Auction Fic: Requiem (1/2)
Title: Requiem
Authors: Gillian Taylor (dark_aegis) & WMR (wendymr)
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ninth Doctor
Spoilers: Children of Earth, End of Time(ish)
Rated: Teen (PG)
Disclaimer: Not ours by any stretch of the imagination. We're just having fun with them
Summary: On a planet many billions of light-years from Earth, Jack Harkness sees a man he knows for a fact is dead.
Author's Notes: azriona won us for the September Support Stacie auction and requested that we write a story together. This is the result. Prompt will be shared at the end of the story. Thanks, as always, to the ever brilliant kae_nine for her BRing assistance and wonderful commentary.
"Requiem"
A Support Stacie auction story for azriona
by Gillian Taylor (dark_aegis) & WMR (wendymr)
Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine
- The Requiem Mass, Roman Catholic liturgy
Chapter 1: Dies Illa
On a planet many billions of light-years from Earth, Jack Harkness sees a man he knows for a fact is dead.
It’s been over one hundred and forty years, by his reckoning, since he saw this version of the man he once called a friend, but even still he’d know the Doctor anywhere, even from behind.
The Doctor’s standing on the edge of a promontory, staring out to sea, apparently unaware of his surroundings. That suits Jack. He doesn’t want to be noticed now anyway, and especially not by this man - not in any of his incarnations, and especially not in this one.
This is the Doctor who took him in, made him believe that he had a home, a place to belong. That he was someone worthwhile, someone who could be trusted. And then abandoned him without a word.
The last thing he wants is to be noticed by this Doctor, quite apart from the risk of causing a paradox.
He turns away and hurries on down the path. His computer tells him there’s a town a couple of hours’ walk east, and if he’s lucky it’ll be big enough to have some kind of spaceport. His teleport’s burned out again, so until he can find parts to fix it he’s stuck with whatever he can find through his own resources: hitching a ride, getting a job or paying for his passage in some other way.
It was already time to leave this backwater planet anyway - far too like Earth in its topology and in the appearance of its inhabitants. Seeing the Doctor’s just made his departure even more urgent.
As he reaches a bend in the path, something makes him turn back. The Doctor’s still standing motionless at the cliff edge, head bowed and shoulders hunched, hands rigid by his sides. His fists are clenched, and something in the Time Lord’s stance...
That’s a man possessed by a grief almost too intense to bear.
He tries not to draw the comparison. His grief is his own, and it’s got nothing to do with the Doctor.
He forces himself to turn away again. This Doctor, he knows, had good reason to grieve. Much as he tried to hide it when Jack and Rose were around, there were times he couldn’t hold back signs of the pain and devastation he was still learning to live with. If he thinks he’s alone, then why wouldn’t he give in to a few moments’ heartache?
This Doctor’s not his responsibility. And anyway, the Doctor - this one and his regenerated self - have shown all too clearly that they don’t consider him in any way their responsibility. He owes the Doctor nothing. Nothing at all.
He shoves his hands in his coat pockets and keeps walking.
Not ten minutes later, his path’s blocked by a cat.
It wanders out in front of him and sits down on the gravel track, just looking at him. It’s big and a smoky silver-grey, with wide gold eyes, a colour Jack’s never seen before on a cat. It’s not just its colour, though, that strikes him. It’s the uncanny way it’s watching him - almost like it knows him, like it’s judging him.
He barks out a laugh. He’s obviously been alone too long if he’s anthropomorphising the local felines. Still, it probably just wants someone to pet it before it goes off chasing mice or whatever it is that it hunts on this planet.
He bends to scratch the animal’s ears, but it jumps up and runs away, off to the left of the path. Oh well. Suit yourself. He shrugs and starts walking again.
A loud meow halts him. The cat’s stopped and is standing on the grass a few feet away, looking at him. Once it sees him looking back, it starts to walk away again, only to turn its head and look at him after a few steps.
He has the strangest sense that it wants him to follow it.
He hasn’t got time for this. Shaking his head, he starts walking again. If he wants to get to the town before everything starts closing down for the night and he ends up trapped on this planet another day, he needs to get moving now.
The cat runs in front of him so quickly he almost trips.
“Look, I don’t have time...” he begins, before he remembers that he’s talking to a cat and stops.
The cat meows again and starts to walk off to the left a second time, then stops after a few paces and looks back at him. No question about it now; it wants him to follow.
Well, at the rate he’s wasting time here he might as well see what the creature wants. He sets off across the grass, following the cat, which is breaking into a run.
It leads him through the trees and into a small clearing, the sea sparkling off to the distance behind. But that’s not the splash of blue that makes him stop and catch his breath.
The TARDIS is there, right in front of him.
Well, he should have expected it, of course; the Doctor’s just back along the road. But somehow he didn’t quite follow the logic through.
The TARDIS. Once the closest thing to a home he had in a very long time. And then, the Doctor said, she ran from him because of what he is. The last time he was inside her, he helped the Doctors fly the Earth back home to its orbit in the Solar System.
