Doctor Who: "Somebody Say My Name" (1/1)
Title: Somebody Say My Name
Rating: Adult
Pairing(s): Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Summary: The Doctor doesn't know this blue-eyed ghost in a greatcoat who keeps showing up in his TARDIS - but apparently, the Doctor is his only hope of survival.
Author's Notes: This is a combination of two of
magic_7_words' prompts for the Doctor/Jack fic exchange at
wintercompanion:
"The Doctor is trying hard to avoid Jack and deny his feelings... but when he finds Jack hurting and in need of a friend, he can't bring himself to turn away."
"Much as they care for each other, the Doctor and Jack aren't having sex. Maybe it's a voluntary choice (e.g. the Doctor flat-out doesn't swing that way) or maybe it's imposed by outside circumstances (anti-sex pollen?). If the latter, will they ever find a way around it? And in the meantime, how else do they express their love?"
I.
The Doctor was twisting together wires, the arteries of the TARDIS’ living heart, when a blue-eyed man in a greatcoat appeared in the console room.
The stranger looked around, his mouth falling open in an easy smile. The TARDIS’ hum enveloped him without so much as a skip in its rhythm. It was the
embrace of long-parted friends.
“What?” the Doctor said, feeling his sonic screwdriver fall from his fingers to clatter on the floor.
The blue-eyed man looked below the console and saw him. His eyes widened for a moment, crinkling up at the corners, warmth shining through his face like
the sun through flowered trees. “I made it,” he said. “Hello, Doc.”
“Who are you and what are you doing in my TARDIS?” the Doctor said, at the same time.
The stranger flinched. His eyes searched the Doctor’s face for a moment, but whatever he was looking for, he didn’t seem to find. He held onto the edge of
the console, rubbing his thumb over one of the flashing lights. “Does she know who I am?” he said softly.
The light flashed bright pink against the man’s thumb. The Doctor blinked at it. “It seems so,” he murmured. He got out from under the console and
inspected the visitor at eye level. His face shone a little pink, and his chest rose and fell deep and fast, as if he’d just run a few miles. He leaned
against the console as if it might keep him from floating away. Could he trust this man? The TARDIS didn’t seem to mind him, but she hadn’t minded Adam
Mitchell either, and look how that had turned out.
“You have the advantage of me, I’m afraid. What’s your name?” the Doctor asked.
“Just call me Captain.” His arm twitched forward, as if he’d been about to offer his hand to shake and thought better of it. “I’d rather you come up with
my name yourself. Then I’ll know everything is back the way it should be.”
“Are you from my future, Captain?” the Doctor said, tilting his head back to consider the man. “Because if you are, you’re playing a more dangerous game
than you know.”
The Captain’s mouth went tight. “I know exactly how dangerous those games are. No, Doctor, I’m not from your future. I’m from your past. Someone is trying
to unwrite my timeline from existence. Make it so that I never was. They’re doing a pretty good job so far.” And with that, the Captain reached for the
Doctor’s hand to shake it. His hand passed right through, like a hologram.
The Doctor gaped down at his hand. “That’s not possible.” He knelt down and grabbed his sonic screwdriver to do a scan. “You’re not a hologram. You’re not
here at all. I can see why the TARDIS doors didn’t keep you out, but how did you find me?”
The Captain reached into the collar of his shirt and pulled out a Yale key on a chain. The Doctor knew that pattern of metal teeth on sight. “She wouldn’t
have kept me out anyway. But this is how I found you.”
“That’s yours? I gave you a TARDIS key?”
“You did give me one, though this one isn’t mine. I lost it.” His eyelids fluttered and his lips pressed together for a moment before he recovered himself.
“I asked Martha Jones for hers, when my timeline was just starting to unravel, and she still remembered me.”
“You know Martha Jones.” The Doctor’s hearts beat a tattoo against the inside of his ribs. Was the Captain lying? If so, how did he know Martha? Had he
stolen the key from her?
The Captain had been looking at the key, twirling it between his fingers. He kept his head down, but looked up at the Doctor. He opened his mouth, but
before he could say anything more, he disappeared.
The Doctor instantly went to the TARDIS computer to check for any signs of unauthorized entry. There were none. Even the subtle scent of musk and honey
he’d smelled on the Captain left no lingering trace in the air.
II.
The next time the Captain appeared, the Doctor was in the medbay, fixing himself up after a nasty run-in with a water-troll on Alpha Sagittarion. He took
in the Doctor’s wounds, wide-eyed. “Are you all right?” he cried, reaching out toward the gashes weeping blood from the Doctor’s side. When his hand passed
through, he let his fingers hover just over the wounds in a ghostly facsimile of touch.
“Fine,” the Doctor said tightly, pressing synthaskin over the gashes to seal them. The blue stuff flattened over the blood, then turned the pale peach
color of his own skin. “Where have you been?”
“I ought to ask you,” the Captain said. “What happened to you?”
“I wouldn’t recommend Alpha Sagittarion in the 12th century,” the Doctor said. “Some of the village shamans like to tame water-trolls and send
them after people they don’t like. The smell of their breath is appalling.”
“You’re going to be OK,” the Captain said gently, but it had the hint of a question.
“Yes,” the Doctor said, buttoning his shirt back up. He felt the Captain’s gaze linger on his chest as he closed the buttons one by one, heavy on his skin
like the weight of a hand. His face heated.
The Captain looked up at the Doctor’s face, then away. “I’ll let you finish getting dressed,” he said, and disappeared through the wall.
The Doctor changed from cream Converse to red ones - the cream had got splattered with troll saliva and mud - and went to the console room. The Captain ran
in through the TARDIS doors, his coat flying out behind him. “Doctor! The rival village wants revenge! They sent out their own water-troll!”
“A’ahi promised,” the Doctor growled. His jaw clenched and unclenched. “She said she’d try to be better.”
“Is A’ahi the chief?” the Captain asked.
The Doctor nodded.
“She’s not part of it. I saw guards around his treehouse. I think the shaman turned the village against her. They’re cheering the troll.”
The Doctor ran for the door. “Then let’s go.”
The Captain phased right through the Doctor as he went out the doors the more conventional way. Already he could smell the swamp-reek of the water-troll
and hear the high cries of war song.
“Go warn the other village,” the Doctor said, before he could think better of it. “They’re in that pinkish-looking swamp over there. I’m going to get
A’ahi.”
The Captain just nodded and went off, half-running, half-gliding.
The Doctor slipped into the shade of the trees around the bog. In a slice of dim light between two trees he could see a ring of guards around A’ahi’s tree,
just as the Captain had said, sporting claw gauntlets on their paws. But they were facing inward, to keep A’ahi from getting out. They wouldn’t be
expecting someone trying to break in.
He remembered how he had once been rescued from Autons, and smiled.
The Doctor shimmied up a neighboring tree, found a long vine, and gave it a tug with all his strength to make sure it would hold. Then he grabbed on and
swung toward A’ahi’s treehouse. When his feet touched the treehouse roof, he kept hold of the vine and called down, “A’ahi, the roof!”
A’ahi poked her horned head out from her door, looked up at the Doctor, and gave an excited bark. She leapt onto the roof. “Doctor, how did you - ”
“Go!” the Doctor said, passing her the vine. The guards were already climbing up the tree, their claw gauntlets digging easily into the bark. For a moment,
she looked down at the guards, and her ears wilted down. Her village was so small, the Doctor realized, that what these guards were doing would feel like a
personal betrayal.
“I won’t hurt them,” he said. “I promise.”
She studied him, briefly, then flicked her tail approvingly, took the vine, and swung away.
The Doctor looked down. A canopy of huge leaves shaded the ground from sight. He didn’t dare jump.
“We have you surrounded!” one of the guards said. They were standing on the treehouse platform below him. “Stay where you are and no one will get hurt.”
“The people in Ke’ahla village will get hurt!” the Doctor said.
“That is none of your business, foreigner. It was not your shaman’s nephews who were killed. Stay where you are.”
The Doctor’s mind raced. All he could think to do was stay, and hope that the Captain’s warning had come in time, and A’ahi could find a way to send the
water-troll back to the bog. He believed in her. He found himself believing in the Captain too.
Somewhere in the distance, he heard the water-troll give a low bellow.
The guards turned toward the sound for a moment, and the Doctor leapt down to the platform and tried to bolt. He was pinned to the floor in seconds.
“Stay,” said the guard, sternly.
The Doctor sat with his back to the front of A’ahi’s treehouse. He was rubbish at waiting. He took out his sonic screwdriver and played with it, but it was
useless here, of course. It didn’t do wood.
He wasn’t sure how long he waited until he heard a powerful, unbroken cry. The Doctor sprang to his feet in time to see the Captain come rising through the
center of the tree like a spirit of the woods themselves, his mouth open in that terrible scream. The guards howled in terror and half-leaped, half-fell
out of the tree, running into the bog for safety.
The Captain came to rest on the platform next to the Doctor and stopped screaming. He watched the guards flee and said, “These people really don’t like
ghosts.”
“What happened?” the Doctor said. “Where’s the water-troll?”
“The shaman’s calming it down. It’ll be coming back to the bog soon.”
“She did it.” The Doctor grinned. “No one in Ke’ahla village got hurt?”
“No. I went to their shaman. He thought I was a ghost. He was terrified of me. Thought I spoke for the dead.” The Captain’s voice was tight. “So he
listened. Then I came back here and found A’ahi sneaking out of the woods. I told her I was your friend and we came up with a plan.”
