(no subject)
Who: Jack and 10
Where: TARDIS
when: After the reunion and Jack's nap
What: Talk, eat, sleep
Jack took his ten hours of rest and was grateful for them. He felt slightly saner for the sleep. The Doctor was right, going for very long without letting your mind shut down was a short trip to insanity. He'd managed, by dreaming with his eyes open and 'drifting' near consciousness. And he had had death. But neither was a substitute for sleep.
When he woke up he'd poked around his room and finally wandered out and back to the Console room. He stroked his fingers over the controls in the softly glowing light. He loved this machine. The bitch.
"Do you have to molest my girl in front of me?" The Doctor teased lightly.
Jack turned toward him. "Rose isn't here," he pointed out with a smile, fingers still touching the TARDIS. "Why do I think that's not as much a joke as I once did?"
"Because you know it's not true."
"I know which isn't?"
"Rose isn't."
"No," Jack agreed. "But she was in love with you."
"She was very young."
"She's still very young, Doctor. It's only been two years for her, you know."
"How long has she been with you?"
"A few weeks." Jack stroked the TARDIS again with his fingers. "She doesn't understand." His eyes on the Doctor were calm and steady now, alive as they hadn't been before, not judging or weighing, just watching.
"Doesn't understand what?" the Doctor leaned against the cage around the console.
"Much," he said with a quick grin. He loved Rose. "Four hundred years, at a guess. And it's just a guess, not knowing."
"It's a long time to her."
"I think it's a long time for everyone, Doctor."
"Not to me."
"Why not?" Jack challenged, walking slowly around the room and console, investigating.
"Because it's only a fragment of my life."
"What percentage?"
"For me so far or Time Lords in general?"
"For you so far."
"About 1/4."
"So, it's about the same as." He squinted. "Six years would be for Rose. Not that she thinks of it that way, but it's still quite a while." His mouth crooked up on one side in a kind of dorky grin. "I can't imagine that kind of time."
"You will." he said calmly.
"...do you have to work at being that kind of ass, or does it come naturally?" He asked, without any heat.
"It's natural, actually. Rude." he tssked at himself.
"Oh yeah? I think I like it." He grinned quickly, then it was gone. "What are you going to do?" He added, "About Rose," for clarification.
"What can Ido?"
"Are you asking me for advice or being rhetorical?"
"Well, if you have advice, I'd appreciate it, but Iwas going for rhetorical."
Jack just smiled. "Do you really think you'll ever be able to give her what she needs?"
"Do you think she *knows* what she needs?"
"No. I'm not sure she even knows what she wants. What do you think?"
"That I can't."
"That hurts," he responded with unmistakable compassion.
"Are you hungry?" he changed the subject.
"What, you think I'm going to starve to death? I metabolize time, not carbohydrates." He gave a quick smile.
"That doesn't mean you can't be hungry!"
Jack laughed, short and soft. "All right, that's a fair point. It's also true. Is the kitchen in the same place?"
"Slightly to the left actually."
Jack shrugged. "Four hundred years, I'm lucky she didn't put it on the roof." He turned and walked toward the door. "Are you coming?"
"Don't have a roof," he jogged to catch up to Jack
Jack waited on him and when the Doctor got close, he put his hand on the Doctor's back to catch him up. "Then it's really a good thing she didn't put all your food there, isn't it?"
He grinned, "I'd make a new one,"
His answering grin was bright. "If she'd let you. I know who wears the pants around here." He liked the corridors of the TARDIS. Even shifted and changed the layout were... interesting and welcoming.
"You're just trying to get on her good side."
"I'm already on her good side," He said smugly. "All right, maybe not so much but she's certainly on mine."
He laughed. "That's ...true.
He tilted his head as he veered off to the left, in search of the kitchen. "Which part of it?"
"That you're on her good side.'
"That's not surprising," he said as he pushed the door open and peeked in, then walked in more confidently. He started pulling things open right away. "I'm probably the closest thing to something like her she's seen in." He thought about it. "A long time."
"A long time," he agreed, going to sit on the counter.
Jack rummaged around until he found a package of crackers and a jar of nutella. Then he pivoted around and hopped up onto the counter beside the Doctor. "You really think all it's going to take for me to jump time is thinking about it?"
"I'm sort of surprised you haven't already."
