gee_gaskarth_x: A First Time For Everything (Ten/Jack) [PG-13]

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Title: A First Time For Everything
Author: gee_gaskarth_x 
Challenge: 2010 Doctor/Jack Fest
Rating: PG-13.
Pairing: Ten/Jack
Spoilers/Warnings: Utopia
Prompt: Jack/Doctor first kiss (after "The Parting of the Ways").
Summary: Utopia: The scene that we didn't see. Jack and the Doctor continue the conversation from the radiation chamber before Martha interrupts.

The Doctor stood looking at the radiation chamber inside the silo, trying to ignore Jack, whose breathing was heavy as he stood behind him. The sound of Atillo's footsteps racing down the corridor faded. The Doctor was forcing himself to pretend Jack wasn't there, as he so easily had in his ninth body on board the Game Station. But he had to look at him sooner or later; he was the one to send Jack to the radiation.

He did turn eventually, and scoffed when he saw the Captain undressing.

"What are you taking your clothes off for?" he asked, trying to hide his nervous stutter behind a shed load of arrogance. Had it suddenly got hotter in there? Jack looked up at him, and his eyes flashed cheekily.

No, the Doctor told himself, reasonably and firmly. Of course it's not got hotter, you're standing next to a room full of radiation, you moron, that's all.

"I'm going in," the Captain was saying, as though it was obvious. The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

"Well by the looks of it, I'd say that stet radiation doesn't affect clothing, only flesh."

"I look good though," Jack countered, moving forward. The Doctor couldn't reply. Only Jack could leave the Doctor speechless.

Jack paused at the door, squaring his shoulders and breathing deeply. Then he turned and looked straight at the Doctor. The Doctor looked back, and Jack saw eternity in those eyes. It was still his Doctor alright. He didn't know if that thought was terrifying or comforting.

"How long have you known?"

The Doctor answered without a moment's hesitation. "Ever since I ran away from you." The words seemed to burn his mouth. He felt a pang of guilt, but Jack had turned away again, and the moment was lost; it seemed he would be making no apologies yet. "Good luck," he added as Jack opened the door and stepped inside. The Doctor watched from the window as his Captain got to work.

The Doctor wanted to speak through the thin pane of glass that separated them, but he couldn't find the words. He really wanted to do more than speak, he wanted to punch his fist through the glass and hold Jack's hand again.

Martha's voice sounded fuzzily through the comms. "Doctor, are you there?"

Jack looked up at the sound of her voice echoing through the chamber, catching the Doctor's gaze slightly. The Time Lord swiftly turned away and leant towards the intercom.

"Receiving, yeah." He glanced back to the room. "He’s inside."

"And still alive?" Martha asked, incredulous. The Doctor smiled to himself. Jack was an impossible thing that even he didn't fully understand yet; he wouldn't try to explain the Captain to Martha.

"Oh yes." He stepped back from the intercom, and leant against the door to speak through the glass. Jack was gritting his teeth as he worked on the coupling, muscular arms straining. The Doctor watched him, and it took a few seconds for him to find the words again. "When did you first realise?"

Jack looked up, a tiny smile dancing on his lips, the red light casting his face into glow. "Earth 1892. Got in a fight in Ellis Island. A man shot me through the heart. Then I woke up. Thought it was kinda strange." He paused, sombrely. "But then it never stopped. Fell off a cliff, trampled by horses, World War I, World War II, poison, strangulation, a stray javelin…" At that, the Doctor noticeably winced; it wasn't too hard to imagine what that must have been like. "In the end, I got the message, I'm the man who can never die. And all that time you knew."

The Doctor nodded, his mind guiltily registering the accusation and hurt in Jack's voice and wishing he could take it back. "That's why I left you behind. It's not easy even just…just looking at you Jack, 'cause you're wrong."

Ouch. Jack had wanted to talk about the whole thing, but he hadn't imagined the truth could hurt that much. Even the Doctor knew what that sounded like, imagined what it felt like. An apology would definitely be appreciated soon, he thought.

"Thanks," Jack said sardonically, turning his attention back to the coupling and resuming his work. The Doctor wanted to bang his head against the window. That was another moment gone. He had to apologise soon or he would miss his chance forever.

"You are, I can't help it," he said suddenly, then felt his own shock. That wasn't an apology, that was an excuse! More excuses. Jack had to hate him now. But still, he kept talking, wondering why he was doing it. "I'm a Time Lord. It's instinct. It's in my guts. You're a fixed point in time and space. You're a fact. That's never meant to happen. Even the TARDIS reacted against you - tried to shake you off. Flew all the way to the end of the universe just to get rid of you."

Jack sneered, and the Doctor felt ashamed. "So what you're saying is that you're prejudiced?" the Captain asked, almost humorously. Almost, not quite. The Doctor looked at him in shock. That was never how he’d looked at it, never how he'd seen it…

"I never thought of it like that," he replied honestly. Jack glanced away.

"Yeah," he said, his voice soft, low. Morose, the Doctor thought, and his hand ghosted over the door handle, considering, before Jack continued and he lost the moment yet again. "Last thing I remember, back when I was mortal…I was facing three Daleks. Death by extermination. And then I came back to life. What happened?"

"Rose." Her name stuck in the Doctor's throat, still. He had a tiny flashback to the Christmas just passed, standing in the snow with Donna.

"Her name was Rose."

Then he was back in the present, eyes wet and throat dry and closed.

