Pendulum (8/9)
Rating: R
Pairing: AU!Master/Doctor (10), Jack/Doctor
Warnings: Dark
Summary: In which the Doctor discovers that not all is lost yet.
The Doctor’s hands were trembling.
They often were, these days. By now he could hardly recall when they hadn’t, but today the trembling was getting worse along with the pain in his head; a dull, insistent throbbing that increased in intensity until it wasn’t throbbing anymore but a constant, ongoing pain without highs and lows.
As long as he didn’t move his head too quickly, in which case the pain would increase and not lessen again. As he carefully felt his way along the kitchen, the Doctor knew that it was only a matter of time before it would knock him out cold and he’d end up sprawled in an undignified heap on the floor if he didn’t make it back to bed in time.
He was sick of being in bed, but already in too much pain to try and keep being out of it for much longer.
His fingers found the kettle and he felt the heat it emitted. That was unexpected, because Jack and the Master weren’t around. He knew this for certain, and would have known even if he would not have been able to hear them breathe in the total stillness were they here. The Master would long since have made some sarcastic and potentially hurtful comment about his state to demonstrate how much he didn’t care, and Jack would have been fussing over him, trying so damn hard to be helpful.
The Doctor was glad he hadn’t run into either of them and silently thanked the TARDIS for helping him with the tea.
His shaking hands spilled hot water over his skin. The curse that followed was not an impulse but came a split second too late, a convenient excuse to say something, make noise. The silence around him was complete and he needed to hear something to know that he still could.
The Doctor knew what would happen once his headache had passed its excoriating peak. More hot liquid splashed over his fingers and for a moment he feared that his legs would give out. He realised that he was hyperventilating and cursed himself for his weakness.
He flopped into the chair too hard, causing the pain in his head to go up further. Doing his best to ignore it, the Doctor felt around for the sugar, knowing that his eyes were wide open, as if he could make out anything if only he tried hard enough.
The nothingness he saw was far worse than mere darkness could ever be. The Doctor wasn’t even sure if he was truly blind, or if his ability to see, just like his telepathic senses, had simply been swallowed by this alien vortex that was eating him from the inside. It made no difference in the end. There was nothing for his brain to work with - his senses reached out and found nothing, and it made him feel sick and dizzy all the time. Maybe he would go insane before the last of his senses was lost, he thought, and realised that the idea didn’t scare him.
He was falling apart, and nothing could stop it without killing him. At some point death had become the best possible outcome.
Jack would never accept that. The Master might, but he wouldn’t ever let him go. There was no point in arguing. All the Doctor could do was drink his tea and wonder which of his senses would be gone by the time he awoke from the blackness that was about to overcome him.
-
The Master found the Doctor in the corridor, not far from his room. The other Time Lord was lying curled up on the floor, clutching his head between cramped, claw-like fingers, and whimpering. For a minute, the Master just sat beside him, stroking his hair and feeling oddly helpless. Eventually, the whimpering stopped, as did the violent shaking, and the Doctor fell still. Gathering him in his arms, the Master wondered if it was just his imagination that the Doctor was becoming thinner by the day - he felt nearly insubstantial now, and brittle like a frozen leaf.
The way to his bedroom was shorter than it should have been. Sometimes the Master would like to know just how many metres exactly the TARDIS had spared them altogether since the Doctor had become ill.
After placing the pale man on the bed, the Master remained sitting beside him for a while, staring at nothing. The hollow ache of helplessness in his stomach had not lessened. The Doctor wasn’t dying, but he was fading away right in front of him none the less and it made little difference. Once, the Master had thought that he would be happy if he could just sit down and watch his favourite enemy suffer for all eternity, but he had been wrong. This was wrong. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He was losing the Doctor one way or another, and it was something he couldn’t allow, ever.
The cosmos was vast, and he had all of time and space to choose from. There had to be some way to stop this, before there was nothing left of the Doctor but a broken shell.
But even if he didn’t find a solution in time… as long as the Doctor was still alive there was a chance that some day the Master would be able to heal him completely, no matter how long it would take. There was a cold comfort in the realization that it would give the Master something to live for, something to keep him going.
The Doctor probably wouldn’t appreciate it as much. Still, once the thought had been examined, the Master’s heart was beating a little calmer, the knot in his stomach lessened. He wouldn’t lose his reason for living - it would merely shift a little.