That’s probably the last time he was genuinely happy. Feels like it was years ago now.
But what... He frowns and steps closer. What’s happened to her? The exterior of the old time-ship is filthy, battered and scorched. She looks sad, neglected and - it feels fanciful, but as desolate as her Time Lord.
The War.
It hits him in that instant. This must be just after the Time War. The Doctor’s probably only just regenerated, and the TARDIS still carries the scars of the last battles.
So does the Doctor, of course, only his are on the inside.
But why did the cat bring him here? What’s he supposed to do about any of this? It’s not as if he can do anything to help the Doctor. Not only is he the very last person who should be helping anyone, after what he’s done, but he can’t meet the Doctor. Not now, not before the Doctor’s met him.
“What do you expect me to do?” he demands, glaring at the cat, which is now sitting on the grass a few feet from the TARDIS, licking its front paw. And why would a cat bring him here, anyway? What the hell does this cat have to do with the TARDIS or the Doctor?
The cat raises its head and gives him a long stare. Then it looks over its shoulder at the TARDIS, and then washes its paw again, ignoring him. Two seconds later, it gets up and walks away, disappearing into the trees.
“Thanks a bunch,” he mutters. Shaking his head, he walks closer to the ship. It’s a shock to realise how much it hurts to see her like this - and how much more painful must it be to the Doctor?
He could clean her. That’s simple enough, and doesn’t require any interaction with anyone, least of all the Doctor. It’ll make the TARDIS feel better, and the Doctor too, maybe. It’ll make him feel better as well, he thinks.
Water, though. He’s about to reach into his pocket for the TARDIS key that he never went anywhere without, when he remembers. Destroyed in the bomb that wiped out the Hub and blew him into tiny pieces.
Well, that scuppers that idea, then. But... wait. He pauses, listening. Yes, that’s the trickling of water. And there it is, just behind the ship: a narrow stream, flowing towards the cliff and the water below.
That, and the leaves and bushes around, should be enough to make at least some inroads on the dirt. There’s even a large upturned shell of some kind of coconut-like fruit to carry the water in.
The cat was washing its paws, he recalls as he carries the first shell of water back to the TARDIS. Now that’s bizarre.
There are times where he wonders just what it’d be like to die. He’s good at dying, but death? Nope. He’s rubbish at it. Couldn’t do it when he sorted the Time War, now could he? Instead, here he is. Last survivor. The bloke who can’t die because of Rassilon’s gift of regeneration.
Rassilon. Ha! There are times he wishes he could just ignore what the bastard did, go back to the comfortable tripe of believing he was the best thing to happen to Gallifrey. Bloke fancied himself a god, and look at what happened.
He had to do it. Had to stop them. Had to. They were the ones who came up with their brilliant solution to end the war. Just had to end time, mind. A meagre sacrifice for the universe, that. Time Lords reigned supreme in their ivory towers, thinking they knew what was best. Thinking that Rassilon, of all people, knew what was best. Idiots. All of them.
He’d tried, though. Tried appealing to the Senate, tried telling them that it was a stupid solution. They didn’t listen; they wanted to live. And he was, apparently, the herald of their destruction.
He was, wasn’t he? He did it because his people became monsters far worse than the ones he’s faced in all of his regenerations. They became monsters because they followed Rassilon. Why, though? Why did they have to bring him back? Why couldn’t he have stayed safely sleeping in the Dead Zone? Why did they forget just who Rassilon was?
Why didn’t they listen to him, the Doctor? Why did he have to resort to... to...
He can’t complete the thought. He shouldn’t even be here. He thought he’d die right along with his kind, stuck within the time lock, dying in the first flames of the supernova he’d created. He should be dead.
Damnit, he deserved to die! His jaw clenches tightly as he stares, unseeing, at the sea. He should die. He killed his own people.
This is his punishment. His curse. An eternity of travelling the universe with the silence in his head his condemnation and reward.
It’d be easy, though, wouldn’t it? Dying. Death. There are ways he could do it. Fly the TARDIS into a sun. Let his body burn to ashes in an instant. Find a volcano and jump in. Find something that would completely destroy his body to the point regeneration would be impossible.
It’s tempting, so very tempting. He deserves to die. He deserves the rest it’d bring.
But - well, there’s always a but. He’s a coward. Took the cowards way out, didn’t he? He killed the Time Lords, but he still managed to set the TARDIS to skip out just ahead of the supernova. He still managed to survive, because there’s a part of him that wants to live.
After everything, much as he thinks he wants to, he doesn’t. Seeking a final death is too much work. Ah, but if it happens as a matter of course, well, that’s not actually committing suicide, now is it? That’s just him, saving the universe, a planet, or a person just like he’s always done.
Enough with being maudlin. Better things for him to do than waste time woolgathering. This is what happens when he stands still. Better to run, and keep on running until something else stops him. Makes the pain less immediate and makes his mind less apt to dwell on what can’t change.
At least, he supposes it will. Wouldn’t know, now, would he? Brand new body, brand new life, and already he’s thinking about might’ve beens and could bes. Still. He could hide from what he’s done. Never admit who and what he is. Just let people go on thinking he’s just some strange bloke who waltzes in, saves the day, and leaves.