“What did you tell her your name was?” He shouldn’t be trying to weasel the Captain’s name out of him, but some part of him hoped that if he heard the
man’s name, a thread of their timeline together might unspool in his mind.
The Captain shrugged. “She didn’t ask for one. Foreigner ghosts don’t need names.”
You need one,
the Doctor wanted to say. I need yours. But instead he said, “So what did you and A’ahi do, then?”
“We stood in the path of the water-troll and she told the village that I was the ghost of a foreigner who the water-troll had killed. I proved it by
walking through the water-troll and told everyone that the people the water-troll killed were angry and wanted them to stop using it to kill people. That
scared everyone out of their murderous rage, at least. Then A’ahi gave a speech about coming together as a village, not as a mob. That got them. The shaman
still wanted to sic the water-troll on Ke’ahla, but everyone else made him send it back to the bog.”
“You lied to them,” the Doctor said.
“Look, Doctor. I know you like to believe the best of people. But high-minded inspirational pep talks don’t work on mob mentality. Once everyone’s feeding
off each other’s fear like that, they won’t listen to reason. You need to shock them out of it.” The Captain’s mouth was a grim line.
“How do you know so much about that?”
The Captain looked him straight in the eyes. “Because a mob killed me, once.”
The Doctor blinked. “You said you weren’t a ghost.”
“I’m not. Like I said, someone’s trying to write me out of existence. We need to - ”
And with that, the apparition of the blue-eyed man in the RAF coat snuffed out like a candle’s flame.
III.
The Doctor was in the library reading a book on the dimensional dynamics of time locks when he heard a voice behind him say, “Bit of light reading?”
He looked over his shoulder and saw the Captain standing behind his armchair, looking down at the Doctor’s book. “Oh. Hello. Sit down, Captain, you look
knackered.”
The Captain waved his hand through the Doctor’s armchair. “Can’t.” But he came around to stand facing the Doctor.
“Right. Sorry.” The Doctor closed the book. “No wonder you’re tired. If I’m right, someone’s gone back to the very start of your timeline and done
something - or tried to do something - to prevent your birth. You shouldn’t be sticking around at all. In fact, I can’t even feel your timeline. I always
can.”
“I’m kind of a special case,” the Captain said. “But you need to hurry.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m losing my grip. I’m worried that if I slip away again, I won’t be able to find you. And if I disappear for good…” The Captain took the TARDIS
key, Martha’s TARDIS key, out from under his shirt and rubbed its toothed edge with the pad of his finger. Softly, he said, “How did you and Martha escape
the Futurekind when they were breaking down the door? Do you remember?”
The Doctor remembered it clear as day. The door vibrated against their backs as they stood against it, straining to keep it closed, Martha screaming at him
to do something. Then the Futurekind had busted the door in and torn them apart with their fangs. Martha’s inhuman cries of agony had rung in the Doctor’s
ears as he died with teeth tearing at his liver. The Doctor’s hand pressed against the still-healing wounds left by the water-troll to reassure himself he
wasn’t really bleeding out.
At the same time, he remembered escaping to 21st century Earth, Martha’s time, and discovering the Master had posed as Harold Saxon and become
Prime Minister. How had that happened? He couldn’t remember. The memory of his own death was clearer than the moment between hearing the Futurekind scream
for his blood and staggering onto the London pavement near Martha’s flat.
“No,” the Doctor said slowly. “Captain, I… I’m not entirely sure we did escape.”
The Captain’s lively face stiffened. “You did. I remember. I was there. I teleported us out.”
The Doctor scoured his memory, but came up blank. He shook his head.
“What about Satellite Five? Who kept the Daleks from killing you until Rose came to save you?”
No one kept the Daleks from killing him. He’d refused to sacrifice the Earth to kill the Daleks, and they’d rewarded him with fifty shots to the hearts.
The pain had been unspeakable, but he’d died knowing Rose was safe.
Except that someone had held them off, for just long enough for the Bad Wolf to come, singing fire and destruction. But he didn’t know who.
“You’re right,” the Doctor said. “We do have to hurry. If I don’t get you sorted, my own timeline could collapse too. But Captain?”
“Yes, Doctor?”
“I would have done it anyway. I was working on this while you were away. I would never let this happen to you.”
The Captain’s eyes widened.
“Did I ever thank you for all that? Everything you did for me?”
The Captain looked away.
“Maybe I don’t want my memories back, if I’ll think so little of them,” the Doctor murmured. “Listen, Captain. I may not have said this before, but I’m
saying it now. Thank you. You’re terribly brave and good and I am so, so sorry that I never said that to you before.”
The Captain swallowed hard. “If I am brave and good, that’s mostly because of you, Doc. You showed me a better way to live.”
Did he know, back when he had his memories of the Captain, that the other man was in love with him? The Doctor would have sworn it was unmistakable, but it
seemed that their history together had made it harder for him to see the Captain for who he truly was.
“It goes both ways, Captain. I may not remember our time together, but I know how it is between my friends and me. They always make me better than I make
them. So again. Thank you.”
That look on the Captain’s face, mouth slightly parted, long eyelashes beating slow heartbeats over his eyes, stirred something in the Doctor: not a
memory, not really, but a feeling. Perhaps the TARDIS, who remembered, had whispered it into his hearts. The Doctor stood, and raised his hand in a caress,
and kissed the Captain’s open mouth. But his lips moved against an empty image, and his hand held nothing but air.
“Oh, I am so getting a rain check for that,” the Captain said, eyes smoldering hot blue.
“I ought to have done that sooner,” the Doctor said. “But all right, Captain, let’s sort this. When and where were you born?”
The Captain’s face folded in. “Boeshane Peninsula, Holothalassa, 5035.”
The Doctor winced in sympathy. “Delta Gemini system, yes? Ooh, nasty business. I’m sorry. Well, you don’t have to go there. In fact, I won’t allow it. Your
timeline’s in a bad enough state without you taking the risk of crossing back on it. I’ll pop out and make sure your younger self is where he ought to be,
and you stay in the TARDIS.”
“No,” said the Captain. “I want to be there with you. When you see it for the first time. You can land the TARDIS outside our clan’s territory and walk
there yourself to check. I just - I want you to understand it.”
“All right,” the Doctor said gently. They were standing as close as lovers, faces a hand’s breadth apart, but he felt no breath on his face, no warmth from
another body. He nearly asked the Captain if he could feel the Doctor there, or if he now viewed the world through only the narrow windows of his sight and
hearing. But he shouldn’t belabor the point.
IV.
They stood in an arid, blue-gray land. Low, succulent plants shaped like half-melted brains harbored silky-scaled, gossamer-winged beastlings. Creatures
like puffs of multicolored down floated on the hard salty wind.
“It’s like this all the way down to the shore,” the Captain said, “except by the rivers and streams. We pitch our homes in the glades along the rivers and
catch fish as they swim down to the sea. Each river is the territory of a clan. Our river is the Juskahaunet, just beyond that ridge.”
The Doctor followed the Captain’s pointing finger to a ridge of heather-gray stone, crowned by feathery shrubs.
“Go to the clan’s voice, Maaroj - their homestead will have hokum flowers on the roof. Tiny, light blue, like ice chips. Tell them you’re a census-taker
from Nereid Town. Find out if Calem Juskahaunet is there.”
“Calem Juskahaunet,” the Doctor said slowly, weighing the sounds on his tongue.
The Captain shook his head. “Don’t call me that, Doc. Not unless something like this happens, and you have to convince me that I should trust you. Say it
then, and I’ll know you’re for real. But that’s not my name. Not anymore.”
The Doctor thought of his own name, and moved his lips silently through the first two syllables. It felt like a foreign language he’d learned and forgotten
long ago. He nodded. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
As the Doctor crossed over the ridge, he saw a long arc along the riverbank glowing with fires set in pits - the boundary of Juskahaunet territory. Through
a veil of smoke that smelled of hibiscus and olive oil, the Doctor saw dome-shaped surrounded by gardens and orchards. The settlement continued on the
other bank of the river, people zipping across the river in sharp-prowed little boats, as fast or faster than they could walk.
Past the fire-border, the Doctor could see the houses more clearly. Dreary pre-fabs 3-D printed in bulk in the city, no doubt, but the people decorated
them with branches that caught the colorful feather-puffs floating in the wind, giving every house a fuzzy halo. Every porch-frame had wind chimes hanging
along its eaves, whispering crystal-bell music. Closer to the river, the Doctor saw ice-blue flowers glisten brightly against the gray drab of a house.
As he walked toward the clan-voice’s home, Juskahaunet children running around in play stopped to point and stare. Adults working in their gardens looked
at him from the corners of their eyes, but never directly. They wore tight-fitting suits like diving costumes and long oiled jackets. They could tell he
was an outsider, and that frightened them.
The Doctor knocked on the door of the clan-voice’s house. A leathery, salty sort of person with long gray queues of hair answered. “What are you here for?”
“Hello. Is this Maaroj?”
Maaroj grunted in a way that sounded mostly like “yes.”
“I’m here from Nereid Town to take the census, if you don’t mind. Just numbers and names, won’t take long.”
Maaroj’s face wrinkled even more around the mouth. “You already took census in ’49. Will it be taxes every three years, then?”
“Oh no, everything will follow its typical schedule, we just thought there may have been some mistakes in the last census, want to make sure it’s accurate
and all.” The Doctor’s mouth moved automatically, but his mind was working through her words, what they meant. The invasion and bombardment of the Delta
Gemini system began in 5049. It was 5052. Half of the Boeshane Peninsula ought to be smoking rubble by now.