"Century and a half, Doctor, and the only time hope I did was with technology from station five. I trust you, but I'm not sure it's that easy." Or maybe he was just afraid to hope, or hadn't expected, or. Something.
He looked thoughtful, "we'll have to practice."
Jack ate a cracker and looked thoughtful back. "How are we going to practice?"
"I haven't gotten that far."
Jack looked at him. Didn't look away from him while he scooped nutella up with his finger and smeared it all the way from the Doctor's hairline down to the tip of his nose.
The Doctor didn't move. "That's a waste of good Nutella."
Jack considered the issue, retrieved a cracker and stuck it onto the bridge of his nose, using the nutella as glue.
"Jack?" he inquired. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to play with your food?"
Jack sucked his finger clean. "Nope."
He tssked. "Jack. Don't play with your food."
Jack took the cracker off the Doctor's nose with his teeth, careful not to bite him but to get the cracker. He chewed, swallowed, and then with nothing but seriousness asked, "Why not?"
"Because your plate's *sticky* now."
"I can take care of that," he promised. "Food, Doctor, is a lot like sex - it's alll about being alive, and there's nothing wrong with getting a little messy in the process." He flashed the Doctor a grin and held his face between both his hands and started licking him clean.
The Doctor laughed, squirming away, "Jack!"
Jack let him go and swiped the last smear off the 'stop' of his nose, the dent before it rose to his forehead. "Play's good for your soul, Doctor. What have you been doing for the past four hundred years, anyway?"
He wrinkled his nose, "Traveling mostly."
"You don't say. Traveling where? With who? What have you done?"
"Why?" he asked a little tiredly.
"Because it's a quarter of your life and a span of time I can't comprehend but I'm going to have to learn how to, and I missed you."
"I've fought. I lost friends. I met new ones. They left. I've traveled alone for years."
"Sounds like a lonely existence. What are you going to do now?"
"Ask you and Rose to come with me."
"I'm not going to start talking for Rose," he answered after a moment spent screwing the top back on his jar and pushing it back on the counter. "And I'll stay with you, for a while. I need to figure out how I'm going to make eternity something I can live with, since I don't have any option, but I'm your past - Doctor, not your future, and like I told Rose, time might not be a straight line, but you still can't go backwards." He was suddenly just exhausted, because all he wanted was to go back.
"Why can't you be both?" he asked, sounding *old*.
Jack rubbed his hand on the Doctor's thigh, stroking down toward the knee with the palm and squeezing lightly. "Because you need someone bright and vibrant, someone who can love life and see it with new eyes. You need another Companion, Doctor. Someone to set you on fire. I'm not so sure I can do that anymore."
*
And because Jack loved him, completely, but he didn't really trust him.
"Jack..." he stopped then started again, "You're going to too."
"I'm going to too? Tutu? Ballet? What?"
"Need someone to make you love life."
Jack shook the Doctor's knee lightly. "Why have you been alone so long?"
"Apparently I'm cranky." He repeated what he told Rose earlier.
"You've always been cranky." He stared.
"I have not!"
"The hell you haven't!"
"...Well. When you knew me I was."
"Which is close enough to the same thing, since the time I knew you, you had company. Did someone else you love die?"
: "I think there are strawberries in the icebox. Do you want some?"
"Depends."
"On?"
Jack pushed himself up and off the counter, and crossed to the ice box. "Two things. First, you tell me why you don't want to talk about it. Secondly - you're eating them, too."
"I'll eat your strawberries," he grinned a bit.
"All right, but you're still not answering the first question and I really am stubborn." He brought the basket of strawberries over and shoved one in the Doctor's mouth.
He chewed, stealing a bit of nutella.
Jack stood in front of him, in clothes at least fifty years out of date (for the date he'd come from) with his head a bit to one side and hair falling over his forehead. He wasn't frowning, but there was a crease between his eyebrows. "How do you manage to make me feel like a child * and * make me want to take care of you?"
"I have a gift for pathetic patronization."
Jack snorted. "I loved you, I hated you, and now I don't know what to do with you. you're asking me to stay with you but you're not letting me in. Do you want me here or not?"
"I want you here."
"Why?" Jack ate a strawberry and leaned against the counter.
"I like you, Jack."
Jack choked on his strawberry and coughed and laughed until he was red faced and his eyes were streaming.
"What?"
Jack managed to swallow rather than spit or snort, and got enough control to talk. "You. Everything is so simple with you, except you."
