Left Behind 4/7
4. Explanations>
When he wakes once more, the lights are low and he’s alone.
He can sense it; there’s no movement, nothing hidden in the shadows and no sounds of another person breathing. It’s probably just as well. Being with the people he loves so much, yet knowing that he’s not loved the same way by them, hurts even more than when he was left behind.
There’s a movement by the door, though, and the Doctor strides in. His hair is rumpled - from sleep? - and he’s dressed only in trousers and a half-buttoned shirt.
Another difference. In his previous body, the Doctor would never even be seen in the TARDIS without being fully dressed. Even the leather jacket hardly ever came off. Once, once only, Jack had seen the Doctor partly clothed: the Time Lord had been injured in a ruckus as they’d been escaping from a planet that had unexpectedly turned out to be hostile. He’d had some cuts and slashes to his chest and shoulders, which Jack had treated right here in this infirmary. Once he’d completed the necessary repair work, the Doctor had pulled on his clothes again so fast Jack had worried that the bandages might get ripped off.
This Doctor obviously doesn’t have the same need for personal privacy. But then, if he and Rose are lovers...
Well, he looks like he’s just got out of bed.
Jack swallows. Why does the man have to look so tempting? Still? In this new body? Why couldn’t he have regenerated into a slob? Someone Jack could never have fancied in a million light-years?
“I asked the TARDIS to tell me if you woke up.” The Doctor’s standing beside him, that friendly smile that’s becoming so familiar on his face.
“You didn’t need to do that. I’m doing okay - not in any pain or anything right now.” And that’s mostly true.
The Doctor shrugs. “You know I don’t need as much sleep as humans. And anyway...” He smiles slightly. “I know what it’s like to be awake at night with no company other than your own thoughts.”
And he looks at Jack in that way he has sometimes - in both incarnations - that seems to suggest that he knows a lot more than he pretends. About stuff Jack would rather he didn’t know about, too.
There’s kindness in that look, too, another sentiment which doesn’t fit with the old Doctor. Not that the other Doctor couldn’t show kindness, but it would always come disguised with rough sarcasm or bantering humour. The nearest he would ever come to revealing his feelings was when one of them was in danger - even worse if it was because of a mistake he’d made. Then, the guilt and fear would take over and they’d be left in no doubt of his caring for them. His love.
Jack used to wonder if it was losing everyone he knew and loved in the Time War that had left the Doctor incapable of showing he cared about people he was close to, or whether it was just not in the Time Lord’s nature to get ‘domestic’, as he’d sarcastically said on occasion. Though, since this Doctor apparently had no trouble showing a wider range of emotions, perhaps it had been the man rather than the War.
It doesn’t stop him missing the man he knew, the irritable, manic, amazing man he’d called friend. The man who could command the centre of attention anywhere he chose, simply by raising a hand or using a certain tone of voice, and who could just as easily slip anonymously into the crowd when he wanted. But he already knows that the new body is just a covering. That the man he’s looking at now is still every bit the Doctor he knows and loves.
“You obviously kept yourself in good shape,” the Doctor is saying. “Even with TARDIS medical technology, you’re recovering a lot faster than most people would from those injuries.”
“You know me - always have to look my best.” Jack grins. Always, the best defence is his charm offensive.
“Yeah - not that you were looking your best when we found you the other night.” A lightning smile crosses his friend’s face. “Almost took you for a drunken tramp and ignored you.”
Jack doesn’t need the wink to know that’s not true.
He’s wide awake now, and feeling better than he was before. The Doctor seems willing to hang around for a bit and talk, so perhaps he can finally get some answers to his questions.
Like why they left him...
But he’s still too much of a coward to ask that one just yet. The truth can still hurt.
He has other questions about Satellite Five, though.
“So, Doctor, you died. Was it a Dalek?”
The Time Lord shakes his head. “No. I... got lucky.”
