The Impossible Man, Jack/John Smith (Doctor), PG-13 (Books)
Pairing: Jack/John Smith light flirtation, implied Jack/Doctor
Challenge: 55 Books
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Summary Note: AU for “Human Nature/Family of Blood” : The TARDIS chooses another life for the Doctor while he’s busy being a watch: Twenty-first century Cardiff. And where there’s aliens, there’s Torchwood.
Spoilers:. Up to and Including “Human Nature/Family of Blood”
The Impossible Man
“What’s on the agenda for today?” Martha smiled warmly as she walked in with two cups of coffee. She stopped to deposit one on her desk, and then handed the remaining caffeine boost over to her boss.
John Smith beamed as he took his first sip. “Ah, there’s the start to my morning. Perfect as always, Miss Jones.”
“Should tell that to the coffee girl, then? Like I could ever make my way ‘round a coffee maker.”
“Then what do I keep you around for?”
“To look at when you get bored.”
John blushed, turning to cough nervously.
“Oh, look at you. You need to get out more, mister. Spend some time with people instead of all your books and journals.”
“But there’s nothing wrong with my books and journals, Martha!”
“Didn’t say it was your books that were the problem. It’s all the time you put into them. When’s the last time you went out?”
“Yesterday.”
“To go home.”
“I walked with you.”
“I’m the only person you see all day, not counting the doorman, the mailman, and whoever hands you your dinner through the drive-up window.” Martha placed her hand on her hip.
“I don’t have time to cook!”
“So ask me to dinner sometime. I’m only saying this ‘cause I care ‘bout you. We’re old pals, you an’ I, an’ this move to Cardiff . . . you’re different. This whole arrangement is just different. Forget it.” Martha shrugged. “It’s just one of your silly phases. Write that silly book, Dr. Smith. I’ll be at my desk if you need me, doing secretary things or playing Solitaire. Whatever strikes my fancy.”
She sat at her desk with a pointed look, but John ignored her. He turned back to the window and stared out at his surroundings. He didn’t feel like writing today. Not after that dream . . .
God! It would’ve all been perfect if it were just a novel. But it was just a novel, he had to keep reminding himself. Plenty of dreams have inspired plenty of artists, and authors were much the same. Dreams were supposed to feel real, too. So he’d just have to suck it up and write the bloody book! Like Martha kept telling him. To write the book.
He watched a couple walk down the street, presumably heading off to brunch or somewhere. They looked happy. Carefree. He remembered looking like that once. With her. But it was just a dream.
“Martha?” John watched as the couple turned the corner.
His assistant acknowledged him with a small sound.
“What if I told you this was more than a book?” John put his coffee down, carefully, on a coaster so as not to harm his papers strewn all over the desk.
“How do you mean?” Martha eyed him suspiciously from her seat.
“This . . . Doctor character. What if he wasn’t so much of a character as . . .”
“As what?” She leaned closer.
John was silent for a moment, his hands unconsciously delving into his pockets, reaching for the old watch he always carried with him.
“John? What about the Doctor?”
He always woke up, though. He always woke up. That was the important thing to remember.
“Nah! Never mind!” John smiled abruptly. “Rubbish, the lot. Come on, then. Let’s get to work! Where did I leave off yesterday?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yup. Where am I?”
“You’re still on the outline.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. How disappointing. I was all ready to write about the Metaltron.”
“Metaltron?”
“Oh, yes. See, there’re these Metal Things that go around zapping people to death. I’m going to make them the main villains. They wear this armor suit made of the indestructible metal and . . . they need a catch phrase. A limited vocabulary. Maybe something like . . .”
“Exterminate?” Martha supplied.
“ ‘Exterminate’? That’s harsh. I like it, though. Ooh. How about ‘annihilate’? That’s even more final.”
Martha shrugged. “Whatever. It’s your brainchild.”
“Eh. S’not right yet. I’ll sleep on it.”
“Well you’re not gettin’ paid to sleep, mister. You’re getting paid to write a great science fiction novel! So when you gonna start writin’ it?”
“I beg your pardon! I am doing just fine.”
“You’re miserable.”
“I’m just . . . I don’t get a lot of sleep, Martha. It’s . . . I don’t want to talk about it.”
“If you saw the city a bit, you might like it here.”
“It’s Wales.”
“It’s Cardiff. It’s got this fantastic restaurant down by the water. What do you say you an’ me go there for dinner tonight. My treat?”
“I got work to do, Martha. A whole book to write.” He said it, but he knew he wasn’t going to get much work done. His heart wasn’t in it. He was still afraid.
***
“Locals report seeing quote ‘a green ball of gas fall through the sky and into the field.’ Exact location is about seventy miles out of Cardiff.” Ianto handed Jack a file. “Witness reports. Their calls were all transferred from UNIT.”
“What, UNIT didn’t feel like cleaning up one of its messes?” Owen scoffed.
“We’re closer.” Jack flipped through the file, sighing. “So who’s up for a little ride?”
“Got bodies to cut up!” Owen grabbed his coffee and rushed over to the autopsy room. Ianto shrugged and started cleaning up the conference room. Tosh held up her security disks that needed to be encoded into the system.
“Right.” Jack grabbed his coat and tucked the file under his arm. “Come on, Gwen.”
***
“Have you tried warm milk?” Martha stood over him with a bunch of papers in her hand. He must’ve fallen asleep.
“M’just . . . adjusting still.”
“We’ve been in Cardiff for a month and a half now.”
He avoided her eyes and took the papers.
“If something’s troubling you, John, you know you can talk to me, right?”
He still didn’t answer her.
“Anything, John. Anything at all, no matter how crazy it sounds.”
It was the rough outline for the novel, only halfway through. It didn’t sound nearly as together and interesting as his dreams. It didn’t even make sense. Instead of starting off with the Doctor, maybe he’d be better off starting with her.
Maybe he shouldn’t even be doing an outline.
Wordlessly, he reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out his journal, the one he kept by his bedside table.
Maybe he should just write what comes into his head.
“What’s that?” Martha pointed.
“My . . . thoughts.” He brushed the cover. “Whatever comes into my head about this silly little project. Could say that’s what keeps me up at night. Why I don’t sleep. I have to get it all down.”
“May I?” She put her hand out, but didn’t grab for it.
Isn’t that why he took it out, though? For her to look at? Why was he so against having her look at it? Was it because if wasn’t complete? Or that it was too complete? These were his thoughts, every last raw emotion he had the very second he had woken up.