"I'm pretty simple!"
"You're as simple as you are polite!"
"...I could be polite." Not really.
Jack picked up another strawberry, swirled it in the nutella and held it up. "Say please."
"I'm not good at that word."
Jack smiled. "It's a polite word."
He opened his mouth several times to say something.
He held the strawberry against the Doctor's lower lip. Lifted his eyebrow and the corner of his mouth.
The Doctor licked it.
Jack pulled it away again, very slowly. "Please, Doctor." He prompted. Still with that half smile, and dimples.
"You're not funny."
"I'm not trying to be," he said, voice soft and . well. seductive.
"Jack," he whispered softly, worried.
"What?" The whisper and worry... worried him.
"What are you doing?"
"Asking you to say please," he said, very calmly and quietly.
"Why?"
"Because once-upon-a-time, I had faith that you could save the universe. Now I just want to believe you can ask for something."
"Jack, may I please have the strawberry?" and it cost.
Jack smiled, and it was a really, truly, beautiful expression. Not blindingly bright, but honestly warm. "Thank you," He said softly. And fed the Doctor the strawberry.
"Welcome," he grumped.
Jack let his hand fall back down to the counter, and closed his eyes.
"Jack?"
"I've spent too long waiting on you and waiting on answers." He opened his eyes and tried to smile.
"I'm sorry."
"That wasn't an accusation, you self centered ass." There was no heat in that.
"Still sorry."
Jack kept eating, slowly and steadily and sharing with the Doctor. "For what?"
"You waiting>"
"Not your fault. Apparently I could have left at any point. Besides, suddenly 100 years isn't all that long."
"You waiting>"
"Not your fault. Apparently I could have left at any point. Besides, suddenly 100 years isn't all that long."
"Still. I wish I had known."
"So do I. It might have stopped me being quite so lost."
"But you're found now."
"No," he said simply. "I'm not. You're found, but we're still lost. All three of us."
"Better to be lost together."
"Are you afraid of being alone with Rose?"
"...no?"
"Good, then." He crunched through another strawberry, licked the juice off his fingers. "So you're going to ask her to stay?"
"Already did."
"Is she staying?"
"Yes."
"How long are you going to keep her with you?"
"As long as she wants to stay."
"Is that how it works?"
"WIth Rose."
"How does it usually work?"
"Does it matter?
"You've been around a lot longer than I have," he pointed out.
"Not. I. WEll, yes."
"Yes. So, you're better at leaving than I am. Tell me how it works. How do you decide when you're going to leave?"
"They leave me, Jack."
Jack lifted his eyebrow. "Do they know that, Doctor?"
"Most of them."
Jack thought about it. He thought about Algy and Estelle, John and Jack. He thought about time and love and men choking to death on roses and old women drowned by faith. He thought about small child Gods that killed with a touch. He thought about the Doctor, about forever and Rose, Magic and Sarah Jane. And he sighed. "No."
The Doctor blinked. "What?"
"They don't leave you behind."
"But they do leave."
"They don't leave you behind, Doctor, because you can't be left."
"Because I don't have a place to *be* left.' The Doctor argued.
"No, because you can't untouch someone."
"WHat?"
"You can't undo the changes you make in people, Doctor. You *can't* be left."
"are you saying they don't change me too?"
"Of course not. Everyone and thing you come into contact changes you. But not the way you change them."
"THat's not fair, Jack.
"No, but it's not false humility, either."
"I'm not bein....Jack, they *ask* to go home. A lot of them."
"Wouldn't you?" He asked gently, "If you could?"
"This is my home."
"Would you leave it for someone?"
"I don't know."
Jack touched the Doctor's cheek with the calloused and warm tips of his fingers. "I am so confused."
"You're the one asking questions."
He grinned. "Because I'm confused, and overwhelmed, and scared. And asking questions helps. You're the closest thing I know to someone who's going to live forever, and even you are still what you're supposed to be."
"What I'm supposed to be?"
Jack shrugged. "A Time Lord."
"What do you know about Time Lords, Jack?"
"I don't know how much I know and how much I think I know. I know I thought the Time War was a myth."
"It was real."
"Yeah, you told me while the Daleks were looming," he smiled. A bit.
"It was bad, Jack."
"I would imagine it was. All of them, all of you. Except it didn't work."
"Didn't work?"
"You told - " No, that was right. "You said that it was almost worth it. Until they were back at Station Five."
