GIFT FOR MATRIXREFUGEE: A little bit of trouble (Fifth Doctor/Jack Harkness) [G]
Title: A little bit of trouble
Author: navaan
Recipient: matrixrefugee
Rating: G
Pairing(s): Fifth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Spoilers/warnings: none I can think of
Summary: Jack thinks a little planet full of ice and snow is the best place for him not to get into any trouble or to mess up anybody's time lines. Of course, that means he runs into an old friend - even though said friend hasn't ever met him before.
**
Jack had learned that - with a life like his own - it was always better not to take chances.
He couldn't die, but the way his crazy life worked he had the potential to mess up his own time-line and cause a paradox of epic proportions. And he didn't really care for that kind of universe ending adventure. There was a thrill to it. There was the heroics. But, of course, there was also the likely possibility of everything just ending. So he was always careful not to run into himself even if this meant avoiding some of his most favourite times and places.
He tried not to meet people out of sequence either, although sometimes it could be harmless fun to watch people who hadn’t properly met you yet, while you knew all about them or their future. Over the decades spent star hopping and time travelling, he'd met so many people - and also some not exactly people. Occasionally it was just unavoidable to be at the wrong place at the wrong time or at the right place at the wrong time and stumble into an old acquaintance - and then you simply had to make the best of it.
It was always so much easier to meet new people without fear of messing anything up.
Therefore travelling to Khionê Gamma 12 seemed like a good idea. After all Jack had never been there before. A little rock of ice and snow and not much opportunity to get into trouble.
Of course, by now he should have learned that things rarely went as planned, even when he didn't purposefully go out to look for trouble. He ended up in a shuttle crash. He should really not have taken a tourist shuttle over the ice planes, but there wasn't much else to do out here.
“Is he still alive, Doctor?” a girlish voice was asking.
“You're a doctor?” another voice asked.
“Of a fashion, yes.”
“So is he alive?”
“Yes, Nyssa. He's alive.” Jack opened his eyes and looked right at the blond man hovering above him. “Very much alive,” the man added. His eyes were calm and serious, but his mouth was drawn into a thin line as if he was pondering something. Maybe he'd noticed Jack's heart stopping and coming back. Jack wasn't even sure if he had really died or just been knocked out.
Couldn't be helped now in any case. The stranger had seen whatever he'd seen and Jack would simply work his way around the problem.
“I'm fine,” Jack said out loud, taking a shaky breath and smiling at the curly haired girl with the serious expression at the stranger's side. “I'm really fine. Perfectly all right.”
“Are you now?” the man, who'd identified himself as a doctor, asked again, not looking convinced, but staring at him as if to look for something out of the ordinary.
It was time to make use of his acting and distracting skills. “What happened?” Jack asked, looking around to take stock of the situation. Their shuttle had broken down, but what he could see of the interior seemed relatively intact.
“There was some sort of Tachyon eruption and we were caught in the turbulences,” an older man wearing a pilot uniform told him. “I'm very sorry.” The way he was holding his left arm protectively against his chest spoke of injury.
“There's nothing you could have done about it,” the young doctor told him, sounding very sure of himself, but slightly apologetic.
“Will we be all right?” Jack piped in. The thought of freezing to death over and over again didn't appeal to him at all. He'd been caught in too many of these unpleasant experiences already and didn't care to have a repeat. “Is there anything we can do?” He surveyed the small group of people. Apart from Jack there had been five other passengers and the two pilots. “Is anyone hurt?”
The man beside him nodded. “Actually the co-pilot is unconscious. We have two people with broken limbs. And, of course, you weren't quite with us until a minute ago.”
“There's another, small shuttle on the way over. They were on their way back to the city and should be here in a few minutes,” the pilot explained. “There is only one problem: They can't take all of us. Another rescue shuttle has left the city and is on its way.”
Everybody looked frightened and uncomfortable. Jack already had a feeling where this was going when the pilot said: “Of course, I'll stay behind. But my co-pilot needs medical attention...”
“Don't be ridiculous. You're hurt, too.”
“Doctor!” the girl beside the blond doctor said frantically, a definite warning in her brown eyes. Jack gave her an intrigued once over and then looked at her doctor friend again. He did have peculiar taste in clothes. Jack would have said he dressed in an old-fashioned earth style that looked awfully familiar to him, but then out here this man could be from virtually anywhere and be dressing according to some new or old retro fashion wave.
“How many would have to stay behind?” Jack asked into the ensuing silence.
“Two.”
Jack already knew what that meant. “What's you name?” he asked the pilot.
“Grerg.”
