wintercompanion | Reflection

Title: Reflection
Author/Artist/Vidder/...: amythest_n_ice
Prompt used: What attracts the Doctor to Jack.

Rating: PG
Spoilers/warnings: none that I can see
Summary: The Doctor watches, waits and reflects.

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I sit here beside the couch in the medical bay, watching your wounds heal, watching gashes slowly close, hearing the cracking of bones realinging, making themselves whole again. I want to touch you, to make sure you know that I’m there as the awful wounds heal, but the damage is still so bad, I don’t want to cause you any more pain.

I thought I had lost you for good this time, it took you so long to claw your way back out of the abyss the Gravlar Beast had pushed you into. Two days where your lungs did not draw air, and your heart did not pump a single drop of blood, two days when I was sure my hearts would break. It had been centuries since I last felt that level of joy that washed over me when I heard you suck in that first shuddering breath.

People think it’s your looks that draw me to you, that I do not look beyond the packaging to what lies beneath. They think you are shallow, more fool them. I would be the first to admit that you are beautiful, and that your body can drive me to dizzying highs when we make love, but it is not this outer shell that attracts me to you.

It was your fire that drew me first, when I was in a body so very different to this one, the flame within that made you keep going, to fight to correct a disaster that your own foolishness had brought about, the fire that would let you admit you were wrong, and move past it. In fact, you have never once tried to claim you were perfect, mocking your own flaws with great humor.

Once that was over, and you had made your place aboard the TARDIS, it was your intelligence that attracted me next, the instinctive understanding of a technology far beyond your own, your easy acceptance of the TARDIS as an intelligence in her own right.

Your heart, your courage were the next lures that pulled me into your orbit. Your willingness to go into battle, even when you knew the odds were stacked against you, to defy the odds. Your willingness to lay down your life for others even when they would not fight for themselves, preferring to cower in the darkness. The forgiveness you offered me for abandoning you, even though I didn’t really deserve it. I ran from you, because I feared that now that you could have eternity with me, you wouldn’t want to, and you knew it. You saw through the lie and still allowed me back in your heart.

It was your courage that brought us to where we are now, going toe to toe with a monster, to give Martha and I time to get the villagers to safety. I don’t think even you expected it to damage you as badly as it did, but you still held on, still managed to kill it before you succumbed to your injuries. That is why I love you, not because you’re beautiful on the outside, but because you are beautiful on the inside.

I realize your eyes are open now, watching me as I sit watching you, and I smile, your wounds are still healing, you are obviously still in pain, but the first words past your lips are not for you.

“Everyone safe?” You ask, your voice weak, cracked.

“Everyone is fine, and you will be too, soon. Welcome back, my Jack.” I answer, carefully taking your still swollen hand in mine, your fingers flex briefly around mine, and you smile, drifting to sleep once more.

I sit back in my chair, your hand still carefully resting in mine, and allow myself to relax a notch. All is going to be right, and in the back of my mind, I feel the TARDIS singing her joy. She knew all along, that you would live, that was the way she made you, the way she changed you, her gift to us. Worlds might rise and fall, companions come and go, but you and I, we are forever.

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Reflection

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