"That part," he smiled a bit. "Wipe our the time lords and the daleks at once? It might have been."
"I remember them vanishing out of time and space," Jack remembered. "It was unbelievable."
"That's a good word for it>"
"You want to hear something *really* sick?"
"Sure."
"You remember how they rebuilt their race, right?" He lifted an eyebrow.
He looked queasy.
"Closest thing I could ever find to compare myself to. Built from the dead."
"Why do you say that?"
"I died and got turned into something that's a long way from human."
"That's not even close to the same, JAck.
"I told you it was sick," he pointed out. "But as far as it goes - do you have a better analogy?"
"Give me time, I'll think of one."
"I've got more time than you, and I don't think you're going to. I don't think it really matters. Just don't let me start calling Rose God."
"Not to her face."
"I'll leave the 'oh god, rose!" to you," he mocked.
"I don't say 'oh god'," he protested.
"Bet I can make you," he smiled.
"Five quid you can't."
"Are there rules?" He asked with a curious accessing look.
"Like?"
"Like, oh, things I'm not allowed to do?"
"I trust you." he grinned.
"Do you really?"
"You're here."
"So?"
"So I trust you."
"You're scaring me a little, here."
"I'll stop being sincere."
"You were being sincere?!?!!"
"I can be sincere!"
"But you were?" Pause. "When were you?"
"about me trusting you?"
Jack looked relieved. "All right, that you can be sincere about."
"What?"
"You're not allowed to let me think you're sincere about sex."
"What?"
"You're not allowed to let me think you're sincere about sex."
"...I'm never sincere about sex, Jack."
"Thank you," he said very. sincerely. "Have you slept?"
"I don't like sleeping, Jack."
"Would company help?"
He tried to leer. He failed, but he tried.
Jack waggled his eyebrows. "I bet I can make you say oh god in bed. Probably be followed by 'stop', but I bet I can."
He laughed, "But I bet you can't make me add Rose to it."
"...is that what I agreed to make you say?"
"Yep." he nodded.
"Shit," he said eloquently. "The TARDIS is telepathic, isn't it?"
"A little more than I am." he nodded, "Why?"
"I'm trying to think of a way I can win that bet, and developing telepathy seems the most likely." He put the strawberries away then turned back for the Doctor.
"We can shift to without Rose?"
Jack pulled the Doctor off the counter and over his shoulder. "I don't know, without Rose it's just much less fun and less hot."
He laughed, letting Jack pull him.
Jack stopped outside the kitchen. "Where's your room?"
"It's." he looked thoughtful, then rapped on the wall, "Where's my room?"
"You don't know where your room is? When was the last time you slept again?"
"About four years ago..ah ha." A map popped up for a brief moment before disappearing. The Doctor started heading down the hall.
"Four YEARS? are you out of your mind?" Jack jogged a little to catch up. He'd paused and stalled when he heard that.
"...It's been insinuated."
"Right, you're sleeping." He followed the map that had popped up and the Doctor, leading him toward his room. "You Do have a bed in there, right?"
"Last time I checked!"
"Here's hoping," Jack mumbled.
The Doctor opened his room. Which did, in fact have a bed. It was a huge bed covered in books, but it was a bed.
Jack groaned and stood the Doctor in a corner. "Stay there." He went to the bed and started moving books.
The Doctor opened his room. Which did, in fact have a bed. It was a huge bed covered in books, but it was a bed.
Jack groaned and stood the Doctor in a corner. "Stay there." He went to the bed and started moving books.
He didn't listen, going and helping him move books.
Jack rolled his eyes but worked to get the bed clear, stepped out of his shoes and pulled back the covers. "Okay, in with you."
The Doctor kicked off his shoes and grabbed Jack's jacket, tugging him in.
*shirt
Jack tumbled down onto the Doctor, deliberately, and pivoted around so he landed beside him rather than on him.
He beamed, and closed his eyes.
Jack wrapped around the Doctor, pushed his knees behind the Doctor's, put his arm over his waist and arm up across his chest so that his hand was on his shoulder. "Now go to sleep," he said, right in the Doctor's ear.
The Doctor leaned into Jack, smiling slightly, hand on Jack's wrist and stayed awake, faking sleep with ease.
Well, Jack certainly wasn't going to sleep so he curled there, held the Doctor and waited for ten hours to pass. It seemed fair. It was relaxing, anyway.