Still, the feeling of dread that came with seeing the Doctor like this and knowing it would get worse didn’t disappear completely. Eventually, the Master dealt with it by walking away.
-
Waking to darkness would have been an improvement. The Doctor lay perfectly still, only vaguely aware that his most recent nightmare was over and he was once again awake. For a while he tried to sink back into the dream, not ready to deal with reality as it was.
He wasn’t feeling absolutely terrible, which made waking up a more pleasant experience than he had anticipated. The stabbing pain in his head he had expected wasn’t there, and only after a few minutes he remembered the agony he had indeed woken up to, hours before. Someone had sent him back to painless oblivion with a nearly lethal dose of painkillers, and for that the Doctor would be eternally grateful.
(Maybe he would have been even more grateful had they given him just that little bit more. He tried not to think like that.)
Even blind and unable to sense anything but the wrongness that was him, the Doctor could tell that he was alone. He didn’t move, was barely even breathing as he tried to decide if he should test all his senses to see which one was missing, or should simply go on until it hit him the moment he needed an ability he no longer had.
The TARDIS was humming softly around him, perhaps to tell him his ears were still working. It was a relief, even though the Doctor would have traded this sense for his telepathy without a second’s thought.
He smelled the light flowery scent of his pillow. Another relief, but it wouldn’t settle. Something was missing, and he already felt it, though he could not put his finger on it. He had always taken his senses for granted so much that he never really noticed them while they were working.
It took him far too long to realise that he couldn’t tell if they were in flight anymore. The subconscious connection any Time Lord had to the vortex was gone. When the Doctor tried to reach for it, he only met the mist of wrongness all his missing senses got lost in.
As whimper escaped his throat when he curled into a ball and hid his head between his arms. He didn’t understand how the Master could stand this, trapped in a mortal, limited body as he was. This was hell. The Doctor felt cut off from everything and very, very alone.
And he couldn’t even tell how long he had left before this emptiness was all he could feel.
After all he had done, an end like this wasn’t just pathetic, it was unacceptable. The thought came with a sudden rush of anger at his fate, at the Master and Jack and the entire cosmos, but the anger was taking him nowhere. There was nothing he could do, nothing to fight against, and in the end the fury turned to panic. A mindless panic that made him jump into the emptiness inside him, further and further, reaching for the vortex he knew had to be there, somewhere
After seconds the wrong emptiness was all he could feel. The Doctor didn’t even register the nausea that washed over him and was only vaguely aware of the increasing pain in his head. He was lost, but he wouldn’t turn back. All he could do was go on, until he reached something, or got lost forever.
After a while he thought he sensed the familiar stream of the vortex, just out of reach, but it escaped him whenever he tried to gain hold of it. So he tried again. And again. Everything else cheased to matter.
Until with a last, desperate effort he threw himself into the horror that surrounded him and in a flash of blinding pain he became part of the universe once more.
-
Half an hour later the Doctor was lying on the floor, his hands pressed to his eyes, and laughed through the tears streaming down his cheeks. The piercing pain in his head made it almost impossible for him to breathe, but he felt a little bit more whole again, and that was all that mattered. All was not lost. He could do something, work against the slow decay of his mind, even if it was no permanent solution. Already he felt his hold slipping, and with every second he held on to this sense humans couldn’t even imagine, the pain got worse. But it was so much better than having lost it for good. He now knew that he could get it back for a while, if he tried really hard, and while he still felt no hope and no optimism, he was a lot less desperate than he had been in a long time.
He was still laughing breathlessly when Jack found him five minutes later.
-
Jack had lost any sense of how long he’d been with the two Time Lords now. In terms of being either freaked out, worried as hell or feeling completely miserable it was, in any case, too long.
He had the distinct feeling that he had very nearly killed the Doctor earlier today when he had found him in his bed, screaming in agony. The Master had been nowhere to be seen and in the end Jack had decided to take the risk of giving him a strong dose of what he hoped was an analgesic, unable to bear it any longer.
Hours later he had returned to check on his friend to find him half-delirious on the floor, either laughing or crying or both - Jack hadn’t been able to say for sure, but he really couldn’t see what was so bloody funny. He didn’t feel like laughing. At all.
The Doctor had passed out before Jack had been able to put him back to bed, and for once the human could not bring himself to linger by his side. He was sick of seeing him like this and knowing he would probably not get better, ever. It was breaking his heart.
