Fic: Pinstripes & Jacquard ‘Verse, Chapter 9: Eleven O’Clock, Tick Tock
Title: Pinstripes & Jacquard ‘Verse, Chapter 9: Eleven O’Clock, Tick Tock
Author: psyfi_geekgirl
BetaBabe: akkajemo
Characters/Pairings: Twelfth Doctor, Tenth Doctor, Eleventh Doctor, River, Jack,
Excerpt: “And that just proves it, really,” she spat. “You’re reverted to your handiest set point: Cold, aloof and clinical. You’re really no different from any of your other incarnations! You will always make decisions for us, you autocratic git!”
Word Count: 4,726
Disclaimer: Until she’s Jossed, Twelve is mine-but of course, based entirely on stuff that ain’t mine… All hail Auntie Beeb!
A/N: Continuing Part II of Girl in the Mirror ‘Verse. Which, if you haven’t read yet, will give you important backstory and character details which are essential to this ‘verse (the link to the GitM masterlist is provided below). This series is a sort of Season Two. Also written before the end of DW season 6, so some details have gone AU.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HANUKKAH, EVERYBODY!
I also apologize for the spacing issues. I keep changing them and LJ keeps changing them BACK! IT'S DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!
Part I: Girl in the Mirror ‘Verse Masterlist
Part II:
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8
Doctor River Song stood facing into the wind on the grubby little asteroid-like planet that was encased in perpetual darkness and devoid of any natural resources except for endless stretches of TARDIS carcasses. For a moment her brain was assaulted by old memories-a delicate flower in a pelting rainstorm.
Sod the Spotters Guide. She would never forget the Eleventh Doctor. The man she’d loved and lost was standing before her-impossibly-now.
She struggled to catch her breath.
As she wrestled with her emotions, the Doctor’s bottle green eyes raked over her in curiosity. At first nothing registered, but his eyes began to search her face more intently. He frowned, his addled brain straining to make a connection that was just out of reach.
The wind covered the hitch in River’s breath as well as the gasp that came with seeing him struggle to remember her.
She had always dreaded a day like this.
The sadness in River’s eyes as she looked at Eleven was immeasurable. “Sweetie, don’t you know who I am?”
“Hello,” said Eleven, his deeply inset eyes raking over her face. “Do I know you?”
“Yes,” she answered, “Yes you do…” She moved closer to him and impulsively touched his cheek. “It’s so good to see you…”
Oh!” he said uncomfortably, squirming in his own skin. He yanked himself away from River whose face fell, marred by the shadows of sorrow.
His eyes grew as he noticed her reaction to his rebuff.
“Er… I’ve ignored important social cues again, haven’t I? Yes, yes, I have,” he mumbled awkwardly, rubbing the fingers of his left hand together whilst looking for a way out of his difficulty. “This is one of those times where I should just smile and say ‘thank you,’ isn’t it?”
River nodded, looking for all the world like a stunned deer as the other two Doctors watched with increasing tension, feeling powerless to stop the impending emotional wreckage.
He smiled anxiously, wanting to please her. “Thank you…”
River’s smile to him was drenched in sadness. “Hello, Sweetie…”
The Eleventh Doctor smiled back bashfully, “Hello, again…” He handed her the dirty metal part he clutched in his hand like some sort of cat offering a dead bird to its mistress and River reached beyond the part to take his hand. He looked a bit frightened at first then seemed to relax into the easy pressure of her skin-the first real contact he’d had since he’d materialized here.
And who knew how long that was...
But there was something in that touch, something familiar, and long-dormant memories stirred in the darkness of the Eleventh Doctor’s shattered mind and began to take hold. He looked her up and down again, thoughtfully. This woman with the curly hair-she meant something to him-and he almost had it. But these other two with the brown hair and suits he just couldn’t place. And he didn’t care for their uncomfortable, frozen smiles or their hollow-sounding voices.
Twelve cleared her throat to rouse him, “How have you been getting on here?”
She smiled stiffly again.
Eleven didn’t like it.
Uncertain, mistrusting, Eleven glanced at River, “Something’s… not right…” he breathed, cocking his head slightly to the side, his eyebrows slowly knitting together.
The Twelfth Doctor felt her adrenaline surge. If he didn’t trust them-and he ran-there was no telling how long this whole process would take. And there was too much at stake with the universe in danger.