“Listen to me Grerg. I'll stay here with you. Your buddy will be out of here in no time. No problem.”
“He's hurt, too,” the indignant doctor repeated in a slightly louder voice now, his temper rising at being ignored. “He should get medical attention, too. I'm staying.”
Grerg was trying to get up from his seat and protest, but Jack carefully pushed him back down and turned around to properly look at the man and ask: “Are you sure about that?”
“Well, I can't let someone in need of medical attention stay behind, now, can I?”
The girl beside him didn't look pleased, shaking her curly head in something that could be anger or exasperation. Maybe she was worried or just not happy about the whole situation, but Jack was beginning to ask himself what was going on with those two.
But then he hadn't much time to wonder about them, because suddenly he found himself to be the one in charge. It was easy to just take over and order everybody around with his commanding officer voice, a voice he'd had rarely used in recent years. It made him feel young again.
All the passengers and even the pilot seemed happy enough to let Jack make the decisions without asking any questions. Only this doctor and his young companion were keeping to themselves whispering frantically. Jack smiled ruefully at the thought. It had been a very long time since he'd met the Doctor and whoever he was travelling with at the moment, so he was probably seeing things, because it was all so very familiar. Too familiar not to stir up memories.
The other man was pacing around the small space of the shuttle that with only the two of them left now seemed eerily silent and deserted. He didn't seem agitated, but calm and a bit curious, looking around like he was searching for something. There was the slightest seed of suspicion forming in the back of Jack's mind, but he couldn't yet place his finger on what he was suspicious about.
They had pulled out all the emergency supplies and gone through them together. There was food and blankets and even more medical supplies. It wasn't likely they would need any of it, but Jack was feeling better already only knowing they could spend a few days here, surviving without aid. Jack sorted through the stack of food, smiling at the weird choices of emergency rations. Tourists probably expected something more familiar even for these usually small emergencies. He felt the other man watching him and looked up to meet his eyes.
He didn't look away.
“See something you like?”
“You're a handsome chap.”
Jack chose to smile back with a deliberately flirty expression and giving his temporary companion an exaggerated once-over. “That's not why you're staring though, is it?” he asked, keeping the smile, but his tone without a hint of playfulness.
The man gave him a deliberate once-over of his own and then returned his gaze calmly. “What makes you think that?”
Jack threw himself into one of the passenger chairs and gave himself a moment to think things through. “You didn't just stay behind out of the goodness of your heart. Have to admit your calm and friendly act is actually pretty good though.”
“Why am I here then?” he asked.
“You're looking for something.”
“Am I now?”
“Aren't you? Want to explain to me then why I should believe you've stayed behind?”
“I want to know what trouble I stumbled across this time. I have a habit of doing that. And then there is you and you feel like trouble.”
Jack leaned back. “You think this thing crashed because of me? Because I think you are here to scavenge something that was left behind.”
The man across from him smiled. “Well, clearly at least one of us must be wrong.”
“Or right,” Jack added, suddenly beginning to feel a little more uncomfortable. They stared at each other for a long moment. Then Jack leaned back in his seat again, relaxing, and nodded to himself. “I can imagine why you'd think I have this aura of trouble. Because I've seen a lot of trouble. I've seen a lot of the unexpected. I'm used to the unexpected. And I have a feeling that the same is true for you.”
The other man looked at him with narrowed eyes, obviously thinking things through. “You might say I end up finding trouble more often then the people around me are comfortable with. You look like trouble.”
“That sounds oddly familiar,” Jack said. He was beginning to think he had figured out what was going on here. “What's your name?” he asked with a smile, already sure what the answer would be.
“I'm the Doctor.”
His smile didn't falter. Hopefully his face wasn't giving anything away. Out of sequence, he thought, but said: “Nice to meet you, Doctor.”
The Doctor chuckled. “That's not the reaction I normally get. It's more: Doctor who? Doctor of what? Something along those lines, I suppose.”
Jack nodded, taking a moment to ask himself what he should say to this without giving away too much. “Does it really matter?”
“In the bigger state of things? Probably not. It's just a name.” The Doctor went quite. “You’re refreshingly different. And I suppose you must have a name, too. Although you’ve been doing your level best not to say it out loud.”
The mixture of observation and accusation made Jack smile. “Yeah, names. Always a problem in the wrong circumstances. Call, me John Smith if you have to call me anything.”
“That’s original,” the Doctor said in an unimpressed tone of voice, giving him another level look and probably coming to some sort of conclusion. “John then. You don’t meet many people of that name this far out in the galaxy.”