Best get on with it. Won’t get to do anything interesting just standing like this.
He chooses the most direct path back to the TARDIS and runs, revelling in the feel of the ground beneath his feet, the air against his face, and the beat of his hearts.
Where should he go first? Technically second, but he doesn’t really count this place as a decent first stop anyway. This is just the first place the TARDIS landed after...
Well, after. Earth! Always good for a lark, Earth. Should go there; see what sort of trouble he can get into. Possibly out of as well, but that’s less important. That’s a good plan. A fantastic plan, actually. But the one thing he-
He skids to a stop just outside the clearing where he’d left his TARDIS. Something’s wrong. Well, not entirely wrong. More like different. More like-
Someone’s cleaned up the TARDIS? She’s looking much less battered, but that’s impossible. Far from civilisation, this. Just as he likes it. Much less chance of someone seeing him this way, much less chance of having to talk. But someone’s obviously been here.
There. Rustling in the bushes off to the left. His muscles tense as he watches the clearing, ready to - what? Kill again? He glances downwards, somewhat surprised to find he’s already withdrawn his sonic screwdriver and is holding it at the ready. No. Might be a local. Though why a local would be mucking with his TARDIS...
Not a local. Not by the way he’s dressed, clothing that’s clearly from Earth. His senses twinge painfully, too, as the man walks into the clearing, carrying some sort of plant shell in his hands. Wrong, his senses tell him. This man is wrong. A fixed point in time, but that’s impossible.
He wants to ask who he is, and why he’s lurking so close to his ship, but something holds him still. The bloke moves to the TARDIS, dipping a handkerchief into the shell before touching the ship, rubbing intently at a stain he can barely see from this distance.
The Doctor watches the man for the next several minutes, noticing that he does nothing more threatening than continue dipping his handkerchief into the contents of the shell and cleaning the TARDIS. She looks better, he realises. Feels a bit better too, judging by what he feels from her.
Better, though? What right does-? No. He can’t begrudge his ship this much comfort, even though he doesn’t understand the source. Why would this man decide when he came upon her that she needed a good cleaning?
His hearts clench within his chest at the thought. He was so busy berating himself for the results of his decisions that he neglected his ship. She’s the reason he lived. Well, one of them. She’s the only thing he had to hold onto the moment he killed his people, the moment he was burned by the explosion in the console room as he triggered the supernova, the moment he was nearly senseless with agony both because of the incipient regeneration and because of the silence in his head.
He should’ve treated her better.
Smooth, silken fur brushes against his hand and he sighs, knowing without having to look just what was touching him. “You shouldn’t be here,” he murmurs.
A purr is his only response before the cat moves away from him, waltzing into the clearing. The man doesn’t seem surprised to see it, instead giving it a fleeting look before returning to his earlier work. The cat moves closer, rubbing against the man before turning its head to give him a challenging glare.
A moment later, she’s gone. Disappeared like she was never there. She wouldn’t show herself like that unless it was important. Unless this man was important somehow. She wouldn’t disappear like that if she didn’t trust the bloke.
Meddling cat. He doesn’t need or want a companion. Hell, he doesn’t even want a friend. Got plenty of those. He’d thought about visiting the Brigadier, knowing he’d be likely to understand but... no. Best to be on his own.
She growls, invisible, but definitely audible to Time Lord hearing. Fine. He sighs and stands, letting his hand drop to his side, but still unwilling to relinquish his grip on the sonic screwdriver. He doesn’t know how this man will react to seeing him.
The man is on his feet in an instant, his hand reaching for something - a gun? - before he pauses, staring at him with both recognition and fear in his eyes.
“Hello,” he says, settling for an innocuous greeting.
“Hello,” the man replies, flashing him a grin that isn’t echoed in his eyes. Those eyes aren’t those of a young man, he realises. They’re the eyes of a man who has seen too much, done too much, lost too much. He’s older than he looks, that’s for certain. How old is impossible to tell. Time doesn’t so much as touch him - it avoids him.
She trusted him.
“Decided to do a spot of spring-cleaning, then?” he asks, arching an eyebrow as he nods at the TARDIS.
The man flinches. “She... needed it.” The words are defensive, but the tone doesn’t match the words. He’s explaining, as though he wants something from the Doctor. What, though?
Wait. She. He called her a ‘she’. Tie that with the recognition the Doctor saw in the bloke’s eyes earlier, and it could mean only one thing. “Maybe,” he allows, mentally apologising to his ship. “Still doesn’t answer why you thought you were the right one to do it.”
Frustration flickers in the man’s eyes, but he remains silent. Good lad. Clever.
Isn’t a good idea to let someone know their own future. “Don’t recognise you, but I think you know me. At least, you know her. Could be causing a paradox simply being here.” It’s a warning, that. The bloke might’ve shown some intelligence not telling him who he was, all right, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t dangerous.
The lad flinches again. “I’m sorry.” Two words, but they carry such hurt in them.