Maaroj scrunched up their nose and grunted, but let the Doctor in. He fished around in his pockets for his psychic paper and a pen, so he could look like
he really was taking a census. The psychic paper was near to hand, but after rummaging through every pocket in his suit all he could find was a purple
crayon. Well, it would have to do. He held the psychic paper and the crayon and tried to look important. Maaroj just snorted. They were very good at
communicating using only nose sounds.
They also had a remarkable memory, listing off everyone in the clan and their occupation off the top of their head.
“Then there’s Augen and Skeret, the boatbuilders, and their boys Calem and Gray. Gray’s fostered out to Menxajasset clan right now, but he still counts for
tax purposes…”
The Captain was here, in this village, now. The Doctor wanted to slip away, to try to find him, to understand who this man was who had so much faith in him
when it seemed he had never returned the favor. But of course, that would only make this whole mess worse than it was.
When Maaroj was done, the Doctor looked down at his psychic paper. It had a drawing of the Captain’s face in purple crayon, and next to it the words, “The
Captain is the son of a boatbuilder. He has a brother who he never mentions anymore.” The Doctor didn’t remember drawing or writing any of these things,
but that was psychic paper for you.
“Thank you, Maaroj. That was very helpful. I’ll be on my way now…”
Maaroj narrowed their eyes at him and stood in the threshold of their home, watching the Doctor walk away, as if the Doctor might turn around and demand a
king’s ransom of taxes at any moment. As the Doctor walked toward the border of fire, he examined the staring children. Most of them looked much like the
Captain, dark-haired, fair-skinned, and broad in the shoulder.
When the Doctor crossed back over the ridge and he saw the Captain looking toward the sea, waiting, his throat dried up. His thoughts chased each other
around his head, until one pounced on all the others and made its way to his lips.
“The year is 5052,” he said, a little hoarsely.
The Captain’s head whipped around to stare at him. He froze there, his coat flapping in the briny wind. Finally, he managed, “My parents? Gray?”
“Alive and well. Gray’s fostered to the Menxajasset clan, Maaroj said.”
The Captain turned back to face the ocean, so the wind blew directly in his face. “I fostered there for a year myself. There’s a woman there who can jump,
climb, swim against the current for miles, pin anyone who attacks her to the ground in seconds. I wanted to learn how to use my body that way.”
“You’re there, too, Captain. If you let this happen, let your timeline change, you can live the rest of your life with the Juskahaunet clan, like you were
born to do. You can watch your parents grow old. You can foster children from other clans and pole your boat on the river.”
The Captain looked over his shoulder at the Doctor. “And you’ll be dead. Or worse than dead.”
“That’s the price,” the Doctor agreed. “I won’t ask you to give up your family and your home for my sake. You can let go, Captain. Let your timeline
dissolve, and this new one take its place.”
“It wouldn’t be me anymore. Not really.”
“I know. But it would be something close.”
The Captain shook his head. His eyes closed, his face tightening, as the condemned do when the blade falls toward their neck. “Tell me what you know about
fixed points, Doctor. What happens if one is erased?”
“This isn’t a fixed point, Captain. Not this invasion, this slaughter. I can feel it.”
“Just answer the question. What happens if a fixed point is erased from time completely?”
“Not just changed, but undone?” The Doctor rubbed his hair. “Blimey, no telling what might happen. Not sure anything like that’s ever happened before.”
A feather-puff was caught on the Captain’s sleeve. He picked it off and cradled it in his hand. The way he stared at the little creature made him look
vastly old, older than the Doctor himself, and for a wild moment he wondered if the Captain might be a Time Lord hidden away by Chameleon Arch, because it
couldn’t be possible for a human to have eyes made so weary by the ages.
“It’s not worth it.” The Captain blinked a few times, hard. “Even in the best case… it’s just not worth it.” He opened his hand and let the down-puff be
carried away by the wind.
“Captain,” the Doctor began.
“Don’t,” the Captain said, his voice breaking on the word. “This is my choice. Accept it. Let’s go fix this.” He walked toward the TARDIS and disappeared
through her doors.
The Doctor followed, unlocking the door with his key. The Captain stood at the console, stroking his fingers lightly along its edge, staring into the
depths of the rotor. “Who has the power to do this?” he said.
“The Shadow Proclamation, though I doubt they’d get involved. The Daleks, but I don’t know why they’d bother. Then there’s the Time Agency…”
The Captain’s eyes narrowed. “Them. It’d make sense.”
“They are a blithering incompetent lot, no mistake. You’ve heard of them?”
He looked away. “I was one of them.”
“You’re much better off now you’re not one of them, then.” The Doctor wasn’t going to judge the Captain for that past, not after what he’d just done. “To
the Time Agency, then. When were you an agent, Captain?”
“From 5066 to 5073.”
“It’s best to go to the height of their power, when they’d have been most able to muck about with history like this. That’d be, oh, ‘round 5015. Before
your time. Still, you’d better stay in the TARDIS. No telling what they’ll make of you if they see you ghosting about.”
“I don’t want to go there. I think just the sight of that place would make me sick.” He pats the TARDIS’ screen. “Besides, I’ve got good company.” His eyes
pinned the Doctor. “But you’d better respect my decision, Doc. No going behind my back. Put my timeline back the way it was. Promise me.”
The Doctor swallowed. “I promise.”
V.
“Here it is, Inspector General,” said the Vinvocci woman. She flicked nervous glances at him as she rotated the holographic image with her hands.
The Doctor suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. She shouldn’t have been fooled by his psychic paper so easily. Time Agents were supposed to be trained for
that sort of trickery.
“Fixed Point 2-aqua-40.” She pointed. The Doctor had to give her this much: the visualization wasn’t bad. Timelines were skeins of silk where they could be
rewritten, and dense bright cables where they were fixed. The curve of Fixed Point 2-aqua-40 was steady as a spinning wheel, twisting diffuse bundles of
possibility around it into glowing certainties. Come to think of it, the Doctor recognized this pattern from his school days. The Time Lords had called it
the Spindle of Constancy.
“Its influence topples governments, brings together species that should have never had contact, and sets off major astronomical events,” the Time Agent
explained. “And the worst part is that we can do nothing to change these events because of their entanglement in the Fixed Point. So we decided to track
down a point of potential vulnerability: its source. Fixed Point 2-aqua-40 originates in the Delta Gemini system in the mid-51st century. We
believe it is an immutable chain of events triggered by the invasion of the system by the Augment Five. So we installed a Time Agent at a crucial moment to
give the Five a more attractive target: Omega Cancri, a system with more people and resources of use to them.”
The Doctor’s lip curled. So they prevented the invasion of the Captain’s world by sending the fleet after an even juicier target. Typical, just typical. He
added “take down the Time Agency” to his to-do list. But for now, he had to consider his options.
The Spindle of Constancy wasn’t a thing. He was a person. The Captain. The Doctor examined the weave and weft of timelines. Yes, he did everything the
Vinvocci woman had said. He weighed heavily in the fabric of spacetime, like a steel cable woven through wool. But the Doctor knew the Captain. He had
faith that the universe would be worse off if the impact of the Captain’s life was winnowed away. Yes, the Captain was right. He had to put things back the
way they were.
He could help mount a defense of the Omega Cancri system, but that might delay the invasion long enough to change events too drastically. He had to prevent
the Time Agency from diverting the fleet in the first place.
The Doctor looked at the hologram again. He noticed a tiny backward twist in the arc of the Spindle. He pointed at it. “Show me this part.”
A hand motion, and the view zoomed in. Coordinates blinked into view: this was the Earth, years 8 C.E. to 2009 C.E. The Spindle ran through it all,
gathering a few threads, then many more starting around 1870. The Doctor jabbed his finger at the hologram “He - it’s embedded in pre-spacefaring Earth!
You could destabilize all of human history! All of galactic history!”
The Time Agent stared. “Its influence goes backward so far?”
“You didn’t check first to see if it did?” The Doctor gave a disapproving click of his tongue.
“The Fixed Point was interfering with our business partnerships in the Quadra Sector! Trillions of credits lost!”
Ah. Greed. It always seemed to come down to that, didn’t it? “There’ll be even more credits lost if you unravel the entire galactic timeline. Failing grade
on this inspection unless you reverse this operation, Agent.”
“Understood, Inspector General.” The Time Agent cleared her throat. “Ah, we’ll send another Agent back in time to intercept the first. In the meantime, you
can help yourself to our VIP lounge…”
“No thank you. I can watch your operations comfortably from my ship. And believe me, Agent, I’ll be watching.”
He turned away and took the elevator to the sub-basement where he’d parked the TARDIS. When he came through the doors, the Captain wasn’t in the console
room.
“Where is he, old girl?” the Doctor said. “I’d like a word.”
He walked down a corridor at random, trusting the TARDIS to take him where he was needed. The corridor turned, and at the end of it was a door. He opened
it.
The room had the feel of a military barracks, but with softer touches here and there: images framed on the walls, a window with a view of a black sand
beach, and a tall mirror. The Captain stood with his face inches away from a holo projected from a frame on the wall by the window.
The Doctor stood next to the Captain and looked at the hologram. It was his old, leather-jacketed self, Rose, and the Captain, all completely covered in
garlands of enormous flowers. He and Rose were tied together by a garland looping around their waists, while the Captain leaned back unselfconsciously
against the Doctor, angling him toward the camera with a hand on his arm. They were all laughing, though the Doctor was trying to hide it.
