yamx: An Eye for an Eye (Eleven/Jack) [PG-13] (SUMMER HOLIDAYS PROMPT 1)
Author: yamx
Pairing: Jack/Eleven
Rating: PG-13 (strong language)
Spoilers/warnings: N/A
Summary: A simple little shopping trip-what could possibly go wrong?
A/N: Stand-alone, unconnected to my series. Thanks to canaana for betaing.
Prompt 1: 1, Paper, Governor General Four, The Theft of Myrkos
An Eye for an Eye
The streets were packed. There were Myrkonites of all ages, dressed in the traditional loose-fitting white trousers and tunics with delicate embroidery at the edges, going about their daily business, chatting with friends, or resting on one of the many benches in the shade. Traders from all sorts of other planets-some from as far away as Raxicoricofallapatorius-were visiting local businesses, and tourists followed their guides around wide-eyed, taking holographs. There were hordes of children weaving in and out of the crowds, running, shouting and playing games.
The Doctor loved it. He let himself drift along the busy streets, only half-caring if they were moving towards the bazaar. The booths stayed open till long after dark. They could pick up what they'd come for later.
He turned his head to grin at Jack over his shoulder. "Isn't this grand? I should get myself another fez. Fezes are cool!"
Jack quickly put on a wide smile-but not quick enough. The Doctor'd seen the lowered gaze and worried frown. "What's wrong?"
"Honestly, Doc, I don't need a new set of psychic paper-"
"Course you do! Terribly useful stuff, psychic paper! If I'd known you'd lost yours, I'd have got you a new one before I tried to take you into the secret archive of Blunima. We could have avoided that whole incident with the giant octopus and the trained stunt termites."
Jack shrugged. "Fine, but we could pick it up on any major space port after five-"
"Jack! Where's your sense of adventure? This is the place! Myrkos! The very people who first invented psychic mirroring and found a way to impregnate paper with psycho-optical waves-and you'd rather pick some up at the mall?" Jack had seemed withdrawn, and more careful than he used to be, since the Doctor picked him up after Torchwood... ended. The Doctor winced at the memory. It had been a rather horrible affair, and of course it had left Jack shaken. But he'd been getting better. This was unusual.
Jack frowned and opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, a loud ringing sound, as of church bells, rolled through the city. As one, the crowds turned and all started pushing in the same direction. The were excited shouts. "It's starting!" "The General's at the square." "They're bringing the sheaf from the dome!"
The Doctor and Jack were washed along and found themselves in the central square. To the east, in front of a foreboding-looking squat building that didn't fit in with the light and elegant architecture of the city, a dais had been raised. The Doctor grabbed Jack's wrist firmly and starting pushing through the crowd. He'd managed to get them within twenty feet of the dais when the bells cut out.
The Governor General was standing in the middle of the dais, his elaborate dress uniform bright in the midday sun. The light reflected off the many medals on his lapel. The Doctor waved at him, but the crowd was probably too dense to pick out individuals from up there.
The General picked up a large golden staff and banged it on the floor three times. There must have been a sound projector installed in its lower end, because the resulting bang rang throughout the whole square and made everyone go silent.
"My fellow citizens," the General started. "One year ago to the day, a grave injustice was committed upon us."
Injustice? The Doctor stiffened and stood up straight. He felt Jack doing the same.
"One year ago to the day, a cowardly thief snuck into our vault-" He gestured to the heavy building behind him. "-and stole one of the most important treasures of our people." They crowd shifted with angry growls and mumblings.
"One year ago to they day, the Eye of Yunteck was taken from us!" There was an outcry of anger now. The Doctor looked around at Jack, who was watching the crowd. "One year ago to the day, we lost our future!"
Surely that was hyperbole. Or maybe religious superstition? So hard to tell apart sometimes.
"But despair not, my fellow citizens. If we cannot regain what was lost, at least we may still know justice! The thief cowardly relied on subterfuge and trickery, but the citizens of Mykros have some tricks of their own!" He pointed to his right, where a group of guardsmen were pushing their way towards the dais. The people did their best to part before them, but the square was packed so tightly movement was barely possible.
"What do you think that is?" Jack asked, his voice tense.
"What do I think what is?"
"That thing they're carrying!" He gestured to the guardsmen with his chin.
The Doctor shaded his eyes. Indeed, one of the guardsmen was carrying a long, golden tube.
"No idea." He smiled. "But I bet we'll find out."
"Maybe we should just try to get back to the TARDIS..." Jack said, putting a hand on the Doctor's elbow.
The Doctor frowned. It was understandable that crowds would make Jack nervous, after what happened in Cardiff Christmas 2051. But this was silly. Besides, the crowd was too dense for them to leave even had they wanted to. "What? Just now as it's getting good?" He took Jack's hand in his and squeezed gently.
Before Jack could reply, the guardsmen reached the dais, and the one in the middle handed the golden tube to the General. He lifted it up triumphantly. "The first sheaf!
"The very first piece of true psychic paper, created by Gunnia herself, with the help of her apprentices. To this day, it remains the strongest and most accurate piece of psychic paper there is."
"Of course it does," the Doctor muttered to Jack, amused. "If they all believe that strongly that it is." Jack frowned. "See, their belief in it constantly feeds its power."
"Today, the psychic spheres are again aligned along the same axis as they were a year ago. So today, if I hold this psychic sheaf here, before the people, and we focus our will on the Eye of Yunteck, the paper will show the face of the culprit, the cowardly thief who took our treasure from us! We will find the villain, and he shall know our wrath!"
"Will that work?" the Doctor heard Jack whisper.
Before he could reply, the General shouted, "Citizens, are you ready?" and the crowd erupted in a deafening roar of affirmation. Everyone pressed towards the dais, bringing Jack and the Doctor within ten feet of it. The General opened the tube, took out a rolled up piece of paper, and slowly unfurled it, careful and reverently. The crowd's roar continued unabated.
The General held the empty sheaf high over his head. The crowd's fell silent. Dark drops of ink seemed to form on the sheet, to run down and up and sideways, swirl and mingle, until they formed into an unmistakable image of-
"Jack!" the Doctor exclaimed and turned towards his companion.
Which was a bad idea. Very, very bad. Because now the people near them were looking at Jack, too, and then looking at the sheaf, and then back and Jack, and-"That's him! He's here!"
Not good.