River stepped in front of him. “Sweetie, please. We’re trying to help you.”
He regarded the woman with the corkscrew curls and the sad blue eyes.
“Do you know these people?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
From somewhere he remembered that he had once trusted this woman second only to himself. And even though he couldn’t quite remember this woman’s name yet, his apprehension mysteriously vanished as he looked into her eyes. “Good,” he said leaning forward with a small grin. “Then I shall trust them.”
Now it was Twelve’s turn to feel discomfort. Trust her? Not bloody likely…
He flashed them a childlike grin. “Hello!” he said cheerily to both Doctors, “Oh, look! You’ve changed your hair!” He stared at Twelve’s windblown hair. “Euggghhh!” he exclaimed rudely, sticking his tongue out and pulling a face.
“You know her?” gasped River.
“Nope! Not a bit! But I always wanted to say that!” Suddenly he leaned in towards River. “I like you better than them,” he confided.
“I like you, too, Sweetie,” said River, taking the arm he offered her and allowing him to lead her off.
Twelve sighed with relief. River had done her job.
“Are you here… all on your own?” River asked.
“Naww! Tons of us here, there are. Lots. I’ve got friends! Loads of em!” He pointed at Twelve like he’d caught her in some sort of trick, “Eh? Eh! You thought I didn’t!”
“Where are they?” asked Twelve, “I’d love to meet them.”
“Questions, questions. So many questions! You’re The Girl Who Asks Questions.”
Twelve let out a tiny guffaw-ah, we did like our titles when we were him, didn’t we? “Don’t you like my questions?” she asked, reaffirming her title.
“Sure. I like them just fine. Gives me something to do.”
“Good. Then you won’t mind showing us your friends?”
“Gonna ask them questions, too?”
“Sure. Why not.”
Tossing a filthy bit of a gearbox aside, he gestured for them to follow. “Pretty Boy can come too!” he said cheerfully, and led the way up the divot and down onto an area with a more gentle slope. He pointed to an area that was relatively cleared of trash, save for a large semi-circle of gear piled to form what looked to be walls about three meters tall. Over the walls was stretched a dirty oilcloth, or some sort of tarpaulin-most of which was depressingly torn or eaten through with holes.
The Twelfth Doctor looked around at it. It seemed to her to be some sort of makeshift tent-but that was a tactfully kind description. It was a hovel, really. “Do you live in here?” she asked evenly, attempting to drain any negative insinuation out of the remark along with any of her own sorrow in regards to his state of affairs.
“No, my friends do,” he said. “Can’t you hear them talking? They’re always talking.”
Stooping to avoid the foul oilcloth she stepped inside.
When she came out seconds later, River was holding Eleven’s hand again and grinning at her. Tentatively he touched his finger to the tip of her nose. Even if he didn’t quite know what he was doing, he was beginning to fall into an accustomed pattern with her. River just about melted in happiness at the familiar gesture.
Something tightened in Twelve’s solar plexus just watching them.
The Tenth Doctor met Twelve’s eye and saw the resigned sorrow in her face that mirrored his, the same sorrow humans have when they’ve spent an afternoon with an elderly family member who is quietly slipping away…
Ten’s voice to her was low, “Friends?”
She jostled her head in a no. “Timelord distress boxes…”
He nodded. Of course, they might have guessed as much.
The Eleventh Doctor tore his eyes off River to look at the emerged Twelfth Doctor. “See? Friends! They answer your questions?”
“No,” she said, sadly. “They wouldn’t talk to me.”
“Ohh, well, more’s the pity. Still! Not everybody can be as cheerful and as friendly as me!”
Thankfully he spun around and was therefore oblivious to the raised or raising eyebrows of River, the Tenth and the Twelfth Doctor…
“Let’s go, Geronimo!” he said, dropping River’s hand and beckoning them to follow.
“Don’t you mean allons-y?” said Ten, reflexively.
The Eleventh Doctor spun around and stalked up to him. “Ooooh. You again, Pretty Boy?” He looked him up and down. “And why would I want to be French?” he sneered. Reaching out to flick Ten’s exquisitely gelled quiff, he spun on his heel and took off, his spindly bow legs leading the way, looking more like he was in a perpetual state of falling rather than walking. “This way, ladies…” he called out over his shoulder, addressing them all.