“Only a few people would use a name like this out here, I suppose.”
“Point taken,” the Doctor said and nodded, thinking it over and then looking at Jack with that curious look again. “This is something I shouldn't know yet,” he said and it wasn't phrased as a question.
“I'm not sure how much I should tell you,” Jack said instead of answering the unasked inquiry, elaborating with a vague hand gesture.
“That's perfectly fine, because I'm not sure how much trust I should put in you.”
“You can see what I am,” Jack said. He'd wanted to point it out from the moment he'd figured out who this man was. “It makes you uncomfortable.”
“A little. It also makes me curious. And I never do well with unanswered mysteries. And mysteries of any kind really.”
I know, Jack wanted to say. It's something that'll never change.
“Well, Mr. John Smith. It's nice to meet you. And it'll probably be nice to meet you again sometime. But let's not get ahead of ourself.”
Jack nodded, waiting for the moment when the Doctor would just take charge again. Instead the man sat down in front of him and asked: “So this shuttle really crashed because of a Tachyon eruption? No great mystery to be solved? That's a bit disappointing, isn't it? Nothing to do but wait?”
“Seems like it. No more trouble for us. Not today.” Jack didn't feel at all sad about it, only a little uncomfortable with meeting someone at the wrong point of his time line, who was very important to him.
The Doctor studied him solemnly for a moment, probably still not sure how far he could really trust him. “We probably shouldn't say this out loud. I could do with a trouble free day once in a while.” He leaned back and seemed to relax. “Nyssa always tells me that’s true.”
“You rarely listen,” Jack couldn't help pointing out.
“Well. There is that.”
Jack really, really wanted to hit something. Hard.
This Doctor he'd never once met before, but who obviously had no idea who Jack was yet, had started to take the little shuttle apart to find the cause of their crash. Jack had a feeling he still wasn't convinced of Jack's innocence in the matter. And now this. He stepped away from the comm system and looked around for the Time Lord. He found him crouching before a security panel, checking the complicated technology with something that could have been a sonic screwdriver, although not the one Jack had seen him use last time they'd met. Probably an earlier model. “They will not be able to get to us tonight after all. There is another disturbance and it's snowing heavily.”
“Actually give me another hour or so and we can get ourselves out of here all on our own. I can't restart the repulsor array without the right parts, but I think I can reroute some of the energy from here...”
“You've been working on this for hours. Do you really think it will work?”
“Mr. Smith,” the Doctor started.
“John,” Jack told him with a crooked smile, not able to stop the wry humour to enter his voice at the false name.
“John,” the Doctor started again. “I'm still not sure who or what you are, but if you really know me, you know I know a few things about fixing...” An electrical fizzling betrayed the Doctor's words and Jack fought the urge to say something about the Tardis and frequent tinkering, but bit his tongue in time.
“We're in trouble, aren't we?” Jack asked instead.
“Maybe. A little bit.”
“A little bit of trouble? That's a first, then. We usually don't do things by halves.”
They worked side by side for another two hours, when the Doctor finally managed to solve their problem with the repulsors. “At least we know now that no sabotage was at play here,” Jack muttered. Of course, things were still rarely as easy when trouble magnets were involved. “We're snowed in. Quite literally. No way to get this thing off the ground. Not for the moment. It would take hours to get the engines warmed up enough. And even then...”
“Snowed in? Well, isn't that romantic?” the Doctor said, giving Jack a strangely considering look.
“It's not going to be romantic. It's going to be cold.”
“You don't seem like someone, who is afraid of a little cold.”
Jack remembered all the times - and by now there were far too many to feel comfortable - he'd had the displeasure of coming back from freezing to death. That was never fun.
The Doctor was still looking at him with a slight frown. It seemed the man wasn't done with trying to unravel the mysterious John Smith.
This was going to be a long and probably very uncomfortable night.
Two standard hours later Jack, instead of sitting down on one of the comfortable seats, leaned casually against one of the walls and let himself glide down to sit on the hard floor. The air inside their little shuttle had cooled down considerably, enough to be a little too cool to be entirely comfortable, but not cold enough to cause any real harm.
Jack was unhappy enough with his own situation to feel miserable and trapped, though.
He buried his face in his hands and wished it would all just go away, listening to the Doctor's restless footsteps. But apparently he got caught up in his own thoughts, because suddenly a blanket was thrown over him and a warm body sat down at his side. The Doctor made sure they were both covered, although he didn't seem to be inconvenienced by the cold in any way.
“There. This is cosy,” he told Jack, as if Jack had been complaining out loud. He was pretty sure he hadn't. “Waiting was never my strong point.”