The General looked straight at Jack. "Guards! Seize him!"
The Doctor turned, putting himself into the General's line of sight. The guards were already pushing through the crowd, which was opening for them but standing tight behind Jack and the Doctor. "Now, listen here, General, I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable-"
"Bring the other one, too."
Very not good.
***
They had no chance to talk on their way to the courthouse. Well, the Doctor talked the whole time, but Jack couldn't understand him over the angry shouts from the crowd, the clanging of the guards' armor and the ringing of the damn bells which had started up again.
He'd known this was going to end badly. He should have been more forceful, insisted on leaving rather than making weak excuses. Or maybe you could've just told him the truth, a nasty little voice in the back of his mind whispered. Him being your oldest friend and all.
Jack sighed. By now, he should have been used to the idea that every shameful bit of his past was going to come out sooner or later. Usually in front of the Doctor. Trying to save himself the embarrassment has only resulted in public humiliation.
They were brought to a large chamber. Guards lined both walls. The guy in the uniform with all the bling took a seat on the only chair-a heavy wooden one with intricate carvings and embroidered upholstery. Not quite a throne, but not far off.
As the heavy double doors closed behind them, the roar of the crowd dulled to a faint murmur. The Doctor smiled brightly. "Finally we can talk. Talking is so much more civilized than all this-" He gestured to the guards. "-poking and shoving, don't you think? And now we're talking, I'm sure we can talk about this little misunderstanding and-"
"Silence!" one of the guards bellowed, lowering the tip of his halberd to the Doctor's clavicle.
Jack saw the Doctor mouth, "Again with the poking!" and didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
The General's voice was calm, measured, and that of a man used to being obeyed. "State your names, prisoners."
"Jack Harkness." He shrugged. "And before you ask, yes, that's me in the picture."
The General raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't going to ask. But your confession is noted." He turned to the Doctor. "And you are?"
"He had nothing to do with it. We hadn't even met then."
The General gestured to one of the guards, and a halberd was pointed at Jack's stomach. Yikes. It couldn't kill him permanently of course, but it would certainly hurt like hell.
The General looked back to the Doctor and raised an eyebrow. "Name?"
The Doctor seemed genuinely confused for a moment. "I'm the Doctor."
"Doctor who?"
"No! No! Just the Doctor. The Doctor!" He moved his hands in hectic circles. "Don't you remember?"
The Doctor had met this guy before? Maybe he would manage to somehow talk them out of this, then.
The General frowned, puzzled. "I don't believe we've met." Strange. People who'd met the Doctor mostly remembered him all too clearly. Unless this was earlier in the General's time line. But the Doctor wouldn't make a mistake like that.
"Of course we have! Of course! Of course! Don't you remember? With the giant ants and the sticky tunnels and the robot vampire earthworms?"
Jack made a mental note to ask the Doctor for the full version of that story later.
The General's eyes narrowed. "You're speaking of the siege of Thrantillian."
"Yes! Yes, exactly! Remember how I pulled you out of that... thing? And you promised me your eternal gratitude? Those were you exact words. 'The eternal gratitude of the Governor General Three of Myrkos,' hm? Remember?"
Eternal gratitude? Jack stood a little straighter. This sounded hopeful.
"I'm the Governor General Four."
Fuck.
The Doctor's mouth opened and closed soundlessly a few times. "What? But... you look exactly like him."
"Of course I do. I was cloned from the same sample. I take it my predecessor didn't explain."
Jack blinked and looked sideways at the Doctor, who looked just as confused as Jack felt.
"No, he seems to have forgotten to mention that detail..."
The General looked faintly bored, like he'd had to explain this too many times by far. "The original Govenor General died over a thousand years ago. He was a wise and just ruler, so our people decided every ruler after him should be of his flesh. Not just a descendant-genes can mix up in very unfortunate ways during conception."
The Doctor nodded. "So they cloned him." Jack wasn't sure whether to be creeped out or impressed. But who was he to judge? It seemed an unhealthy system of government at first glance, but the culture was clearly blooming and the people happy. Who was it who'd said "The best form of government is a benign dictatorship?" Looked like the people of Myrkos had found a way to guarantee themselves that in perpetuity.
"Yes. He's been cloned three times. Each of my predecessors reigned for several centuries. The cloning process enhances us in certain ways so we don't age, but we can still be killed through violence." Not quite immortality, but closer to Jack's own condition than anyone else he'd met who wasn't a Time Lord. Wow. Definitely impressed.
The Doctor nodded. "But they didn't transfer the memories."
"Of course not. That's impossible."
"Well, actually, if you used-" Jack sharply stepped on the Doctor's foot. Not the time for a bioengineering lesson. "Right! Quite impossible." He cleared his throat. "So you don't remember me at all?"
"I have no reason to think you are who you claim to be. You'd have to be over 400 years old."
"Um, welllllllll-yes, that too. But actually, I'm a time traveler. To me, it's only been a few months."
Great strategy, Doctor, Jack thought. That's sure to make him believe you.
A corner of the Governor General's mouth turned up. "Do you have any proof of this?"
Great. How was the Doctor supposed to prove that?
"You have a birthmark in the shape of a monkey eating a banana on your left bum cheek," the Doctor blurted out.
Well, that was one way. The General's eyes widened.
"I saw it when I pulled him out of the..." He made a motion with his hands Jack couldn't interpret, but it seemed to stand for something big and nasty.
Bright red spots appeared on the General's face. Some of the guards smothered giggles.
"So, let's say you are indeed the Doctor." He rubbed his chin. "We do owe you a favor, but we're not going to let this one-" He pointed at Jack. "-get away with stealing the most important artifact of our people."
The Doctor turned to him and raised an eyebrow. "Do you have anything to say, Jack?"
Of all the... like that was going to help. But it was only fair, so Jack looked the Governor General straight in the eye and said, his voice as meek as he could make it, "I'm sorry I stole the Eye of Yunteck."
"Why did you do it?" the Doctor and the General asked at the same time. They exchanged an irritated glance before turning back to him.
"It was a Time Agency mission." The Doctor rolled his eyes, but the General frowned in confusion.
"I used to work for the Time Agency back then-it's been over two hundred years for me. It was my first solo mission. They wanted the Eye because they'd heard rumors it allowed visions of the future. It was considered too dangerous to be left in civilian hands."