He turns around and reaches to grab a chair, dragging it over to Jack’s couch. “If we’re going to have this conversation, I’m going to make myself comfortable.” And he sits close to the couch, directly in Jack’s line of vision. Close enough to touch... if Jack were still the man he once was.
“Not even a Time Lord can come back from a Dalek’s death-ray,” the Doctor continues. “They have something that even gets around regeneration.” He runs a hand through his unruly hair. “You’re the only person, in my experience, who ever came back from extermination. And you understand that I’m talking about a very long time here.”
All nine hundred and more years of it. Yes, he understands that. But he has to know... “Why, Doctor? Why’d you bring me back if you were just going to leave me there?”
Suddenly, as the Doctor’s expression turns stricken, he knows that something’s wrong. His conclusions are wrong. It wasn’t like that at all...
“You thought we left you...” The words escape softly, almost under the Doctor’s breath. “Of course you did.” He leans closer. Actually takes Jack’s hand. His touch sends a shiver through Jack’s body.
“We thought you were dead. If I’d had any idea that you weren’t, I’d have come straight back.” He sighs roughly. “I heard you die. I heard the extermination blast and your scream. I was wrong once before when I thought a Dalek had killed someone - ”
Rose. She’d told him about that once.
“ - but this time I knew you had to be dead. There were too many of them - and I heard you scream. I heard you die. You know I couldn’t check. There was so little time - ”
“I remember. You had to do what you had to do. And that’s what I wanted. I told you.”
This isn’t making much sense either. How had the Doctor given him back his life without knowing that he was alive?
As if he knows what’s going through Jack’s mind, the Doctor continues, “I didn’t bring you back to life. Rose did. But she had no idea she’d done it.”
Rose?
“How?”
“That’s why I said it’s a long story. She looked into the heart of the TARDIS. Absorbed the Time Vortex.”
“My God,” Jack exclaims. “How is she still alive?”
The Doctor grimaces. “Exactly. That’s how she saved me, by the way. I was within seconds of being exterminated myself, along with the entire Earth and the rest of the universe. She came back to Satellite Five - you remember I sent her away?”
Jack nods.
“She wouldn’t stay away. Refused to stay safe when I was in danger. Should have expected it, really, knowing Rose. She opened the heart of the TARDIS to get back to us. And once she came back she used the power of the Vortex to destroy the Daleks. She told me she wanted me safe. She ended it all, Jack. She ended the Time War. I couldn’t believe it! I was so scared for her... and so proud of her.”
The Doctor is actually shaking, just a little. His hand is still covering Jack’s, so Jack turns his hand over and enfolds the Doctor’s in it. His friend returns the comforting squeeze, and their hands stay joined.
“So what happened?”
“Well, she couldn’t let it go. Didn’t know how to. And it was killing her. She was dying right there in front of me. So I took it from her. That’s what made me regenerate - even I can’t absorb something like that and live. And that’s why we rushed away so quickly once it was over. I just grabbed Rose - she was out cold - and ran into the TARDIS with her, shut the doors and dematerialised. I knew I was going to die and I wanted to be safely away from there when it happened.”
Jack is silent for a few moments, absorbing what he’s been told.
So the Doctor died to save Rose.
It doesn’t surprise him. He’s always known that the Doctor would do anything to keep Rose safe, if it was within his power. Just as Rose would do anything to save the Doctor. As he would for either of them - including giving his life for them.
“Must have been one hell of a shock for Rose when that happened. You dying and regenerating.”
The Doctor smiles. “That’s an understatement. Get her to tell you about it some time.”
“I will.” When, though? He won’t be here long enough for those kinds of heart-to-heart.
“And, just for the record, Jack...” The Doctor slides off the chair, releasing Jack’s hand, but doesn’t take his gaze from Jack’s for a second. “I’d have done exactly the same if it was you.”
Jack just stares. The Doctor would sacrifice a life for him?