“I . . ., uh . . .” He watched her flip through the first two pages mostly words (Welsh, English, and a funny script he couldn’t place) and then she got to the pictures. He drummed his fingers on the desktop, his collar getting a bit too tight. He shouldn’t have given it to her.
John reached out blindly and snatched the journal away. “Hardly neat, now is it?” He giggled nervously and shut it away in the drawer.
Martha was silent.
“So . . . what do you say we break for lunch?”
***
“We’ve been driving for nearly two hours, Jack!” Gwen sighed. “It’s dark.”
“Traffic.”
“What? The sheep? There’s no one else on the road.”
“We have to find the ship, Gwen.”
“We looked where they said it landed, didn’t we?”
“Yes.”
“And we - I - interviewed the witnesses?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not here anymore.”
“We didn’t do a thermal scan.”
“We don’t have the tech for a thermal scan in the vehicle. We’ll have Tosh come back in the morning. They’ve probably moved on by now, whatever it was. There weren’t any signs of any alien activity in the area. You said so yourself.”
Jack sighed. “I hate losing things.”
“Which is why you don’t do it very often. You’re a good man, Jack. It’s just one ship, just like you’re only one man. You’re tired. I’m tired. Let’s just head back to the Hub. Maybe we can get a satellite feed. Go back to the landing date?”
“No one saw anything out of the ordinary around town?”
“No.”
“. . . The satellites could show us something.” Jack made a u-turn on the quiet road.
“Thank you.” Gwen smiled.
***
He told Martha another time, concerning dinner. He wasn’t very hungry, and that novel was feeling more and more real (more wrong) with each word he wrote on such a simple tool as an outline.
He was starting to have trouble discerning his night life and his dream life. He couldn’t focus. Things were becoming so dark and twisted that John didn’t know which way was up. He couldn’t remember if this was the past or the present, or if he was in the future. Everything was so wrong.
It was one o’clock in the morning, and Roald Dahl Plas was perfectly quiet. It was just him and the moonlight.
He hasn’t been here before. He hasn’t seen a lot of Cardiff since he ended up here. It’s mostly been work and home, and drive-up windows. God, Martha was right! He was just a silly nobody who would die alone. Not that Martha said those words exactly, but she’d implied. Or, he’d read into it. He had a habit of reading into things, looking at the glass half-empty. And rambling. Could he ramble! He annoyed himself sometimes. Like right now. He just wanted to shut himself up and go to sleep.
Oh, but there was no sleep anymore. What was sleep to a man who thought he was a two-hearted, cold-blooded alien? Oh, but he couldn’t be the Doctor! Those were just -
John stopped smiling to himself abruptly, turning towards the tower. He could’ve sworn . . . yes . . . There was someone watching him. A man.
“Excuse me!”
He watched the man turn, and, suddenly, he was gone.
John blinked. There was no one there. he could’ve sworn . . . right there on the concrete. There had to have been . . . but where could he have gone?
John rubbed his eyes and checked his watch, the one that actually worked and wasn’t just an old piece of junk that he kept about for form’s sake. He really should head to bed. Perchance, not to dream.
***
“Any luck with that satellite feed?” Jack peered over Tosh’s shoulder the next morning, coffee threatening to spill over onto the keyboard.
“No.” Tosh leaned forward protectively.
“Did you see that green flash they all witnessed?”
“Yes, and the area appears disturbed for a moment, but there isn’t any indication of spaceship landing. Everything appears normal.”
“I don’t trust appearances, Toshiko.”
“I know. You trust facts. And so do I. But from what my eyes are telling me, there is no spaceship. Perhaps it was just some space gas or something. They have been reports of nebula clouds lowering, sort of like a fog. Perhaps this is one of those cases.”
“You and Owen head out there with the thermal scans. I still don’t like this.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell Gwen to see me when she gets in.”
“Sure thing.”
***
“What do you think if I add a man in?” John tugged at his ear.
“How do you mean?” Martha looked up from her Cup of Noodles.
“I mean, like, bring in an outside character. A bloke. Something’s missing, and I think this bloke could be it.”
“You never mentioned a guy before.”
“‘Cause I hadn’t thought him up yet.”
Martha shook her head. “That’s not - Never mind. I thought it was this Doctor guy and Lily.”
“Well, yeah, but . . . aren’t they missing someone? I mean, I thought it was perfect but something occurred to me the other night. There is someone missing. And I think three characters are a good balance, I mean wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea about these two, right?”
“Yeah. Right.” Martha rolled her eyes.
“Then that is what I’ll do.” John smiled to himself, bringing out his journal. He opened directly to the page he’d furiously scribbled in early in the morning. Sketch after sketch of “James” (the man in the Plas, but you didn’t see him because he wasn’t there, except for the fact that you did and this is him but isn’t; he’s all wrong) dotted four pages, front to back: James in period costume (no, a uniform), James on a bomb (phallic symbolism much, Dr. Freud?), James in a greatcoat, James in a plain t-shirt, James, James, James. As an author, John has incorporated many people into his work: people he’s met at social functions, people he’s known all his life, a stranger at the market. It was no surprise that he should be inspired by a mysterious stranger in the night. But to experience this sort of creative surge from a split-second not-meeting? It was unheard of.
That, or John was blowing it all out of proportion. He was just been feeling odd lately, at a crossroads with his novel. That was all it was. He just needed a good night’s sleep, was all. Maybe he should ask Martha for some sleeping pills, just an over the counter thing. Maybe that would help.
He traced the jaw line of “James” in his sketches and couldn’t help but feel that he didn’t sleep well, either. Nightmares. All the things he’d seen comes back to him at night and -
“Martha?”
“Yeah?”
John closed the book. “I need to think to get some fresh air. Let’s step out, hm?”
The look on Martha’s face told him that he should be working on the novel instead of wasting the money his publishers had advanced him. He grabs his jacket and went outside.
***
They were in Cardiff. Jack scanned the Plas, searching for a face that didn’t belong.
They were in Cardiff. Jack walked through the lunchtime crowd, searching for a scent that wasn’t human.
They were in Cardiff. Jack looked in the window of a café, staring directly at one table with an almost familiar man and a dark-skinned young woman - the man was staring back, fork raised halfway to his mouth. I know you, Jack thought at the man he’d never seen before, but then looked away, mind set on the mission.
They were in Cardiff.