Running aimlessly through the ship was one way to work out the restless energy that filled him, but it wasn’t really going anywhere.
If he didn’t want the Doctor to suffer like this, he decided, he had to do something about it. Just sitting around and feeling miserable wasn’t helping anyone.
His steps eventually led him to one of the libraries. It wasn’t a bad place to start his research, and so he had a look at some shelves. And some more shelves. And even more. And his frustration grew.
Jack had expected the TARDIS would help him. She usually did that: if he was looking for texts on a special subject, she’d put all books of interest where he would first look for them. But this time there was nothing but random books followed by more random books: novels, scientific journals, historical scripts from at least a hundred different worlds, ordered by no system Jack could recognize. There wasn’t even the odd book about Time Lord physiology. Either the TARDIS was having a bad day, or this was her way of telling him that there was nothing to be found.
Or maybe she didn’t want to help him. Despite the Doctor’s best efforts to act optimistic in Jack’s presence whenever he was fine enough to act at all, it was hard to miss that he had all but given up. Perhaps this got transmitted to the TARDIS so now she saw no reason to do anything. Jack couldn’t really believe this, though. In her own limited way the ship was far too protective of her pilot to let anything happen to him if she could prevent it, whether he wanted that or not. The fact that she would have helped him if only she could did nothing to make Jack feel hopeful.
If things continued to look this bleak, Jack might even consider asking the Master for help. But he hadn’t quite reached that point yet. Right now he was still stuck in the I’d Rather Cut Off My Own Leg And Eat It Than Talk To Him phase.
Fortunately the Master was nowhere to be seen when Jack left the library and wandered back to his room. The ship was vast, after all, and the risk of running into someone by accident was never very high. On top of that, Jack suspected the TARDIS was arranging her corridors on purpose so that the one the Master was in was always far away from the one Jack was walking down.
He’d almost gotten used to the eerie silence that filled the ship most of the time now.
In his room, Jack flopped onto his bed and, for lack of anything better to do, buried his face in the pillow and stared at a very limited nothing. He had no intention to sleep; what he was doing was merely an alternative to staring at the ceiling.
After a while he noticed that he hadn’t had any useful thought for quite a while, and he turned onto his back to stare at the ceiling after all. It didn’t help his brain at all. The only realization sinking into the mattress gave him was that he hadn’t slept properly for a few days. Between worrying for the Doctor, hating the Master and despising himself for actions he couldn’t even remember, mundane things like that were mostly forgotten.
He also realised that he could do with some food. The decision to get up and eat something followed him into his dreams as he slipped into an uneasy sleep.
He woke to a knock on the door. His dream took the noise and incorporated it into the confusing story of a shopping mall in the Lost City of Chicago in the thirty-forth century it had come up with. Before the blue kangaroos could stamp him into the random puddle of mud he appeared to be standing in, however, Jack’s brain registered the sound of a door opening and he blinked sleepily. After a second he realised that this was weird, as he had the habit of jumping awake (and possibly behind the furniture for cover) if he was woken by the sound of someone entering the room.
Maybe it was the preceding knocking that had convinced his subconscious that there was no danger here. By the time Jack thought that of the two other people inside the TARDIS, the Master was more likely to run around and come visit him, he was already staring at the Doctor, struggling to find any proof for his really being awake now.
The Doctor was looking at him, pale but with a thin smile gracing his lips.
The Doctor was looking at him.
Jack continued blinking at him, trying to figure out if he was still dreaming, and if not, how much of what he thought had happed in the last few days was actually true.
“You… can see me,” he said, making it half a question and hoping he didn’t sound too stupid. If, his sleep addled brain told him, he really had dreamed up a good portion of his memories, this had the potential to be embarrassing.
“Yes.” The Doctor’s smile widened, enough to convince Jack that this was as much of a surprise to him as it was to the human. “Yes, I can see you, Jack.” He spoke the words as if he couldn’t quite believe it himself.
Then Jack was on his feet, holding the Time Lord’s shoulders, almost shaking him. “But how is it possible? Did you find a way to reverse it? This is fantastic!” He felt the grin forming on his face and suspected that he looked a lot like a little boy in a candy shop. The Doctor’s answering smile was a little less enthusiastic, though; almost awkward.