He hears the growl again from somewhere near his feet, her disappointment a solid thread of almost-agony within his mind. Fine. If that’s the way it’s got to be. He shakes his head. “Should be apologisin’ myself. This isn’t a paradox - would’ve felt it. Mind, with you around... Nah. Still would’ve felt it. I’ll forget this later. Come on, then. Into the TARDIS.”
“Wh-what?”
“The TARDIS. You know what she is, yeah? Won’t have to hear you wittering on about bigger on the inside and all that. Least I can do for the bloke who cleaned my ship. Give you some tea. Universal cure-all.” Ha, if only.
The man shakes his head. “You don’t know me. Why would you let me inside?”
“Don’t have to know you,” he replies, sighing as he nods towards his ship. “She does, an’ she’s a better judge of character than I am.”
“I... I’m John,” the lad says, and it’s obviously a lie.
“I’m the Doctor,” he replies. “But you already knew that.”
He stands frozen to the spot, seized with the urge to run, yet his limbs won’t let him.
Go inside the TARDIS? With the Doctor? With this Doctor, the one he trusted and who left him behind?
Yet he wants to, doesn’t he? Otherwise he’d have run as soon as he saw the Doctor approaching. Chances are the Doctor wouldn’t have bothered to come after him - not this Doctor, not now.
Because he was right. It’s there in the Doctor’s eyes, all the pain and loss and grief of a man who’s lost everything and doesn’t know why he’s still alive. He knows the look, after all; he’s seen it every time he’s caught sight of his own reflection over the past eight months.
How long is it since the Doctor regenerated? Weeks? Days?
“Well, come on, then... John,” the Doctor says, impatience in his voice - and the pause making clear that he knows Jack gave a fake name. But what impels Jack towards the TARDIS at last isn’t the familiar gruff irritation, but what he recognises in the way the Doctor’s looking at him, the tension in his body, the way he’s clenching and unclenching his fists.
Loneliness. A man starved for company, though he’d never admit it.
He bends, picks up the coat he discarded before he started work, and follows the Doctor into the ship - and then comes to an abrupt halt.
The console room is unrecognisable. The walls are blackened and scorched, and there’s no sign of the coral struts he once knew so well. The console lies in pieces, with wires hanging loose everywhere, and the warm pulsing he’s used to is conspicuous by its absence.
And, in the background, he could swear he hears the ship keening.
He thought what the Master did to the TARDIS, turning her into a paradox machine, was bad. He and the Doctor spent days repairing her then, soothing and caring for her. This, though, is far, far worse.
This has to be the Doctor’s first stop after surviving the War. With the TARDIS in this state, they can’t have gone far. So it’s even more recent than he thought.
Instinct makes him reach out and touch the walls, and it’s then he realises. It’s not only the Doctor who’s newly the last of his kind. The TARDIS is alone too. She’s mourning her sisters, every other TARDIS in the universe, now all dead as a result of a war she’s clearly barely survived.
“I never realised,” he murmurs.
The Doctor moves abruptly, catching his attention. His expression is bleak again, and his fists are clenched. “Never realised what?”
He stiffens. “I shouldn’t say. Paradox.”
“Already told you, ‘s not a paradox. Would feel it if it was.” The Doctor’s voice is harsh, a man clearly clinging to control. “I know you’re from my future. Will forget this anyway after you leave, so you might as well tell me what you mean.”
He sighs. “I know when this is for you. After the War.” The Doctor flinches. “When I met you... I don’t know how long after the War it was, but it was a while. I knew what it’d done to you, being the last one. But I never thought about what it meant for the TARDIS, too.”
“She’s hurting,” the Doctor says, standing rigidly with head bowed.
So’s the Doctor. “Look, forget the tea,” he says, coming to a decision that’s not really a decision at all. “Let me help you make her better. I’ve helped you before,” he adds quickly as he senses the Doctor’s about to refuse. “Used to work on her with you all the time.” Best not to mention that it wouldn’t be the first time they’d rebuilt her together; this Doctor doesn’t need to know anything about that kind of injury to his beloved ship. Certainly not now, even if he will make himself forget.
“Gonna be a long job,” the Doctor warns.
“I’ve got time.” More time than the Doctor knows - or does he? His next regeneration made it very clear that his wrongness is so evident even the TARDIS ran from him. But she’s not running from him now. Well, she can’t, but it felt like she welcomed his touch. Because she’s so badly damaged? Or did the Doctor exaggerate?
The Doctor nods, just once, clearly reluctant but seeming resigned. “S’pose you might as well. She likes you. Will make it quicker for her with two of us working.” He turns, starting to move towards the broken console. “If you’re sure you don’t have anywhere else to be, John?”
“Jack,” he corrects before he can think better of it. Somehow, the thought of this Doctor calling him anything else feels wrong. “My name’s Jack. And, no, I don’t have anywhere else to be.”
The Doctor glances back, raw pain in his eyes. “Makes two of us.”
