Lacrimis Morientium 1
Title: Lacrimis Morientium
Part: 1/6
Warnings: Mpreg. Dark and depressing. Character death and very disturbing scenes. May be triggering for anyone with issues relating to infants. No happy ending.
Rating: 18+
Genre: Angst, AU after Parting of The Ways
Spoilers: Parting of the Ways
Characters: Jack, Simm!Master, Doctor, Rose
Pairings: Jack/Simm!Master, Jack/Doctor (implied)
Summary: The Doctor has abandoned Jack on Satellite 5. This has consequences that he did not foresee. Major Jack angst. A dark fic.
Disclaimer: Not mine
AN: I wrote this while I was on holiday without a computer last month, and I've just finished typing in the first draft. It still needs editing, so I'll post once a week. For those waiting for the next chapter of A New Dawn; I'm working on it, I promise!
Chapter 1
Jack gazed in horror and disbelief as the TARDIS vanished before his eyes. He gasped and fell to his knees in shock. He stayed there a long time, still dizzy and weak from whatever had happened when the Dalek failed to kill him. In truth he was not just waiting for that weakness to pass, or the shock to subside, he was waiting for the TARDIS to reappear. It did not.
Hours later, Jack got to his feet. His knees protested angrily at being moved after so long, and he staggered. He was numb, emotionally and physically. He walked slowly through the room, picking his way through the spaghetti wiring that filled the aisle. He checked the delta wave machine. It was complete, but had not been activated. How could that be? His volunteers had given their lives to allow the Doctor time to complete it, which he had obviously done. So why wasn't it used? And since it hadn't been used, what had happened to the Daleks? It didn't make any sense. He couldn't leave it like this, though. It would only take one push on a lever to activate it, and wipe out all life within range. He quickly disconnected some wires, disabling the machine.
Pushing his feelings of hurt and confusion aside, Jack moved into time agent mode. His commanding officer may have done a bunk, but he was a trained soldier, it was time he acted like one. First assess the viability of the environment and send a distress signal, then check for survivors. He moved over to the computer bank and called up the station stats. Levels 496 and 497, where Lynda had been stationed, were leaking air so he sealed them off. On those levels, loud klaxons sounded, giving anyone present two minutes warning to leave the level. Power levels were low throughout the station, but would last several days before something needed to be done. For the moment he could concentrate on the hunt for survivors.
* * * * *
Two hours later, Jack had checked the six levels that he and his volunteers had tried to defend. He had found the bodies of his fellow defenders, and a few stragglers who had missed the evacuation, but no one living. He arranged the bodies on one level and sealed it off, bowing his head in respect. These had been his comrades, and they were all accounted for except for Lynda. Her section of the Satellite had been breached from the outside, and she would have been blown out into space. There was nothing he could do to recover her body.
Knowing that there had been 100 people on level zero, he had checked there next. Bodies lay strewn around the room, some in piles as they had tried to hide behind each other. There were no survivors. He felt no compunction to treat these people with any respect, so he merely left them where they lay and sealed the door.
By this point he was exhausted. He had had no rest since he, Rose, and the Doctor had first landed on the Satellite. He decided to give up his search for the night, and sleep. He went up to level 101, one of the Big Brother levels, chose a flat, ate some food from the kitchen, and dropped into the nearest bed. He was asleep within seconds.
* * * * *
The next day, Jack rose, ate, and carried on his search. He covered 36 levels that day. Still no survivors.
For the next four days Jack searched and slept. He found no one. And nor did he hear the sound he longed for. The sound of the TARDIS materialising. He had left a message in the control room on level 500, explaining what he was doing, so that the Doctor would be able to find him when they returned.
By the 6th day, Jack had searched every level. It was now horribly clear that he was alone on the satellite; the only survivor.
* * * * *
Jack had been driving himself hard since the TARDIS left. He had thrown himself into the work, partly to avoid thinking. But he could avoid it no longer. He returned to the place where he had last seen the TARDIS; his home. Gazing at the empty place, where the TARDIS had once stood, grief welled up in him. “Where are you Doctor? Why did you leave me?” he asked the air. “Did I do something wrong?”
Jack thought back over the months prior to their arrival on Satellite 5. After a rocky start to his time on the TARDIS, a month after the Doctor and Rose rescued him from his doomed ship he and the Doctor had become lovers. For someone like Jack, who had not had a home since his early childhood, it was a revelation. The Doctor made him feel wanted, and that he belonged. Rose was like a sister to him. For the first time in his adult life he had felt part of a family. Which made the Doctor's abandonment totally incomprehensible to him. And the most painful episode in his life, not excluding Gray.
They had not argued, nor was Jack aware of any way in which he had hurt or upset the Doctor. And even if he had, surely the Doctor would have talked to him. He would not have deliberately abandoned him. No, he would be back. There must have been an emergency. The Doctor would sort it, and come back for him. He just needed to be patient.
Having calmed himself down, Jack decided to create a living space right there in the control room. This was probably the first place that the Doctor would look when he came back. He headed off to the Big Brother level to forage for supplies.