“It’s not permanent,” he told Jack, as if it was something he was ashamed of. “I can keep it up for a while, though, and that’s something at least.” His smile grew wider again and he looked like this was indeed the best thing ever, while Jack felt some of his joy fade.
“How long?” he asked. “How do you do it?”
“About half an hour, and I wouldn’t be able to explain. I just do.”
“Does it hurt?” Jack wanted to know, because he felt his friend tremble, and he was pale, his eyes red rimmed, and his breathing uneasy.
“A little,” the Doctor admitted. “Nothing I couldn’t bear. It’s so much more than I ever…” He stopped, momentarily overwhelmed. “I didn’t think I’d ever…”
“Yes,” said Jack. He hadn’t thought that either. Before he could think about what he was doing, he had pulled the Doctor into a tight embrace. One moment later he let him go again, and took a step back. “Sorry,” he mumbled, not able to forget the horror and self-hate he had felt when the Master had shown him what he had done to the Doctor in the time he couldn’t remember. Even though he hadn’t been himself then, even though the Doctor had forgiven him, Jack couldn’t yet forgive himself, and a part of him was unable to believe that the Doctor really had either. Certainly he wouldn’t like Jack touching him. Jack didn’t want to inflict that on him on top of everything he already had to bear.
He looked up when a hand touched his arm. The Doctor was looking at him through his large, dark, seeing eyes, and the smile was gone from his face.
“It’s good to see you, Jack,” he said, before pulling his friend into a hug.
All Jack could do was hug him back.
-
The Doctor had to give up his vision the moment he’d more or less fled from Jack’s room. It was all he could do to not collapse in front of his friend. By the time he let go, he could hardly stand. Even if he had still been able to see, the pain in his head would have been blinding.
He made it back to his own room, feeling sick and weak, too exhausted to be frustrated as he fell face down onto his bed. He slept.
When he woke up, the Doctor mainly felt numb. The excitement that had come with discovering that he could restore his lost senses for a short time was gone and he was aware again that in the end it would only get worse. He couldn’t tell how long he had before the next part of him was lost, but he know that it would happen, again and again, and even if he could temporarily get back one or the other, he would never be whole again.
The despair that usually accompanied the thought didn’t come either. The Doctor stayed in bed, his eyes closed, missing the vivid images of his dreams. He felt the softness of the pillow beneath his face and didn’t wonder how much time he had left before that, too, was lost.
Fingers closed around his hand, startling him. The Doctor opened his eyes wide, by force of habit, and became aware that he had been about to drift off to sleep again. Rolling onto his back he reached out until he felt the smooth fabric of a shirt under his palm. Now he could hear the breathing he had missed before: a little deeper than Jack, and the muscles of the arm he was touching were different too. He felt them move, and then a rough hand touched his cheek. The Doctor relished the feeling, committing it to memory for the time when his mind was the only place he could still live in.
He melted into the Master’s touch, reached up to feel the rough beard, then the lips that parted to lick his fingers. A moment later his hand was buried in thick hair, and he smelled the unique smell of someone neither human nor Time Lord as the Master leaned in and kissed him. It was almost tender.
But not quite. This, alone, was so predictable it made the Doctor smile.
-
As the Doctor arched against him, the Master became aware that this was the first time in ages that his old friend willingly let himself be taken. He made a low, breathless sound deep in his throat as the Master moved inside him, and the Master, almost ironically, was more careful with him than he had been ever before.
He hadn’t come the Doctor’s room with this in mind, but them moment the Doctor had reached for him, he had not seen any reason not to. Too long had he restrained himself, because the Doctor was so very fragile, but now he sank into him, moved against him, and thought Yes.
It was too much for the weak Doctor to handle. He passed out in the Master’s arms, and the Master kept holding him, his arms wrapped around his middle from behind. The Doctor seemed peaceful, almost content, and for a few precious moments the Master simply watched him sleep. One hand gave up its possessive hold to run up and down his side. It had been too long since the Master last was able to feel the smooth skin under his palms, and he could hardly remember the last time the Doctor hadn’t despised him for it.
For a brief moment, the Master allowed himself to miss what they had shared long, long ago, before their ways had parted and the way they had lived their lives had turned both of them into something else, alien and incompatible.
The moment passed, as it always did, but something lingered. The Master kissed the Doctor’s shoulder before pulling him close again, and, burying his face in the other’s hair to inhale his scent, he closed his eyes, to join him in his slumber.