Tosh had comm’ed in immediately, having found a large energy source on the thermal scan. The Geiger counter was getting a strong signal, as well. A space ship with an invisibility cloak. There’d been one worse: an energy trail radiating from the ship, three strings. Three. Gwen referred to her notes: the farmer’s son wasn’t home at the time of her interview. The family could’ve sworn he’d been there last night, sleeping on the couch in front of the window with a full view of the field. Ianto added a call had come in from the same area; the mother had placed a call (“If you noticed anything unusual, call this number.”) another mother and her daughter had disappeared from their nearby home (“It’s just not like them. Their cereal bowls were still on the kitchen table!”) They were all within a small distance from the original crash site. Three people. Three trails. They were in Cardiff.
“The ship’s not going anywhere,” Jack had informed them. “We’ll get it later. These people are our priority. Do you have trace on them, Toshiko?”
“It’s an easy enough signature to track. I can. Yes.”
She tracked them to Cardiff. Cardiff.
Tosh and Ianto were on CCTV detail, the rest of the team was on foot.
They were in Cardiff. Jack passed by a young girl and her red bicycle without a thought. He didn’t noticed how she was looking at him.
***
“You should be a professional slacker,” Martha smiled around her mug of coffee.
John grunted in acknowledgment, fork still poised in the air, mouth half open, awaiting its salad.
“Even when you’re supposed to be eating, you’re doing something else.” Martha turned her head to look out the window. “What are you staring at?”
“Nothing,” John dragged his attention back to the salad (to Cardiff, two years previous, a mayor, an explosion, handcuffs). “He’s gone.”
“So, let’s talk shop, shall we? We’ve got our hero and his lady, a villain, and what now? A third wheel?”
“No. No. He’s essential. Was essential. Will be. They need a balance, and he’s it.”
They talk about specifics until Martha got a call from a neighboring office. Her face quickly changed from its bemused assistant to shock. She hung up her mobile and said, “We’ve got to go. There’s been a break in at the office.”
John didn’t understand.
***
“Jack!” Tosh squawked into his ear piece. “There’s been a spike in the signal. They’re becoming active. I’ll send you the nearest coordinates.”
“Jack!” Gwen came in a half hour later, “Andy’s at a break in, says there’s something ‘spooky’ going on. A woman claims a bunch of men dressed like scarecrows ransacked an adjoining office. Nothing was reported stolen, the tenant says.”
“You think it’s related?”
“Scarecrows?” Gwen snorted. “In the middle of Cardiff?”
“Sound countryside to me, boss,” Owen joined in.
“It’s the same address,” Toshiko added. “The energy spike.”
“Right. Owen get with Tosh and see if you can find anything. Gwen? Meet me there.”
They were in Cardiff, and Torchwood had them.
***
“Do I know you?” is the first thing the man in the greatcoat asked the tenant, ignoring his assistant altogether.
“No,” The man - John Smith - shook his head. His hands slipped into his pockets. “No, sorry.”
Jack could’ve sworn . . . “Maybe we just keep meeting, then.”
“Yeah,” Smith drawled. “Something like that.”
“How could I forget a face like that,” Jack winked, and Smith's cheeks darkened.
“I’d imagine you’d be a hard bloke to forget, too, Captain.” John’s face fell. “Oh dear, I said that out loud. Oh dear. Um . . . What I mean was that -”
“Don’t worry about it.” Jack smiled, his whole face lighting up. “As much as I’d love to watch you flounder for words in that cute manner, I’ve got work to do.”
As if on cue, someone cursed from behind the tape and called out for the Captain.
“Right.” John rubbed the back of his head and shuffled his feet. “You . . . go . . . work. I’ll be here. If, you know, . . . whatever.”
“Don’t go wandering now.”
“I won’t.”
As soon as the Captain was out of ear shot, John cursed his stupidity and kicked at the floor. He really should get out more, like Martha always told him to. He couldn’t talk to people. That little exchange proved it. God, he was so stupid! But how do you say, “Yes, I know you from my dreams. I know your life story, in fact. And I know all about Torchwood, so you can stop pretending to be cops interested in a little robbery.” You just don’t say that to people.
“Dr. Smith?” A dark-haired woman approached him, a small notepad in hand.
“Yes?”
“My name’s Gwen Cooper. I’m with Torchwood. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
John’s eyes wandered over to the figure behind the tape. There was something deeply attractive about that coat. It was the first thing he noticed about the other man. And his eyes. And his smile. And bloody hell, there was just a messy break-in in his bloody office and he was busy ogling the cops! Rather, the organization above the cops. Rather, one man in said organization. It was attraction, magnetism, because, at first, he’d been a mystery, a figure in the Plas. Now here he was, living, breathing, looking at him (through him) and . . . well, he was rather handsome. Even Martha smiled charmingly at him.
But he’s always like that. He always says “hello.” It was all wrong.
“Uh, sure.” He finally answered the young woman.
“Do you have any idea who might have done this? Any enemies? Any fights? A girlfriend?”
“What?”
“Jack asked me to ask you.” Her face was completely serious.
“About a girlfriend?”
“Or boyfriend. Whichever.”
“Oh. As in a girlfriend . . . or boyfriend . . . that would have felt jilted enough to break into my office and ransack the place?”
“No. I think he wants to know if you’re available. Completely unprofessional, but that’s Jack for you.”
“Oh. Well, um, no.”
“To what? The suspects, the girlfriend, or your availability?”
“I, uh . . .”
Gwen scribbled something in her notebook. “Did you have anything of value in your office?”
“No.”
“If we got you to look at everything, could you tell us if anything was missing?”
“I might be able to, yes. I mean, the stray paper clip might escape from my mind, if you people are that picky.”
Gwen smiled. “No. That’ll do fine.”
“Toshiko’s picked up some residual arton energy.” Jack appeared from nowhere, it seemed, and he wasn’t smiling.
“It could be the assailant.”
“Or it could be our Professor here.”
“I, um, prefer Doctor, actually. I - You know, Smith works fine. What’s argon energy?”
“Arton. Residual particles from -”
“Don’t worry about it.” Jack interrupted Gwen’s answer. John saw the woman give her boss an odd look, and the Captain shook his head. John flipped the watch over and over in his pocket. He felt like the answers were on the tip of his tongue, if he could just -
A mobile rang and Gwen picked it up. She stepped a few feet away, but John could still hear the conversation. At least, he could have, if Jack hadn’t stepped in front of his line of sight and stared at him.
“Problem?” John asked a man he was sure walked out of the novel he was working on.
“What exactly are you working on here?”
“A project.” John smiled, clutching his watch tighter. “It’s just a novel!” he added when Jack’s jaw tightened.
“Is it?”
“I said it was. I’m an honest man, Jack.”
“I think you’re hiding something.”
“I’m not hiding!”
“Jack,” Gwen called.
“Explain the arton energy.”