"That's ridiculous!" The Doctor exclaimed.
"Yes and no," the General put in. "It doesn't allow you to glimpse the future, but it contains our future." He gestured to himself. "Yunteck was the name of the first Governor General."
The Doctor turned to him. "The Eye..."
"Is his literal eye, yes."
"That's the sample they used to clone you?"
He nodded. "The Governor Generals Two, Three, and me. But no more." He sighed. "I am the last."
"Because the sample is gone."
"Yes."
"But couldn't they just-use you? It'd be making a copy of a copy, but you seem like an excellent-quality copy, so the loss of data should be minimal, and-"
"The enhancements I mentioned are made late in the cloning process. They... distort. A clone made from my current DNA would not turn out well."
Well, great. Not only did he steal something entirely useless to the Agency, he destroyed an entire government model doing it. One that seemed to be working well, to boot.
"Oh. Oh!" The Doctor looked at Jack, and the disappointment on his face hurt worse than the halberd ever could. Jack hung his head.
The Doctor turned back to the General. "If I bring it back, will you let him go?"
The General shook his head. "It's useless now. The sample has to be preserved in a special nutrient fluid which has to be exchanged every week to keep the cells uncorrupted. When your friend stole it, the fluid had just been exchanged, but the sample will have become useless after ten days at the most."
The Doctor stopped, considering. Then he grinned. "If I bring it back unspoiled, will you let him go?"
"That's impossible."
"Time traveler."
The General looked at him searchingly. "You're serious about that?"
The Doctor nodded.
"All right. You can go. He stays. We'll schedule the execution for a week from now. Bring back the Eye before then, and he can leave."
Execution? Jack took a deep breath. The Doctor'll fix it.
"Fair," the Doctor agreed. "But... just in case I fail, can I have his body? To return to his family?"
Jack held his breath. The Doctor was making a Plan B? That was unusual. Clearly he wasn’t as sure of success as he pretended to be.
"No." The General looked grave. "He's not just a thief. He's a traitor. He'll be executed by being thrown into crater of Mount Firlas."
The Doctor cocked his head.
"It's an active volcano. There's not going to be a body." He said it evenly, with no eagerness or regret-like he was simply informing them of the opening times of the local paper museum.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Being immersed in molten lava would keep even him dead. If he was lucky. He gulped.
The Doctor smiled at him reassuringly. "I'll be it back in time. Show me your wristcomp."
He started to raise his arm; one of the guards hit it sharply with the handle of his halberd. Damn, that was going to bruise. At least he hadn't used the blade.
The Doctor turned to the Governor General. "That gadget on his wrist holds all his travel data. I need to access it so I'll know when and where to go to rescue the Eye."
The Governor General nodded at the guard, who withdrew his halberd, but kept it pointed at Jack's gut.
Jack very, very slowly raised his arm and extended the wristcomp towards the Doctor.
"I'm going to scan it with my scanner now. Which I'll take from my pocket!" The Doctor said, carefully reaching into his jacket. The guards glanced at the General, but let him.
The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and quickly whirled it over the wristcomp. "Right. Got it." The Doctor smiled at Jack, nodded at the General, and turned to leave.
"Wait!" the General commanded. The Doctor stopped.
The General gestured to the guards on his left. "Escort him to his ship. Don't let the crowd get him. The rest of you, take the other one to a cell."
Jack gave the Doctor a small smile of farewell and thanks and let himself be led to the basement. He was stripped of all his possessions, issued a scratchy overall and threadbare blanket, and locked into a cell three paces by four paces. The only light came from a window the size of his forearm, set high in the wall There was a wooden plank serving as a cot set into one wall, a small shelf that held a loaf of bread and a pot of water, and a bucket with a wooden lid.
Well. He'd had worse.
***
The Doctor quietly cursed the inventor of the vortex manipulator and every idiot ever stupid enough to strap one on.
The Myrkonites protected their central square with a disruptor field, so the younger Jack had been forced to sneak out of the vault and make his way to a quiet back alley at the edge of town before he could jump away. From there, he'd teleported from there straight to the Time Agency HQ.
The Doctor had two options. The first was trying to catch him while still on Myrkos-but that was much too dangerous. They might be apprehended and the Eye recovered before it ever left. But the General's telling the Doctor about the year-old theft had locked that event into his personal time line. He couldn't risk changing it now.
So the only other option was fishing the idiot right out of the vortex.
A tiny, moving target without a capsule on a straight trajectory perpendicular to the vortex's main thrust. One of thousands of identical targets, since every time Jack hopped thought the vortex with his toy, he left a trace.
It was impossible.
Unless you were really, really, really good.
There was a loud bang, a crash, and a stream of courses.
Of course, even if you were really, really, really good, fishing a tiny target among thousand out of the Vortex left no time for minor considerations like whether its kinetic energy would make it bounce off the console rather hard.
"Well, hello there!" He walked around to the young man who was staring up at the ceiling dazed and winded.
"Who the fuck-" His hand went to his holster.
The Doctor picked up the blaster, which had skidded six feet away from its owner after the impact, with two fingers. Wrinkling his nose, he dropped it into a safety department on the console and locked the lid with a thumbprint while the young man was still struggling to sit up. "I don't think we'll be needing that." He turned back to the younger Jack. Stars, he looked barely twenty, if that-older Jack had said this had been his first solo mission. The Doctor offered him a hand. "Here, let me help you."
"I don't need your fucking help you goddamn-whatever you are!" He looked around, taking in the TARDIS for the first time. The Doctor was glad he'd changed the desktop theme after his last regeneration, so the Jack from 1941 would not recognize it when he first entered his Ninth self's TARDIS. "Where the hell am I?"
"You're on my ship. Oh, and you're in no danger. Don't worry, we'll have you back on your way in a jiffy."
"How'd I get here?"
"Obvious, isn't it? I fished you out of the vortex."
A snort. "That's impossible."
The Doctor cocked his head. "Clearly not." Jack was usually quicker on the uptake. But then, this version of him was very, very young and had just hit his head rather hard.
Glaring at the Doctor, the young man who wasn't yet Jack, but would be, pulled himself up to stand by the console. "You can't pull anything out of the vortex! Vortex trajectories are unique, and contained! Even if you knew the precise space-time coordinates and trajectory, there'd be no way to account for-"
"One day," the Doctor interrupted, "you'll feel deeply, deeply embarrassed about giving me that little lecture."