“Oh yes,” said Ten, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “very pleasant and cheerful…”
“You watch it,” hissed Twelve to Ten. “He almost touched you…”
After the second ridge, the Twelfth Doctor caught up with him.
“Where are you taking us?” she asked.
“Home!! Home plate, home office, home base, home run, home stretch, home box!”
“Home box?”
“Yes! Yes, home box. Don’t know why I call it such. Something important, can’t remember. But you asked, so I’m taking you to my home. And I live in a box, so-home box!”
Twelve looked over her shoulder at Ten and River who had caught up just behind.
“C’mon, old girl!” he called out to River.
River shook her head and growled, “He may not remember me, but he can certainly remember to insult me…”
“Oh, you love it!” answered Eleven, overhearing her, “At least, that’s what Idris says…”
“What…who? What?” stammered Twelve.
“Idris! She’s my very. Best. Friend.”
“And she’s here with you?”
“Of course, she’s always with me.”
“Can I meet her?”
“Questions, questions. She who asks the questions…”
“What can I say? I know a lot, but I can always learn more. And if I never ask, I’ll never get the chance to know.”
“Ah, yes-but the only questions that really matter are the ones you ask yourself…”
Twelve rolled her eyes. “You’re telling me…”
“Well, here she is,” he gesticulated flamboyantly, “Idris!”
He pointed to a sheet metal object-broken, decayed, damaged. He was obviously attempting to create a TARDIS out of the parts lying disused on House’s surface. It certainly wouldn’t win any beauty pageants. Its missing parts had been spackled over with what looked suspiciously like wood glue or bondo, but was neither. It’d been slapped on in a drunken fit of ingenuity. It was also a tragic waste of time. Somehow he expected this ugly Frankenstein’s Monster to fly. It made her sad.
He was insane; there was just no way around it.
River stood next to Twelve, looking despondently after Eleven who had suddenly spun around to snatch up a temporal accelerometron that was balanced precariously on top of a teetering pile of junk. She muttered to Twelve, “It’s never gonna fly, is it?”
“Of course not. Not without the spark of life. No, I’m afraid there is no sentience here…” Her eyes drifted over to the Eleventh Doctor with a pang in her chest, “None at all…”
The whole time he was picking over the planet’s empty shell in his obsessive dumpster diving quest, the Eleventh Doctor alternated between muttering to himself and downright shouting. Once again they heard only bits of it on the breeze-mathematical mutterings to himself, or to “Idris.”
It made her shudder. Not long ago she’d been him, and now to watch this most recent version of herself, completely divorced from reason, collecting bits of garbage whilst talking to an imaginary soulmate that he’d only talked to once with mouths in the flesh…
She had to finish what she’d started so she could get off this rock and leave it behind once and for all.
There was no time for doubt or remorse.
Out of the corner of her eye, Twelve saw River flick a tear away and decided they’d all had enough. She nodded to River. She was up.
River swallowed hard.
“Would you like to go somewhere?” River called to Eleven, “Get off this dusty asteroid? See what there is of the universe to see? We could walk amongst the stars…”
He clambered over to her, clapping “Oh yes! Oh, please, oh please, ohplease!”
As he came forward, River pleaded to Twelve in a whisper, “Please end this. I can’t bear it.”
She nodded. It was time to reunite Eleven with his TARDIS. Twelve gestured for him to follow them.
Hanging back, the Tenth Doctor found himself with River Song on the walk back to the proper TARDIS. His suit felt rough and tight as they walked through the narrow, winding pathways buffeting the stark, stale breezes that barely touched the skin but chilled the bone. In truth, he had tried to avoid River altogether-he found it difficult to separate his feelings of guilt from what happened/would happen at the Library. He may have had all of the memories of his Eleventh self’s budding romance with her, and of Twelve’s cheeky banter and camaraderie, but as his own man, she still made him uneasy. So he stayed away, afraid to say the wrong thing.
He also preferred Rose, if he was honest. There was just no way around it. He was made for her after all. And while he would have enormous respect and gratitude for River-and for her sacrifice in the Library-theirs was a relationship that was already over.
It was like strolling along with a dead woman.
She made him even more ill at ease than the Walking Fixed Point In Time that she called “Dad.”
But at least he was used to Jack…
“I make you uncomfortable,” she said to him, cannily picking up his mood.