“I would if I knew what you were speaking about!”
“Jack!” Gwen called out again.
From the corner of his eye, John saw Martha staring at the open doorway. John looked away, Gwen called for Jack, and then next thing John knew, three men in scarecrow costumes and one little girl with a red bicycle were advancing on them. There was a crash, a bang, and a very hot sense of something, and then John forgot what they’d been arguing about.
***
“I told you, mother of mine, this one has more life than a Time Lord ever could. We don’t need the other one, now. Why did you still bring him?”
“Daughter of mine, the Time Lord is who we are after.”
“Life is what we are after.”
“Son of mine.”
“Mother of mine.”
“Mother of mine, he’s awake!”
John scrambled to right his glasses on his faces and shuffled backwards against the walls, against the . . . wherever he was (spaceship) and with whoever he was (a family, the Family). He wanted to ask “Who are you?” and “Where am I?” but he saw through the open hatch a blue box. The phone box. The police box. The . . . TARDIS. “I’m dreaming again,” was what he actually said.
But then the oldest of them, a woman (mother?) turned to him and addressed him, “Time Lord,” and everything sort of went pear-shaped.
“Looking for this?” the boy asked, holding up John’s watch, and then John was on his feet, screaming that it was just a broken watch, don’t you dare open it, I’m warning you, it’s a family heirloom, it was my father’s watch, it’s a piece of junk, just a trinket, let it go, let it go! And then there was the distinct sound of a firearm being cocked and Jack said, “You heard the man. Paws off.” And then John yelled at him to put the gun down, now! And Martha was digging in her pocket for something, and Gwen was awake, staring at a blinking red button, and John was hyperventilating. Fast. The room was spinning, he was maneuvering along the wall, hand slamming down on the blinking red buttons and he knew that he didn’t know what the hell was going on, but that he would get the watch back, he would run outside into a field and Jack, Martha, and Gwen would follow him, but the Family wouldn’t. It was already there in the script, in the outline. The outcome was already decided.
“Doctor!” Martha shouted and John turned his head, holding his hand out to catch what Martha tossed his way.
“Ever needed to put up a lot of shelves,” he murmureds at the device in his hand, and then he turned and said in his best Doctor voice, “I’m going to give one warning, and that’s all. Release the watch and give it to me, or we all blow up with this ship. You know what this is? With one tiny push of one little button, all your screws and nuts and bolts are going to come tumbling out and all that gas is going to overflow and overheat and expand and before you know it, there’s going to be one tiny little spark and then we’re all gone. You, me, everyone. Now, I’m willing to do that, because you’re not getting my watch, and you’re not getting my friends. You’re given one life, not one to use to take life from others.”
He saw the scene in his head perfectly, heard the dialogue before he had said it. It unfolded just so, just as he knew, as he was told. He raised his thumb against the button. Martha and Gwen dove for the exit, Jack lunged for the watch, and John watched them all, moving in perfect time with the narrative in his head.
It was all a story, his story. He pressed the button and the walls of the ship groaned. It was all unravelling now, at a furious pace. The watch was glowing. The watch. His watch.
(The presence of a familiar from his past was unaccounted for. The memories were leaking. It would not be contained for much longer.)
He let Jack drag him out, just in time, as the Captain fired one shot, and the whole ship exploded. That was it, John decided. The. End.
***
Martha kept her head down, her arms cradling the journal.
“I was going to call it ‘The Impossible Man,’ you know. I just decided this morning.”
Jack shifted his weight onto his other foot.
“It’s funny. This whole time, I thought he was my character, that I was creating his life. Yet you tell me the truth of the situation is, it’s the other way around. I am the Doctor’s creation. John Smith is his character. My whole life, my mum, dad, my birthplace, shadows of memories are only that. It’s an outline. I’m an outline.” John paused, running his thumb along the edge of the old watch. “I knew the day I finished that book, the day I stopped living the Doctor’s life through words, that a piece of me would die. I knew that one day, the Doctor would have to end, and he still does. But I’ll end before him. I . . . I’m the Doctor, aren’t I? These dreams, these inspritations . . . I’m writing an autobiography!” His laugh was mirthless, a short, sharp stab into the air around him.
“That was dreadfully boring, though, for a character. Up until you showed up, Captain,” John smiled. Jack merely stared back at him with a lost expression. “You always know how to show a bloke a good time.”
Martha coughed. Jack cleared his throat.
“I always thought I knew the story too well, that it was too alive. It’s more real than I am.”
“John,” Martha started, but John shook his head.
“No. Back there, on their ship? You called me ‘Doctor.’ That’s who you want. What do you need from a man like me? I can’t show you time and space. I can’t give you the stars. I’m just an author. A voice. A presence in the background. But I’m not even that.” He tugged at his ear. “I’m the character. Me.”
He tucked the sonic screwdriver in his jacket pocket and blinked away the tears that wouldn’t mean anything in time.
“I hate goodbyes.” He looked at Martha, then Jack, who would have been James had the book ever been real.
“Just one thing.” He stepped forward, looking Jack right in the eye. “Because I know he never would, and I know I might have, and just to prove to Martha that I’m not entirely socially inept, not matter who I am” and he kissed him, once, closed-lipped but meaningful, then stepped back. “I believe the phrase is, 'See you in hell.'”
He opened the watch.
***
“It’s funny how some things turn out, isn’t it?” Gwen asked over take away. “I mean, here you are searching for the right kind of Doctor, when he’s been here the whole time, hiding from you. Us. Everyone. He’s been here the whole time! Must be fate, hm?”
She sounded so excited. Jack wasn’t. “He’s gone again,” he murmured.
“He’s just tying up loose ends. He’ll be back for you.” Gwen punched him playfully in the arm. “You’ll see.”
Jack stood, donning his coat. “Yeah, Gwen. We’ll see.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets, feeling the smooth metal of the watch beneath his fingertips.
On the roof top, in the cold rain, Jack stood facing out across his city, the water, the sky. He turned the watch over and over in his hands, searching for answers that only the Doctor could give. The next time Jack saw him - Oh, that next time! He already got the kiss. It was time the Doctor got that damned punch across the face.
“You could’ve at least said goodbye,” he scolded the watch. The watch didn't retort.
***
“You look like you lost someone,” Martha cautiously prodded.
“Haven’t I?” The Doctor made a point to keep staring straight ahead. He let her think that he meant John Smith. He leant back against the jump seat, his head falling back against the cushion, and tried to remember just when it was that the plot twisted out from under him.