By the time he needed to sleep again, Jack had a bed made up on the floor at the far end of the aisle from where the TARDIS had been. The pallet was well padded with blankets. He had a stack of drinks, canned and bottled, including some wine, plus a large mound of non perishable food. He celebrated his new accommodations by drinking one of the bottles of wine. “Hurry up Doctor,” he called out. “The wine's lousy.”
* * * * *
After ten more days of waiting, Jack finally came to the realisation that he needed to get off the Satellite, before it became uninhabitable. He would have to give up on waiting for the Doctor. It was a difficult decision. For three days, he put it off. He had set the coordinates on his vortex manipulator for 20th century Earth. Every time his hand hovered over the controls he would convince himself that the Doctor would arrive at any moment. But he did not, and eventually Jack pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
Jack stared at his wrist strap in shock. He tried again. Still nothing. Trying not to panic, he went down two levels to a storage section, where there were tool kits intended for using with computers. They were a bit large for using on his wrist strap, but he could make do. He found a table where he could work, and opened up the inner workings of the manipulator. His heart sank. The main components, that enabled time travel and teleportation, were burnt out. And there was no way that they could be fixed. The Dalek blast had obviously done more lasting damage to the manipulator, than it did to him.
And, suddenly, everything was different. He had spent the three weeks since the Doctor abandoned him in the certain belief that he could leave at any time he wanted. He had been devastated, yes, heartbroken, yes, but he had not been in fear of dying. He was now.
* * * * *
Two weeks later Jack had done all the repairs to the Satellite's power systems that he could. He had shut down all non-essential systems, but even so there would be failures within weeks. But the Doctor would be back by then, wouldn't he? And perhaps the Earth government would send up someone to look for survivors before that. He was surprised that they hadn't done so immediately, particularly when they picked up the distress signal.
The evacuation of the Satellite had used every shuttle that had been docked. There were none left. He had thoroughly checked the Satellite transmat systems, but they were in no better condition than his vortex manipulator. The main transmat mechanism had been directly hit by a Dalek shot. There would be no way off the Satellite using that. Sighing heavily he headed down to the lower levels to replenish his supplies.
* * * *
It was just over one month after the Doctor left, that Jack became ill. He started throwing up violently several times a day. There seemed to be no reason for it. He was not drinking contaminated water, or eating dodgy food. Nothing had changed with his supplies. He considered if it could be radiation poisoning, but all his checks of the radiation detectors showed no excessive levels. If it had been due to handling the bodies, something should have shown up weeks before.
Jack's illness continued for another week before he worked out what was going on. And, when he did, he simply stood frozen in horror as the awful truth sank in. In desperation he ran down to the medical centre and ran a scan. He wasn't wrong.
* * * * * *
Pregnant. He was pregnant. And what would normally be a joy was instead a curse. Jack was under no illusions. The power was failing, and Satellite 5 would become uninhabitable within weeks. There would be no heating or cooling, and no recycling of the air. No one had responded to the distress signal. If the Doctor did not come back he was going to die, and with him their baby.
For the next week, Jack worked. He scavenged food and water from the lower levels, bringing everything he could up to the level where he had set up home to wait for the Doctor. Once he had everything that he could use, he cut the power to all but the upper levels. This triggered the emergency lighting on the lower levels, so he rerouted that, making sure that it was disabled on all levels except the one he was using. Cutting the power would buy him another two weeks, he estimated. But that two weeks could make all the difference. The Doctor's timing had never been accurate.
Then, when everything that could be done, was done, he sat and waited. He would try to have faith. The words `Never doubted him, never will.' echoed though his mind. Yeah, right. It was amazing what difference a few weeks could make.
* * * * *
Three weeks later, he still waited. Because of the nausea, he ate little, even though there was plenty of food. There was no chance of the food or water running out before the power.
Conditions got worse. The temperature control was failing. The effect depended on whether the satellite was in direct sunlight, or not. Some days Jack was freezing, and huddled under all his blankets. Other days the heat became unbearable. And through all this, Jack thought over and over. “When are you coming back? You wouldn't abandon me, I know you wouldn't.”
He was so obsessed with his mantra, that Jack was actually surprised when the air recycling stopped. As it did, the lights went off and were replaced by the dim emergency lighting. He leapt to his feet and moved over to the console. It was dead. The power had completely failed. The only things left were the batteries which powered the emergency lights. They would usually only last a few days, but, since he had disabled all but one of the 500 levels, it would be years before that battery ran down.
His heart was breaking. The Doctor had not come. The man he had believed loved him, had left him to die, and he would never know why.
Jack estimated that there were about two hours of oxygen in the part of the satellite he was in. Two more hours of life, for him and the baby. Jack caressed his stomach tenderly. “I'm so sorry. I've tried everything, but there's nothing more I can do.” Tears fell from his eyes. “I'm sorry that you won't get to live, to grow up, to love and have children. I'm sorry that I'll never meet you. But don't worry, we won't suffer. It'll be just like going to sleep.”
He moved over to his pallet and lay down. Nothing to do now but accept the inevitable and sleep.
Next chapter here: http://ohinyan.livejournal.com/29877.html