A mirthless chuckle escaped Jack and he tried to swallow it down. He stopped with a choking sound, drawing the Doctor's attention to himself again. “I hate waiting. Done entirely enough of it for... a lifetime.”
“That must have been quite the lifetime,” the Doctor chuckled. His chuckle wasn't a particularly happy sound either. Jack couldn't stop from wondering what the Doctor was seeing when he looked at him, what he had been thinking when he'd seen Jack come back to life, and what he really believed about the stranger he's never met before. Then the Doctor leaned against his shoulder and sighed, pulling Jack from his thoughts once more. There wasn't anything appropriate to say, so Jack reached for the next best thing that came to mind. “We'll be out of here soon and your companion will be glad to know that you didn't get into more trouble.”
“Didn't I get into more trouble?” the Doctor asked wistfully, not pulling away. “I'm not so sure.” He let the statement hang in the air between them, before sighing again. “Nyssa is worried. We're travelling all alone at the moment. She's also a little sad, because we've recently lost a friend and another left us, when we visited London recently... Well, left.”
“I'm sorry.” Jack could imagine how the man beside him was feeling. He could imagine what he meant by 'lost'. “It happens all over again all the time.”
“It does, doesn't it?” The Doctor still sounded more wistful than sad, but Jack didn't know this obviously younger Doctor well enough to be sure. “They come along. They see the beauty, the mysteries of the universe, the adventures - and then they see the horror as well.”
“Not everyone leaves because of the bad experiences. Some don't even want to.” He can't say leaving had been a pleasant affair for him, but he had certainly never left because of the horrors of the universe. Although occasionally horrors had been involved. “This is a bit strange,” Jack said out loud and then did what he felt like doing. He put an arm around the Doctor's shoulder, keeping him against his side. “This really is cosy.”
“Yes.” The Doctor sneaked an arm around Jack side and nodded, not meeting his eyes. Surely the expression on his face wasn't supposed to be adorable. When he looked up his eyes seemed a little too old for his young face and finally that made him look more like the Doctor Jack was used to. “What are you exactly?” he asked, curious again.
“What do you see when you look at me?”
“A handsome man, who makes time swirl and vanish around him.”
“Is that an awful sight?”
“No. It's a pretty unique sight. Unexpected. Did I do this to you?”
Jack laughed and pulled him closer and suddenly they were clinging to each other.. “No. No. That had nothing... It wasn't your fault. And I shouldn't even say this much to you.”
“I see.”
“It's not so bad.”
“I hope that's true.”
It surprised himself a little when for the first time in years he thought back on all that had happened, on all the tragedies and people he lost and answered truthfully: “It's true. It's not bad. In fact it's pretty amazing most of the time.”
Then the Doctor leaned up and kissed him.
Jack hadn't expected it, hadn't even thought that far ahead. But when their lips met he was overwhelmed by how right this felt, how much he had wanted this. And the way the Doctor was kissing him he was needing this just as much.
“Doctor!”
Nyssa was practically running towards them when they were ushered into the waiting hall. She was carrying a hat.
“You're all right!”
“Of course, I'm all right, Nyssa. Why wouldn't I be?”
Jack didn't even bother to hide his smile at the exchange. The Doctor was looking a little dishevelled, but it didn't seem to register with his companion.
“Can we leave now?” Nyssa was obviously in hurry to finally get away.
“Yes, yes, of course, Nyssa. We'll leave right away.”
“Good,” she answered and looked over at Jack like she was seeing him for the first time, considering.
“Need a ride, John?” the Doctor asked him.
“No, thank you, Doctor. I'm going to stay for a while, I think. Very cosy this place.”
The Doctor shrugged and Nyssa finally handed him his hat. Then she turned to lead the way.
“Do I have to ask, if we're going to see each other again?” the Doctor asked over his shoulder into Jack's direction.
“I'm not going to spoil this for you.”
“Will I remember you?”
Jack had been agonising about this very question since they'd woken up this morning. The Doctor he'd first met had made no indication of knowing him at all - and Jack's face hadn't changed much over the years. “I'm not really sure.”
“Then I'll hold on to the memory as long as I have it.” The Doctor smiled and put on his hat, nodding once, a bit of wistfulness creeping back into his eyes.
“I won't forget,” Jack said. “I'll be sure to remind you one day.”
“Then lets not say goodbye.”
“Right.”
When the Doctor walked away, toward wherever he'd left the Tardis behind, Jack thought about what to do next. He smiled to himself.
Obviously it was time to seek out the Doctor. And this time the one who knew he wasn't John Smith.
