Yamx: Reaction (Jack/Nine) [PG]

[yamx]

Title: Reaction (1/1)
Author: Yamx
Challenge: SUMMER (or Winter) HOLIDAYS; prompt 15: memory - the past – absolution – forgiveness
Rating: PG
Spoilers/warnings: “The Doctor Dances” (one small allusion to information that’s not revealed until “Adam”)
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction; the characters are the property of the BBC and borrowed here without permission. No money was made.
Summary: Starts a few hours after TDD ends – Jack has a hard time dealing with the events of the day.

Reaction

Jack falls back against the door, breathing heavily.

This is it. He knows what’s coming.

He’s always been like this – cool and collected in a crisis, and as charming and suave as you please while it’s necessary to keep up a front. But once he’s alone…

He fumbles to fasten the strange old-fashioned deadbolt on the door to the bedroom the Doctor assigned him – as far as possible away from Rose’s, he’s sure. Just as well. He’s not feeling very social right now.

Reaction’s setting in.

A wave of nausea hits him hard and he stumbles through the door to the en-suite bathroom. It’s not until he’s hanging over the toilet bowl, retching his guts out, that it occurs to Jack to wonder if the bathroom had been there when he first entered the room. He only recalls the one door, really. But then, he’s not at his best right now.

He feels as if he’s brought up every bit of food he’s eaten in the last year, but still the retching won’t stop. It has turned into convulsive dry-heaving, and his hands are clinging to the rim so tightly his knuckles are as white as the porcelain.

Just hang on, he tells himself, this will pass.

It always does, of course. This is hardly his first crisis. But it’s never been this bad before.

On the other hand, he’s never almost killed his entire species before, either. And not even on some heroic Time Agency mission gone wrong. For stupid, selfish greed.

Jack takes a shuddering breath. He’ll get through this, just as he always does. He’ll spend a sleepless night, probably, but tomorrow at breakfast, he’ll be able to present his usual charming rogue front to the Doctor and Rose. If he can just lie down for a few hours, even without sleep, he’ll be fine. Now if only he could drag himself to the bed…

He just needs a minute. His knees will stop feeling like butter any second now.

Slowly, he pushes himself upright. He takes a shuddering breath and turns to the bathroom door.

“What’s all this then, lad?”

“N…nothing.” He tries to smile at the leather-clad figure leaning in the doorframe. Apparently, the deadbolt was more of a prop to make him feel secure than an actual obstacle to the Doctor on his own ship. Figures. “Just a stomach upset. Must be those damn bananas.” It’s a weak attempt at a joke, made even weaker by the hoarse tremble in his voice.

The Doctor shakes his head. “Sit,” he says simply, jerking his head in the general direction of the bed. He puts out a hand to steady him.

“Really, I’m fine…” Jack insists.

“Yeah? That why you’re shaking like a badly adjusted temp-rotational spindle?”

He attempts to glare at the Doctor, and it’s only when his eyes refuse to focus that he realizes they are brimming with tears. Now this is new. He can’t remember crying since the day of the invasion.

The Doctor leads him to the bed and sits him down. “You need some rest.”

Jack nods weakly. He’s expecting the Doctor to leave, but the other man sits down besides him. Jack cocks his head, confused. What does the Doctor want?

“Go on then, tell me what this is all about.”

“What it’s about?” Jack blurts out before he can stop himself. “What do you think? I almost destroyed the entire universe today!”

The Doctor frowns in genuine puzzlement. “How’d you figure that?”

Jack looks at him, confused. Surely, anyone owning a ship like this must know the first principle of time travel? “Paradox.”

The Doctor’s watching him, clearly wanting him to elaborate.

“It’s not just Earth, not just humans. If I’d done it, if I’d killed the entire human race, in 1941… I’d never have been born. Which sounds like a good thing right now, except then I could never have screwed this up in the first place, so mankind would have survived and I would have been born… A paradox. On a catastrophic scale. The whole universe would have collapsed.”

To Jack’s utter astonishment, the Doctor laughs. Short, barking, but indubitably laughter.

“What’s so funny about that?”

The Doctor shakes his head. “Is that really what you think? That you, one silly little ape, could have destroyed the entire universe?”

Jack is getting angry now. “I don’t know how much you know about temporal-spatial sciences, but all the experts agree that a paradox on a large enough scale would destabilize the temporal vectors, disintegrating spatial integrity until-"

The Doctor raises a hand to silence him. “Enough with the pseudo-science.” The merriment is gone; the other man is now focused and intense. “Now you listen to me, lad. What you did was stupid. ‘course it was. Paradoxes are bad. And yes, this one would have been particularly nasty – from the inside. Earth, all its colonies, the species you lot communicated with, interbred with – a lot of people would have suffered the consequences of your idiocy.”

Jack gulps and looks away, not sure if it’s the intense gaze or the words that make him shiver. 

A rough, cool hand is on his chin, tipping it up until he’s looking at the Doctor again.

“But you wouldn’t have destroyed the universe. Space-time’s a lot more resilient than you humans give it credit for.”

You humans? Just who is this man? But the question will have to wait. Jack can’t focus on it right now.

He becomes aware of the Doctor’s hands on his shoulders. How long have they been there? Intense blue eyes are fixing him in a hard stare. “Won’t do anyone any good if you keep beating yourself up over this. It didn’t happen. 1941 is back on track, human race alive and well. It’s over.”

It’s not that simple. “How do we know? I could still have messed up history, damaged the timeline…”

The Doctor shakes his head. “You didn’t. Timeline’s fine. Trust me. I know.”