Finally, he says, as the Doctor checks the medical equipment again, “You really didn’t leave me behind on purpose.”
He’s ashamed of how needy, how juvenile he sounds. He’s an adult, well into his thirties, who’s been looking after himself for years. He was a Time Agent. A Time Lord’s right-hand man. And now he’s the director of a secret government agency, on a salary that, for twenty-first century times, is pretty damned impressive. Yet here he is, almost begging for reassurance that he hadn’t been abandoned.
The Doctor returns to his seat. His eyes are serious, with a hint of sadness. His expression is sober as he leans forward and lays his hand on Jack’s shoulder for a long moment. The half-open shirt parts further, allowing Jack a glimpse of skin he longs to touch, to kiss, to feel against his own. “Jack, we thought you were dead.”
“Yeah. I got that. And... well, I was dead. It was a reasonable conclusion. But...” He hesitates, knowing that this is going to sound bizarre at the very least, and perhaps unbelievable. “Suddenly, I just woke up. Alive. And I ran out to where you were, only to see the TARDIS disappearing as I got there.”
“God.” The Doctor’s jaw clenches. “So close. I’m sorry, Jack.”
Jack tries to lean up, to get at least into a half-sitting position. The bandages on his chest strain, giving him pain. The Doctor presses a hand to his shoulder again. “Stay where you are.” He reaches down and produces a pillow, which he slides under Jack’s head. “That’s about the best I can do for now. Don’t want to let you undo all my handiwork.”
“Thanks. And it’s not your fault, Doctor. You didn’t know.”
“No.” Again, the Doctor grimaces. “We had no idea that you’d survived right up until we found you the other day. And because you had the TARDIS key, we knew you were our Jack. You can imagine it was one hell of a shock.”
Our Jack. How good that sounds...
“From after we met you, I mean. Not before. Which meant that you had to have survived the Daleks. So, you see, up until two days ago we still thought you were dead.”
So not really ours. Just a figure of speech. Ridiculous, painful disappointment sweeps through him.
“And I hadn’t a clue how you were alive after all. The only explanation that made any kind of sense was that it had to have something to do with Rose and the Vortex. She was doing a lot of amazing stuff while she had it inside her. But she doesn’t remember any of it. So - ” He spread his hands. “ - Once we had you stabilised, I hypnotised her. She remembered bringing you back to life. She knew, somehow, that you were dead, and she reversed it.” He shook his head slightly. “Incredible, I know. I even remember her saying ‘I bring life’, but I didn’t know what she was doing. So that’s how you survived, Jack. It was all Rose’s doing.”
Hypnotised Rose? Right... He’s always wondered about the Doctor’s mental powers. Time Lords, so legend said, did possess some sort of mental or telepathic abilities, but no-one had ever been sure exactly what. And the previous Doctor hadn’t exactly encouraged questions about what he could and couldn’t do. Except when he’d been playing games of anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better with Jack. Or willy-waving contests, as Rose had called it once when she’d got fed up with the two of them trying to outdo each other.
So the Doctor really can reach into people’s minds. He resolves to be very careful with his own thoughts around the other man.
Rose had resurrected him. In the grip of the Vortex, protecting her Doctor, destroying the Daleks, she’d thought of him. Cared that he was dead. Wanted him back.
Rose cares about him. Enough to want him alive. Enough to weep over him when he’s back and alive. Even if she doesn’t love him as he loves her, it’s enough to begin to melt the ice that’s been around his heart ever since he’d seen the TARDIS disappear.
And the Doctor... who would do the same for him as he’d done for Rose. On some level, he is loved by both of these people.
“Looks like I owe Rose a thank-you, then,” is all he says.
The Doctor smiles once more. “Yes. She did well.”
*********
tbc
Part 1: http://www.livejournal.com/community/better_with_3/52227.html
Part 2: http://www.livejournal.com/community/better_with_3/52674.html
Part 3: http://www.livejournal.com/community/better_with_3/53409.html