“Were we lovers?” the Doctor said.
“No,” the Captain said, still standing close enough to the image that the glow of the holo splashed his face with the colors of the flowers. “There was one
time. After we almost got killed. We came inside the TARDIS and we all kissed.” His eyes fluttered closed, as if he could see the moment on the inside of
his eyelids. “But we were covered in volcano dust, so we all went off to shower in our own bathrooms, and… you and Rose never mentioned it again.”
“We should have, Jack. We should have. What was I so afraid of? I can’t remember.”
Blue eyes blazing into his. “What did you say?”
“We should have been lovers, Jack. You’re brave and good and you understand how time works and you know exactly what sort of man I am and you trusted me to
write your entire life back into being and who even knows how much life that is? Oh, Captain Jack Harkness,” he said, relishing the way the name resonated
in his voice, “why is it that I never knew who you were until I didn’t know you at all?”
“You remember,” Jack breathed. The Doctor could see his past self reflected in Jack’s left eye, wreathed in flowers.
“Now I do,” the Doctor said. “And the way I remember having treated you - how in all the worlds did you trust me to fix you?”
“Because you’re the reason I had to be fixed,” Jack said.
“No. No, no, no, that’s not true. I didn’t bring you back for my sake, Jack. I looked at the map of how you’ve affected the universe - did you know you’re
a documented space-time phenomenon? - and I thought, I can’t take that away. Because the universe is better with you in the center of it.”
Jack was staring at him like his eyes were connected directly to the Doctor’s skin, like he was touching him already. “Permission to snog the living
daylights out of you, Doctor?” he said, a little breathlessly.
The Doctor could feel Jack’s warm breath on his face as he spoke. He was real again. No ghost, all body, electric with life. He grinned. “Permission
granted.”
It was a moment of pure discovery. Yes, the Doctor remembered kissing Jack before, but not with this mouth. These lips, which slotted neatly
against Jack’s like lockpicks into tumblers, these teeth, which nipped mischievously at Jack’s mouth, this tongue, which went slack with pleasure when Jack
sucked on it long and hard.
Jack pulled back, and rained tiny kisses all over the Doctor’s face, lips against his cheekbone, the bridge of his nose, his jawline. “You,” he sighed
between kisses, “have no idea - “ kisses feather-light on his hairline, “how much I’ve wanted this.”
“I suppose I don’t,” the Doctor said. “Why don’t you show me?”
“Your hair,” Jack breathed against his ear, running his fingers through it. “I’ve always wanted to pull on it. Would you like that?”
“I don’t know. Try it and we’ll see.”
The fingers in his hair went tight. His scalp prickled with sensation as Jack pulled his head back to bare his throat. Jack’s tongue swirled in the hollow
between his collarbones, and he moaned, straining a little against Jack’s grip in his hair, and the tiny pinpricks of pain were a delicious counterpoint to
the warm suction of Jack’s mouth on his neck. The Doctor had to grip Jack’s waist to keep himself steady.
Jack’s teeth grazed their way along his collarbone, then there was damp breath and the curl of his tongue at the corner of the Doctor’s jaw. “Nguh,” he
said, pulling against Jack’s grip in his hair again, and the prickle in his scalp didn’t even feel like pain anymore, just good.
“Come back up here,” the Doctor said, and Jack fastened on the Doctor’s mouth, their kiss much fiercer now.
The Doctor insinuated his hands under Jack’s greatcoat, easing it off his shoulders. At the same time, he steered Jack toward the bed until his arse hit
the edge. “Now, I remember you swimming in the TARDIS swimming pool naked,” he said into Jack’s mouth, “but I think I could use a reminder…”
Jack loosened the knot of the Doctor’s tie and began to unbutton his shirt, pressing sloppy kisses into his breastbone. “I haven’t had a body in weeks,
subjective.” His voice was half a moan as the Doctor gripped his wrists in one hand and worked off his suspenders with the other. “The last time I went
that long without jerking off I was in a coffin under Cardiff. The things I want to do to you, ah…”
The Doctor smirked and tweaked Jack’s nipple through his shirt again. That made Jack sit down on the bed, hard. “You’re not doing them to me,
you’re doing them with me.” He reached for Jack’s trousers. “Blimey, Jack, why have you got suspenders and a belt? Is it that difficult
for you to keep your trousers on?”
He let go of Jack’s wrists to work his belt, and Jack took the opportunity to unbutton the Doctor’s jacket and slide it off. He rubbed his hands over the
thin fabric of the Doctor’s shirt, and why did that touch make his skin ache even through a layer of cloth? His hands would have faltered on Jack’s
trousers if he weren’t so determined.
“Oh yeah, terribly difficult to keep my trousers on, especially when someone’s so set on taking them off,” Jack said, smiling against the Doctor’s newly
bared stomach, exposed as he worked the buttons on his shirt.
The Doctor’s hands fumbled with the button and the zip. “Harder to get them off when they’re under so much strain - ahah!”
Jack stroked the Doctor’s stomach again. “You’re ticklish!”
“No I’m not, just sensitive - ah!” He giggled. “No, stop it, I’ll never get your trousers off at this rate.”
“I was kind of hoping I’d get to suck you off first,” said Jack, nipping the Doctor’s belly just above the line of his trousers. The Doctor squirmed.
“I was hoping the same thing,” he admitted.
Jack leaned back and held out his hand. “Truce, then. We both take our kit off and call it a 69.”
The Doctor shook his hand, then raised it to his mouth to kiss the palm. “Deal.” Then he swirled his tongue around Jack’s index finger for good measure.
Jack’s head fell back in a deep groan. “Doctor, you’re going to kill me.”
“Can’t. And shan’t.” The Doctor stripped the rest of his clothes off, though Jack managed it first, of course, the rascal. He lay back on the bed, clearly
showing off (and the view, the Doctor had to admit, was very good) and reached into the drawer of his bedside table to get out two packets.
“Fifty-first century condoms,” he said cheerfully, rolling one onto his cock. “All of the taste, smell, and sensation of sex, none of the germs.” He tossed
the other packet to the Doctor, who missed the catch. He could just feel Jack’s gaze on his arse as he bent to pick it up.
Jack watched intently, too, as he rolled the condom on, and swallowed hard. His mouth was watering. The thought made even more blood rush
southward. Jack said, “Get your arse over here.”
The Doctor scooted backward along the bed, arse up, feeling a little silly until Jack gripped his hips and pulled him down, and oh if Jack’s
kisses on his mouth had been good, his kisses there were even better. Well, he was going to repay the favor, with interest. He took an exploratory
lick and yes, that was good, his mouth liked the shape of it. This body’s mouth had an adventurous streak, he’d found.
Jack was trying to bring the Doctor over the edge first with that clever tongue, but he wouldn’t let that happen, not after he’d put his entire existence
in the Doctor’s hands. The Doctor eased his throat open, welcomed Jack in, embraced him with his heat and his hands and everything he could give. Jack’s
hips bucked once, twice. He half-screamed around a mouthful of the Doctor, then went still.
The Doctor took his mouth off with a pop, tied off the condom, and tossed it onto the bedside table. He pulled out of Jack and rolled to sit up on the bed.
He ran his hand through Jack’s hair. “Come here. I want to see you.”
“No fair,” Jack said, a little hoarsely. “Being a ghost for a month is hell on your stamina.”
“Then make it up to me,” the Doctor teased.
Jack rested his cheek on the Doctor’s thigh and smiled dopily up at him. He put his mouth back on the Doctor like it belonged there, holding him in place
with tongue and lips and the stare of his adoring eyes.
The Doctor stroked the side of Jack’s neck, his collarbone, watching, never looking away. Before he forgot about Jack, he had never seen this look in
Jack’s eyes, or at least never understood it. Now that he had forgotten, he saw, he knew, and he wanted to remember it with all of his power.
“Captain,” he sighed, his voice shivering with the joy of it. “Jack.” And he opened himself, and let Jack have what he’d wanted for so long.
VI.
The Doctor and Jack stood at the top of a cliff looking down on an effervescent ocean, copper sparking with gold bubbles that blazed in the light of three
suns.
Their hands brushed against each other, then intertwined. The Doctor hooded his eyes against the flood of yellow light. “There’s something I want you to
know, Jack. In case something like this happens again, and you need to gain my trust right away. Listen, because I’ll only say it once.”
He glanced at Jack, briefly. He nodded and squeezed the Doctor’s hand. He remembered the look on Jack’s face when the Doctor had said the name of his
birth. He understood, then. Yes, he would.
The only sound was the distant crash of waves against stone. The Doctor’s mouth moved, shaping syllables that now felt clumsy and harsh on his tongue.
“I can’t say that,” he heard Jack say. “I don’t know how to make all those sounds.”
“Try,” the Doctor said. “Say it back.”
The pronunciation was all wrong, but he liked it better when Jack said it anyway. The times it had been pronounced correctly were by people he’d now rather
not dwell on. They were dead and gone. Jack was now, and here, and when he said it, it felt more real. It made the Doctor feel more real, as Jack had
become when his timeline was written anew. “Good enough. I’ll know what you mean. If it comes to that.”
“Thank you,” Jack said. He rubbed circles on the Doctor’s palm with his thumb. “I was scared, you know, when I came to you. That you wouldn’t trust me. I’d
been trying so hard to make my way to you, and I didn’t know if it would work out.”
“That never has to happen again,” the Doctor said. “Not ever. Keep the faith, Jack Harkness.” He raised Jack’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “You always
do.”