"I thought you sent her home," Jack was saying. The Doctor swallowed to loosen up his vocal chords.

"She came back. Opened the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the time vortex."

Jack raised his eyebrows, and the Doctor thought maybe it was awe, for a second, before he realised he was just clueless. "What does that mean, exactly?"

The Doctor sighed, his hand ghosting over the handle again. He wasn't sure why, but right at this second he didn't want to talk about Rose. He wanted to go into that room and… Well, he didn't know what, but it didn't involve Rose. It involved him and Jack and nothing else, which was probably why he didn't do it. It would be wrong. Besides, he didn't want radiation joining in.

"No one's ever meant to have that power. If a Time Lord did that, he'd become a god, a vengeful god. But she was human. Everything she did was so human. She brought you back to life but she couldn't control it. She brought you back forever. That's something, I suppose. The final act of the Time War was life."

Poetic justice, he thought bitterly. Ain't life a bitch.

"Do you think she could change me back?" Jack pleaded hopefully, and the Doctor realised that the Captain had already known he was something wrong. He had hoped the Doctor would tell him otherwise, convince him he was not only okay but beautiful, and the Time Lord had let him down again.

"I took the power out of her," the Doctor answered sadly, feeling genuinely sorry for Jack, whose shoulders slumped and he seemed to lose all of his authoritative power. He just wanted to be his old self again… Once more, the Doctor carried on talking, when he could have just stopped. "She's gone, Jack. She's not just living on a parallel world, she's trapped there. The walls have closed." His voice cracked again on his final words.

"I'm sorry," Jack told him, and the Doctor could've screamed. All this time waiting for the moment to make an apology, then missing it, and waiting again, and now Jack had been the one to say sorry first, and that was wrong! The Doctor owed Jack an apology and Jack certainly didn't owe him one, and yet it was he who said the word first.

But the Doctor didn't scream. Instead, he closed up again, allowing on the briefest 'yep' to pass his lips, and Jack continued. "I went back to her estate, in the 90s, just once or twice. Watched her growing up. Never said hello, timelines and all that."

His words barely seemed to register as the Doctor was thinking too much of his earlier ones. "Do you think she could change me back?"

"Do you want to die, Jack?" he asked abruptly, watching the human carefully. Jack immediately looked down at the coupling he was struggling with.

"This one’s a little stuck,” he said, desperately wanting the subject changed. But the Doctor just leant closer against the glass, and breathed his name, low and alluring. "Jack."

Jack looked up, meeting his gaze, his head lowered and his eyes looking up through his lashes into the room and oh that look. Jack swallowed. The Doctor didn't move an inch, didn't break their gaze. Jack had known intense stares, but this was something more, something that burned in his very mind, generating heat and electricity and sending it in sparks through his body. For the first time, this Doctor felt right to him. This Doctor felt like his Doctor.

"I thought I did," he answered finally, unable not to. "I dunno. But this lot, you see them out here surviving and that's… fantastic." He moved onto the last coupling, and breathed a sigh of relief. He really was dying in here, he could feel the heat burning through his bones and there was sweat beading on his brow.

The Doctor smiled a little, finally breaking the gaze and looking to his side, seemingly into space.

"You might be out there somewhere."

"I could go meet myself," Jack replied, the room lit up by his smile, teasing. He knew he couldn't do it. He didn't much care. He was sharing playful banter with the Doctor again, finally, after so long. This was how it should be.

"Well," the Doctor said in mock thought. "The only man you're ever going to be happy with."

Jack grinned. "This new regeneration, it's kinda cheeky."

The Doctor dipped his head in agreement, barely, smiling at the human, a small 'huh' of laughter sounding in his throat. With a breathy cry of 'yes!' that sent the Doctor's mind reeling into places it really wasn't supposed to go, Jack released the last coupling, and the Doctor wrenched the door open.

"Get out of there, come on!"

Jack didn't need telling twice. Skin on fire, he stumbled through the door, and let out an 'oof!' of surprise when he found himself in the Doctor's waiting arms, being cuddled. The old Doctor didn’t do cuddling, not really. This one clearly did, and this one was good at cuddling too.

He loosened his hold finally, though they didn't move away, nor did they let go. The Doctor gave a dorky lopsided grin.

"Maybe this you-not-dying thing isn't so bad after all. I guess it could come in useful," he conceded jokingly. Jack slapped one of the arms that was looped around his back.

"I'll be your only companion you can always count on to be there, for the whole of time," Jack said, and everything went silent. He swallowed as the Doctor stared at him. "I, uh. That was supposed to be jokey too," he added, with a forced laugh, but the Doctor's face didn't stop being stunned.

"I never saw it that way," the Time Lord breathed, and then his face cracked into a grin. "I'll have you forever!" His grin wasn’t just excited, like usual, but it was happy too. It was blissful, and it made Jack's head spin and his heart combust, in the best possible way.

Jack knew it was him who kissed the Doctor first, but he didn’t care, because the Doctor kissed back, hard and happy, almost immediately. Their arms moved apart, but the Doctor took hold of his hands instead, and they just stood like that, together, just holding hands and kissing, both trapped in that single, idyllic moment, unaware of the chaos that was soon to unfold upstairs, and allowing the heat that wasn't really the radiation to wash over them like warm rain.

Yes, Jack thought as they stood there. He did like this Doctor. This Doctor was definitely still his Doctor.

Yes, the Doctor thought. Now he had his perfect moment, and he'd caught it just like he said he would.