***
Chapter 2: Lux Perpetua Luceat Eis
x-posted to: dark_aegis & dwfiction
Authors: Gillian Taylor (dark_aegis) & WMR (wendymr)
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ninth Doctor
Spoilers: Children of Earth, End of Time(ish)
Rated: Teen (PG)
Disclaimer: Not ours by any stretch of the imagination. We're just having fun with them
Summary: On a planet many billions of light-years from Earth, Jack Harkness sees a man he knows for a fact is dead.
Author's Notes: azriona won us for the September Support Stacie auction and requested that we write a story together. This is the result. Prompt will be shared at the end of the story. Thanks, as always, to the ever brilliant kae_nine for her BRing assistance and wonderful commentary.
"Requiem"
A Support Stacie auction story for azriona
by Gillian Taylor (dark_aegis) & WMR (wendymr)
Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine
- The Requiem Mass, Roman Catholic liturgy
Chapter 1: Dies Illa
On a planet many billions of light-years from Earth, Jack Harkness sees a man he knows for a fact is dead.
It’s been over one hundred and forty years, by his reckoning, since he saw this version of the man he once called a friend, but even still he’d know the Doctor anywhere, even from behind.
The Doctor’s standing on the edge of a promontory, staring out to sea, apparently unaware of his surroundings. That suits Jack. He doesn’t want to be noticed now anyway, and especially not by this man - not in any of his incarnations, and especially not in this one.
This is the Doctor who took him in, made him believe that he had a home, a place to belong. That he was someone worthwhile, someone who could be trusted. And then abandoned him without a word.
The last thing he wants is to be noticed by this Doctor, quite apart from the risk of causing a paradox.
He turns away and hurries on down the path. His computer tells him there’s a town a couple of hours’ walk east, and if he’s lucky it’ll be big enough to have some kind of spaceport. His teleport’s burned out again, so until he can find parts to fix it he’s stuck with whatever he can find through his own resources: hitching a ride, getting a job or paying for his passage in some other way.
It was already time to leave this backwater planet anyway - far too like Earth in its topology and in the appearance of its inhabitants. Seeing the Doctor’s just made his departure even more urgent.
As he reaches a bend in the path, something makes him turn back. The Doctor’s still standing motionless at the cliff edge, head bowed and shoulders hunched, hands rigid by his sides. His fists are clenched, and something in the Time Lord’s stance...
That’s a man possessed by a grief almost too intense to bear.
He tries not to draw the comparison. His grief is his own, and it’s got nothing to do with the Doctor.
He forces himself to turn away again. This Doctor, he knows, had good reason to grieve. Much as he tried to hide it when Jack and Rose were around, there were times he couldn’t hold back signs of the pain and devastation he was still learning to live with. If he thinks he’s alone, then why wouldn’t he give in to a few moments’ heartache?
This Doctor’s not his responsibility. And anyway, the Doctor - this one and his regenerated self - have shown all too clearly that they don’t consider him in any way their responsibility. He owes the Doctor nothing. Nothing at all.
He shoves his hands in his coat pockets and keeps walking.
Not ten minutes later, his path’s blocked by a cat.
It wanders out in front of him and sits down on the gravel track, just looking at him. It’s big and a smoky silver-grey, with wide gold eyes, a colour Jack’s never seen before on a cat. It’s not just its colour, though, that strikes him. It’s the uncanny way it’s watching him - almost like it knows him, like it’s judging him.
He barks out a laugh. He’s obviously been alone too long if he’s anthropomorphising the local felines. Still, it probably just wants someone to pet it before it goes off chasing mice or whatever it is that it hunts on this planet.
He bends to scratch the animal’s ears, but it jumps up and runs away, off to the left of the path. Oh well. Suit yourself. He shrugs and starts walking again.
A loud meow halts him. The cat’s stopped and is standing on the grass a few feet away, looking at him. Once it sees him looking back, it starts to walk away again, only to turn its head and look at him after a few steps.
He has the strangest sense that it wants him to follow it.
He hasn’t got time for this. Shaking his head, he starts walking again. If he wants to get to the town before everything starts closing down for the night and he ends up trapped on this planet another day, he needs to get moving now.
The cat runs in front of him so quickly he almost trips.
“Look, I don’t have time...” he begins, before he remembers that he’s talking to a cat and stops.
The cat meows again and starts to walk off to the left a second time, then stops after a few paces and looks back at him. No question about it now; it wants him to follow.
Well, at the rate he’s wasting time here he might as well see what the creature wants. He sets off across the grass, following the cat, which is breaking into a run.
It leads him through the trees and into a small clearing, the sea sparkling off to the distance behind. But that’s not the splash of blue that makes him stop and catch his breath.
The TARDIS is there, right in front of him.
Well, he should have expected it, of course; the Doctor’s just back along the road. But somehow he didn’t quite follow the logic through.
The TARDIS. Once the closest thing to a home he had in a very long time. And then, the Doctor said, she ran from him because of what he is. The last time he was inside her, he helped the Doctors fly the Earth back home to its orbit in the Solar System.
That’s probably the last time he was genuinely happy. Feels like it was years ago now.