“The Impossible Man,” he mumbled to himself, but Martha caught his eye. He stared back, both of them silent as the TARDIS hummed in the background.
Challenge: 55 Books
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Summary Note: AU for “Human Nature/Family of Blood” : The TARDIS chooses another life for the Doctor while he’s busy being a watch: Twenty-first century Cardiff. And where there’s aliens, there’s Torchwood.
Spoilers:. Up to and Including “Human Nature/Family of Blood”
The Impossible Man
“What’s on the agenda for today?” Martha smiled warmly as she walked in with two cups of coffee. She stopped to deposit one on her desk, and then handed the remaining caffeine boost over to her boss.
John Smith beamed as he took his first sip. “Ah, there’s the start to my morning. Perfect as always, Miss Jones.”
“Should tell that to the coffee girl, then? Like I could ever make my way ‘round a coffee maker.”
“Then what do I keep you around for?”
“To look at when you get bored.”
John blushed, turning to cough nervously.
“Oh, look at you. You need to get out more, mister. Spend some time with people instead of all your books and journals.”
“But there’s nothing wrong with my books and journals, Martha!”
“Didn’t say it was your books that were the problem. It’s all the time you put into them. When’s the last time you went out?”
“Yesterday.”
“To go home.”
“I walked with you.”
“I’m the only person you see all day, not counting the doorman, the mailman, and whoever hands you your dinner through the drive-up window.” Martha placed her hand on her hip.
“I don’t have time to cook!”
“So ask me to dinner sometime. I’m only saying this ‘cause I care ‘bout you. We’re old pals, you an’ I, an’ this move to Cardiff . . . you’re different. This whole arrangement is just different. Forget it.” Martha shrugged. “It’s just one of your silly phases. Write that silly book, Dr. Smith. I’ll be at my desk if you need me, doing secretary things or playing Solitaire. Whatever strikes my fancy.”
She sat at her desk with a pointed look, but John ignored her. He turned back to the window and stared out at his surroundings. He didn’t feel like writing today. Not after that dream . . .
God! It would’ve all been perfect if it were just a novel. But it was just a novel, he had to keep reminding himself. Plenty of dreams have inspired plenty of artists, and authors were much the same. Dreams were supposed to feel real, too. So he’d just have to suck it up and write the bloody book! Like Martha kept telling him. To write the book.
He watched a couple walk down the street, presumably heading off to brunch or somewhere. They looked happy. Carefree. He remembered looking like that once. With her. But it was just a dream.
“Martha?” John watched as the couple turned the corner.
His assistant acknowledged him with a small sound.
“What if I told you this was more than a book?” John put his coffee down, carefully, on a coaster so as not to harm his papers strewn all over the desk.
“How do you mean?” Martha eyed him suspiciously from her seat.
“This . . . Doctor character. What if he wasn’t so much of a character as . . .”
“As what?” She leaned closer.
John was silent for a moment, his hands unconsciously delving into his pockets, reaching for the old watch he always carried with him.
“John? What about the Doctor?”
He always woke up, though. He always woke up. That was the important thing to remember.
“Nah! Never mind!” John smiled abruptly. “Rubbish, the lot. Come on, then. Let’s get to work! Where did I leave off yesterday?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yup. Where am I?”
“You’re still on the outline.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. How disappointing. I was all ready to write about the Metaltron.”
“Metaltron?”
“Oh, yes. See, there’re these Metal Things that go around zapping people to death. I’m going to make them the main villains. They wear this armor suit made of the indestructible metal and . . . they need a catch phrase. A limited vocabulary. Maybe something like . . .”
“Exterminate?” Martha supplied.
“ ‘Exterminate’? That’s harsh. I like it, though. Ooh. How about ‘annihilate’? That’s even more final.”
Martha shrugged. “Whatever. It’s your brainchild.”
“Eh. S’not right yet. I’ll sleep on it.”
“Well you’re not gettin’ paid to sleep, mister. You’re getting paid to write a great science fiction novel! So when you gonna start writin’ it?”
“I beg your pardon! I am doing just fine.”
“You’re miserable.”
“I’m just . . . I don’t get a lot of sleep, Martha. It’s . . . I don’t want to talk about it.”
“If you saw the city a bit, you might like it here.”
“It’s Wales.”
“It’s Cardiff. It’s got this fantastic restaurant down by the water. What do you say you an’ me go there for dinner tonight. My treat?”
“I got work to do, Martha. A whole book to write.” He said it, but he knew he wasn’t going to get much work done. His heart wasn’t in it. He was still afraid.
***
“Locals report seeing quote ‘a green ball of gas fall through the sky and into the field.’ Exact location is about seventy miles out of Cardiff.” Ianto handed Jack a file. “Witness reports. Their calls were all transferred from UNIT.”
“What, UNIT didn’t feel like cleaning up one of its messes?” Owen scoffed.
“We’re closer.” Jack flipped through the file, sighing. “So who’s up for a little ride?”
“Got bodies to cut up!” Owen grabbed his coffee and rushed over to the autopsy room. Ianto shrugged and started cleaning up the conference room. Tosh held up her security disks that needed to be encoded into the system.
“Right.” Jack grabbed his coat and tucked the file under his arm. “Come on, Gwen.”
***
“Have you tried warm milk?” Martha stood over him with a bunch of papers in her hand. He must’ve fallen asleep.
“M’just . . . adjusting still.”
“We’ve been in Cardiff for a month and a half now.”
He avoided her eyes and took the papers.
“If something’s troubling you, John, you know you can talk to me, right?”
He still didn’t answer her.
“Anything, John. Anything at all, no matter how crazy it sounds.”
It was the rough outline for the novel, only halfway through. It didn’t sound nearly as together and interesting as his dreams. It didn’t even make sense. Instead of starting off with the Doctor, maybe he’d be better off starting with her.
Maybe he shouldn’t even be doing an outline.
Wordlessly, he reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out his journal, the one he kept by his bedside table.
Maybe he should just write what comes into his head.
“What’s that?” Martha pointed.
“My . . . thoughts.” He brushed the cover. “Whatever comes into my head about this silly little project. Could say that’s what keeps me up at night. Why I don’t sleep. I have to get it all down.”
“May I?” She put her hand out, but didn’t grab for it.
Isn’t that why he took it out, though? For her to look at? Why was he so against having her look at it? Was it because if wasn’t complete? Or that it was too complete? These were his thoughts, every last raw emotion he had the very second he had woken up.
“I . . ., uh . . .” He watched her flip through the first two pages mostly words (Welsh, English, and a funny script he couldn’t place) and then she got to the pictures. He drummed his fingers on the desktop, his collar getting a bit too tight. He shouldn’t have given it to her.