Where: TARDIS
when: After the reunion and Jack's nap
What: Talk, eat, sleep
Jack took his ten hours of rest and was grateful for them. He felt slightly saner for the sleep. The Doctor was right, going for very long without letting your mind shut down was a short trip to insanity. He'd managed, by dreaming with his eyes open and 'drifting' near consciousness. And he had had death. But neither was a substitute for sleep.
When he woke up he'd poked around his room and finally wandered out and back to the Console room. He stroked his fingers over the controls in the softly glowing light. He loved this machine. The bitch.
"Do you have to molest my girl in front of me?" The Doctor teased lightly.
Jack turned toward him. "Rose isn't here," he pointed out with a smile, fingers still touching the TARDIS. "Why do I think that's not as much a joke as I once did?"
"Because you know it's not true."
"I know which isn't?"
"Rose isn't."
"No," Jack agreed. "But she was in love with you."
"She was very young."
"She's still very young, Doctor. It's only been two years for her, you know."
"How long has she been with you?"
"A few weeks." Jack stroked the TARDIS again with his fingers. "She doesn't understand." His eyes on the Doctor were calm and steady now, alive as they hadn't been before, not judging or weighing, just watching.
"Doesn't understand what?" the Doctor leaned against the cage around the console.
"Much," he said with a quick grin. He loved Rose. "Four hundred years, at a guess. And it's just a guess, not knowing."
"It's a long time to her."
"I think it's a long time for everyone, Doctor."
"Not to me."
"Why not?" Jack challenged, walking slowly around the room and console, investigating.
"Because it's only a fragment of my life."
"What percentage?"
"For me so far or Time Lords in general?"
"For you so far."
"About 1/4."
"So, it's about the same as." He squinted. "Six years would be for Rose. Not that she thinks of it that way, but it's still quite a while." His mouth crooked up on one side in a kind of dorky grin. "I can't imagine that kind of time."
"You will." he said calmly.
"...do you have to work at being that kind of ass, or does it come naturally?" He asked, without any heat.
"It's natural, actually. Rude." he tssked at himself.
"Oh yeah? I think I like it." He grinned quickly, then it was gone. "What are you going to do?" He added, "About Rose," for clarification.
"What can Ido?"
"Are you asking me for advice or being rhetorical?"
"Well, if you have advice, I'd appreciate it, but Iwas going for rhetorical."
Jack just smiled. "Do you really think you'll ever be able to give her what she needs?"
"Do you think she *knows* what she needs?"
"No. I'm not sure she even knows what she wants. What do you think?"
"That I can't."
"That hurts," he responded with unmistakable compassion.
"Are you hungry?" he changed the subject.
"What, you think I'm going to starve to death? I metabolize time, not carbohydrates." He gave a quick smile.
"That doesn't mean you can't be hungry!"
Jack laughed, short and soft. "All right, that's a fair point. It's also true. Is the kitchen in the same place?"
"Slightly to the left actually."
Jack shrugged. "Four hundred years, I'm lucky she didn't put it on the roof." He turned and walked toward the door. "Are you coming?"
"Don't have a roof," he jogged to catch up to Jack
Jack waited on him and when the Doctor got close, he put his hand on the Doctor's back to catch him up. "Then it's really a good thing she didn't put all your food there, isn't it?"
He grinned, "I'd make a new one,"
His answering grin was bright. "If she'd let you. I know who wears the pants around here." He liked the corridors of the TARDIS. Even shifted and changed the layout were... interesting and welcoming.
"You're just trying to get on her good side."
"I'm already on her good side," He said smugly. "All right, maybe not so much but she's certainly on mine."
He laughed. "That's ...true.
He tilted his head as he veered off to the left, in search of the kitchen. "Which part of it?"
"That you're on her good side.'
"That's not surprising," he said as he pushed the door open and peeked in, then walked in more confidently. He started pulling things open right away. "I'm probably the closest thing to something like her she's seen in." He thought about it. "A long time."
"A long time," he agreed, going to sit on the counter.
Jack rummaged around until he found a package of crackers and a jar of nutella. Then he pivoted around and hopped up onto the counter beside the Doctor. "You really think all it's going to take for me to jump time is thinking about it?"
"I'm sort of surprised you haven't already."
"Century and a half, Doctor, and the only time hope I did was with technology from station five. I trust you, but I'm not sure it's that easy." Or maybe he was just afraid to hope, or hadn't expected, or. Something.