There’s something in the Doctor’s eyes that makes it impossible to doubt him. Jack nods slightly, breathing more calmly. But he turns his gaze away. “No thanks to me.”

“Well…” the Doctor begins, and his hand is on Jack’s chin again, forcing him to meet his gaze. “You’re hardly the hero of this piece, but you did all right in the end. Took care of the bomb. Almost died.”

Jack swallows. “That doesn’t make up for it.”

The Doctor’s eyes darken. “It never does. But stop beating yourself up about what might have been. Focus on what really did happen. Which is nothing, really. Just this once, everybody lived.”

“And that makes it all right?”

“Doesn’t matter if it’s all right. You have to move on. Live with it.”

Jack shakes his head, angry now. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

The Doctor’s fingers dig into his shoulders, squeezing painfully hard. Dark flames are suddenly burning in his gaze, and a burst of anger hits Jack with almost physical force. “You have no idea what I know, boy. None. Destroying a species? Ha. Destroying your own species?” His smile is colder than space. “You know nothing about guilt, lad. And you should thank whatever power you believe in for that on your knees every day.”

The look in the Doctor’s eyes terrifies Jack. Dark, old, full of immeasurable pain –  and utterly alien. “What are you?” Jack gasps, despite his desperate effort to bite back the words.

Suddenly, the darkness and pain disappear and are replaced with a wide and slightly manic grin. The Doctor lets go of his shoulders, sits back and gives him a slight wave. “Hello. I’m the Doctor. And I’m here to make you feel better.”

Jack doesn’t reply. Is too thrown by this complete change in demeanour.

The Doctor sighs, and pats him on the back, looking like nothing so much as a concerned uncle. “Jack. You need to leave this behind you. You messed up. Now don’t ruin your life over what-ifs.”

He’s not going to be thrown off the scent this time. “Who are you?”

First, he’s sure the Doctor isn’t going to answer. But the other man looks at him, cocking his head to the side. He gaze is measuring, considering, and he finally seems to come to a decision. “I’m a Time Lord.”

“That’s…” he was going to say ”impossible,” but looking at the man in front of him, and thinking of the oh-so-unbelievable ship they’re in, he suddenly realizes that it’s the only explanation that makes any sense. “Oh God…” The moment of his greatest humiliation was witnessed by the one person who can truly understand just how bad it was. By someone whose very purpose in life is to clean up the messes caused by idiots like him. He involuntarily shrinks back from the Doctor. “God, no.”

The Doctor raises an eyebrow. “Heard of us, then.”

“Only every day since joining the agency. But I thought…” He shakes his head. “What are you going to do to me?”

“Do to you?” the Doctor asks. “What do you mean?”

“Are you going to maroon me on some ice planet? Strand me in the Stone Age? Toss me out an airlock?”

The Doctor grins. “Yep. That’s why I’m wasting my breath trying to make you feel better here. Want you to wave at me cheerfully when you’re sucked into the vortex.”

All right, Jack realizes he’s being absurd. If the Doctor wanted him dead, he could just have let him blow up with his stolen Chula ship. But one doesn’t meet a legend – practically a god – every day. He’s always been told the Time Lords disappeared long ago – if they ever existed in the first place. He loved the legends, though, and he wanted to believe the Time Lords were real - secretly, he wished he could meet one.  Only when he finally did, he was in the middle of committing an idiocy of truly epic proportions, completely denied responsibility, and generally did his best to make the man think him an arrogant ass with no brains. “You must want to punish me somehow!”

“Must I?”

“You’re a Time Lord! Guardian of the timelines! Preserver of history! And I… I almost…”

The Doctor smiles mirthlessly. “Lad, if you knew some of the monumental screw-ups I’ve made…” Jack thinks back to the Doctor’s earlier words. Destroying a species. Destroying one’s own. Oh.

The Doctor’s gaze turns sorrowful. “You want to be punished? Right, here’s your punishment: you’ll remember. Every day, for the rest of your life, you’ll remember what you almost did. And every time you’re about to do something, you’ll wonder if you’re headed towards another catastrophic blunder. And you’ll never, never be sure that it won’t happen again, that you won’t screw up even worse. You’ll have to live with that every day. Nothing to do with me, though: that’s just the kind of bloke you are.”

Jack feels his throat go dry. The Doctor is right. And still, he feels like he’s getting off easy. “So you… you just forgive me?”

The Doctor shakes his head gravely. “Can’t forgive you for this.” Jack looks away and tries to withdraw. Of course not. Shouldn’t even have asked. He doesn’t deserve forgiveness.

The Doctor’s holding his shoulders firmly. “Not my place to.” He pauses, waiting until Jack meets his gaze again. “But I will if it’ll help you feel better.”

Jack nods mutely. No matter what the Doctor says, he’s a Time Lord, and he’s the one who’s cleaned up Jack’s mess – if anyone has the authority to forgive Jack for what he's done, it’s him.

The Doctor takes his face into both hands and looks at him intensely. “Captain Jack Harkness – I forgive you.” He leans in, and suddenly cold lips are covering Jack’s, firm yet tender, and for a moment, he’s held in a tight embrace.

As quickly as it started, it’s over. Before Jack can even gather his wits enough to react, the Doctor’s at the door, opening it. “Sleep now. You need to rest,” the Doctor throws back over his shoulder, closing the door behind him.

Jack lies back, crossing his arms behind his head. He doubts he’s going to get much sleep tonight. But contrary to what he thought half an hour ago, it’s not going to be guilt keeping him awake. It’s an entirely different kind of reaction.

 

The End