Trying not to seem caught off guard, Ten weighed his words. “No more than I make you…”
“I’m sorry. You’re a bit of a shock. And an enigma. I guess you’ll always be, and that unnerves me because I know so many of the others so completely.”
“I’m not so different from them.”
“Yes, but you are,” she reasoned. “We’ve met, recently-“
“I remember everything Twelve remembers,” he explained. “The Daleks and the Moog Naheth-“
“It’s Rose,” she blurted.
He stopped to look at her. “What about Rose?” he said, his voice low, even and serious.
She smiled a half-smile, part of her not surprised at his overprotectiveness at all and another positively crushed because of it.
She shook her head, sadly. “That’s what-“ she pointed to his hearts. “She’s hardwired into you, and there’s no way around that.” He made a noise to either apologise or explain himself but she stopped him. “No, it’s really all right. I will never-have never-begrudged the Doctor his feelings for Rose. I wouldn’t dream of it. But the other Doctors… I’ve built a relationship with them... But with you?” shook her head, “I’m a very persistent and understanding woman, but I know that with you I’ll never win-will never break down those walls. And tell you the truth, I’d feel badly even trying. You deserve your own happiness. I’ll just have to be content in knowing that I can never share in it…”
He returned her sad half-smile, feeling like a widower twice over.
At least they understood and appreciated each other.
“You’d better go make sure Dad’s in the TARDIS,” she said, that tinge of sadness unflagging. “I want a word with my old fella…”
******
Having waited for them back at the TARDIS, Jack was ready for them as they walked up. He watched their approach, anxiously scanning for a look at the mysterious Doctor-a version he had never met.
A tall, grubby man with bowed legs and clothes three sizes too big for him came bounding up the path, hand in hand with River Song.
The stranger had floppy brown hair.
Jack shifted the long metal tubing of the reconfigured Trap Box and mentally crossed his fingers that the whole thing would work and not blow up and take them all down the rabbit hole...
As they neared, Jack noticed that the look on River’s face was anything but carefree.
He could tell the entire exercise was excruciating for her. He reasoned she must have known this version pretty well.
All the breath in the Eleventh Doctor’s lungs left in one, protracted groaning sigh as his vision filled with the view of the TARDIS, looming over the dismal shell of the planet. “Ohhhh… It’s you,” he breathed, running forward to stroke the sides of the blue box. “My Sexy!”
Twelve’s eyes fell shut with dread. Of course he would recognise the TARDIS. But she pushed her feelings down. She still had a universe to put right.
“Jack, now!” she called, wanting to release him from his half-life existence.
Anxious to have a moment to say goodbye, River yelled out, “NO! Wait! Not yet!”
Perplexed and alarmed at River’s reaction, the Eleventh Doctor spun around towards Twelve. “What’s wrong?” he asked innocently, stumbling towards Twelve, his hands outstretched… almost touching her.
Fearing Reapers, Twelve jumped back and repeated her order.
“No! Doctor!” River screamed and sprang forward.
“RIVER GET BACK!” Twelve ordered.
Suddenly it hit him. “River??” He spun towards her with recognition in his eyes.
He knew her!
“RIVER!!!” he yelled, reaching out to her.
Jack sparked the Trap to life.
As he was hit with the greenish plasma of the Trap Box gun, the Eleventh Doctor’s bottle green eyes shone with the look of fear and betrayal.
River shuddered, knowing that look would keep her up many nights to come…
“I’m so sorry, my Love,” wept River, watching the Eleventh Doctor writhe in a terrible state of partial transduction.
There was something wrong with the machine.
Hauling River back-who had instinctively run towards Eleven-Twelve whipped out her sonic and aimed it at the Trap Box, boosting it’s sequential psionic amplifier loads. The Tenth Doctor did the same, but the acoustic wave feedback began to fight them off. As a result, the Eleventh Doctor remained caught in a carbon oscillation transmutation, somewhere between corporeal life and re-streamed bio-data.
“DO SOMETHING! HELP HIM!” River shrieked.
Twelve sprang forward and thrust her sonic into the side of the mechanism, creating full-spectrum Alpha-Wave acceleration-and a whole lot of smoke.
Caught in the pulsating glow of destabilisation, the Eleventh Doctor began to experience photochemical reduction. Twelve could feel the sonic growing hot in her hand as it whirred maniacally on, boosting the process.