He looked thoughtful, "we'll have to practice."
Jack ate a cracker and looked thoughtful back. "How are we going to practice?"
"I haven't gotten that far."
Jack looked at him. Didn't look away from him while he scooped nutella up with his finger and smeared it all the way from the Doctor's hairline down to the tip of his nose.
The Doctor didn't move. "That's a waste of good Nutella."
Jack considered the issue, retrieved a cracker and stuck it onto the bridge of his nose, using the nutella as glue.
"Jack?" he inquired. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to play with your food?"
Jack sucked his finger clean. "Nope."
He tssked. "Jack. Don't play with your food."
Jack took the cracker off the Doctor's nose with his teeth, careful not to bite him but to get the cracker. He chewed, swallowed, and then with nothing but seriousness asked, "Why not?"
"Because your plate's *sticky* now."
"I can take care of that," he promised. "Food, Doctor, is a lot like sex - it's alll about being alive, and there's nothing wrong with getting a little messy in the process." He flashed the Doctor a grin and held his face between both his hands and started licking him clean.
The Doctor laughed, squirming away, "Jack!"
Jack let him go and swiped the last smear off the 'stop' of his nose, the dent before it rose to his forehead. "Play's good for your soul, Doctor. What have you been doing for the past four hundred years, anyway?"
He wrinkled his nose, "Traveling mostly."
"You don't say. Traveling where? With who? What have you done?"
"Why?" he asked a little tiredly.
"Because it's a quarter of your life and a span of time I can't comprehend but I'm going to have to learn how to, and I missed you."
"I've fought. I lost friends. I met new ones. They left. I've traveled alone for years."
"Sounds like a lonely existence. What are you going to do now?"
"Ask you and Rose to come with me."
"I'm not going to start talking for Rose," he answered after a moment spent screwing the top back on his jar and pushing it back on the counter. "And I'll stay with you, for a while. I need to figure out how I'm going to make eternity something I can live with, since I don't have any option, but I'm your past - Doctor, not your future, and like I told Rose, time might not be a straight line, but you still can't go backwards." He was suddenly just exhausted, because all he wanted was to go back.
"Why can't you be both?" he asked, sounding *old*.
Jack rubbed his hand on the Doctor's thigh, stroking down toward the knee with the palm and squeezing lightly. "Because you need someone bright and vibrant, someone who can love life and see it with new eyes. You need another Companion, Doctor. Someone to set you on fire. I'm not so sure I can do that anymore."
*
And because Jack loved him, completely, but he didn't really trust him.
"Jack..." he stopped then started again, "You're going to too."
"I'm going to too? Tutu? Ballet? What?"
"Need someone to make you love life."
Jack shook the Doctor's knee lightly. "Why have you been alone so long?"
"Apparently I'm cranky." He repeated what he told Rose earlier.
"You've always been cranky." He stared.
"I have not!"
"The hell you haven't!"
"...Well. When you knew me I was."
"Which is close enough to the same thing, since the time I knew you, you had company. Did someone else you love die?"
: "I think there are strawberries in the icebox. Do you want some?"
"Depends."
"On?"
Jack pushed himself up and off the counter, and crossed to the ice box. "Two things. First, you tell me why you don't want to talk about it. Secondly - you're eating them, too."
"I'll eat your strawberries," he grinned a bit.
"All right, but you're still not answering the first question and I really am stubborn." He brought the basket of strawberries over and shoved one in the Doctor's mouth.
He chewed, stealing a bit of nutella.
Jack stood in front of him, in clothes at least fifty years out of date (for the date he'd come from) with his head a bit to one side and hair falling over his forehead. He wasn't frowning, but there was a crease between his eyebrows. "How do you manage to make me feel like a child * and * make me want to take care of you?"
"I have a gift for pathetic patronization."
Jack snorted. "I loved you, I hated you, and now I don't know what to do with you. you're asking me to stay with you but you're not letting me in. Do you want me here or not?"
"I want you here."
"Why?" Jack ate a strawberry and leaned against the counter.
"I like you, Jack."
Jack choked on his strawberry and coughed and laughed until he was red faced and his eyes were streaming.
"What?"
Jack managed to swallow rather than spit or snort, and got enough control to talk. "You. Everything is so simple with you, except you."
"I'm pretty simple!"
