“Not a relationship,” the Doctor corrected him.
“Just a night of sex. Right. That’s so unlike you I’m beginning to think you aren’t my Doctor.”
“But I am yours, Jack. I gave myself to you, thousands of years from now. You gave me your mind so I gave you my body.”
Jack took a while to think that through, still clutching the Doctor’s wrists in his hands. What an amazing future lay ahead of him if the Doctor’s words were true. Okay, so it was thousands of years away, but one day the Doctor would be his. “So why come back here to this time? Can’t you use my future self for a booty call?”
“He died,” the Doctor whispered.
“So? I’m always dying. I died on my way to get lunch yesterday. It was busy and I thought if I took a short cut across the…main…road…” his explanation trailed off when he saw the look in the Doctor’s eyes. “You mean permanently. Fuck. How? No, don’t tell me!” Jack let go of the Doctor’s hands and stood from the bed so that he could pace up and down the bedroom. “Why are you telling me this? You know you’re not supposed to tell me this!”
“He died for me,” the Doctor said softly. Jack stopped his pacing to see the Doctor was crying silently. It wasn’t proper crying, with sobs and gasps and messy eyes. The Doctor simply sat motionless as tear after tear poured down his cheeks. He didn’t even seem to realise he was crying.
Jack sat back down on the bed. This time when the Doctor lunged forward onto his lap, Jack caught him in his arms and held him in a secure embrace. Things were starting to make sense now, though barely. Clearly the Doctor had become intimate with a future Jack, presumably a wiser and more mature Jack. And that man had done what Jack liked to think he would do at any point in his life – sacrificed himself for the Doctor’s sake. And now the Doctor was alone and needing comfort from the closest thing he had to the man he’d lost. Jack felt his eyes tearing up just thinking about it.
“Ssh, I’m here,” he murmured soothingly, rocking the Doctor in his arms. He knew this went against so many rules of time-travel, but for the Doctor he would break any rules without regret.
The Doctor’s lips on his came as a surprise and Jack was kissing back before he realised it. The Doctor’s cool mouth tasted so unique and holding him felt like holding the TARDIS, that sense of barely-contained power that urged the alien and his ship to keep moving, keep running, keep hiding…
Cold fingers sliding up Jack’s chest under his shirt gave the Captain a shock and he pulled back. “Doctor, you’re not…” ‘well’, he wanted to say. The Doctor wasn’t well, not while he was in such a grief-stricken state. But the look in the Time Lord’s eyes stopped Jack’s voice in his throat. It was the most affectionate look he had ever received from the Time Lord. A part of him wanted to look round to check the Doctor wasn’t looking at Rose or the Master, either of whom might have suddenly appeared behind him. The rest of him wanted to push the Doctor down on the bed and make him feel better.
“Jack, I need you to make love to me. Please.”
He knew he shouldn’t. The Doctor needed a cuddle and a strong friend. But Jack couldn’t be that strong. Not when the Doctor was so willing and wanton. Not when each touch and caress felt like the Doctor was lost, in need of guidance that only Jack could give.
So he gave into him. Jack was so focused on pleasing and helping the Doctor that he lost all sense of time. It could have been minutes or hours later that he found himself on his back, the Doctor moving on top of him like an incubus, as though he was there to steal Jack’s life through seduction.
Jack arched his hips up, his cock sinking deeper into the Doctor’s cool, tight flesh. He never thought this would happen. He’d dreamt of it, fantasised about it, closed his eyes and pictured it some nights with Ianto, but he’d never honestly believed it was possible. And now he was here, the Doctor’s hands sliding up so that each palm covered a nipple, his right hand virtually above Jack’s heart.
Jack covered both hands with his and stared up into the Doctor’s beautiful eyes. “I love you so much. I’d do anything for you. Anything.”
A tear trickled down the Time Lord’s cheek and the Doctor moved his hands up to Jack’s shoulders so that he could lean down for a kiss. Jack took advantage of the move to twist their position, bringing the Doctor down to lay on the bed beneath him. He kissed away the salty tear on the Doctor’s face and continued worshipping the man’s body. Every thrust was a prayer, every kiss a sacrifice. The Doctor’s fingers pressed patterns into Jack’s back, digging deeper every time Jack moved in a certain way.
“I can’t do it,” whispered the Doctor.
Jack stilled. “Okay.” He started to pull away, his body trembling with denied pleasure. But the Doctor grabbed onto his arms, held him in place.
“No. This is fine. This is nice. But I can’t… I can’t do what I was supposed to. I just can’t. I…” Teary brown eyes stared up at him imploringly. “I need you tonight, Jack. I need this. Please.”
The ‘please’ was hardly necessary. Jack would have continued on an implied offer, let alone a plea. He resumed his movements, gentler and slower than before. He wanted to comfort and relax the Doctor. This had nothing to do with his own pleasure, though his cock ached and throbbed inside the Time Lord’s trembling body.
They came together, the Doctor with a soft cry and Jack with whispers of adoration. Then he wrapped his arms around the Time Lord and held him close. The Doctor began to sob again in his arms.
“Ssh, ssh…”
“I’m so sorry Jack, I can’t do it. I can’t save you. I want to, so badly, but the blood, there’s too much… I’m sorry… I can’t bear anymore…”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Jack murmured in the Time Lord’s ear. “Just rest. You can relax with me.”
His words seemed to calm the Doctor down and the Time Lord snuggled against his side. His breath tickled the skin on Jack’s chest when he spoke. “I won’t let you down,” the Doctor whispered. “It’s violence that makes things difficult, I won’t let it happen again. Time will clean my hands if I look after you. I won’t run away again.”
Jack’s heart ached to hear his beloved Time Lord so damaged. “Whatever’s happened, whatever you’ve done, I forgive you,” he said softly. “I’d forgive you anything. And if you need to run, just run. I’d wait for you.”
Despite his best efforts at consoling the Time Lord, Jack could do nothing to stop the Doctor from sobbing his hearts out all through the night.
He could only hold his beautiful and broken Time God and hope that his love was powerful enough to put him back together some day.
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