Turned out a little trouble wasn't always a bad thing.
Author: navaan
Recipient: matrixrefugee
Rating: G
Pairing(s): Fifth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Spoilers/warnings: none I can think of
Summary: Jack thinks a little planet full of ice and snow is the best place for him not to get into any trouble or to mess up anybody's time lines. Of course, that means he runs into an old friend - even though said friend hasn't ever met him before.
**
Jack had learned that - with a life like his own - it was always better not to take chances.
He couldn't die, but the way his crazy life worked he had the potential to mess up his own time-line and cause a paradox of epic proportions. And he didn't really care for that kind of universe ending adventure. There was a thrill to it. There was the heroics. But, of course, there was also the likely possibility of everything just ending. So he was always careful not to run into himself even if this meant avoiding some of his most favourite times and places.
He tried not to meet people out of sequence either, although sometimes it could be harmless fun to watch people who hadn’t properly met you yet, while you knew all about them or their future. Over the decades spent star hopping and time travelling, he'd met so many people - and also some not exactly people. Occasionally it was just unavoidable to be at the wrong place at the wrong time or at the right place at the wrong time and stumble into an old acquaintance - and then you simply had to make the best of it.
It was always so much easier to meet new people without fear of messing anything up.
Therefore travelling to Khionê Gamma 12 seemed like a good idea. After all Jack had never been there before. A little rock of ice and snow and not much opportunity to get into trouble.
Of course, by now he should have learned that things rarely went as planned, even when he didn't purposefully go out to look for trouble. He ended up in a shuttle crash. He should really not have taken a tourist shuttle over the ice planes, but there wasn't much else to do out here.
“Is he still alive, Doctor?” a girlish voice was asking.
“You're a doctor?” another voice asked.
“Of a fashion, yes.”
“So is he alive?”
“Yes, Nyssa. He's alive.” Jack opened his eyes and looked right at the blond man hovering above him. “Very much alive,” the man added. His eyes were calm and serious, but his mouth was drawn into a thin line as if he was pondering something. Maybe he'd noticed Jack's heart stopping and coming back. Jack wasn't even sure if he had really died or just been knocked out.
Couldn't be helped now in any case. The stranger had seen whatever he'd seen and Jack would simply work his way around the problem.
“I'm fine,” Jack said out loud, taking a shaky breath and smiling at the curly haired girl with the serious expression at the stranger's side. “I'm really fine. Perfectly all right.”
“Are you now?” the man, who'd identified himself as a doctor, asked again, not looking convinced, but staring at him as if to look for something out of the ordinary.
It was time to make use of his acting and distracting skills. “What happened?” Jack asked, looking around to take stock of the situation. Their shuttle had broken down, but what he could see of the interior seemed relatively intact.
“There was some sort of Tachyon eruption and we were caught in the turbulences,” an older man wearing a pilot uniform told him. “I'm very sorry.” The way he was holding his left arm protectively against his chest spoke of injury.
“There's nothing you could have done about it,” the young doctor told him, sounding very sure of himself, but slightly apologetic.
“Will we be all right?” Jack piped in. The thought of freezing to death over and over again didn't appeal to him at all. He'd been caught in too many of these unpleasant experiences already and didn't care to have a repeat. “Is there anything we can do?” He surveyed the small group of people. Apart from Jack there had been five other passengers and the two pilots. “Is anyone hurt?”
The man beside him nodded. “Actually the co-pilot is unconscious. We have two people with broken limbs. And, of course, you weren't quite with us until a minute ago.”
“There's another, small shuttle on the way over. They were on their way back to the city and should be here in a few minutes,” the pilot explained. “There is only one problem: They can't take all of us. Another rescue shuttle has left the city and is on its way.”
Everybody looked frightened and uncomfortable. Jack already had a feeling where this was going when the pilot said: “Of course, I'll stay behind. But my co-pilot needs medical attention...”
“Don't be ridiculous. You're hurt, too.”
“Doctor!” the girl beside the blond doctor said frantically, a definite warning in her brown eyes. Jack gave her an intrigued once over and then looked at her doctor friend again. He did have peculiar taste in clothes. Jack would have said he dressed in an old-fashioned earth style that looked awfully familiar to him, but then out here this man could be from virtually anywhere and be dressing according to some new or old retro fashion wave.
“How many would have to stay behind?” Jack asked into the ensuing silence.
“Two.”
Jack already knew what that meant. “What's you name?” he asked the pilot.
“Grerg.”
“Listen to me Grerg. I'll stay here with you. Your buddy will be out of here in no time. No problem.”