"What do you mean, 'one day'?" He hesitated. "Are you saying you're form my future?"
The Doctor nodded. "So, to save yourself the embarrassment, let's just skip ahead here and focus on the important thing: I need the Eye back."
The young man's hand flew to the inner pocket of his bulky jacket-a tell the older Jack Harkness would never have allowed himself. "You're not getting that! It's too dangerous to be in civilian hands!"
The Doctor sighed. "It doesn't actually allow you to see the future, you know? But the genetic sample is extremely important to the Myrkonites. Useless to anyone else, though."
"How do I know you're not lying?"
"I'm telling you the truth, J- young man."
A scoff. "You don't even know my name. You claim to be from my future, and you don't even know who I am!"
Well, bother. Could it be that in over three hundred years of acquaintance, Jack had never told him his real name? The Doctor cast his mind back through the centuries. Yep. But then, he'd never told Jack his.
The Doctor tried to put on his most honest face. From the steep wrinkle between the other man's brows, he guessed it wasn’t very convincing. "I'm telling you the truth."
Jack's eyes narrowed. "Why should I trust you?"
The Doctor took a deep breath. If only he'd thought to ask Jack for his real name before leaving, he could have avoided this. He smiled at the young man, trying to make it look warm and not at all pitying. "Because one day, you'll tell me about letting go of Gray's hand." One day, after the 456, deep in his cups and too drunk to remember the conversation the next morning. But no need to mention details.
Jack froze. "I haven't told-and there's no one alive who remembers, who-" He stopped abruptly and looked away, angrily swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.
"I'm sorry." The Doctor stepped into Jack's personal space and put a hand on his shoulder. "I don't have time to explain-well, really, I do, I have all the time in the universe, but, but-it's important that you trust me."
Jack turned his head to look at the Doctor, and the Time Lords hearts almost stopped. He looked so young. He hadn't seen Jack look this young since-well, ever.
He couldn't help himself, he pulled the young man close and enfolded him in his arms. He really, really wanted to tell him it'd be okay, that everything would be all right-but that would be a terrible lie-this young man, this child had so much pain and anguish yet to go through. Most of it caused, or at least enabled, by a selfish old fool who'd never even bother to learn his real name.
The young man leaned against him until his breathing evened out. When he pulled back, his eyes were dry, and there was a brave little smile on his face that broke the Doctor's hearts all over again. I'm here to save him, but I'm doing it too late. Always too late. Some Time Lord I am.
He was so caught up in that thought it took him a moment to notice the object being held out to him. A short cylinder, made from what looked like clear plastic, filled with a pale cyan liquid in which an eyeball and some of the surrounding facial tissue where gently bopping up and down.
"Well, that's... incredibly disturbing," he said, taking it.
A grin. "Yeah, thought so, too." He hesitated. "What am I going to tell mission command? If I just say I couldn't get it, they'll just send another agent."
"Hm. Good point. Very good point." He took out the sonic screwdriver and scanned the Eye. A few simple calculations, and... yes. The Doctor opened the safety compartment that held the blaster and fished out the weapon. He saw Jack tense for a moment, but relax when the Doctor pointed the muzzle towards himself, touching it with the sonic screwdriver. A little fine tuning, and-voilá! He handed the weapon back. "Tell them you were being pursued and they were getting close, so you had to destroy it. The memory chip in your blaster will bear that out. And very unfortunately, rewind will fail due to data corruption during your vortex jump."
"I don't know who you are, but you're damn impressive." It was said with a leer and a suggestive eyebrow wriggle that would have got the older Jack a scolding. Not a sincere one, but never mind that.
The Doctor grinned. "You have no idea. Now, please step on that silver plate over there."
"Why?"
"I'm going to push you back into your time jump. It'll look like you were never intercepted."
"That's imposs-never mind." He threw the Doctor a sloppy salute and stepped onto the transthruster. "I'm really looking forward to meeting you."
The Doctor pushed a button and the young man disappeared. "You very much shouldn't," he said to the empty space.
***
Jack woke up to the sound of the TARDIS materializing-it was muffled through the ceiling, but he'd recognize that sound anywhere. The Doctor had only been gone a few hours local time. Jack grinned-and then winced as a new set of memories slammed into his brain.
Oh god. What an idiot he'd made of himself. Lecturing someone who'd obviously just pulled him out of the vortex about how it was impossible to pull someone out of the vortex... He sighed. The Doctor'd never let him hear the end of it.
Right on cue, there was the squeak of a key in the lock. The heavy door opened, and two guards entered. "Prisoner, come with us."
Jack smiled at them saucily. "How could I say no to such a proposition?" He followed them outside, where they were joined by four more guards. He forced himself to keep back a joke about a sevensome and possible alternative uses of the blunt end of halberds.
When they entered the great hall, the Doctor bounced over to them. "Jack! There you are, Jack! Are you all right?" The TARDIS was parked in a corner.
"Nothing hurt but my pride." He grinned lop-sidedly. The Doctor beamed.
"Prisoner," the Governor General, who was sitting on the ornate chair again, boomed. "On the request of the Doctor, to whom my people owe a debt, you will be released. But you are banished from Myrkos forevermore."
Jack suppressed a shrug. He hadn't planned to return, anyway.
"What?" The Doctor turned sharply. "General, you said-"
"I said he'd be released. I never said there'd be no consequences."
The Doctor looked like he wanted to protest. Jack touched his elbow and shook his head. "All right, fair enough," the Doctor mumbled with a rather adorable pout. "We'll be on our way then."
"You are welcome to stay as long as you want, Doctor."
"No, no, I've got an errand to run." He looked at Jack and rolled his eyes. "At the mall," he grumbled.
Jack grinned. Right, the one thing they hadn't managed to do today was buy him some psychic paper. And for all the Doctor's pretending it was a great sacrifice to pick it up at a space port, Jack knew he was looking forward to this trip together just as much as the last one.
The General nodded. "Goodbye, then, Doctor. May your thoughts be always peaceful and well-ordered." Jack muffled a chuckle. That'd be the day.
Once they were safely back in the TARDIS, the Doctor turned to Jack with an impish grin. "So, Jack, there's one question I have after meeting the younger you."
Jack winced. If it was anything about his time at the Time Agency, this could only go badly. But after what the Doctor had just done for him, he could hardly turn him down. "Yes?"