This entry was crossposted at http://joking.dreamwidth.org/109290.html. Comment here or there.
Rating: Adult
Pairing(s): Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Summary: The Doctor doesn't know this blue-eyed ghost in a greatcoat who keeps showing up in his TARDIS - but apparently, the Doctor is his only hope of survival.
Author's Notes: This is a combination of two of
magic_7_words' prompts for the Doctor/Jack fic exchange at
wintercompanion:
"The Doctor is trying hard to avoid Jack and deny his feelings... but when he finds Jack hurting and in need of a friend, he can't bring himself to turn away."
"Much as they care for each other, the Doctor and Jack aren't having sex. Maybe it's a voluntary choice (e.g. the Doctor flat-out doesn't swing that way) or maybe it's imposed by outside circumstances (anti-sex pollen?). If the latter, will they ever find a way around it? And in the meantime, how else do they express their love?"
I.
The Doctor was twisting together wires, the arteries of the TARDIS’ living heart, when a blue-eyed man in a greatcoat appeared in the console room.
The stranger looked around, his mouth falling open in an easy smile. The TARDIS’ hum enveloped him without so much as a skip in its rhythm. It was the
embrace of long-parted friends.
“What?” the Doctor said, feeling his sonic screwdriver fall from his fingers to clatter on the floor.
The blue-eyed man looked below the console and saw him. His eyes widened for a moment, crinkling up at the corners, warmth shining through his face like
the sun through flowered trees. “I made it,” he said. “Hello, Doc.”
“Who are you and what are you doing in my TARDIS?” the Doctor said, at the same time.
The stranger flinched. His eyes searched the Doctor’s face for a moment, but whatever he was looking for, he didn’t seem to find. He held onto the edge of
the console, rubbing his thumb over one of the flashing lights. “Does she know who I am?” he said softly.
The light flashed bright pink against the man’s thumb. The Doctor blinked at it. “It seems so,” he murmured. He got out from under the console and
inspected the visitor at eye level. His face shone a little pink, and his chest rose and fell deep and fast, as if he’d just run a few miles. He leaned
against the console as if it might keep him from floating away. Could he trust this man? The TARDIS didn’t seem to mind him, but she hadn’t minded Adam
Mitchell either, and look how that had turned out.
“You have the advantage of me, I’m afraid. What’s your name?” the Doctor asked.
“Just call me Captain.” His arm twitched forward, as if he’d been about to offer his hand to shake and thought better of it. “I’d rather you come up with
my name yourself. Then I’ll know everything is back the way it should be.”
“Are you from my future, Captain?” the Doctor said, tilting his head back to consider the man. “Because if you are, you’re playing a more dangerous game
than you know.”
The Captain’s mouth went tight. “I know exactly how dangerous those games are. No, Doctor, I’m not from your future. I’m from your past. Someone is trying
to unwrite my timeline from existence. Make it so that I never was. They’re doing a pretty good job so far.” And with that, the Captain reached for the
Doctor’s hand to shake it. His hand passed right through, like a hologram.
The Doctor gaped down at his hand. “That’s not possible.” He knelt down and grabbed his sonic screwdriver to do a scan. “You’re not a hologram. You’re not
here at all. I can see why the TARDIS doors didn’t keep you out, but how did you find me?”
The Captain reached into the collar of his shirt and pulled out a Yale key on a chain. The Doctor knew that pattern of metal teeth on sight. “She wouldn’t
have kept me out anyway. But this is how I found you.”
“That’s yours? I gave you a TARDIS key?”
“You did give me one, though this one isn’t mine. I lost it.” His eyelids fluttered and his lips pressed together for a moment before he recovered himself.
“I asked Martha Jones for hers, when my timeline was just starting to unravel, and she still remembered me.”
“You know Martha Jones.” The Doctor’s hearts beat a tattoo against the inside of his ribs. Was the Captain lying? If so, how did he know Martha? Had he
stolen the key from her?
The Captain had been looking at the key, twirling it between his fingers. He kept his head down, but looked up at the Doctor. He opened his mouth, but
before he could say anything more, he disappeared.
The Doctor instantly went to the TARDIS computer to check for any signs of unauthorized entry. There were none. Even the subtle scent of musk and honey
he’d smelled on the Captain left no lingering trace in the air.
II.
The next time the Captain appeared, the Doctor was in the medbay, fixing himself up after a nasty run-in with a water-troll on Alpha Sagittarion. He took
in the Doctor’s wounds, wide-eyed. “Are you all right?” he cried, reaching out toward the gashes weeping blood from the Doctor’s side. When his hand passed
through, he let his fingers hover just over the wounds in a ghostly facsimile of touch.
“Fine,” the Doctor said tightly, pressing synthaskin over the gashes to seal them. The blue stuff flattened over the blood, then turned the pale peach
color of his own skin. “Where have you been?”
“I ought to ask you,” the Captain said. “What happened to you?”
“I wouldn’t recommend Alpha Sagittarion in the 12th century,” the Doctor said. “Some of the village shamans like to tame water-trolls and send
them after people they don’t like. The smell of their breath is appalling.”
“You’re going to be OK,” the Captain said gently, but it had the hint of a question.
“Yes,” the Doctor said, buttoning his shirt back up. He felt the Captain’s gaze linger on his chest as he closed the buttons one by one, heavy on his skin
like the weight of a hand. His face heated.
The Captain looked up at the Doctor’s face, then away. “I’ll let you finish getting dressed,” he said, and disappeared through the wall.
The Doctor changed from cream Converse to red ones - the cream had got splattered with troll saliva and mud - and went to the console room. The Captain ran
in through the TARDIS doors, his coat flying out behind him. “Doctor! The rival village wants revenge! They sent out their own water-troll!”
“A’ahi promised,” the Doctor growled. His jaw clenched and unclenched. “She said she’d try to be better.”
“Is A’ahi the chief?” the Captain asked.
The Doctor nodded.
“She’s not part of it. I saw guards around his treehouse. I think the shaman turned the village against her. They’re cheering the troll.”
The Doctor ran for the door. “Then let’s go.”
The Captain phased right through the Doctor as he went out the doors the more conventional way. Already he could smell the swamp-reek of the water-troll
and hear the high cries of war song.
“Go warn the other village,” the Doctor said, before he could think better of it. “They’re in that pinkish-looking swamp over there. I’m going to get
A’ahi.”
The Captain just nodded and went off, half-running, half-gliding.
The Doctor slipped into the shade of the trees around the bog. In a slice of dim light between two trees he could see a ring of guards around A’ahi’s tree,
just as the Captain had said, sporting claw gauntlets on their paws. But they were facing inward, to keep A’ahi from getting out. They wouldn’t be
expecting someone trying to break in.
He remembered how he had once been rescued from Autons, and smiled.
The Doctor shimmied up a neighboring tree, found a long vine, and gave it a tug with all his strength to make sure it would hold. Then he grabbed on and
swung toward A’ahi’s treehouse. When his feet touched the treehouse roof, he kept hold of the vine and called down, “A’ahi, the roof!”
A’ahi poked her horned head out from her door, looked up at the Doctor, and gave an excited bark. She leapt onto the roof. “Doctor, how did you - ”
“Go!” the Doctor said, passing her the vine. The guards were already climbing up the tree, their claw gauntlets digging easily into the bark. For a moment,
she looked down at the guards, and her ears wilted down. Her village was so small, the Doctor realized, that what these guards were doing would feel like a
personal betrayal.
“I won’t hurt them,” he said. “I promise.”
She studied him, briefly, then flicked her tail approvingly, took the vine, and swung away.
The Doctor looked down. A canopy of huge leaves shaded the ground from sight. He didn’t dare jump.
“We have you surrounded!” one of the guards said. They were standing on the treehouse platform below him. “Stay where you are and no one will get hurt.”
“The people in Ke’ahla village will get hurt!” the Doctor said.
“That is none of your business, foreigner. It was not your shaman’s nephews who were killed. Stay where you are.”
The Doctor’s mind raced. All he could think to do was stay, and hope that the Captain’s warning had come in time, and A’ahi could find a way to send the
water-troll back to the bog. He believed in her. He found himself believing in the Captain too.
Somewhere in the distance, he heard the water-troll give a low bellow.
The guards turned toward the sound for a moment, and the Doctor leapt down to the platform and tried to bolt. He was pinned to the floor in seconds.
“Stay,” said the guard, sternly.
The Doctor sat with his back to the front of A’ahi’s treehouse. He was rubbish at waiting. He took out his sonic screwdriver and played with it, but it was
useless here, of course. It didn’t do wood.
He wasn’t sure how long he waited until he heard a powerful, unbroken cry. The Doctor sprang to his feet in time to see the Captain come rising through the
center of the tree like a spirit of the woods themselves, his mouth open in that terrible scream. The guards howled in terror and half-leaped, half-fell
out of the tree, running into the bog for safety.
The Captain came to rest on the platform next to the Doctor and stopped screaming. He watched the guards flee and said, “These people really don’t like
ghosts.”
“What happened?” the Doctor said. “Where’s the water-troll?”
“The shaman’s calming it down. It’ll be coming back to the bog soon.”
“She did it.” The Doctor grinned. “No one in Ke’ahla village got hurt?”
“No. I went to their shaman. He thought I was a ghost. He was terrified of me. Thought I spoke for the dead.” The Captain’s voice was tight. “So he
listened. Then I came back here and found A’ahi sneaking out of the woods. I told her I was your friend and we came up with a plan.”