“He's hurt, too,” the indignant doctor repeated in a slightly louder voice now, his temper rising at being ignored. “He should get medical attention, too. I'm staying.”
Grerg was trying to get up from his seat and protest, but Jack carefully pushed him back down and turned around to properly look at the man and ask: “Are you sure about that?”
“Well, I can't let someone in need of medical attention stay behind, now, can I?”
The girl beside him didn't look pleased, shaking her curly head in something that could be anger or exasperation. Maybe she was worried or just not happy about the whole situation, but Jack was beginning to ask himself what was going on with those two.
But then he hadn't much time to wonder about them, because suddenly he found himself to be the one in charge. It was easy to just take over and order everybody around with his commanding officer voice, a voice he'd had rarely used in recent years. It made him feel young again.
All the passengers and even the pilot seemed happy enough to let Jack make the decisions without asking any questions. Only this doctor and his young companion were keeping to themselves whispering frantically. Jack smiled ruefully at the thought. It had been a very long time since he'd met the Doctor and whoever he was travelling with at the moment, so he was probably seeing things, because it was all so very familiar. Too familiar not to stir up memories.
The other man was pacing around the small space of the shuttle that with only the two of them left now seemed eerily silent and deserted. He didn't seem agitated, but calm and a bit curious, looking around like he was searching for something. There was the slightest seed of suspicion forming in the back of Jack's mind, but he couldn't yet place his finger on what he was suspicious about.
They had pulled out all the emergency supplies and gone through them together. There was food and blankets and even more medical supplies. It wasn't likely they would need any of it, but Jack was feeling better already only knowing they could spend a few days here, surviving without aid. Jack sorted through the stack of food, smiling at the weird choices of emergency rations. Tourists probably expected something more familiar even for these usually small emergencies. He felt the other man watching him and looked up to meet his eyes.
He didn't look away.
“See something you like?”
“You're a handsome chap.”
Jack chose to smile back with a deliberately flirty expression and giving his temporary companion an exaggerated once-over. “That's not why you're staring though, is it?” he asked, keeping the smile, but his tone without a hint of playfulness.
The man gave him a deliberate once-over of his own and then returned his gaze calmly. “What makes you think that?”
Jack threw himself into one of the passenger chairs and gave himself a moment to think things through. “You didn't just stay behind out of the goodness of your heart. Have to admit your calm and friendly act is actually pretty good though.”
“Why am I here then?” he asked.
“You're looking for something.”
“Am I now?”
“Aren't you? Want to explain to me then why I should believe you've stayed behind?”
“I want to know what trouble I stumbled across this time. I have a habit of doing that. And then there is you and you feel like trouble.”
Jack leaned back. “You think this thing crashed because of me? Because I think you are here to scavenge something that was left behind.”
The man across from him smiled. “Well, clearly at least one of us must be wrong.”
“Or right,” Jack added, suddenly beginning to feel a little more uncomfortable. They stared at each other for a long moment. Then Jack leaned back in his seat again, relaxing, and nodded to himself. “I can imagine why you'd think I have this aura of trouble. Because I've seen a lot of trouble. I've seen a lot of the unexpected. I'm used to the unexpected. And I have a feeling that the same is true for you.”
The other man looked at him with narrowed eyes, obviously thinking things through. “You might say I end up finding trouble more often then the people around me are comfortable with. You look like trouble.”
“That sounds oddly familiar,” Jack said. He was beginning to think he had figured out what was going on here. “What's your name?” he asked with a smile, already sure what the answer would be.
“I'm the Doctor.”
His smile didn't falter. Hopefully his face wasn't giving anything away. Out of sequence, he thought, but said: “Nice to meet you, Doctor.”
The Doctor chuckled. “That's not the reaction I normally get. It's more: Doctor who? Doctor of what? Something along those lines, I suppose.”
Jack nodded, taking a moment to ask himself what he should say to this without giving away too much. “Does it really matter?”
“In the bigger state of things? Probably not. It's just a name.” The Doctor went quite. “You’re refreshingly different. And I suppose you must have a name, too. Although you’ve been doing your level best not to say it out loud.”
The mixture of observation and accusation made Jack smile. “Yeah, names. Always a problem in the wrong circumstances. Call, me John Smith if you have to call me anything.”
“That’s original,” the Doctor said in an unimpressed tone of voice, giving him another level look and probably coming to some sort of conclusion. “John then. You don’t meet many people of that name this far out in the galaxy.”
“Only a few people would use a name like this out here, I suppose.”