"What's your name?"
The End
Pairing: Jack/Eleven
Rating: PG-13 (strong language)
Spoilers/warnings: N/A
Summary: A simple little shopping trip-what could possibly go wrong?
A/N: Stand-alone, unconnected to my series. Thanks to canaana for betaing.
Prompt 1: 1, Paper, Governor General Four, The Theft of Myrkos
An Eye for an Eye
The streets were packed. There were Myrkonites of all ages, dressed in the traditional loose-fitting white trousers and tunics with delicate embroidery at the edges, going about their daily business, chatting with friends, or resting on one of the many benches in the shade. Traders from all sorts of other planets-some from as far away as Raxicoricofallapatorius-were visiting local businesses, and tourists followed their guides around wide-eyed, taking holographs. There were hordes of children weaving in and out of the crowds, running, shouting and playing games.
The Doctor loved it. He let himself drift along the busy streets, only half-caring if they were moving towards the bazaar. The booths stayed open till long after dark. They could pick up what they'd come for later.
He turned his head to grin at Jack over his shoulder. "Isn't this grand? I should get myself another fez. Fezes are cool!"
Jack quickly put on a wide smile-but not quick enough. The Doctor'd seen the lowered gaze and worried frown. "What's wrong?"
"Honestly, Doc, I don't need a new set of psychic paper-"
"Course you do! Terribly useful stuff, psychic paper! If I'd known you'd lost yours, I'd have got you a new one before I tried to take you into the secret archive of Blunima. We could have avoided that whole incident with the giant octopus and the trained stunt termites."
Jack shrugged. "Fine, but we could pick it up on any major space port after five-"
"Jack! Where's your sense of adventure? This is the place! Myrkos! The very people who first invented psychic mirroring and found a way to impregnate paper with psycho-optical waves-and you'd rather pick some up at the mall?" Jack had seemed withdrawn, and more careful than he used to be, since the Doctor picked him up after Torchwood... ended. The Doctor winced at the memory. It had been a rather horrible affair, and of course it had left Jack shaken. But he'd been getting better. This was unusual.
Jack frowned and opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, a loud ringing sound, as of church bells, rolled through the city. As one, the crowds turned and all started pushing in the same direction. The were excited shouts. "It's starting!" "The General's at the square." "They're bringing the sheaf from the dome!"
The Doctor and Jack were washed along and found themselves in the central square. To the east, in front of a foreboding-looking squat building that didn't fit in with the light and elegant architecture of the city, a dais had been raised. The Doctor grabbed Jack's wrist firmly and starting pushing through the crowd. He'd managed to get them within twenty feet of the dais when the bells cut out.
The Governor General was standing in the middle of the dais, his elaborate dress uniform bright in the midday sun. The light reflected off the many medals on his lapel. The Doctor waved at him, but the crowd was probably too dense to pick out individuals from up there.
The General picked up a large golden staff and banged it on the floor three times. There must have been a sound projector installed in its lower end, because the resulting bang rang throughout the whole square and made everyone go silent.
"My fellow citizens," the General started. "One year ago to the day, a grave injustice was committed upon us."
Injustice? The Doctor stiffened and stood up straight. He felt Jack doing the same.
"One year ago to the day, a cowardly thief snuck into our vault-" He gestured to the heavy building behind him. "-and stole one of the most important treasures of our people." They crowd shifted with angry growls and mumblings.
"One year ago to they day, the Eye of Yunteck was taken from us!" There was an outcry of anger now. The Doctor looked around at Jack, who was watching the crowd. "One year ago to the day, we lost our future!"
Surely that was hyperbole. Or maybe religious superstition? So hard to tell apart sometimes.
"But despair not, my fellow citizens. If we cannot regain what was lost, at least we may still know justice! The thief cowardly relied on subterfuge and trickery, but the citizens of Mykros have some tricks of their own!" He pointed to his right, where a group of guardsmen were pushing their way towards the dais. The people did their best to part before them, but the square was packed so tightly movement was barely possible.
"What do you think that is?" Jack asked, his voice tense.
"What do I think what is?"
"That thing they're carrying!" He gestured to the guardsmen with his chin.
The Doctor shaded his eyes. Indeed, one of the guardsmen was carrying a long, golden tube.
"No idea." He smiled. "But I bet we'll find out."
"Maybe we should just try to get back to the TARDIS..." Jack said, putting a hand on the Doctor's elbow.
The Doctor frowned. It was understandable that crowds would make Jack nervous, after what happened in Cardiff Christmas 2051. But this was silly. Besides, the crowd was too dense for them to leave even had they wanted to. "What? Just now as it's getting good?" He took Jack's hand in his and squeezed gently.
Before Jack could reply, the guardsmen reached the dais, and the one in the middle handed the golden tube to the General. He lifted it up triumphantly. "The first sheaf!
"The very first piece of true psychic paper, created by Gunnia herself, with the help of her apprentices. To this day, it remains the strongest and most accurate piece of psychic paper there is."
"Of course it does," the Doctor muttered to Jack, amused. "If they all believe that strongly that it is." Jack frowned. "See, their belief in it constantly feeds its power."
"Today, the psychic spheres are again aligned along the same axis as they were a year ago. So today, if I hold this psychic sheaf here, before the people, and we focus our will on the Eye of Yunteck, the paper will show the face of the culprit, the cowardly thief who took our treasure from us! We will find the villain, and he shall know our wrath!"
"Will that work?" the Doctor heard Jack whisper.
Before he could reply, the General shouted, "Citizens, are you ready?" and the crowd erupted in a deafening roar of affirmation. Everyone pressed towards the dais, bringing Jack and the Doctor within ten feet of it. The General opened the tube, took out a rolled up piece of paper, and slowly unfurled it, careful and reverently. The crowd's roar continued unabated.
The General held the empty sheaf high over his head. The crowd's fell silent. Dark drops of ink seemed to form on the sheet, to run down and up and sideways, swirl and mingle, until they formed into an unmistakable image of-
"Jack!" the Doctor exclaimed and turned towards his companion.
Which was a bad idea. Very, very bad. Because now the people near them were looking at Jack, too, and then looking at the sheaf, and then back and Jack, and-"That's him! He's here!"
Not good.
The General looked straight at Jack. "Guards! Seize him!"