But what... He frowns and steps closer. What’s happened to her? The exterior of the old time-ship is filthy, battered and scorched. She looks sad, neglected and - it feels fanciful, but as desolate as her Time Lord.
The War.
It hits him in that instant. This must be just after the Time War. The Doctor’s probably only just regenerated, and the TARDIS still carries the scars of the last battles.
So does the Doctor, of course, only his are on the inside.
But why did the cat bring him here? What’s he supposed to do about any of this? It’s not as if he can do anything to help the Doctor. Not only is he the very last person who should be helping anyone, after what he’s done, but he can’t meet the Doctor. Not now, not before the Doctor’s met him.
“What do you expect me to do?” he demands, glaring at the cat, which is now sitting on the grass a few feet from the TARDIS, licking its front paw. And why would a cat bring him here, anyway? What the hell does this cat have to do with the TARDIS or the Doctor?
The cat raises its head and gives him a long stare. Then it looks over its shoulder at the TARDIS, and then washes its paw again, ignoring him. Two seconds later, it gets up and walks away, disappearing into the trees.
“Thanks a bunch,” he mutters. Shaking his head, he walks closer to the ship. It’s a shock to realise how much it hurts to see her like this - and how much more painful must it be to the Doctor?
He could clean her. That’s simple enough, and doesn’t require any interaction with anyone, least of all the Doctor. It’ll make the TARDIS feel better, and the Doctor too, maybe. It’ll make him feel better as well, he thinks.
Water, though. He’s about to reach into his pocket for the TARDIS key that he never went anywhere without, when he remembers. Destroyed in the bomb that wiped out the Hub and blew him into tiny pieces.
Well, that scuppers that idea, then. But... wait. He pauses, listening. Yes, that’s the trickling of water. And there it is, just behind the ship: a narrow stream, flowing towards the cliff and the water below.
That, and the leaves and bushes around, should be enough to make at least some inroads on the dirt. There’s even a large upturned shell of some kind of coconut-like fruit to carry the water in.
The cat was washing its paws, he recalls as he carries the first shell of water back to the TARDIS. Now that’s bizarre.
There are times where he wonders just what it’d be like to die. He’s good at dying, but death? Nope. He’s rubbish at it. Couldn’t do it when he sorted the Time War, now could he? Instead, here he is. Last survivor. The bloke who can’t die because of Rassilon’s gift of regeneration.
Rassilon. Ha! There are times he wishes he could just ignore what the bastard did, go back to the comfortable tripe of believing he was the best thing to happen to Gallifrey. Bloke fancied himself a god, and look at what happened.
He had to do it. Had to stop them. Had to. They were the ones who came up with their brilliant solution to end the war. Just had to end time, mind. A meagre sacrifice for the universe, that. Time Lords reigned supreme in their ivory towers, thinking they knew what was best. Thinking that Rassilon, of all people, knew what was best. Idiots. All of them.
He’d tried, though. Tried appealing to the Senate, tried telling them that it was a stupid solution. They didn’t listen; they wanted to live. And he was, apparently, the herald of their destruction.
He was, wasn’t he? He did it because his people became monsters far worse than the ones he’s faced in all of his regenerations. They became monsters because they followed Rassilon. Why, though? Why did they have to bring him back? Why couldn’t he have stayed safely sleeping in the Dead Zone? Why did they forget just who Rassilon was?
Why didn’t they listen to him, the Doctor? Why did he have to resort to... to...
He can’t complete the thought. He shouldn’t even be here. He thought he’d die right along with his kind, stuck within the time lock, dying in the first flames of the supernova he’d created. He should be dead.
Damnit, he deserved to die! His jaw clenches tightly as he stares, unseeing, at the sea. He should die. He killed his own people.
This is his punishment. His curse. An eternity of travelling the universe with the silence in his head his condemnation and reward.
It’d be easy, though, wouldn’t it? Dying. Death. There are ways he could do it. Fly the TARDIS into a sun. Let his body burn to ashes in an instant. Find a volcano and jump in. Find something that would completely destroy his body to the point regeneration would be impossible.
It’s tempting, so very tempting. He deserves to die. He deserves the rest it’d bring.
But - well, there’s always a but. He’s a coward. Took the cowards way out, didn’t he? He killed the Time Lords, but he still managed to set the TARDIS to skip out just ahead of the supernova. He still managed to survive, because there’s a part of him that wants to live.
After everything, much as he thinks he wants to, he doesn’t. Seeking a final death is too much work. Ah, but if it happens as a matter of course, well, that’s not actually committing suicide, now is it? That’s just him, saving the universe, a planet, or a person just like he’s always done.
Enough with being maudlin. Better things for him to do than waste time woolgathering. This is what happens when he stands still. Better to run, and keep on running until something else stops him. Makes the pain less immediate and makes his mind less apt to dwell on what can’t change.
At least, he supposes it will. Wouldn’t know, now, would he? Brand new body, brand new life, and already he’s thinking about might’ve beens and could bes. Still. He could hide from what he’s done. Never admit who and what he is. Just let people go on thinking he’s just some strange bloke who waltzes in, saves the day, and leaves.