- tbc
March 2, 2009
Pairing: AU!Master/Doctor (10), Jack/Doctor
Warnings: Dark
Summary: In which the Doctor discovers that not all is lost yet.
The Doctor’s hands were trembling.
They often were, these days. By now he could hardly recall when they hadn’t, but today the trembling was getting worse along with the pain in his head; a dull, insistent throbbing that increased in intensity until it wasn’t throbbing anymore but a constant, ongoing pain without highs and lows.
As long as he didn’t move his head too quickly, in which case the pain would increase and not lessen again. As he carefully felt his way along the kitchen, the Doctor knew that it was only a matter of time before it would knock him out cold and he’d end up sprawled in an undignified heap on the floor if he didn’t make it back to bed in time.
He was sick of being in bed, but already in too much pain to try and keep being out of it for much longer.
His fingers found the kettle and he felt the heat it emitted. That was unexpected, because Jack and the Master weren’t around. He knew this for certain, and would have known even if he would not have been able to hear them breathe in the total stillness were they here. The Master would long since have made some sarcastic and potentially hurtful comment about his state to demonstrate how much he didn’t care, and Jack would have been fussing over him, trying so damn hard to be helpful.
The Doctor was glad he hadn’t run into either of them and silently thanked the TARDIS for helping him with the tea.
His shaking hands spilled hot water over his skin. The curse that followed was not an impulse but came a split second too late, a convenient excuse to say something, make noise. The silence around him was complete and he needed to hear something to know that he still could.
The Doctor knew what would happen once his headache had passed its excoriating peak. More hot liquid splashed over his fingers and for a moment he feared that his legs would give out. He realised that he was hyperventilating and cursed himself for his weakness.
He flopped into the chair too hard, causing the pain in his head to go up further. Doing his best to ignore it, the Doctor felt around for the sugar, knowing that his eyes were wide open, as if he could make out anything if only he tried hard enough.
The nothingness he saw was far worse than mere darkness could ever be. The Doctor wasn’t even sure if he was truly blind, or if his ability to see, just like his telepathic senses, had simply been swallowed by this alien vortex that was eating him from the inside. It made no difference in the end. There was nothing for his brain to work with - his senses reached out and found nothing, and it made him feel sick and dizzy all the time. Maybe he would go insane before the last of his senses was lost, he thought, and realised that the idea didn’t scare him.
He was falling apart, and nothing could stop it without killing him. At some point death had become the best possible outcome.
Jack would never accept that. The Master might, but he wouldn’t ever let him go. There was no point in arguing. All the Doctor could do was drink his tea and wonder which of his senses would be gone by the time he awoke from the blackness that was about to overcome him.
-
The Master found the Doctor in the corridor, not far from his room. The other Time Lord was lying curled up on the floor, clutching his head between cramped, claw-like fingers, and whimpering. For a minute, the Master just sat beside him, stroking his hair and feeling oddly helpless. Eventually, the whimpering stopped, as did the violent shaking, and the Doctor fell still. Gathering him in his arms, the Master wondered if it was just his imagination that the Doctor was becoming thinner by the day - he felt nearly insubstantial now, and brittle like a frozen leaf.
The way to his bedroom was shorter than it should have been. Sometimes the Master would like to know just how many metres exactly the TARDIS had spared them altogether since the Doctor had become ill.
After placing the pale man on the bed, the Master remained sitting beside him for a while, staring at nothing. The hollow ache of helplessness in his stomach had not lessened. The Doctor wasn’t dying, but he was fading away right in front of him none the less and it made little difference. Once, the Master had thought that he would be happy if he could just sit down and watch his favourite enemy suffer for all eternity, but he had been wrong. This was wrong. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He was losing the Doctor one way or another, and it was something he couldn’t allow, ever.
The cosmos was vast, and he had all of time and space to choose from. There had to be some way to stop this, before there was nothing left of the Doctor but a broken shell.
But even if he didn’t find a solution in time… as long as the Doctor was still alive there was a chance that some day the Master would be able to heal him completely, no matter how long it would take. There was a cold comfort in the realization that it would give the Master something to live for, something to keep him going.
The Doctor probably wouldn’t appreciate it as much. Still, once the thought had been examined, the Master’s heart was beating a little calmer, the knot in his stomach lessened. He wouldn’t lose his reason for living - it would merely shift a little.