The Doctor turned, putting himself into the General's line of sight. The guards were already pushing through the crowd, which was opening for them but standing tight behind Jack and the Doctor. "Now, listen here, General, I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable-"
"Bring the other one, too."
Very not good.
***
They had no chance to talk on their way to the courthouse. Well, the Doctor talked the whole time, but Jack couldn't understand him over the angry shouts from the crowd, the clanging of the guards' armor and the ringing of the damn bells which had started up again.
He'd known this was going to end badly. He should have been more forceful, insisted on leaving rather than making weak excuses. Or maybe you could've just told him the truth, a nasty little voice in the back of his mind whispered. Him being your oldest friend and all.
Jack sighed. By now, he should have been used to the idea that every shameful bit of his past was going to come out sooner or later. Usually in front of the Doctor. Trying to save himself the embarrassment has only resulted in public humiliation.
They were brought to a large chamber. Guards lined both walls. The guy in the uniform with all the bling took a seat on the only chair-a heavy wooden one with intricate carvings and embroidered upholstery. Not quite a throne, but not far off.
As the heavy double doors closed behind them, the roar of the crowd dulled to a faint murmur. The Doctor smiled brightly. "Finally we can talk. Talking is so much more civilized than all this-" He gestured to the guards. "-poking and shoving, don't you think? And now we're talking, I'm sure we can talk about this little misunderstanding and-"
"Silence!" one of the guards bellowed, lowering the tip of his halberd to the Doctor's clavicle.
Jack saw the Doctor mouth, "Again with the poking!" and didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
The General's voice was calm, measured, and that of a man used to being obeyed. "State your names, prisoners."
"Jack Harkness." He shrugged. "And before you ask, yes, that's me in the picture."
The General raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't going to ask. But your confession is noted." He turned to the Doctor. "And you are?"
"He had nothing to do with it. We hadn't even met then."
The General gestured to one of the guards, and a halberd was pointed at Jack's stomach. Yikes. It couldn't kill him permanently of course, but it would certainly hurt like hell.
The General looked back to the Doctor and raised an eyebrow. "Name?"
The Doctor seemed genuinely confused for a moment. "I'm the Doctor."
"Doctor who?"
"No! No! Just the Doctor. The Doctor!" He moved his hands in hectic circles. "Don't you remember?"
The Doctor had met this guy before? Maybe he would manage to somehow talk them out of this, then.
The General frowned, puzzled. "I don't believe we've met." Strange. People who'd met the Doctor mostly remembered him all too clearly. Unless this was earlier in the General's time line. But the Doctor wouldn't make a mistake like that.
"Of course we have! Of course! Of course! Don't you remember? With the giant ants and the sticky tunnels and the robot vampire earthworms?"
Jack made a mental note to ask the Doctor for the full version of that story later.
The General's eyes narrowed. "You're speaking of the siege of Thrantillian."
"Yes! Yes, exactly! Remember how I pulled you out of that... thing? And you promised me your eternal gratitude? Those were you exact words. 'The eternal gratitude of the Governor General Three of Myrkos,' hm? Remember?"
Eternal gratitude? Jack stood a little straighter. This sounded hopeful.
"I'm the Governor General Four."
Fuck.
The Doctor's mouth opened and closed soundlessly a few times. "What? But... you look exactly like him."
"Of course I do. I was cloned from the same sample. I take it my predecessor didn't explain."
Jack blinked and looked sideways at the Doctor, who looked just as confused as Jack felt.
"No, he seems to have forgotten to mention that detail..."
The General looked faintly bored, like he'd had to explain this too many times by far. "The original Govenor General died over a thousand years ago. He was a wise and just ruler, so our people decided every ruler after him should be of his flesh. Not just a descendant-genes can mix up in very unfortunate ways during conception."
The Doctor nodded. "So they cloned him." Jack wasn't sure whether to be creeped out or impressed. But who was he to judge? It seemed an unhealthy system of government at first glance, but the culture was clearly blooming and the people happy. Who was it who'd said "The best form of government is a benign dictatorship?" Looked like the people of Myrkos had found a way to guarantee themselves that in perpetuity.
"Yes. He's been cloned three times. Each of my predecessors reigned for several centuries. The cloning process enhances us in certain ways so we don't age, but we can still be killed through violence." Not quite immortality, but closer to Jack's own condition than anyone else he'd met who wasn't a Time Lord. Wow. Definitely impressed.
The Doctor nodded. "But they didn't transfer the memories."
"Of course not. That's impossible."
"Well, actually, if you used-" Jack sharply stepped on the Doctor's foot. Not the time for a bioengineering lesson. "Right! Quite impossible." He cleared his throat. "So you don't remember me at all?"
"I have no reason to think you are who you claim to be. You'd have to be over 400 years old."
"Um, welllllllll-yes, that too. But actually, I'm a time traveler. To me, it's only been a few months."
Great strategy, Doctor, Jack thought. That's sure to make him believe you.
A corner of the Governor General's mouth turned up. "Do you have any proof of this?"
Great. How was the Doctor supposed to prove that?
"You have a birthmark in the shape of a monkey eating a banana on your left bum cheek," the Doctor blurted out.
Well, that was one way. The General's eyes widened.
"I saw it when I pulled him out of the..." He made a motion with his hands Jack couldn't interpret, but it seemed to stand for something big and nasty.
Bright red spots appeared on the General's face. Some of the guards smothered giggles.
"So, let's say you are indeed the Doctor." He rubbed his chin. "We do owe you a favor, but we're not going to let this one-" He pointed at Jack. "-get away with stealing the most important artifact of our people."
The Doctor turned to him and raised an eyebrow. "Do you have anything to say, Jack?"
Of all the... like that was going to help. But it was only fair, so Jack looked the Governor General straight in the eye and said, his voice as meek as he could make it, "I'm sorry I stole the Eye of Yunteck."
"Why did you do it?" the Doctor and the General asked at the same time. They exchanged an irritated glance before turning back to him.
"It was a Time Agency mission." The Doctor rolled his eyes, but the General frowned in confusion.
"I used to work for the Time Agency back then-it's been over two hundred years for me. It was my first solo mission. They wanted the Eye because they'd heard rumors it allowed visions of the future. It was considered too dangerous to be left in civilian hands."
"That's ridiculous!" The Doctor exclaimed.