Best get on with it. Won’t get to do anything interesting just standing like this.
He chooses the most direct path back to the TARDIS and runs, revelling in the feel of the ground beneath his feet, the air against his face, and the beat of his hearts.
Where should he go first? Technically second, but he doesn’t really count this place as a decent first stop anyway. This is just the first place the TARDIS landed after...
Well, after. Earth! Always good for a lark, Earth. Should go there; see what sort of trouble he can get into. Possibly out of as well, but that’s less important. That’s a good plan. A fantastic plan, actually. But the one thing he-
He skids to a stop just outside the clearing where he’d left his TARDIS. Something’s wrong. Well, not entirely wrong. More like different. More like-
Someone’s cleaned up the TARDIS? She’s looking much less battered, but that’s impossible. Far from civilisation, this. Just as he likes it. Much less chance of someone seeing him this way, much less chance of having to talk. But someone’s obviously been here.
There. Rustling in the bushes off to the left. His muscles tense as he watches the clearing, ready to - what? Kill again? He glances downwards, somewhat surprised to find he’s already withdrawn his sonic screwdriver and is holding it at the ready. No. Might be a local. Though why a local would be mucking with his TARDIS...
Not a local. Not by the way he’s dressed, clothing that’s clearly from Earth. His senses twinge painfully, too, as the man walks into the clearing, carrying some sort of plant shell in his hands. Wrong, his senses tell him. This man is wrong. A fixed point in time, but that’s impossible.
He wants to ask who he is, and why he’s lurking so close to his ship, but something holds him still. The bloke moves to the TARDIS, dipping a handkerchief into the shell before touching the ship, rubbing intently at a stain he can barely see from this distance.
The Doctor watches the man for the next several minutes, noticing that he does nothing more threatening than continue dipping his handkerchief into the contents of the shell and cleaning the TARDIS. She looks better, he realises. Feels a bit better too, judging by what he feels from her.
Better, though? What right does-? No. He can’t begrudge his ship this much comfort, even though he doesn’t understand the source. Why would this man decide when he came upon her that she needed a good cleaning?
His hearts clench within his chest at the thought. He was so busy berating himself for the results of his decisions that he neglected his ship. She’s the reason he lived. Well, one of them. She’s the only thing he had to hold onto the moment he killed his people, the moment he was burned by the explosion in the console room as he triggered the supernova, the moment he was nearly senseless with agony both because of the incipient regeneration and because of the silence in his head.
He should’ve treated her better.
Smooth, silken fur brushes against his hand and he sighs, knowing without having to look just what was touching him. “You shouldn’t be here,” he murmurs.
A purr is his only response before the cat moves away from him, waltzing into the clearing. The man doesn’t seem surprised to see it, instead giving it a fleeting look before returning to his earlier work. The cat moves closer, rubbing against the man before turning its head to give him a challenging glare.
A moment later, she’s gone. Disappeared like she was never there. She wouldn’t show herself like that unless it was important. Unless this man was important somehow. She wouldn’t disappear like that if she didn’t trust the bloke.
Meddling cat. He doesn’t need or want a companion. Hell, he doesn’t even want a friend. Got plenty of those. He’d thought about visiting the Brigadier, knowing he’d be likely to understand but... no. Best to be on his own.
She growls, invisible, but definitely audible to Time Lord hearing. Fine. He sighs and stands, letting his hand drop to his side, but still unwilling to relinquish his grip on the sonic screwdriver. He doesn’t know how this man will react to seeing him.
The man is on his feet in an instant, his hand reaching for something - a gun? - before he pauses, staring at him with both recognition and fear in his eyes.
“Hello,” he says, settling for an innocuous greeting.
“Hello,” the man replies, flashing him a grin that isn’t echoed in his eyes. Those eyes aren’t those of a young man, he realises. They’re the eyes of a man who has seen too much, done too much, lost too much. He’s older than he looks, that’s for certain. How old is impossible to tell. Time doesn’t so much as touch him - it avoids him.
She trusted him.
“Decided to do a spot of spring-cleaning, then?” he asks, arching an eyebrow as he nods at the TARDIS.
The man flinches. “She... needed it.” The words are defensive, but the tone doesn’t match the words. He’s explaining, as though he wants something from the Doctor. What, though?
Wait. She. He called her a ‘she’. Tie that with the recognition the Doctor saw in the bloke’s eyes earlier, and it could mean only one thing. “Maybe,” he allows, mentally apologising to his ship. “Still doesn’t answer why you thought you were the right one to do it.”
Frustration flickers in the man’s eyes, but he remains silent. Good lad. Clever.
Isn’t a good idea to let someone know their own future. “Don’t recognise you, but I think you know me. At least, you know her. Could be causing a paradox simply being here.” It’s a warning, that. The bloke might’ve shown some intelligence not telling him who he was, all right, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t dangerous.
The lad flinches again. “I’m sorry.” Two words, but they carry such hurt in them.