“Point taken,” the Doctor said and nodded, thinking it over and then looking at Jack with that curious look again. “This is something I shouldn't know yet,” he said and it wasn't phrased as a question.
“I'm not sure how much I should tell you,” Jack said instead of answering the unasked inquiry, elaborating with a vague hand gesture.
“That's perfectly fine, because I'm not sure how much trust I should put in you.”
“You can see what I am,” Jack said. He'd wanted to point it out from the moment he'd figured out who this man was. “It makes you uncomfortable.”
“A little. It also makes me curious. And I never do well with unanswered mysteries. And mysteries of any kind really.”
I know, Jack wanted to say. It's something that'll never change.
“Well, Mr. John Smith. It's nice to meet you. And it'll probably be nice to meet you again sometime. But let's not get ahead of ourself.”
Jack nodded, waiting for the moment when the Doctor would just take charge again. Instead the man sat down in front of him and asked: “So this shuttle really crashed because of a Tachyon eruption? No great mystery to be solved? That's a bit disappointing, isn't it? Nothing to do but wait?”
“Seems like it. No more trouble for us. Not today.” Jack didn't feel at all sad about it, only a little uncomfortable with meeting someone at the wrong point of his time line, who was very important to him.
The Doctor studied him solemnly for a moment, probably still not sure how far he could really trust him. “We probably shouldn't say this out loud. I could do with a trouble free day once in a while.” He leaned back and seemed to relax. “Nyssa always tells me that’s true.”
“You rarely listen,” Jack couldn't help pointing out.
“Well. There is that.”
Jack really, really wanted to hit something. Hard.
This Doctor he'd never once met before, but who obviously had no idea who Jack was yet, had started to take the little shuttle apart to find the cause of their crash. Jack had a feeling he still wasn't convinced of Jack's innocence in the matter. And now this. He stepped away from the comm system and looked around for the Time Lord. He found him crouching before a security panel, checking the complicated technology with something that could have been a sonic screwdriver, although not the one Jack had seen him use last time they'd met. Probably an earlier model. “They will not be able to get to us tonight after all. There is another disturbance and it's snowing heavily.”
“Actually give me another hour or so and we can get ourselves out of here all on our own. I can't restart the repulsor array without the right parts, but I think I can reroute some of the energy from here...”
“You've been working on this for hours. Do you really think it will work?”
“Mr. Smith,” the Doctor started.
“John,” Jack told him with a crooked smile, not able to stop the wry humour to enter his voice at the false name.
“John,” the Doctor started again. “I'm still not sure who or what you are, but if you really know me, you know I know a few things about fixing...” An electrical fizzling betrayed the Doctor's words and Jack fought the urge to say something about the Tardis and frequent tinkering, but bit his tongue in time.
“We're in trouble, aren't we?” Jack asked instead.
“Maybe. A little bit.”
“A little bit of trouble? That's a first, then. We usually don't do things by halves.”
They worked side by side for another two hours, when the Doctor finally managed to solve their problem with the repulsors. “At least we know now that no sabotage was at play here,” Jack muttered. Of course, things were still rarely as easy when trouble magnets were involved. “We're snowed in. Quite literally. No way to get this thing off the ground. Not for the moment. It would take hours to get the engines warmed up enough. And even then...”
“Snowed in? Well, isn't that romantic?” the Doctor said, giving Jack a strangely considering look.
“It's not going to be romantic. It's going to be cold.”
“You don't seem like someone, who is afraid of a little cold.”
Jack remembered all the times - and by now there were far too many to feel comfortable - he'd had the displeasure of coming back from freezing to death. That was never fun.
The Doctor was still looking at him with a slight frown. It seemed the man wasn't done with trying to unravel the mysterious John Smith.
This was going to be a long and probably very uncomfortable night.
Two standard hours later Jack, instead of sitting down on one of the comfortable seats, leaned casually against one of the walls and let himself glide down to sit on the hard floor. The air inside their little shuttle had cooled down considerably, enough to be a little too cool to be entirely comfortable, but not cold enough to cause any real harm.
Jack was unhappy enough with his own situation to feel miserable and trapped, though.
He buried his face in his hands and wished it would all just go away, listening to the Doctor's restless footsteps. But apparently he got caught up in his own thoughts, because suddenly a blanket was thrown over him and a warm body sat down at his side. The Doctor made sure they were both covered, although he didn't seem to be inconvenienced by the cold in any way.
“There. This is cosy,” he told Jack, as if Jack had been complaining out loud. He was pretty sure he hadn't. “Waiting was never my strong point.”