"Yes and no," the General put in. "It doesn't allow you to glimpse the future, but it contains our future." He gestured to himself. "Yunteck was the name of the first Governor General."
The Doctor turned to him. "The Eye..."
"Is his literal eye, yes."
"That's the sample they used to clone you?"
He nodded. "The Governor Generals Two, Three, and me. But no more." He sighed. "I am the last."
"Because the sample is gone."
"Yes."
"But couldn't they just-use you? It'd be making a copy of a copy, but you seem like an excellent-quality copy, so the loss of data should be minimal, and-"
"The enhancements I mentioned are made late in the cloning process. They... distort. A clone made from my current DNA would not turn out well."
Well, great. Not only did he steal something entirely useless to the Agency, he destroyed an entire government model doing it. One that seemed to be working well, to boot.
"Oh. Oh!" The Doctor looked at Jack, and the disappointment on his face hurt worse than the halberd ever could. Jack hung his head.
The Doctor turned back to the General. "If I bring it back, will you let him go?"
The General shook his head. "It's useless now. The sample has to be preserved in a special nutrient fluid which has to be exchanged every week to keep the cells uncorrupted. When your friend stole it, the fluid had just been exchanged, but the sample will have become useless after ten days at the most."
The Doctor stopped, considering. Then he grinned. "If I bring it back unspoiled, will you let him go?"
"That's impossible."
"Time traveler."
The General looked at him searchingly. "You're serious about that?"
The Doctor nodded.
"All right. You can go. He stays. We'll schedule the execution for a week from now. Bring back the Eye before then, and he can leave."
Execution? Jack took a deep breath. The Doctor'll fix it.
"Fair," the Doctor agreed. "But... just in case I fail, can I have his body? To return to his family?"
Jack held his breath. The Doctor was making a Plan B? That was unusual. Clearly he wasn’t as sure of success as he pretended to be.
"No." The General looked grave. "He's not just a thief. He's a traitor. He'll be executed by being thrown into crater of Mount Firlas."
The Doctor cocked his head.
"It's an active volcano. There's not going to be a body." He said it evenly, with no eagerness or regret-like he was simply informing them of the opening times of the local paper museum.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Being immersed in molten lava would keep even him dead. If he was lucky. He gulped.
The Doctor smiled at him reassuringly. "I'll be it back in time. Show me your wristcomp."
He started to raise his arm; one of the guards hit it sharply with the handle of his halberd. Damn, that was going to bruise. At least he hadn't used the blade.
The Doctor turned to the Governor General. "That gadget on his wrist holds all his travel data. I need to access it so I'll know when and where to go to rescue the Eye."
The Governor General nodded at the guard, who withdrew his halberd, but kept it pointed at Jack's gut.
Jack very, very slowly raised his arm and extended the wristcomp towards the Doctor.
"I'm going to scan it with my scanner now. Which I'll take from my pocket!" The Doctor said, carefully reaching into his jacket. The guards glanced at the General, but let him.
The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and quickly whirled it over the wristcomp. "Right. Got it." The Doctor smiled at Jack, nodded at the General, and turned to leave.
"Wait!" the General commanded. The Doctor stopped.
The General gestured to the guards on his left. "Escort him to his ship. Don't let the crowd get him. The rest of you, take the other one to a cell."
Jack gave the Doctor a small smile of farewell and thanks and let himself be led to the basement. He was stripped of all his possessions, issued a scratchy overall and threadbare blanket, and locked into a cell three paces by four paces. The only light came from a window the size of his forearm, set high in the wall There was a wooden plank serving as a cot set into one wall, a small shelf that held a loaf of bread and a pot of water, and a bucket with a wooden lid.
Well. He'd had worse.
***
The Doctor quietly cursed the inventor of the vortex manipulator and every idiot ever stupid enough to strap one on.
The Myrkonites protected their central square with a disruptor field, so the younger Jack had been forced to sneak out of the vault and make his way to a quiet back alley at the edge of town before he could jump away. From there, he'd teleported from there straight to the Time Agency HQ.
The Doctor had two options. The first was trying to catch him while still on Myrkos-but that was much too dangerous. They might be apprehended and the Eye recovered before it ever left. But the General's telling the Doctor about the year-old theft had locked that event into his personal time line. He couldn't risk changing it now.
So the only other option was fishing the idiot right out of the vortex.
A tiny, moving target without a capsule on a straight trajectory perpendicular to the vortex's main thrust. One of thousands of identical targets, since every time Jack hopped thought the vortex with his toy, he left a trace.
It was impossible.
Unless you were really, really, really good.
There was a loud bang, a crash, and a stream of courses.
Of course, even if you were really, really, really good, fishing a tiny target among thousand out of the Vortex left no time for minor considerations like whether its kinetic energy would make it bounce off the console rather hard.
"Well, hello there!" He walked around to the young man who was staring up at the ceiling dazed and winded.
"Who the fuck-" His hand went to his holster.
The Doctor picked up the blaster, which had skidded six feet away from its owner after the impact, with two fingers. Wrinkling his nose, he dropped it into a safety department on the console and locked the lid with a thumbprint while the young man was still struggling to sit up. "I don't think we'll be needing that." He turned back to the younger Jack. Stars, he looked barely twenty, if that-older Jack had said this had been his first solo mission. The Doctor offered him a hand. "Here, let me help you."
"I don't need your fucking help you goddamn-whatever you are!" He looked around, taking in the TARDIS for the first time. The Doctor was glad he'd changed the desktop theme after his last regeneration, so the Jack from 1941 would not recognize it when he first entered his Ninth self's TARDIS. "Where the hell am I?"
"You're on my ship. Oh, and you're in no danger. Don't worry, we'll have you back on your way in a jiffy."
"How'd I get here?"
"Obvious, isn't it? I fished you out of the vortex."
A snort. "That's impossible."
The Doctor cocked his head. "Clearly not." Jack was usually quicker on the uptake. But then, this version of him was very, very young and had just hit his head rather hard.
Glaring at the Doctor, the young man who wasn't yet Jack, but would be, pulled himself up to stand by the console. "You can't pull anything out of the vortex! Vortex trajectories are unique, and contained! Even if you knew the precise space-time coordinates and trajectory, there'd be no way to account for-"
"One day," the Doctor interrupted, "you'll feel deeply, deeply embarrassed about giving me that little lecture."