Still, the feeling of dread that came with seeing the Doctor like this and knowing it would get worse didn’t disappear completely. Eventually, the Master dealt with it by walking away.
-
Waking to darkness would have been an improvement. The Doctor lay perfectly still, only vaguely aware that his most recent nightmare was over and he was once again awake. For a while he tried to sink back into the dream, not ready to deal with reality as it was.
He wasn’t feeling absolutely terrible, which made waking up a more pleasant experience than he had anticipated. The stabbing pain in his head he had expected wasn’t there, and only after a few minutes he remembered the agony he had indeed woken up to, hours before. Someone had sent him back to painless oblivion with a nearly lethal dose of painkillers, and for that the Doctor would be eternally grateful.
(Maybe he would have been even more grateful had they given him just that little bit more. He tried not to think like that.)
Even blind and unable to sense anything but the wrongness that was him, the Doctor could tell that he was alone. He didn’t move, was barely even breathing as he tried to decide if he should test all his senses to see which one was missing, or should simply go on until it hit him the moment he needed an ability he no longer had.
The TARDIS was humming softly around him, perhaps to tell him his ears were still working. It was a relief, even though the Doctor would have traded this sense for his telepathy without a second’s thought.
He smelled the light flowery scent of his pillow. Another relief, but it wouldn’t settle. Something was missing, and he already felt it, though he could not put his finger on it. He had always taken his senses for granted so much that he never really noticed them while they were working.
It took him far too long to realise that he couldn’t tell if they were in flight anymore. The subconscious connection any Time Lord had to the vortex was gone. When the Doctor tried to reach for it, he only met the mist of wrongness all his missing senses got lost in.
As whimper escaped his throat when he curled into a ball and hid his head between his arms. He didn’t understand how the Master could stand this, trapped in a mortal, limited body as he was. This was hell. The Doctor felt cut off from everything and very, very alone.
And he couldn’t even tell how long he had left before this emptiness was all he could feel.
After all he had done, an end like this wasn’t just pathetic, it was unacceptable. The thought came with a sudden rush of anger at his fate, at the Master and Jack and the entire cosmos, but the anger was taking him nowhere. There was nothing he could do, nothing to fight against, and in the end the fury turned to panic. A mindless panic that made him jump into the emptiness inside him, further and further, reaching for the vortex he knew had to be there, somewhere
After seconds the wrong emptiness was all he could feel. The Doctor didn’t even register the nausea that washed over him and was only vaguely aware of the increasing pain in his head. He was lost, but he wouldn’t turn back. All he could do was go on, until he reached something, or got lost forever.
After a while he thought he sensed the familiar stream of the vortex, just out of reach, but it escaped him whenever he tried to gain hold of it. So he tried again. And again. Everything else cheased to matter.
Until with a last, desperate effort he threw himself into the horror that surrounded him and in a flash of blinding pain he became part of the universe once more.
-
Half an hour later the Doctor was lying on the floor, his hands pressed to his eyes, and laughed through the tears streaming down his cheeks. The piercing pain in his head made it almost impossible for him to breathe, but he felt a little bit more whole again, and that was all that mattered. All was not lost. He could do something, work against the slow decay of his mind, even if it was no permanent solution. Already he felt his hold slipping, and with every second he held on to this sense humans couldn’t even imagine, the pain got worse. But it was so much better than having lost it for good. He now knew that he could get it back for a while, if he tried really hard, and while he still felt no hope and no optimism, he was a lot less desperate than he had been in a long time.
He was still laughing breathlessly when Jack found him five minutes later.
-
Jack had lost any sense of how long he’d been with the two Time Lords now. In terms of being either freaked out, worried as hell or feeling completely miserable it was, in any case, too long.
He had the distinct feeling that he had very nearly killed the Doctor earlier today when he had found him in his bed, screaming in agony. The Master had been nowhere to be seen and in the end Jack had decided to take the risk of giving him a strong dose of what he hoped was an analgesic, unable to bear it any longer.
Hours later he had returned to check on his friend to find him half-delirious on the floor, either laughing or crying or both - Jack hadn’t been able to say for sure, but he really couldn’t see what was so bloody funny. He didn’t feel like laughing. At all.
The Doctor had passed out before Jack had been able to put him back to bed, and for once the human could not bring himself to linger by his side. He was sick of seeing him like this and knowing he would probably not get better, ever. It was breaking his heart.