“What did you tell her your name was?” He shouldn’t be trying to weasel the Captain’s name out of him, but some part of him hoped that if he heard the
man’s name, a thread of their timeline together might unspool in his mind.
The Captain shrugged. “She didn’t ask for one. Foreigner ghosts don’t need names.”
You need one,
the Doctor wanted to say. I need yours. But instead he said, “So what did you and A’ahi do, then?”
“We stood in the path of the water-troll and she told the village that I was the ghost of a foreigner who the water-troll had killed. I proved it by
walking through the water-troll and told everyone that the people the water-troll killed were angry and wanted them to stop using it to kill people. That
scared everyone out of their murderous rage, at least. Then A’ahi gave a speech about coming together as a village, not as a mob. That got them. The shaman
still wanted to sic the water-troll on Ke’ahla, but everyone else made him send it back to the bog.”
“You lied to them,” the Doctor said.
“Look, Doctor. I know you like to believe the best of people. But high-minded inspirational pep talks don’t work on mob mentality. Once everyone’s feeding
off each other’s fear like that, they won’t listen to reason. You need to shock them out of it.” The Captain’s mouth was a grim line.
“How do you know so much about that?”
The Captain looked him straight in the eyes. “Because a mob killed me, once.”
The Doctor blinked. “You said you weren’t a ghost.”
“I’m not. Like I said, someone’s trying to write me out of existence. We need to - ”
And with that, the apparition of the blue-eyed man in the RAF coat snuffed out like a candle’s flame.
III.
The Doctor was in the library reading a book on the dimensional dynamics of time locks when he heard a voice behind him say, “Bit of light reading?”
He looked over his shoulder and saw the Captain standing behind his armchair, looking down at the Doctor’s book. “Oh. Hello. Sit down, Captain, you look
knackered.”
The Captain waved his hand through the Doctor’s armchair. “Can’t.” But he came around to stand facing the Doctor.
“Right. Sorry.” The Doctor closed the book. “No wonder you’re tired. If I’m right, someone’s gone back to the very start of your timeline and done
something - or tried to do something - to prevent your birth. You shouldn’t be sticking around at all. In fact, I can’t even feel your timeline. I always
can.”
“I’m kind of a special case,” the Captain said. “But you need to hurry.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m losing my grip. I’m worried that if I slip away again, I won’t be able to find you. And if I disappear for good…” The Captain took the TARDIS
key, Martha’s TARDIS key, out from under his shirt and rubbed its toothed edge with the pad of his finger. Softly, he said, “How did you and Martha escape
the Futurekind when they were breaking down the door? Do you remember?”
The Doctor remembered it clear as day. The door vibrated against their backs as they stood against it, straining to keep it closed, Martha screaming at him
to do something. Then the Futurekind had busted the door in and torn them apart with their fangs. Martha’s inhuman cries of agony had rung in the Doctor’s
ears as he died with teeth tearing at his liver. The Doctor’s hand pressed against the still-healing wounds left by the water-troll to reassure himself he
wasn’t really bleeding out.
At the same time, he remembered escaping to 21st century Earth, Martha’s time, and discovering the Master had posed as Harold Saxon and become
Prime Minister. How had that happened? He couldn’t remember. The memory of his own death was clearer than the moment between hearing the Futurekind scream
for his blood and staggering onto the London pavement near Martha’s flat.
“No,” the Doctor said slowly. “Captain, I… I’m not entirely sure we did escape.”
The Captain’s lively face stiffened. “You did. I remember. I was there. I teleported us out.”
The Doctor scoured his memory, but came up blank. He shook his head.
“What about Satellite Five? Who kept the Daleks from killing you until Rose came to save you?”
No one kept the Daleks from killing him. He’d refused to sacrifice the Earth to kill the Daleks, and they’d rewarded him with fifty shots to the hearts.
The pain had been unspeakable, but he’d died knowing Rose was safe.
Except that someone had held them off, for just long enough for the Bad Wolf to come, singing fire and destruction. But he didn’t know who.
“You’re right,” the Doctor said. “We do have to hurry. If I don’t get you sorted, my own timeline could collapse too. But Captain?”
“Yes, Doctor?”
“I would have done it anyway. I was working on this while you were away. I would never let this happen to you.”
The Captain’s eyes widened.
“Did I ever thank you for all that? Everything you did for me?”
The Captain looked away.
“Maybe I don’t want my memories back, if I’ll think so little of them,” the Doctor murmured. “Listen, Captain. I may not have said this before, but I’m
saying it now. Thank you. You’re terribly brave and good and I am so, so sorry that I never said that to you before.”
The Captain swallowed hard. “If I am brave and good, that’s mostly because of you, Doc. You showed me a better way to live.”
Did he know, back when he had his memories of the Captain, that the other man was in love with him? The Doctor would have sworn it was unmistakable, but it
seemed that their history together had made it harder for him to see the Captain for who he truly was.
“It goes both ways, Captain. I may not remember our time together, but I know how it is between my friends and me. They always make me better than I make
them. So again. Thank you.”
That look on the Captain’s face, mouth slightly parted, long eyelashes beating slow heartbeats over his eyes, stirred something in the Doctor: not a
memory, not really, but a feeling. Perhaps the TARDIS, who remembered, had whispered it into his hearts. The Doctor stood, and raised his hand in a caress,
and kissed the Captain’s open mouth. But his lips moved against an empty image, and his hand held nothing but air.
“Oh, I am so getting a rain check for that,” the Captain said, eyes smoldering hot blue.
“I ought to have done that sooner,” the Doctor said. “But all right, Captain, let’s sort this. When and where were you born?”
The Captain’s face folded in. “Boeshane Peninsula, Holothalassa, 5035.”
The Doctor winced in sympathy. “Delta Gemini system, yes? Ooh, nasty business. I’m sorry. Well, you don’t have to go there. In fact, I won’t allow it. Your
timeline’s in a bad enough state without you taking the risk of crossing back on it. I’ll pop out and make sure your younger self is where he ought to be,
and you stay in the TARDIS.”
“No,” said the Captain. “I want to be there with you. When you see it for the first time. You can land the TARDIS outside our clan’s territory and walk
there yourself to check. I just - I want you to understand it.”
“All right,” the Doctor said gently. They were standing as close as lovers, faces a hand’s breadth apart, but he felt no breath on his face, no warmth from
another body. He nearly asked the Captain if he could feel the Doctor there, or if he now viewed the world through only the narrow windows of his sight and
hearing. But he shouldn’t belabor the point.
IV.
They stood in an arid, blue-gray land. Low, succulent plants shaped like half-melted brains harbored silky-scaled, gossamer-winged beastlings. Creatures
like puffs of multicolored down floated on the hard salty wind.
“It’s like this all the way down to the shore,” the Captain said, “except by the rivers and streams. We pitch our homes in the glades along the rivers and
catch fish as they swim down to the sea. Each river is the territory of a clan. Our river is the Juskahaunet, just beyond that ridge.”
The Doctor followed the Captain’s pointing finger to a ridge of heather-gray stone, crowned by feathery shrubs.
“Go to the clan’s voice, Maaroj - their homestead will have hokum flowers on the roof. Tiny, light blue, like ice chips. Tell them you’re a census-taker
from Nereid Town. Find out if Calem Juskahaunet is there.”
“Calem Juskahaunet,” the Doctor said slowly, weighing the sounds on his tongue.
The Captain shook his head. “Don’t call me that, Doc. Not unless something like this happens, and you have to convince me that I should trust you. Say it
then, and I’ll know you’re for real. But that’s not my name. Not anymore.”
The Doctor thought of his own name, and moved his lips silently through the first two syllables. It felt like a foreign language he’d learned and forgotten
long ago. He nodded. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
As the Doctor crossed over the ridge, he saw a long arc along the riverbank glowing with fires set in pits - the boundary of Juskahaunet territory. Through
a veil of smoke that smelled of hibiscus and olive oil, the Doctor saw dome-shaped surrounded by gardens and orchards. The settlement continued on the
other bank of the river, people zipping across the river in sharp-prowed little boats, as fast or faster than they could walk.
Past the fire-border, the Doctor could see the houses more clearly. Dreary pre-fabs 3-D printed in bulk in the city, no doubt, but the people decorated
them with branches that caught the colorful feather-puffs floating in the wind, giving every house a fuzzy halo. Every porch-frame had wind chimes hanging
along its eaves, whispering crystal-bell music. Closer to the river, the Doctor saw ice-blue flowers glisten brightly against the gray drab of a house.
As he walked toward the clan-voice’s home, Juskahaunet children running around in play stopped to point and stare. Adults working in their gardens looked
at him from the corners of their eyes, but never directly. They wore tight-fitting suits like diving costumes and long oiled jackets. They could tell he
was an outsider, and that frightened them.
The Doctor knocked on the door of the clan-voice’s house. A leathery, salty sort of person with long gray queues of hair answered. “What are you here for?”
“Hello. Is this Maaroj?”
Maaroj grunted in a way that sounded mostly like “yes.”
“I’m here from Nereid Town to take the census, if you don’t mind. Just numbers and names, won’t take long.”
Maaroj’s face wrinkled even more around the mouth. “You already took census in ’49. Will it be taxes every three years, then?”
“Oh no, everything will follow its typical schedule, we just thought there may have been some mistakes in the last census, want to make sure it’s accurate
and all.” The Doctor’s mouth moved automatically, but his mind was working through her words, what they meant. The invasion and bombardment of the Delta
Gemini system began in 5049. It was 5052. Half of the Boeshane Peninsula ought to be smoking rubble by now.