"What do you mean, 'one day'?" He hesitated. "Are you saying you're form my future?"
The Doctor nodded. "So, to save yourself the embarrassment, let's just skip ahead here and focus on the important thing: I need the Eye back."
The young man's hand flew to the inner pocket of his bulky jacket-a tell the older Jack Harkness would never have allowed himself. "You're not getting that! It's too dangerous to be in civilian hands!"
The Doctor sighed. "It doesn't actually allow you to see the future, you know? But the genetic sample is extremely important to the Myrkonites. Useless to anyone else, though."
"How do I know you're not lying?"
"I'm telling you the truth, J- young man."
A scoff. "You don't even know my name. You claim to be from my future, and you don't even know who I am!"
Well, bother. Could it be that in over three hundred years of acquaintance, Jack had never told him his real name? The Doctor cast his mind back through the centuries. Yep. But then, he'd never told Jack his.
The Doctor tried to put on his most honest face. From the steep wrinkle between the other man's brows, he guessed it wasn’t very convincing. "I'm telling you the truth."
Jack's eyes narrowed. "Why should I trust you?"
The Doctor took a deep breath. If only he'd thought to ask Jack for his real name before leaving, he could have avoided this. He smiled at the young man, trying to make it look warm and not at all pitying. "Because one day, you'll tell me about letting go of Gray's hand." One day, after the 456, deep in his cups and too drunk to remember the conversation the next morning. But no need to mention details.
Jack froze. "I haven't told-and there's no one alive who remembers, who-" He stopped abruptly and looked away, angrily swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand.
"I'm sorry." The Doctor stepped into Jack's personal space and put a hand on his shoulder. "I don't have time to explain-well, really, I do, I have all the time in the universe, but, but-it's important that you trust me."
Jack turned his head to look at the Doctor, and the Time Lords hearts almost stopped. He looked so young. He hadn't seen Jack look this young since-well, ever.
He couldn't help himself, he pulled the young man close and enfolded him in his arms. He really, really wanted to tell him it'd be okay, that everything would be all right-but that would be a terrible lie-this young man, this child had so much pain and anguish yet to go through. Most of it caused, or at least enabled, by a selfish old fool who'd never even bother to learn his real name.
The young man leaned against him until his breathing evened out. When he pulled back, his eyes were dry, and there was a brave little smile on his face that broke the Doctor's hearts all over again. I'm here to save him, but I'm doing it too late. Always too late. Some Time Lord I am.
He was so caught up in that thought it took him a moment to notice the object being held out to him. A short cylinder, made from what looked like clear plastic, filled with a pale cyan liquid in which an eyeball and some of the surrounding facial tissue where gently bopping up and down.
"Well, that's... incredibly disturbing," he said, taking it.
A grin. "Yeah, thought so, too." He hesitated. "What am I going to tell mission command? If I just say I couldn't get it, they'll just send another agent."
"Hm. Good point. Very good point." He took out the sonic screwdriver and scanned the Eye. A few simple calculations, and... yes. The Doctor opened the safety compartment that held the blaster and fished out the weapon. He saw Jack tense for a moment, but relax when the Doctor pointed the muzzle towards himself, touching it with the sonic screwdriver. A little fine tuning, and-voilá! He handed the weapon back. "Tell them you were being pursued and they were getting close, so you had to destroy it. The memory chip in your blaster will bear that out. And very unfortunately, rewind will fail due to data corruption during your vortex jump."
"I don't know who you are, but you're damn impressive." It was said with a leer and a suggestive eyebrow wriggle that would have got the older Jack a scolding. Not a sincere one, but never mind that.
The Doctor grinned. "You have no idea. Now, please step on that silver plate over there."
"Why?"
"I'm going to push you back into your time jump. It'll look like you were never intercepted."
"That's imposs-never mind." He threw the Doctor a sloppy salute and stepped onto the transthruster. "I'm really looking forward to meeting you."
The Doctor pushed a button and the young man disappeared. "You very much shouldn't," he said to the empty space.
***
Jack woke up to the sound of the TARDIS materializing-it was muffled through the ceiling, but he'd recognize that sound anywhere. The Doctor had only been gone a few hours local time. Jack grinned-and then winced as a new set of memories slammed into his brain.
Oh god. What an idiot he'd made of himself. Lecturing someone who'd obviously just pulled him out of the vortex about how it was impossible to pull someone out of the vortex... He sighed. The Doctor'd never let him hear the end of it.
Right on cue, there was the squeak of a key in the lock. The heavy door opened, and two guards entered. "Prisoner, come with us."
Jack smiled at them saucily. "How could I say no to such a proposition?" He followed them outside, where they were joined by four more guards. He forced himself to keep back a joke about a sevensome and possible alternative uses of the blunt end of halberds.
When they entered the great hall, the Doctor bounced over to them. "Jack! There you are, Jack! Are you all right?" The TARDIS was parked in a corner.
"Nothing hurt but my pride." He grinned lop-sidedly. The Doctor beamed.
"Prisoner," the Governor General, who was sitting on the ornate chair again, boomed. "On the request of the Doctor, to whom my people owe a debt, you will be released. But you are banished from Myrkos forevermore."
Jack suppressed a shrug. He hadn't planned to return, anyway.
"What?" The Doctor turned sharply. "General, you said-"
"I said he'd be released. I never said there'd be no consequences."
The Doctor looked like he wanted to protest. Jack touched his elbow and shook his head. "All right, fair enough," the Doctor mumbled with a rather adorable pout. "We'll be on our way then."
"You are welcome to stay as long as you want, Doctor."
"No, no, I've got an errand to run." He looked at Jack and rolled his eyes. "At the mall," he grumbled.
Jack grinned. Right, the one thing they hadn't managed to do today was buy him some psychic paper. And for all the Doctor's pretending it was a great sacrifice to pick it up at a space port, Jack knew he was looking forward to this trip together just as much as the last one.
The General nodded. "Goodbye, then, Doctor. May your thoughts be always peaceful and well-ordered." Jack muffled a chuckle. That'd be the day.
Once they were safely back in the TARDIS, the Doctor turned to Jack with an impish grin. "So, Jack, there's one question I have after meeting the younger you."
Jack winced. If it was anything about his time at the Time Agency, this could only go badly. But after what the Doctor had just done for him, he could hardly turn him down. "Yes?"
"What's your name?"
The End