John reached out blindly and snatched the journal away. “Hardly neat, now is it?” He giggled nervously and shut it away in the drawer.
Martha was silent.
“So . . . what do you say we break for lunch?”
***
“We’ve been driving for nearly two hours, Jack!” Gwen sighed. “It’s dark.”
“Traffic.”
“What? The sheep? There’s no one else on the road.”
“We have to find the ship, Gwen.”
“We looked where they said it landed, didn’t we?”
“Yes.”
“And we - I - interviewed the witnesses?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not here anymore.”
“We didn’t do a thermal scan.”
“We don’t have the tech for a thermal scan in the vehicle. We’ll have Tosh come back in the morning. They’ve probably moved on by now, whatever it was. There weren’t any signs of any alien activity in the area. You said so yourself.”
Jack sighed. “I hate losing things.”
“Which is why you don’t do it very often. You’re a good man, Jack. It’s just one ship, just like you’re only one man. You’re tired. I’m tired. Let’s just head back to the Hub. Maybe we can get a satellite feed. Go back to the landing date?”
“No one saw anything out of the ordinary around town?”
“No.”
“. . . The satellites could show us something.” Jack made a u-turn on the quiet road.
“Thank you.” Gwen smiled.
***
He told Martha another time, concerning dinner. He wasn’t very hungry, and that novel was feeling more and more real (more wrong) with each word he wrote on such a simple tool as an outline.
He was starting to have trouble discerning his night life and his dream life. He couldn’t focus. Things were becoming so dark and twisted that John didn’t know which way was up. He couldn’t remember if this was the past or the present, or if he was in the future. Everything was so wrong.
It was one o’clock in the morning, and Roald Dahl Plas was perfectly quiet. It was just him and the moonlight.
He hasn’t been here before. He hasn’t seen a lot of Cardiff since he ended up here. It’s mostly been work and home, and drive-up windows. God, Martha was right! He was just a silly nobody who would die alone. Not that Martha said those words exactly, but she’d implied. Or, he’d read into it. He had a habit of reading into things, looking at the glass half-empty. And rambling. Could he ramble! He annoyed himself sometimes. Like right now. He just wanted to shut himself up and go to sleep.
Oh, but there was no sleep anymore. What was sleep to a man who thought he was a two-hearted, cold-blooded alien? Oh, but he couldn’t be the Doctor! Those were just -
John stopped smiling to himself abruptly, turning towards the tower. He could’ve sworn . . . yes . . . There was someone watching him. A man.
“Excuse me!”
He watched the man turn, and, suddenly, he was gone.
John blinked. There was no one there. he could’ve sworn . . . right there on the concrete. There had to have been . . . but where could he have gone?
John rubbed his eyes and checked his watch, the one that actually worked and wasn’t just an old piece of junk that he kept about for form’s sake. He really should head to bed. Perchance, not to dream.
***
“Any luck with that satellite feed?” Jack peered over Tosh’s shoulder the next morning, coffee threatening to spill over onto the keyboard.
“No.” Tosh leaned forward protectively.
“Did you see that green flash they all witnessed?”
“Yes, and the area appears disturbed for a moment, but there isn’t any indication of spaceship landing. Everything appears normal.”
“I don’t trust appearances, Toshiko.”
“I know. You trust facts. And so do I. But from what my eyes are telling me, there is no spaceship. Perhaps it was just some space gas or something. They have been reports of nebula clouds lowering, sort of like a fog. Perhaps this is one of those cases.”
“You and Owen head out there with the thermal scans. I still don’t like this.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell Gwen to see me when she gets in.”
“Sure thing.”
***
“What do you think if I add a man in?” John tugged at his ear.
“How do you mean?” Martha looked up from her Cup of Noodles.
“I mean, like, bring in an outside character. A bloke. Something’s missing, and I think this bloke could be it.”
“You never mentioned a guy before.”
“‘Cause I hadn’t thought him up yet.”
Martha shook her head. “That’s not - Never mind. I thought it was this Doctor guy and Lily.”
“Well, yeah, but . . . aren’t they missing someone? I mean, I thought it was perfect but something occurred to me the other night. There is someone missing. And I think three characters are a good balance, I mean wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea about these two, right?”
“Yeah. Right.” Martha rolled her eyes.
“Then that is what I’ll do.” John smiled to himself, bringing out his journal. He opened directly to the page he’d furiously scribbled in early in the morning. Sketch after sketch of “James” (the man in the Plas, but you didn’t see him because he wasn’t there, except for the fact that you did and this is him but isn’t; he’s all wrong) dotted four pages, front to back: James in period costume (no, a uniform), James on a bomb (phallic symbolism much, Dr. Freud?), James in a greatcoat, James in a plain t-shirt, James, James, James. As an author, John has incorporated many people into his work: people he’s met at social functions, people he’s known all his life, a stranger at the market. It was no surprise that he should be inspired by a mysterious stranger in the night. But to experience this sort of creative surge from a split-second not-meeting? It was unheard of.
That, or John was blowing it all out of proportion. He was just been feeling odd lately, at a crossroads with his novel. That was all it was. He just needed a good night’s sleep, was all. Maybe he should ask Martha for some sleeping pills, just an over the counter thing. Maybe that would help.
He traced the jaw line of “James” in his sketches and couldn’t help but feel that he didn’t sleep well, either. Nightmares. All the things he’d seen comes back to him at night and -
“Martha?”
“Yeah?”
John closed the book. “I need to think to get some fresh air. Let’s step out, hm?”
The look on Martha’s face told him that he should be working on the novel instead of wasting the money his publishers had advanced him. He grabs his jacket and went outside.
***
They were in Cardiff. Jack scanned the Plas, searching for a face that didn’t belong.
They were in Cardiff. Jack walked through the lunchtime crowd, searching for a scent that wasn’t human.
They were in Cardiff. Jack looked in the window of a café, staring directly at one table with an almost familiar man and a dark-skinned young woman - the man was staring back, fork raised halfway to his mouth. I know you, Jack thought at the man he’d never seen before, but then looked away, mind set on the mission.
They were in Cardiff.
Tosh had comm’ed in immediately, having found a large energy source on the thermal scan. The Geiger counter was getting a strong signal, as well. A space ship with an invisibility cloak. There’d been one worse: an energy trail radiating from the ship, three strings. Three. Gwen referred to her notes: the farmer’s son wasn’t home at the time of her interview. The family could’ve sworn he’d been there last night, sleeping on the couch in front of the window with a full view of the field. Ianto added a call had come in from the same area; the mother had placed a call (“If you noticed anything unusual, call this number.”) another mother and her daughter had disappeared from their nearby home (“It’s just not like them. Their cereal bowls were still on the kitchen table!”) They were all within a small distance from the original crash site. Three people. Three trails. They were in Cardiff.