Maaroj scrunched up their nose and grunted, but let the Doctor in. He fished around in his pockets for his psychic paper and a pen, so he could look like
he really was taking a census. The psychic paper was near to hand, but after rummaging through every pocket in his suit all he could find was a purple
crayon. Well, it would have to do. He held the psychic paper and the crayon and tried to look important. Maaroj just snorted. They were very good at
communicating using only nose sounds.
They also had a remarkable memory, listing off everyone in the clan and their occupation off the top of their head.
“Then there’s Augen and Skeret, the boatbuilders, and their boys Calem and Gray. Gray’s fostered out to Menxajasset clan right now, but he still counts for
tax purposes…”
The Captain was here, in this village, now. The Doctor wanted to slip away, to try to find him, to understand who this man was who had so much faith in him
when it seemed he had never returned the favor. But of course, that would only make this whole mess worse than it was.
When Maaroj was done, the Doctor looked down at his psychic paper. It had a drawing of the Captain’s face in purple crayon, and next to it the words, “The
Captain is the son of a boatbuilder. He has a brother who he never mentions anymore.” The Doctor didn’t remember drawing or writing any of these things,
but that was psychic paper for you.
“Thank you, Maaroj. That was very helpful. I’ll be on my way now…”
Maaroj narrowed their eyes at him and stood in the threshold of their home, watching the Doctor walk away, as if the Doctor might turn around and demand a
king’s ransom of taxes at any moment. As the Doctor walked toward the border of fire, he examined the staring children. Most of them looked much like the
Captain, dark-haired, fair-skinned, and broad in the shoulder.
When the Doctor crossed back over the ridge and he saw the Captain looking toward the sea, waiting, his throat dried up. His thoughts chased each other
around his head, until one pounced on all the others and made its way to his lips.
“The year is 5052,” he said, a little hoarsely.
The Captain’s head whipped around to stare at him. He froze there, his coat flapping in the briny wind. Finally, he managed, “My parents? Gray?”
“Alive and well. Gray’s fostered to the Menxajasset clan, Maaroj said.”
The Captain turned back to face the ocean, so the wind blew directly in his face. “I fostered there for a year myself. There’s a woman there who can jump,
climb, swim against the current for miles, pin anyone who attacks her to the ground in seconds. I wanted to learn how to use my body that way.”
“You’re there, too, Captain. If you let this happen, let your timeline change, you can live the rest of your life with the Juskahaunet clan, like you were
born to do. You can watch your parents grow old. You can foster children from other clans and pole your boat on the river.”
The Captain looked over his shoulder at the Doctor. “And you’ll be dead. Or worse than dead.”
“That’s the price,” the Doctor agreed. “I won’t ask you to give up your family and your home for my sake. You can let go, Captain. Let your timeline
dissolve, and this new one take its place.”
“It wouldn’t be me anymore. Not really.”
“I know. But it would be something close.”
The Captain shook his head. His eyes closed, his face tightening, as the condemned do when the blade falls toward their neck. “Tell me what you know about
fixed points, Doctor. What happens if one is erased?”
“This isn’t a fixed point, Captain. Not this invasion, this slaughter. I can feel it.”
“Just answer the question. What happens if a fixed point is erased from time completely?”
“Not just changed, but undone?” The Doctor rubbed his hair. “Blimey, no telling what might happen. Not sure anything like that’s ever happened before.”
A feather-puff was caught on the Captain’s sleeve. He picked it off and cradled it in his hand. The way he stared at the little creature made him look
vastly old, older than the Doctor himself, and for a wild moment he wondered if the Captain might be a Time Lord hidden away by Chameleon Arch, because it
couldn’t be possible for a human to have eyes made so weary by the ages.
“It’s not worth it.” The Captain blinked a few times, hard. “Even in the best case… it’s just not worth it.” He opened his hand and let the down-puff be
carried away by the wind.
“Captain,” the Doctor began.
“Don’t,” the Captain said, his voice breaking on the word. “This is my choice. Accept it. Let’s go fix this.” He walked toward the TARDIS and disappeared
through her doors.
The Doctor followed, unlocking the door with his key. The Captain stood at the console, stroking his fingers lightly along its edge, staring into the
depths of the rotor. “Who has the power to do this?” he said.
“The Shadow Proclamation, though I doubt they’d get involved. The Daleks, but I don’t know why they’d bother. Then there’s the Time Agency…”
The Captain’s eyes narrowed. “Them. It’d make sense.”
“They are a blithering incompetent lot, no mistake. You’ve heard of them?”
He looked away. “I was one of them.”
“You’re much better off now you’re not one of them, then.” The Doctor wasn’t going to judge the Captain for that past, not after what he’d just done. “To
the Time Agency, then. When were you an agent, Captain?”
“From 5066 to 5073.”
“It’s best to go to the height of their power, when they’d have been most able to muck about with history like this. That’d be, oh, ‘round 5015. Before
your time. Still, you’d better stay in the TARDIS. No telling what they’ll make of you if they see you ghosting about.”
“I don’t want to go there. I think just the sight of that place would make me sick.” He pats the TARDIS’ screen. “Besides, I’ve got good company.” His eyes
pinned the Doctor. “But you’d better respect my decision, Doc. No going behind my back. Put my timeline back the way it was. Promise me.”
The Doctor swallowed. “I promise.”
V.
“Here it is, Inspector General,” said the Vinvocci woman. She flicked nervous glances at him as she rotated the holographic image with her hands.
The Doctor suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. She shouldn’t have been fooled by his psychic paper so easily. Time Agents were supposed to be trained for
that sort of trickery.
“Fixed Point 2-aqua-40.” She pointed. The Doctor had to give her this much: the visualization wasn’t bad. Timelines were skeins of silk where they could be
rewritten, and dense bright cables where they were fixed. The curve of Fixed Point 2-aqua-40 was steady as a spinning wheel, twisting diffuse bundles of
possibility around it into glowing certainties. Come to think of it, the Doctor recognized this pattern from his school days. The Time Lords had called it
the Spindle of Constancy.
“Its influence topples governments, brings together species that should have never had contact, and sets off major astronomical events,” the Time Agent
explained. “And the worst part is that we can do nothing to change these events because of their entanglement in the Fixed Point. So we decided to track
down a point of potential vulnerability: its source. Fixed Point 2-aqua-40 originates in the Delta Gemini system in the mid-51st century. We
believe it is an immutable chain of events triggered by the invasion of the system by the Augment Five. So we installed a Time Agent at a crucial moment to
give the Five a more attractive target: Omega Cancri, a system with more people and resources of use to them.”
The Doctor’s lip curled. So they prevented the invasion of the Captain’s world by sending the fleet after an even juicier target. Typical, just typical. He
added “take down the Time Agency” to his to-do list. But for now, he had to consider his options.
The Spindle of Constancy wasn’t a thing. He was a person. The Captain. The Doctor examined the weave and weft of timelines. Yes, he did everything the
Vinvocci woman had said. He weighed heavily in the fabric of spacetime, like a steel cable woven through wool. But the Doctor knew the Captain. He had
faith that the universe would be worse off if the impact of the Captain’s life was winnowed away. Yes, the Captain was right. He had to put things back the
way they were.
He could help mount a defense of the Omega Cancri system, but that might delay the invasion long enough to change events too drastically. He had to prevent
the Time Agency from diverting the fleet in the first place.
The Doctor looked at the hologram again. He noticed a tiny backward twist in the arc of the Spindle. He pointed at it. “Show me this part.”
A hand motion, and the view zoomed in. Coordinates blinked into view: this was the Earth, years 8 C.E. to 2009 C.E. The Spindle ran through it all,
gathering a few threads, then many more starting around 1870. The Doctor jabbed his finger at the hologram “He - it’s embedded in pre-spacefaring Earth!
You could destabilize all of human history! All of galactic history!”
The Time Agent stared. “Its influence goes backward so far?”
“You didn’t check first to see if it did?” The Doctor gave a disapproving click of his tongue.
“The Fixed Point was interfering with our business partnerships in the Quadra Sector! Trillions of credits lost!”
Ah. Greed. It always seemed to come down to that, didn’t it? “There’ll be even more credits lost if you unravel the entire galactic timeline. Failing grade
on this inspection unless you reverse this operation, Agent.”
“Understood, Inspector General.” The Time Agent cleared her throat. “Ah, we’ll send another Agent back in time to intercept the first. In the meantime, you
can help yourself to our VIP lounge…”
“No thank you. I can watch your operations comfortably from my ship. And believe me, Agent, I’ll be watching.”
He turned away and took the elevator to the sub-basement where he’d parked the TARDIS. When he came through the doors, the Captain wasn’t in the console
room.
“Where is he, old girl?” the Doctor said. “I’d like a word.”
He walked down a corridor at random, trusting the TARDIS to take him where he was needed. The corridor turned, and at the end of it was a door. He opened
it.
The room had the feel of a military barracks, but with softer touches here and there: images framed on the walls, a window with a view of a black sand
beach, and a tall mirror. The Captain stood with his face inches away from a holo projected from a frame on the wall by the window.
The Doctor stood next to the Captain and looked at the hologram. It was his old, leather-jacketed self, Rose, and the Captain, all completely covered in
garlands of enormous flowers. He and Rose were tied together by a garland looping around their waists, while the Captain leaned back unselfconsciously
against the Doctor, angling him toward the camera with a hand on his arm. They were all laughing, though the Doctor was trying to hide it.