Running aimlessly through the ship was one way to work out the restless energy that filled him, but it wasn’t really going anywhere.
If he didn’t want the Doctor to suffer like this, he decided, he had to do something about it. Just sitting around and feeling miserable wasn’t helping anyone.
His steps eventually led him to one of the libraries. It wasn’t a bad place to start his research, and so he had a look at some shelves. And some more shelves. And even more. And his frustration grew.
Jack had expected the TARDIS would help him. She usually did that: if he was looking for texts on a special subject, she’d put all books of interest where he would first look for them. But this time there was nothing but random books followed by more random books: novels, scientific journals, historical scripts from at least a hundred different worlds, ordered by no system Jack could recognize. There wasn’t even the odd book about Time Lord physiology. Either the TARDIS was having a bad day, or this was her way of telling him that there was nothing to be found.
Or maybe she didn’t want to help him. Despite the Doctor’s best efforts to act optimistic in Jack’s presence whenever he was fine enough to act at all, it was hard to miss that he had all but given up. Perhaps this got transmitted to the TARDIS so now she saw no reason to do anything. Jack couldn’t really believe this, though. In her own limited way the ship was far too protective of her pilot to let anything happen to him if she could prevent it, whether he wanted that or not. The fact that she would have helped him if only she could did nothing to make Jack feel hopeful.
If things continued to look this bleak, Jack might even consider asking the Master for help. But he hadn’t quite reached that point yet. Right now he was still stuck in the I’d Rather Cut Off My Own Leg And Eat It Than Talk To Him phase.
Fortunately the Master was nowhere to be seen when Jack left the library and wandered back to his room. The ship was vast, after all, and the risk of running into someone by accident was never very high. On top of that, Jack suspected the TARDIS was arranging her corridors on purpose so that the one the Master was in was always far away from the one Jack was walking down.
He’d almost gotten used to the eerie silence that filled the ship most of the time now.
In his room, Jack flopped onto his bed and, for lack of anything better to do, buried his face in the pillow and stared at a very limited nothing. He had no intention to sleep; what he was doing was merely an alternative to staring at the ceiling.
After a while he noticed that he hadn’t had any useful thought for quite a while, and he turned onto his back to stare at the ceiling after all. It didn’t help his brain at all. The only realization sinking into the mattress gave him was that he hadn’t slept properly for a few days. Between worrying for the Doctor, hating the Master and despising himself for actions he couldn’t even remember, mundane things like that were mostly forgotten.
He also realised that he could do with some food. The decision to get up and eat something followed him into his dreams as he slipped into an uneasy sleep.
He woke to a knock on the door. His dream took the noise and incorporated it into the confusing story of a shopping mall in the Lost City of Chicago in the thirty-forth century it had come up with. Before the blue kangaroos could stamp him into the random puddle of mud he appeared to be standing in, however, Jack’s brain registered the sound of a door opening and he blinked sleepily. After a second he realised that this was weird, as he had the habit of jumping awake (and possibly behind the furniture for cover) if he was woken by the sound of someone entering the room.
Maybe it was the preceding knocking that had convinced his subconscious that there was no danger here. By the time Jack thought that of the two other people inside the TARDIS, the Master was more likely to run around and come visit him, he was already staring at the Doctor, struggling to find any proof for his really being awake now.
The Doctor was looking at him, pale but with a thin smile gracing his lips.
The Doctor was looking at him.
Jack continued blinking at him, trying to figure out if he was still dreaming, and if not, how much of what he thought had happed in the last few days was actually true.
“You… can see me,” he said, making it half a question and hoping he didn’t sound too stupid. If, his sleep addled brain told him, he really had dreamed up a good portion of his memories, this had the potential to be embarrassing.
“Yes.” The Doctor’s smile widened, enough to convince Jack that this was as much of a surprise to him as it was to the human. “Yes, I can see you, Jack.” He spoke the words as if he couldn’t quite believe it himself.
Then Jack was on his feet, holding the Time Lord’s shoulders, almost shaking him. “But how is it possible? Did you find a way to reverse it? This is fantastic!” He felt the grin forming on his face and suspected that he looked a lot like a little boy in a candy shop. The Doctor’s answering smile was a little less enthusiastic, though; almost awkward.