"You're as simple as you are polite!"
"...I could be polite." Not really.
Jack picked up another strawberry, swirled it in the nutella and held it up. "Say please."
"I'm not good at that word."
Jack smiled. "It's a polite word."
He opened his mouth several times to say something.
He held the strawberry against the Doctor's lower lip. Lifted his eyebrow and the corner of his mouth.
The Doctor licked it.
Jack pulled it away again, very slowly. "Please, Doctor." He prompted. Still with that half smile, and dimples.
"You're not funny."
"I'm not trying to be," he said, voice soft and . well. seductive.
"Jack," he whispered softly, worried.
"What?" The whisper and worry... worried him.
"What are you doing?"
"Asking you to say please," he said, very calmly and quietly.
"Why?"
"Because once-upon-a-time, I had faith that you could save the universe. Now I just want to believe you can ask for something."
"Jack, may I please have the strawberry?" and it cost.
Jack smiled, and it was a really, truly, beautiful expression. Not blindingly bright, but honestly warm. "Thank you," He said softly. And fed the Doctor the strawberry.
"Welcome," he grumped.
Jack let his hand fall back down to the counter, and closed his eyes.
"Jack?"
"I've spent too long waiting on you and waiting on answers." He opened his eyes and tried to smile.
"I'm sorry."
"That wasn't an accusation, you self centered ass." There was no heat in that.
"Still sorry."
Jack kept eating, slowly and steadily and sharing with the Doctor. "For what?"
"You waiting>"
"Not your fault. Apparently I could have left at any point. Besides, suddenly 100 years isn't all that long."
"You waiting>"
"Not your fault. Apparently I could have left at any point. Besides, suddenly 100 years isn't all that long."
"Still. I wish I had known."
"So do I. It might have stopped me being quite so lost."
"But you're found now."
"No," he said simply. "I'm not. You're found, but we're still lost. All three of us."
"Better to be lost together."
"Are you afraid of being alone with Rose?"
"...no?"
"Good, then." He crunched through another strawberry, licked the juice off his fingers. "So you're going to ask her to stay?"
"Already did."
"Is she staying?"
"Yes."
"How long are you going to keep her with you?"
"As long as she wants to stay."
"Is that how it works?"
"WIth Rose."
"How does it usually work?"
"Does it matter?
"You've been around a lot longer than I have," he pointed out.
"Not. I. WEll, yes."
"Yes. So, you're better at leaving than I am. Tell me how it works. How do you decide when you're going to leave?"
"They leave me, Jack."
Jack lifted his eyebrow. "Do they know that, Doctor?"
"Most of them."
Jack thought about it. He thought about Algy and Estelle, John and Jack. He thought about time and love and men choking to death on roses and old women drowned by faith. He thought about small child Gods that killed with a touch. He thought about the Doctor, about forever and Rose, Magic and Sarah Jane. And he sighed. "No."
The Doctor blinked. "What?"
"They don't leave you behind."
"But they do leave."
"They don't leave you behind, Doctor, because you can't be left."
"Because I don't have a place to *be* left.' The Doctor argued.
"No, because you can't untouch someone."
"WHat?"
"You can't undo the changes you make in people, Doctor. You *can't* be left."
"are you saying they don't change me too?"
"Of course not. Everyone and thing you come into contact changes you. But not the way you change them."
"THat's not fair, Jack.
"No, but it's not false humility, either."
"I'm not bein....Jack, they *ask* to go home. A lot of them."
"Wouldn't you?" He asked gently, "If you could?"
"This is my home."
"Would you leave it for someone?"
"I don't know."
Jack touched the Doctor's cheek with the calloused and warm tips of his fingers. "I am so confused."
"You're the one asking questions."
He grinned. "Because I'm confused, and overwhelmed, and scared. And asking questions helps. You're the closest thing I know to someone who's going to live forever, and even you are still what you're supposed to be."
"What I'm supposed to be?"
Jack shrugged. "A Time Lord."
"What do you know about Time Lords, Jack?"
"I don't know how much I know and how much I think I know. I know I thought the Time War was a myth."
"It was real."
"Yeah, you told me while the Daleks were looming," he smiled. A bit.
"It was bad, Jack."
"I would imagine it was. All of them, all of you. Except it didn't work."
"Didn't work?"
"You told - " No, that was right. "You said that it was almost worth it. Until they were back at Station Five."