A mirthless chuckle escaped Jack and he tried to swallow it down. He stopped with a choking sound, drawing the Doctor's attention to himself again. “I hate waiting. Done entirely enough of it for... a lifetime.”
“That must have been quite the lifetime,” the Doctor chuckled. His chuckle wasn't a particularly happy sound either. Jack couldn't stop from wondering what the Doctor was seeing when he looked at him, what he had been thinking when he'd seen Jack come back to life, and what he really believed about the stranger he's never met before. Then the Doctor leaned against his shoulder and sighed, pulling Jack from his thoughts once more. There wasn't anything appropriate to say, so Jack reached for the next best thing that came to mind. “We'll be out of here soon and your companion will be glad to know that you didn't get into more trouble.”
“Didn't I get into more trouble?” the Doctor asked wistfully, not pulling away. “I'm not so sure.” He let the statement hang in the air between them, before sighing again. “Nyssa is worried. We're travelling all alone at the moment. She's also a little sad, because we've recently lost a friend and another left us, when we visited London recently... Well, left.”
“I'm sorry.” Jack could imagine how the man beside him was feeling. He could imagine what he meant by 'lost'. “It happens all over again all the time.”
“It does, doesn't it?” The Doctor still sounded more wistful than sad, but Jack didn't know this obviously younger Doctor well enough to be sure. “They come along. They see the beauty, the mysteries of the universe, the adventures - and then they see the horror as well.”
“Not everyone leaves because of the bad experiences. Some don't even want to.” He can't say leaving had been a pleasant affair for him, but he had certainly never left because of the horrors of the universe. Although occasionally horrors had been involved. “This is a bit strange,” Jack said out loud and then did what he felt like doing. He put an arm around the Doctor's shoulder, keeping him against his side. “This really is cosy.”
“Yes.” The Doctor sneaked an arm around Jack side and nodded, not meeting his eyes. Surely the expression on his face wasn't supposed to be adorable. When he looked up his eyes seemed a little too old for his young face and finally that made him look more like the Doctor Jack was used to. “What are you exactly?” he asked, curious again.
“What do you see when you look at me?”
“A handsome man, who makes time swirl and vanish around him.”
“Is that an awful sight?”
“No. It's a pretty unique sight. Unexpected. Did I do this to you?”
Jack laughed and pulled him closer and suddenly they were clinging to each other.. “No. No. That had nothing... It wasn't your fault. And I shouldn't even say this much to you.”
“I see.”
“It's not so bad.”
“I hope that's true.”
It surprised himself a little when for the first time in years he thought back on all that had happened, on all the tragedies and people he lost and answered truthfully: “It's true. It's not bad. In fact it's pretty amazing most of the time.”
Then the Doctor leaned up and kissed him.
Jack hadn't expected it, hadn't even thought that far ahead. But when their lips met he was overwhelmed by how right this felt, how much he had wanted this. And the way the Doctor was kissing him he was needing this just as much.
“Doctor!”
Nyssa was practically running towards them when they were ushered into the waiting hall. She was carrying a hat.
“You're all right!”
“Of course, I'm all right, Nyssa. Why wouldn't I be?”
Jack didn't even bother to hide his smile at the exchange. The Doctor was looking a little dishevelled, but it didn't seem to register with his companion.
“Can we leave now?” Nyssa was obviously in hurry to finally get away.
“Yes, yes, of course, Nyssa. We'll leave right away.”
“Good,” she answered and looked over at Jack like she was seeing him for the first time, considering.
“Need a ride, John?” the Doctor asked him.
“No, thank you, Doctor. I'm going to stay for a while, I think. Very cosy this place.”
The Doctor shrugged and Nyssa finally handed him his hat. Then she turned to lead the way.
“Do I have to ask, if we're going to see each other again?” the Doctor asked over his shoulder into Jack's direction.
“I'm not going to spoil this for you.”
“Will I remember you?”
Jack had been agonising about this very question since they'd woken up this morning. The Doctor he'd first met had made no indication of knowing him at all - and Jack's face hadn't changed much over the years. “I'm not really sure.”
“Then I'll hold on to the memory as long as I have it.” The Doctor smiled and put on his hat, nodding once, a bit of wistfulness creeping back into his eyes.
“I won't forget,” Jack said. “I'll be sure to remind you one day.”
“Then lets not say goodbye.”
“Right.”
When the Doctor walked away, toward wherever he'd left the Tardis behind, Jack thought about what to do next. He smiled to himself.
Obviously it was time to seek out the Doctor. And this time the one who knew he wasn't John Smith.
Turned out a little trouble wasn't always a bad thing.