“It’s not permanent,” he told Jack, as if it was something he was ashamed of. “I can keep it up for a while, though, and that’s something at least.” His smile grew wider again and he looked like this was indeed the best thing ever, while Jack felt some of his joy fade.
“How long?” he asked. “How do you do it?”
“About half an hour, and I wouldn’t be able to explain. I just do.”
“Does it hurt?” Jack wanted to know, because he felt his friend tremble, and he was pale, his eyes red rimmed, and his breathing uneasy.
“A little,” the Doctor admitted. “Nothing I couldn’t bear. It’s so much more than I ever…” He stopped, momentarily overwhelmed. “I didn’t think I’d ever…”
“Yes,” said Jack. He hadn’t thought that either. Before he could think about what he was doing, he had pulled the Doctor into a tight embrace. One moment later he let him go again, and took a step back. “Sorry,” he mumbled, not able to forget the horror and self-hate he had felt when the Master had shown him what he had done to the Doctor in the time he couldn’t remember. Even though he hadn’t been himself then, even though the Doctor had forgiven him, Jack couldn’t yet forgive himself, and a part of him was unable to believe that the Doctor really had either. Certainly he wouldn’t like Jack touching him. Jack didn’t want to inflict that on him on top of everything he already had to bear.
He looked up when a hand touched his arm. The Doctor was looking at him through his large, dark, seeing eyes, and the smile was gone from his face.
“It’s good to see you, Jack,” he said, before pulling his friend into a hug.
All Jack could do was hug him back.
-
The Doctor had to give up his vision the moment he’d more or less fled from Jack’s room. It was all he could do to not collapse in front of his friend. By the time he let go, he could hardly stand. Even if he had still been able to see, the pain in his head would have been blinding.
He made it back to his own room, feeling sick and weak, too exhausted to be frustrated as he fell face down onto his bed. He slept.
When he woke up, the Doctor mainly felt numb. The excitement that had come with discovering that he could restore his lost senses for a short time was gone and he was aware again that in the end it would only get worse. He couldn’t tell how long he had before the next part of him was lost, but he know that it would happen, again and again, and even if he could temporarily get back one or the other, he would never be whole again.
The despair that usually accompanied the thought didn’t come either. The Doctor stayed in bed, his eyes closed, missing the vivid images of his dreams. He felt the softness of the pillow beneath his face and didn’t wonder how much time he had left before that, too, was lost.
Fingers closed around his hand, startling him. The Doctor opened his eyes wide, by force of habit, and became aware that he had been about to drift off to sleep again. Rolling onto his back he reached out until he felt the smooth fabric of a shirt under his palm. Now he could hear the breathing he had missed before: a little deeper than Jack, and the muscles of the arm he was touching were different too. He felt them move, and then a rough hand touched his cheek. The Doctor relished the feeling, committing it to memory for the time when his mind was the only place he could still live in.
He melted into the Master’s touch, reached up to feel the rough beard, then the lips that parted to lick his fingers. A moment later his hand was buried in thick hair, and he smelled the unique smell of someone neither human nor Time Lord as the Master leaned in and kissed him. It was almost tender.
But not quite. This, alone, was so predictable it made the Doctor smile.
-
As the Doctor arched against him, the Master became aware that this was the first time in ages that his old friend willingly let himself be taken. He made a low, breathless sound deep in his throat as the Master moved inside him, and the Master, almost ironically, was more careful with him than he had been ever before.
He hadn’t come the Doctor’s room with this in mind, but them moment the Doctor had reached for him, he had not seen any reason not to. Too long had he restrained himself, because the Doctor was so very fragile, but now he sank into him, moved against him, and thought Yes.
It was too much for the weak Doctor to handle. He passed out in the Master’s arms, and the Master kept holding him, his arms wrapped around his middle from behind. The Doctor seemed peaceful, almost content, and for a few precious moments the Master simply watched him sleep. One hand gave up its possessive hold to run up and down his side. It had been too long since the Master last was able to feel the smooth skin under his palms, and he could hardly remember the last time the Doctor hadn’t despised him for it.
For a brief moment, the Master allowed himself to miss what they had shared long, long ago, before their ways had parted and the way they had lived their lives had turned both of them into something else, alien and incompatible.
The moment passed, as it always did, but something lingered. The Master kissed the Doctor’s shoulder before pulling him close again, and, burying his face in the other’s hair to inhale his scent, he closed his eyes, to join him in his slumber.
- tbc
March 2, 2009