Finally, the borders of the Eleventh Doctor’s body grew indistinct-he had reached bio-cellular crystallization.
Still jamming the burning sonic against the device, Twelve reached down and smacked the second button on the Trap Box as Jack held it steady.
Combined with the technology of the neural relay mechanism, the Eleventh Doctor’s bio-data was finally sucked into the Trap and uploaded into the insulator attached to the time rotor via the umbilical cord.
It was done.
He was gone.
But it hadn’t been accomplished without mess.
The whole thing had been brutal.
The Twelfth Doctor stared at Ten who ruffled his hair in frustration. Jack looked between them and River, who stared at the empty space where Eleven had just stood moments before, her eyes puffy and streaming.
“That could have gone easier,” Twelve mumbled to herself, feeling slightly nauseous. She was convinced a few less shortcuts or bad sums could have prevented them all some trauma-not the least of which was suffered by Eleven…
But she refused to think about that right now.
She held out her hand, revealing the smoldering hunk of the fried sonic. It was thrashed. It had been totally ill-equipped to handle a job like this. She’d have to have the TARDIS make her a new one and would have to have special functions added. The spring-activated metal tines were even melted. The green diode was broken. It was completely destroyed.
River stared at the ruined sonic-Eleven’s sonic.
To her, the whole thing was a rather apt metaphor.
The bile rose in her throat. She turned on Twelve angrily, “And now are you quite happy!?” she roared. “Did you get what you wanted out of me!?”
Twelve took a breath, gathering ground. “River, we all knew what the mission today was…”
River’s hair bounced as she whipped her head around to stare daggers into her. “But you never warned me that it could be like that! You never told me I would have to just stand there and witness it! That was the ‘other thing’ that conveniently slipped your mind to tell me as we landed, wasn’t it? Not only was I needed to help with the flying and gain his trust, but that you had no intention of allowing me to say my goodbyes!”
“You’re wrong… It had never slipped my mind.”
“DID YOU THINK I WOULDN’T HAVE ANY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS?” River shrieked.
Twelve turned to her, armor up, shields up to maximum-she was impenetrable, inscrutable, her old self, or selves… “Of course I did,” she said, bloodlessly. “I counted on it.”
River was incensed. “You deliberately manipulated me! You used me to lure him, knowing he might be half-mad… You just needed me to make sure he came quietly and didn’t get your hands too dirty, didn’t you??”
The truth took only one word: “Yes.”
River’s anger made her dangerous. The air around them crackled.
“And that just proves it, really,” she spat. “You’re reverted to your handiest set point: Cold, aloof and clinical. You’re really no different from any of your other incarnations! You will always make decisions for us, you autocratic git!”
“If I have to, yes,” she admitted, her voice perfectly calm, perfectly indifferent.
Stung, River turned to the Tenth Doctor. “I wonder when she’ll start making them for you, too? Maybe she already has?”
“He knows why he was retconned, River--”
“But what about recently?” She stared at Ten, “Rule One, right? It applies to everyone…”
The accusation landed between them like a dead body-or a person falling into a pit made from a squareness gun… A little detail about their Transboolian adventure that had also conveniently slipped her mind amid their narrow escape the other day.
It was true, some things he just didn’t need to know… yet.
River was still looking at the Tenth Doctor. It seemed she would always feel sorry for him. And her pathos would always be equal her regret that she could never completely share herself with him. “I wonder if you’ll be as happy with your lot once she turns on you-“
It was Jack’s firm voice that interrupted her: “River! Enough!”
For a moment she was stunned into silence. It had been a very long time since her father had ordered her to do anything, much less a version of him that knew her so little. Even the Doctors were shocked. Twelve’s eyebrow went up. She never expected him to say anything. After all, she’d been resigned to the censure she knew would have followed. Even the insults she knew she deserved, and worse-for River had been right. As usual, River Song could see right through her and had an uncanny knowledge of her methods and intentions-even more than she herself, or at least another incarnation…
While the Doctor could bear any number of accusations and insults hurled at her (justifiably), she could not abide a rift between father and daughter. “River,” she barked, “a word…” Turning on her heel, Twelve stalked away from Ten and Jack.
River followed, her mutinous eyes boring into her back.
Jack sighed as they walked away. “She shouldn’t have said those things,” he said, a father apologising for a daughter’s misbehaviour.