“The ship’s not going anywhere,” Jack had informed them. “We’ll get it later. These people are our priority. Do you have trace on them, Toshiko?”
“It’s an easy enough signature to track. I can. Yes.”
She tracked them to Cardiff. Cardiff.
Tosh and Ianto were on CCTV detail, the rest of the team was on foot.
They were in Cardiff. Jack passed by a young girl and her red bicycle without a thought. He didn’t noticed how she was looking at him.
***
“You should be a professional slacker,” Martha smiled around her mug of coffee.
John grunted in acknowledgment, fork still poised in the air, mouth half open, awaiting its salad.
“Even when you’re supposed to be eating, you’re doing something else.” Martha turned her head to look out the window. “What are you staring at?”
“Nothing,” John dragged his attention back to the salad (to Cardiff, two years previous, a mayor, an explosion, handcuffs). “He’s gone.”
“So, let’s talk shop, shall we? We’ve got our hero and his lady, a villain, and what now? A third wheel?”
“No. No. He’s essential. Was essential. Will be. They need a balance, and he’s it.”
They talk about specifics until Martha got a call from a neighboring office. Her face quickly changed from its bemused assistant to shock. She hung up her mobile and said, “We’ve got to go. There’s been a break in at the office.”
John didn’t understand.
***
“Jack!” Tosh squawked into his ear piece. “There’s been a spike in the signal. They’re becoming active. I’ll send you the nearest coordinates.”
“Jack!” Gwen came in a half hour later, “Andy’s at a break in, says there’s something ‘spooky’ going on. A woman claims a bunch of men dressed like scarecrows ransacked an adjoining office. Nothing was reported stolen, the tenant says.”
“You think it’s related?”
“Scarecrows?” Gwen snorted. “In the middle of Cardiff?”
“Sound countryside to me, boss,” Owen joined in.
“It’s the same address,” Toshiko added. “The energy spike.”
“Right. Owen get with Tosh and see if you can find anything. Gwen? Meet me there.”
They were in Cardiff, and Torchwood had them.
***
“Do I know you?” is the first thing the man in the greatcoat asked the tenant, ignoring his assistant altogether.
“No,” The man - John Smith - shook his head. His hands slipped into his pockets. “No, sorry.”
Jack could’ve sworn . . . “Maybe we just keep meeting, then.”
“Yeah,” Smith drawled. “Something like that.”
“How could I forget a face like that,” Jack winked, and Smith's cheeks darkened.
“I’d imagine you’d be a hard bloke to forget, too, Captain.” John’s face fell. “Oh dear, I said that out loud. Oh dear. Um . . . What I mean was that -”
“Don’t worry about it.” Jack smiled, his whole face lighting up. “As much as I’d love to watch you flounder for words in that cute manner, I’ve got work to do.”
As if on cue, someone cursed from behind the tape and called out for the Captain.
“Right.” John rubbed the back of his head and shuffled his feet. “You . . . go . . . work. I’ll be here. If, you know, . . . whatever.”
“Don’t go wandering now.”
“I won’t.”
As soon as the Captain was out of ear shot, John cursed his stupidity and kicked at the floor. He really should get out more, like Martha always told him to. He couldn’t talk to people. That little exchange proved it. God, he was so stupid! But how do you say, “Yes, I know you from my dreams. I know your life story, in fact. And I know all about Torchwood, so you can stop pretending to be cops interested in a little robbery.” You just don’t say that to people.
“Dr. Smith?” A dark-haired woman approached him, a small notepad in hand.
“Yes?”
“My name’s Gwen Cooper. I’m with Torchwood. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
John’s eyes wandered over to the figure behind the tape. There was something deeply attractive about that coat. It was the first thing he noticed about the other man. And his eyes. And his smile. And bloody hell, there was just a messy break-in in his bloody office and he was busy ogling the cops! Rather, the organization above the cops. Rather, one man in said organization. It was attraction, magnetism, because, at first, he’d been a mystery, a figure in the Plas. Now here he was, living, breathing, looking at him (through him) and . . . well, he was rather handsome. Even Martha smiled charmingly at him.
But he’s always like that. He always says “hello.” It was all wrong.
“Uh, sure.” He finally answered the young woman.
“Do you have any idea who might have done this? Any enemies? Any fights? A girlfriend?”
“What?”
“Jack asked me to ask you.” Her face was completely serious.
“About a girlfriend?”
“Or boyfriend. Whichever.”
“Oh. As in a girlfriend . . . or boyfriend . . . that would have felt jilted enough to break into my office and ransack the place?”
“No. I think he wants to know if you’re available. Completely unprofessional, but that’s Jack for you.”
“Oh. Well, um, no.”
“To what? The suspects, the girlfriend, or your availability?”
“I, uh . . .”
Gwen scribbled something in her notebook. “Did you have anything of value in your office?”
“No.”
“If we got you to look at everything, could you tell us if anything was missing?”
“I might be able to, yes. I mean, the stray paper clip might escape from my mind, if you people are that picky.”
Gwen smiled. “No. That’ll do fine.”
“Toshiko’s picked up some residual arton energy.” Jack appeared from nowhere, it seemed, and he wasn’t smiling.
“It could be the assailant.”
“Or it could be our Professor here.”
“I, um, prefer Doctor, actually. I - You know, Smith works fine. What’s argon energy?”
“Arton. Residual particles from -”
“Don’t worry about it.” Jack interrupted Gwen’s answer. John saw the woman give her boss an odd look, and the Captain shook his head. John flipped the watch over and over in his pocket. He felt like the answers were on the tip of his tongue, if he could just -
A mobile rang and Gwen picked it up. She stepped a few feet away, but John could still hear the conversation. At least, he could have, if Jack hadn’t stepped in front of his line of sight and stared at him.
“Problem?” John asked a man he was sure walked out of the novel he was working on.
“What exactly are you working on here?”
“A project.” John smiled, clutching his watch tighter. “It’s just a novel!” he added when Jack’s jaw tightened.
“Is it?”
“I said it was. I’m an honest man, Jack.”
“I think you’re hiding something.”
“I’m not hiding!”
“Jack,” Gwen called.
“Explain the arton energy.”
“I would if I knew what you were speaking about!”
“Jack!” Gwen called out again.