"That part," he smiled a bit. "Wipe our the time lords and the daleks at once? It might have been."
"I remember them vanishing out of time and space," Jack remembered. "It was unbelievable."
"That's a good word for it>"
"You want to hear something *really* sick?"
"Sure."
"You remember how they rebuilt their race, right?" He lifted an eyebrow.
He looked queasy.
"Closest thing I could ever find to compare myself to. Built from the dead."
"Why do you say that?"
"I died and got turned into something that's a long way from human."
"That's not even close to the same, JAck.
"I told you it was sick," he pointed out. "But as far as it goes - do you have a better analogy?"
"Give me time, I'll think of one."
"I've got more time than you, and I don't think you're going to. I don't think it really matters. Just don't let me start calling Rose God."
"Not to her face."
"I'll leave the 'oh god, rose!" to you," he mocked.
"I don't say 'oh god'," he protested.
"Bet I can make you," he smiled.
"Five quid you can't."
"Are there rules?" He asked with a curious accessing look.
"Like?"
"Like, oh, things I'm not allowed to do?"
"I trust you." he grinned.
"Do you really?"
"You're here."
"So?"
"So I trust you."
"You're scaring me a little, here."
"I'll stop being sincere."
"You were being sincere?!?!!"
"I can be sincere!"
"But you were?" Pause. "When were you?"
"about me trusting you?"
Jack looked relieved. "All right, that you can be sincere about."
"What?"
"You're not allowed to let me think you're sincere about sex."
"What?"
"You're not allowed to let me think you're sincere about sex."
"...I'm never sincere about sex, Jack."
"Thank you," he said very. sincerely. "Have you slept?"
"I don't like sleeping, Jack."
"Would company help?"
He tried to leer. He failed, but he tried.
Jack waggled his eyebrows. "I bet I can make you say oh god in bed. Probably be followed by 'stop', but I bet I can."
He laughed, "But I bet you can't make me add Rose to it."
"...is that what I agreed to make you say?"
"Yep." he nodded.
"Shit," he said eloquently. "The TARDIS is telepathic, isn't it?"
"A little more than I am." he nodded, "Why?"
"I'm trying to think of a way I can win that bet, and developing telepathy seems the most likely." He put the strawberries away then turned back for the Doctor.
"We can shift to without Rose?"
Jack pulled the Doctor off the counter and over his shoulder. "I don't know, without Rose it's just much less fun and less hot."
He laughed, letting Jack pull him.
Jack stopped outside the kitchen. "Where's your room?"
"It's." he looked thoughtful, then rapped on the wall, "Where's my room?"
"You don't know where your room is? When was the last time you slept again?"
"About four years ago..ah ha." A map popped up for a brief moment before disappearing. The Doctor started heading down the hall.
"Four YEARS? are you out of your mind?" Jack jogged a little to catch up. He'd paused and stalled when he heard that.
"...It's been insinuated."
"Right, you're sleeping." He followed the map that had popped up and the Doctor, leading him toward his room. "You Do have a bed in there, right?"
"Last time I checked!"
"Here's hoping," Jack mumbled.
The Doctor opened his room. Which did, in fact have a bed. It was a huge bed covered in books, but it was a bed.
Jack groaned and stood the Doctor in a corner. "Stay there." He went to the bed and started moving books.
The Doctor opened his room. Which did, in fact have a bed. It was a huge bed covered in books, but it was a bed.
Jack groaned and stood the Doctor in a corner. "Stay there." He went to the bed and started moving books.
He didn't listen, going and helping him move books.
Jack rolled his eyes but worked to get the bed clear, stepped out of his shoes and pulled back the covers. "Okay, in with you."
The Doctor kicked off his shoes and grabbed Jack's jacket, tugging him in.
*shirt
Jack tumbled down onto the Doctor, deliberately, and pivoted around so he landed beside him rather than on him.
He beamed, and closed his eyes.
Jack wrapped around the Doctor, pushed his knees behind the Doctor's, put his arm over his waist and arm up across his chest so that his hand was on his shoulder. "Now go to sleep," he said, right in the Doctor's ear.
The Doctor leaned into Jack, smiling slightly, hand on Jack's wrist and stayed awake, faking sleep with ease.
Well, Jack certainly wasn't going to sleep so he curled there, held the Doctor and waited for ten hours to pass. It seemed fair. It was relaxing, anyway.