He hears the growl again from somewhere near his feet, her disappointment a solid thread of almost-agony within his mind. Fine. If that’s the way it’s got to be. He shakes his head. “Should be apologisin’ myself. This isn’t a paradox - would’ve felt it. Mind, with you around... Nah. Still would’ve felt it. I’ll forget this later. Come on, then. Into the TARDIS.”
“Wh-what?”
“The TARDIS. You know what she is, yeah? Won’t have to hear you wittering on about bigger on the inside and all that. Least I can do for the bloke who cleaned my ship. Give you some tea. Universal cure-all.” Ha, if only.
The man shakes his head. “You don’t know me. Why would you let me inside?”
“Don’t have to know you,” he replies, sighing as he nods towards his ship. “She does, an’ she’s a better judge of character than I am.”
“I... I’m John,” the lad says, and it’s obviously a lie.
“I’m the Doctor,” he replies. “But you already knew that.”
He stands frozen to the spot, seized with the urge to run, yet his limbs won’t let him.
Go inside the TARDIS? With the Doctor? With this Doctor, the one he trusted and who left him behind?
Yet he wants to, doesn’t he? Otherwise he’d have run as soon as he saw the Doctor approaching. Chances are the Doctor wouldn’t have bothered to come after him - not this Doctor, not now.
Because he was right. It’s there in the Doctor’s eyes, all the pain and loss and grief of a man who’s lost everything and doesn’t know why he’s still alive. He knows the look, after all; he’s seen it every time he’s caught sight of his own reflection over the past eight months.
How long is it since the Doctor regenerated? Weeks? Days?
“Well, come on, then... John,” the Doctor says, impatience in his voice - and the pause making clear that he knows Jack gave a fake name. But what impels Jack towards the TARDIS at last isn’t the familiar gruff irritation, but what he recognises in the way the Doctor’s looking at him, the tension in his body, the way he’s clenching and unclenching his fists.
Loneliness. A man starved for company, though he’d never admit it.
He bends, picks up the coat he discarded before he started work, and follows the Doctor into the ship - and then comes to an abrupt halt.
The console room is unrecognisable. The walls are blackened and scorched, and there’s no sign of the coral struts he once knew so well. The console lies in pieces, with wires hanging loose everywhere, and the warm pulsing he’s used to is conspicuous by its absence.
And, in the background, he could swear he hears the ship keening.
He thought what the Master did to the TARDIS, turning her into a paradox machine, was bad. He and the Doctor spent days repairing her then, soothing and caring for her. This, though, is far, far worse.
This has to be the Doctor’s first stop after surviving the War. With the TARDIS in this state, they can’t have gone far. So it’s even more recent than he thought.
Instinct makes him reach out and touch the walls, and it’s then he realises. It’s not only the Doctor who’s newly the last of his kind. The TARDIS is alone too. She’s mourning her sisters, every other TARDIS in the universe, now all dead as a result of a war she’s clearly barely survived.
“I never realised,” he murmurs.
The Doctor moves abruptly, catching his attention. His expression is bleak again, and his fists are clenched. “Never realised what?”
He stiffens. “I shouldn’t say. Paradox.”
“Already told you, ‘s not a paradox. Would feel it if it was.” The Doctor’s voice is harsh, a man clearly clinging to control. “I know you’re from my future. Will forget this anyway after you leave, so you might as well tell me what you mean.”
He sighs. “I know when this is for you. After the War.” The Doctor flinches. “When I met you... I don’t know how long after the War it was, but it was a while. I knew what it’d done to you, being the last one. But I never thought about what it meant for the TARDIS, too.”
“She’s hurting,” the Doctor says, standing rigidly with head bowed.
So’s the Doctor. “Look, forget the tea,” he says, coming to a decision that’s not really a decision at all. “Let me help you make her better. I’ve helped you before,” he adds quickly as he senses the Doctor’s about to refuse. “Used to work on her with you all the time.” Best not to mention that it wouldn’t be the first time they’d rebuilt her together; this Doctor doesn’t need to know anything about that kind of injury to his beloved ship. Certainly not now, even if he will make himself forget.
“Gonna be a long job,” the Doctor warns.
“I’ve got time.” More time than the Doctor knows - or does he? His next regeneration made it very clear that his wrongness is so evident even the TARDIS ran from him. But she’s not running from him now. Well, she can’t, but it felt like she welcomed his touch. Because she’s so badly damaged? Or did the Doctor exaggerate?
The Doctor nods, just once, clearly reluctant but seeming resigned. “S’pose you might as well. She likes you. Will make it quicker for her with two of us working.” He turns, starting to move towards the broken console. “If you’re sure you don’t have anywhere else to be, John?”
“Jack,” he corrects before he can think better of it. Somehow, the thought of this Doctor calling him anything else feels wrong. “My name’s Jack. And, no, I don’t have anywhere else to be.”
The Doctor glances back, raw pain in his eyes. “Makes two of us.”
***
Chapter 2: Lux Perpetua Luceat Eis
x-posted to: dark_aegis & dwfiction