From the corner of his eye, John saw Martha staring at the open doorway. John looked away, Gwen called for Jack, and then next thing John knew, three men in scarecrow costumes and one little girl with a red bicycle were advancing on them. There was a crash, a bang, and a very hot sense of something, and then John forgot what they’d been arguing about.
***
“I told you, mother of mine, this one has more life than a Time Lord ever could. We don’t need the other one, now. Why did you still bring him?”
“Daughter of mine, the Time Lord is who we are after.”
“Life is what we are after.”
“Son of mine.”
“Mother of mine.”
“Mother of mine, he’s awake!”
John scrambled to right his glasses on his faces and shuffled backwards against the walls, against the . . . wherever he was (spaceship) and with whoever he was (a family, the Family). He wanted to ask “Who are you?” and “Where am I?” but he saw through the open hatch a blue box. The phone box. The police box. The . . . TARDIS. “I’m dreaming again,” was what he actually said.
But then the oldest of them, a woman (mother?) turned to him and addressed him, “Time Lord,” and everything sort of went pear-shaped.
“Looking for this?” the boy asked, holding up John’s watch, and then John was on his feet, screaming that it was just a broken watch, don’t you dare open it, I’m warning you, it’s a family heirloom, it was my father’s watch, it’s a piece of junk, just a trinket, let it go, let it go! And then there was the distinct sound of a firearm being cocked and Jack said, “You heard the man. Paws off.” And then John yelled at him to put the gun down, now! And Martha was digging in her pocket for something, and Gwen was awake, staring at a blinking red button, and John was hyperventilating. Fast. The room was spinning, he was maneuvering along the wall, hand slamming down on the blinking red buttons and he knew that he didn’t know what the hell was going on, but that he would get the watch back, he would run outside into a field and Jack, Martha, and Gwen would follow him, but the Family wouldn’t. It was already there in the script, in the outline. The outcome was already decided.
“Doctor!” Martha shouted and John turned his head, holding his hand out to catch what Martha tossed his way.
“Ever needed to put up a lot of shelves,” he murmureds at the device in his hand, and then he turned and said in his best Doctor voice, “I’m going to give one warning, and that’s all. Release the watch and give it to me, or we all blow up with this ship. You know what this is? With one tiny push of one little button, all your screws and nuts and bolts are going to come tumbling out and all that gas is going to overflow and overheat and expand and before you know it, there’s going to be one tiny little spark and then we’re all gone. You, me, everyone. Now, I’m willing to do that, because you’re not getting my watch, and you’re not getting my friends. You’re given one life, not one to use to take life from others.”
He saw the scene in his head perfectly, heard the dialogue before he had said it. It unfolded just so, just as he knew, as he was told. He raised his thumb against the button. Martha and Gwen dove for the exit, Jack lunged for the watch, and John watched them all, moving in perfect time with the narrative in his head.
It was all a story, his story. He pressed the button and the walls of the ship groaned. It was all unravelling now, at a furious pace. The watch was glowing. The watch. His watch.
(The presence of a familiar from his past was unaccounted for. The memories were leaking. It would not be contained for much longer.)
He let Jack drag him out, just in time, as the Captain fired one shot, and the whole ship exploded. That was it, John decided. The. End.
***
Martha kept her head down, her arms cradling the journal.
“I was going to call it ‘The Impossible Man,’ you know. I just decided this morning.”
Jack shifted his weight onto his other foot.
“It’s funny. This whole time, I thought he was my character, that I was creating his life. Yet you tell me the truth of the situation is, it’s the other way around. I am the Doctor’s creation. John Smith is his character. My whole life, my mum, dad, my birthplace, shadows of memories are only that. It’s an outline. I’m an outline.” John paused, running his thumb along the edge of the old watch. “I knew the day I finished that book, the day I stopped living the Doctor’s life through words, that a piece of me would die. I knew that one day, the Doctor would have to end, and he still does. But I’ll end before him. I . . . I’m the Doctor, aren’t I? These dreams, these inspritations . . . I’m writing an autobiography!” His laugh was mirthless, a short, sharp stab into the air around him.
“That was dreadfully boring, though, for a character. Up until you showed up, Captain,” John smiled. Jack merely stared back at him with a lost expression. “You always know how to show a bloke a good time.”
Martha coughed. Jack cleared his throat.
“I always thought I knew the story too well, that it was too alive. It’s more real than I am.”
“John,” Martha started, but John shook his head.
“No. Back there, on their ship? You called me ‘Doctor.’ That’s who you want. What do you need from a man like me? I can’t show you time and space. I can’t give you the stars. I’m just an author. A voice. A presence in the background. But I’m not even that.” He tugged at his ear. “I’m the character. Me.”
He tucked the sonic screwdriver in his jacket pocket and blinked away the tears that wouldn’t mean anything in time.
“I hate goodbyes.” He looked at Martha, then Jack, who would have been James had the book ever been real.
“Just one thing.” He stepped forward, looking Jack right in the eye. “Because I know he never would, and I know I might have, and just to prove to Martha that I’m not entirely socially inept, not matter who I am” and he kissed him, once, closed-lipped but meaningful, then stepped back. “I believe the phrase is, 'See you in hell.'”
He opened the watch.
***
“It’s funny how some things turn out, isn’t it?” Gwen asked over take away. “I mean, here you are searching for the right kind of Doctor, when he’s been here the whole time, hiding from you. Us. Everyone. He’s been here the whole time! Must be fate, hm?”
She sounded so excited. Jack wasn’t. “He’s gone again,” he murmured.
“He’s just tying up loose ends. He’ll be back for you.” Gwen punched him playfully in the arm. “You’ll see.”
Jack stood, donning his coat. “Yeah, Gwen. We’ll see.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets, feeling the smooth metal of the watch beneath his fingertips.
On the roof top, in the cold rain, Jack stood facing out across his city, the water, the sky. He turned the watch over and over in his hands, searching for answers that only the Doctor could give. The next time Jack saw him - Oh, that next time! He already got the kiss. It was time the Doctor got that damned punch across the face.
“You could’ve at least said goodbye,” he scolded the watch. The watch didn't retort.
***
“You look like you lost someone,” Martha cautiously prodded.
“Haven’t I?” The Doctor made a point to keep staring straight ahead. He let her think that he meant John Smith. He leant back against the jump seat, his head falling back against the cushion, and tried to remember just when it was that the plot twisted out from under him.
“The Impossible Man,” he mumbled to himself, but Martha caught his eye. He stared back, both of them silent as the TARDIS hummed in the background.