“Were we lovers?” the Doctor said.
“No,” the Captain said, still standing close enough to the image that the glow of the holo splashed his face with the colors of the flowers. “There was one
time. After we almost got killed. We came inside the TARDIS and we all kissed.” His eyes fluttered closed, as if he could see the moment on the inside of
his eyelids. “But we were covered in volcano dust, so we all went off to shower in our own bathrooms, and… you and Rose never mentioned it again.”
“We should have, Jack. We should have. What was I so afraid of? I can’t remember.”
Blue eyes blazing into his. “What did you say?”
“We should have been lovers, Jack. You’re brave and good and you understand how time works and you know exactly what sort of man I am and you trusted me to
write your entire life back into being and who even knows how much life that is? Oh, Captain Jack Harkness,” he said, relishing the way the name resonated
in his voice, “why is it that I never knew who you were until I didn’t know you at all?”
“You remember,” Jack breathed. The Doctor could see his past self reflected in Jack’s left eye, wreathed in flowers.
“Now I do,” the Doctor said. “And the way I remember having treated you - how in all the worlds did you trust me to fix you?”
“Because you’re the reason I had to be fixed,” Jack said.
“No. No, no, no, that’s not true. I didn’t bring you back for my sake, Jack. I looked at the map of how you’ve affected the universe - did you know you’re
a documented space-time phenomenon? - and I thought, I can’t take that away. Because the universe is better with you in the center of it.”
Jack was staring at him like his eyes were connected directly to the Doctor’s skin, like he was touching him already. “Permission to snog the living
daylights out of you, Doctor?” he said, a little breathlessly.
The Doctor could feel Jack’s warm breath on his face as he spoke. He was real again. No ghost, all body, electric with life. He grinned. “Permission
granted.”
It was a moment of pure discovery. Yes, the Doctor remembered kissing Jack before, but not with this mouth. These lips, which slotted neatly
against Jack’s like lockpicks into tumblers, these teeth, which nipped mischievously at Jack’s mouth, this tongue, which went slack with pleasure when Jack
sucked on it long and hard.
Jack pulled back, and rained tiny kisses all over the Doctor’s face, lips against his cheekbone, the bridge of his nose, his jawline. “You,” he sighed
between kisses, “have no idea - “ kisses feather-light on his hairline, “how much I’ve wanted this.”
“I suppose I don’t,” the Doctor said. “Why don’t you show me?”
“Your hair,” Jack breathed against his ear, running his fingers through it. “I’ve always wanted to pull on it. Would you like that?”
“I don’t know. Try it and we’ll see.”
The fingers in his hair went tight. His scalp prickled with sensation as Jack pulled his head back to bare his throat. Jack’s tongue swirled in the hollow
between his collarbones, and he moaned, straining a little against Jack’s grip in his hair, and the tiny pinpricks of pain were a delicious counterpoint to
the warm suction of Jack’s mouth on his neck. The Doctor had to grip Jack’s waist to keep himself steady.
Jack’s teeth grazed their way along his collarbone, then there was damp breath and the curl of his tongue at the corner of the Doctor’s jaw. “Nguh,” he
said, pulling against Jack’s grip in his hair again, and the prickle in his scalp didn’t even feel like pain anymore, just good.
“Come back up here,” the Doctor said, and Jack fastened on the Doctor’s mouth, their kiss much fiercer now.
The Doctor insinuated his hands under Jack’s greatcoat, easing it off his shoulders. At the same time, he steered Jack toward the bed until his arse hit
the edge. “Now, I remember you swimming in the TARDIS swimming pool naked,” he said into Jack’s mouth, “but I think I could use a reminder…”
Jack loosened the knot of the Doctor’s tie and began to unbutton his shirt, pressing sloppy kisses into his breastbone. “I haven’t had a body in weeks,
subjective.” His voice was half a moan as the Doctor gripped his wrists in one hand and worked off his suspenders with the other. “The last time I went
that long without jerking off I was in a coffin under Cardiff. The things I want to do to you, ah…”
The Doctor smirked and tweaked Jack’s nipple through his shirt again. That made Jack sit down on the bed, hard. “You’re not doing them to me,
you’re doing them with me.” He reached for Jack’s trousers. “Blimey, Jack, why have you got suspenders and a belt? Is it that difficult
for you to keep your trousers on?”
He let go of Jack’s wrists to work his belt, and Jack took the opportunity to unbutton the Doctor’s jacket and slide it off. He rubbed his hands over the
thin fabric of the Doctor’s shirt, and why did that touch make his skin ache even through a layer of cloth? His hands would have faltered on Jack’s
trousers if he weren’t so determined.
“Oh yeah, terribly difficult to keep my trousers on, especially when someone’s so set on taking them off,” Jack said, smiling against the Doctor’s newly
bared stomach, exposed as he worked the buttons on his shirt.
The Doctor’s hands fumbled with the button and the zip. “Harder to get them off when they’re under so much strain - ahah!”
Jack stroked the Doctor’s stomach again. “You’re ticklish!”
“No I’m not, just sensitive - ah!” He giggled. “No, stop it, I’ll never get your trousers off at this rate.”
“I was kind of hoping I’d get to suck you off first,” said Jack, nipping the Doctor’s belly just above the line of his trousers. The Doctor squirmed.
“I was hoping the same thing,” he admitted.
Jack leaned back and held out his hand. “Truce, then. We both take our kit off and call it a 69.”
The Doctor shook his hand, then raised it to his mouth to kiss the palm. “Deal.” Then he swirled his tongue around Jack’s index finger for good measure.
Jack’s head fell back in a deep groan. “Doctor, you’re going to kill me.”
“Can’t. And shan’t.” The Doctor stripped the rest of his clothes off, though Jack managed it first, of course, the rascal. He lay back on the bed, clearly
showing off (and the view, the Doctor had to admit, was very good) and reached into the drawer of his bedside table to get out two packets.
“Fifty-first century condoms,” he said cheerfully, rolling one onto his cock. “All of the taste, smell, and sensation of sex, none of the germs.” He tossed
the other packet to the Doctor, who missed the catch. He could just feel Jack’s gaze on his arse as he bent to pick it up.
Jack watched intently, too, as he rolled the condom on, and swallowed hard. His mouth was watering. The thought made even more blood rush
southward. Jack said, “Get your arse over here.”
The Doctor scooted backward along the bed, arse up, feeling a little silly until Jack gripped his hips and pulled him down, and oh if Jack’s
kisses on his mouth had been good, his kisses there were even better. Well, he was going to repay the favor, with interest. He took an exploratory
lick and yes, that was good, his mouth liked the shape of it. This body’s mouth had an adventurous streak, he’d found.
Jack was trying to bring the Doctor over the edge first with that clever tongue, but he wouldn’t let that happen, not after he’d put his entire existence
in the Doctor’s hands. The Doctor eased his throat open, welcomed Jack in, embraced him with his heat and his hands and everything he could give. Jack’s
hips bucked once, twice. He half-screamed around a mouthful of the Doctor, then went still.
The Doctor took his mouth off with a pop, tied off the condom, and tossed it onto the bedside table. He pulled out of Jack and rolled to sit up on the bed.
He ran his hand through Jack’s hair. “Come here. I want to see you.”
“No fair,” Jack said, a little hoarsely. “Being a ghost for a month is hell on your stamina.”
“Then make it up to me,” the Doctor teased.
Jack rested his cheek on the Doctor’s thigh and smiled dopily up at him. He put his mouth back on the Doctor like it belonged there, holding him in place
with tongue and lips and the stare of his adoring eyes.
The Doctor stroked the side of Jack’s neck, his collarbone, watching, never looking away. Before he forgot about Jack, he had never seen this look in
Jack’s eyes, or at least never understood it. Now that he had forgotten, he saw, he knew, and he wanted to remember it with all of his power.
“Captain,” he sighed, his voice shivering with the joy of it. “Jack.” And he opened himself, and let Jack have what he’d wanted for so long.
VI.
The Doctor and Jack stood at the top of a cliff looking down on an effervescent ocean, copper sparking with gold bubbles that blazed in the light of three
suns.
Their hands brushed against each other, then intertwined. The Doctor hooded his eyes against the flood of yellow light. “There’s something I want you to
know, Jack. In case something like this happens again, and you need to gain my trust right away. Listen, because I’ll only say it once.”
He glanced at Jack, briefly. He nodded and squeezed the Doctor’s hand. He remembered the look on Jack’s face when the Doctor had said the name of his
birth. He understood, then. Yes, he would.
The only sound was the distant crash of waves against stone. The Doctor’s mouth moved, shaping syllables that now felt clumsy and harsh on his tongue.
“I can’t say that,” he heard Jack say. “I don’t know how to make all those sounds.”
“Try,” the Doctor said. “Say it back.”
The pronunciation was all wrong, but he liked it better when Jack said it anyway. The times it had been pronounced correctly were by people he’d now rather
not dwell on. They were dead and gone. Jack was now, and here, and when he said it, it felt more real. It made the Doctor feel more real, as Jack had
become when his timeline was written anew. “Good enough. I’ll know what you mean. If it comes to that.”
“Thank you,” Jack said. He rubbed circles on the Doctor’s palm with his thumb. “I was scared, you know, when I came to you. That you wouldn’t trust me. I’d
been trying so hard to make my way to you, and I didn’t know if it would work out.”
“That never has to happen again,” the Doctor said. “Not ever. Keep the faith, Jack Harkness.” He raised Jack’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “You always
do.”
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