Ten shook his head, having turned to watch the two women in heated conversation. “It’s all right, Jack. Twelve knew this might happen. River can’t be faulted. It must have been a terrible strain to see him in that position.”
“Y’mean the other Doctor?”
“Yeeaah,” he said, shifting the weight on his feet and stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Let’s just say that we have different relationships with people from incarnation to incarnation. You’ve seen it yourself, my personality changes. Humans with traumatic brain injuries do the same thing. They can turn into totally different people.”
“Like someone can be a jealous U-boat captain who leaves me behind on a doomed Satellite one minute and a suit-loving playboy who travels to the end of the universe to get rid of me the next?”
The Tenth Doctor pursed his lips together and blew out a puff of air that scattered his fringe.
There was just no winning with the Harkness Clan today…
“Something like that,” he relented.
Off to the side, it appeared things were going better between River and Twelve. At least their limbs had ceased jerking around in dramatic gestures while they talked.
“River was very close to my Eleventh self,” Ten explained. “Very close,” he emphasized. “Now she’s had to deal with getting used to his replacement,” he hooked a thumb over to Twelve. “And before she can even get used to that big change, I show up,” he continued. “And then together we drag her here and force her to be the bait to dispatch her Doctor. So all things considered, I think she’s doing remarkably well.”
“You both seem very willing to swallow her scorn-“
“Because it isn’t scorn,” Ten clarified. “It’s anger at being betrayed. We played on her trust,” he admitted. “She has every right to be tetchy.”
Jack eyed him, finally understanding, “You two want to be condemned...”
Ten shifted uncomfortably. “Let’s just say we’re aware of our culpability.”
Thankfully, the Twelfth Doctor and River rejoined them. Both of their jaws remained taut but the lethal look in River’s eyes had gratefully subsided.
It appeared that whatever had been said, the storm between them had passed.
But she asked Jack and the two Doctors to let her have a few minutes alone on the planet before they set off.
Inside the TARDIS, Jack made tea for something to do, and left the two Doctors alone in the console room. They sat in their respective corners, staring off into space and thinking about what had gone wrong.
One thing was for sure: Nothing like this must ever happen again.
******
Not surprisingly, River asked to be taken back to her own time.
“I just need some time,” she said.
All Twelve could do was acquiesce and set the coordinates.
It was just as well.
For where they were going next no one could follow.
And when the TARDIS doors opened on the familiar sterile white walls of Torchwood, Jack felt a little surprised, if not disappointed.
He thought he was in it for the long haul.
However, whatever plan the twin Doctors had hatched between themselves he quickly realised this was one mission they clearly intended to confront on their own.
It didn’t stop him from registering his objections, however…
“-just don’t see why not…” he said as he was being walked to the doors. Mickey had already helped unload the storage cupboard off the console room of much of the TARDIS parts he’d found on House and they were being taken down to the vaults for storage for whenever the Doctor would need them.
“Jack,” said Twelve, “where we’re going no one can come with us.”
“But I know where you’re going! I could be of help to you. I know another Doctor is great in a fight, but who’s better than a guy who can’t die, huh?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry…”
Jack shook his head, finally getting it. “You’re deliberately shutting us out.”
Ten walked around the console, pretending to study the monitor, but hearing every word as she put her hand on the doors.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” she repeated, her voice suddenly feeble. “I can’t have you see this.”
“You’re afraid of what I might see? Do you really hate yourself that much?”
Brown eyes sought blue.
Brown eyes had always frustrated Jack. Blue were so pretty and reflective, so clearly read and understood. Brown were muddy and indistinct in comparison. All Jack could see in them was his own reflection, and all manner of truths could be veiled and buried within their depths.
The Tenth and Twelfth Doctors were no exceptions.
Despite this, he detected a flicker of fear in Twelve’s eyes.
Why was there fear?
Before he could ask, she placed her hand on Jack’s chest. “Thank you, Jack,” she said in a soft voice. “Thanks for… so much-everything, really.”
His breath caught in surprise as she leaned in and caught his lips with hers.
It was over before he knew it.
Yet he knew instantly that immortality wouldn’t seem so harrowing if he knew he could do it again, someday.
The TARDIS was gone before he realised she’d said goodbye…
Again.
To be continued in Chapter 10: No Time To Spare…