dameruth: The Man Who Makes People Better (Jack/Ten) [4/4, PG]
Title: "The Man Who Makes People Better"
Author: dameruth
Challenge: Amnesia
Rating: PG (this chapter)
Spoilers: None that I can think of.
Series: "Flowers" (AU)
Summary: Jack loses his memory. The Doctor helps him find it again.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
A/N - Rather longer than previous chapters; I might even out the breaks when I eventually repost this elsewhere. This section took me much longer to write than I expected -- the concepts I wanted to articulate seemed simple enough in my head, but getting them wrangled into English was difficult. Hopefully the effort succeeded . . .
With fond amusement, Jack watched the Doctor watching him. They were lying nearly nose-to-nose, giving Jack a close-up view of the way the Doctor's eyes flickered back and forth, searching. It also gave him a great view of the subtle flutter of thick, dark lashes -- and an incongruous array of freckles. The freckles amused Jack greatly. Mythical creatures weren't supposed to have freckles.
Then again, mythical creatures weren't supposed to shag like randy weasels, or to warm their chilly feet on human lovers. The Doctor had just done the former, and was currently doing the latter.
"Still nothing?" the Doctor asked, sounding slightly disappointed. "I was hoping that would shake some memories loose . . ."
"Shook a lot lot of things loose," Jack said, "but not my memory." At the moment, he really didn't give a damn, either.
The Doctor sighed. "I was hoping the easy fix would be the one that worked," he said.
"Is it ever?" Jack asked, with spinal-reflex cynicism.
"Very, very, very rarely," the Doctor admitted. He looked so sad and worried -- in a puppy-ish fashion -- Jack had to chuckle.
"Worth a try, though," he said, caressing the Doctor's (be-freckled) shoulder. The gesture was as natural as breathing, as was the way Jack was feeling now -- that wonderful, warm sense of hope and trust.
"I will get your memories back," the Doctor promised earnestly, brown eyes wide and honest.
"'Course you will."
"I'm the Doctor." The words were repeated like a talisman, a prayer; it struck Jack as odd. He didn't feel like the gesture was directed at him, necessarily; more like a gesture of defiance towards the Universe at large.
"'The man who makes people better,'" Jack said, knowing he was quoting without remembering the source.
He meant it as reassurance, but there was a fraction of a second where the Doctor stiffened, his features freezing for a moment. Then the moment was past, though it left a hint of unease in its wake.
"So I am," the Doctor said, his voice light and breezy, utterly human. It was the same voice that recently had shattered into impossible chords, crying out joy in a language at once alien and familiar.
Then the fine-boned features went still and completely serious. The Doctor's dark eyes stared into his. The angle of the dim light was such that the gold in them was hidden, but Jack knew it was there. "Do you trust me?"
"With my life," Jack said, the words speaking themselves with terrifying ease. Something in the pit of his stomach was floating, drifting, like the loss of gravity when one went into free-fall: flying for a moment, with the cruel ground still far away . . .
Gods, I'm in love with this man, Jack realized. Not just from before, thinking of his past as if it were some distant country, but here and now -- right at this moment, It scared him, but he was apparently an old hand at covering his feelings, because he was reasonably sure he gave nothing away externally.
The Doctor's eyes were nearly black again, but not with desire. "Then I have another idea."
---
The door of the Doctor's timeship opened again, not onto the interior of a doomed spaceship but instead onto a beach.
Jack, who had already given himself over to the impossible, simply accepted it.
"We're here a good thousand years before any human settlements," the Doctor informed him, almost casually. Jack understood that this was a good thing, but he couldn't say why.
The sand was golden, the sky turquoise, the rolling sea a faintly greener shade of the same. Jack inhaled, and the salt tang slammed into his senses like a physical blow . . .
Except that the wave of association stopped dead after that initial familiarity. This was a place of deep significance, Jack knew it, but what significance remained elusive. It was like watching the shadows of fish flickering by in deep water, trying to catch them by their tails and failing completely.
The Doctor was watching him closely. "Anything?" he asked.
"Something," Jack admitted. "But nothing useful."
The Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck and looked down at the sand, his entire posture radiating tension and uncertainty.
"It feels like it should be familiar," Jack said, trying to reassure the Doctor as well as himself. "That counts for something. Maybe we should wander around for a little bit. Maybe I just need to hit a certain trigger . . ."
"Maybe," the Doctor admitted, glancing down the beach to a slight bend in the shoreline. Jack followed his gaze, and his stomach dropped, as if in a predictive reaction, though he found nothing in the view to be enlightening. The sea, sky, and sand were clear and empty -- though they shouldn't be. A building, but more than that. It was, was. . .
Jack shook his head. More and more, he was getting a sense of foreboding, as if those flickering shadows of memory were dangerous predators, circling in at the scent of blood. I trust him, he reminded himself. He knows what he's doing.
To keep from thinking too much, he began walking inland. The beach was bordered by a thick stand of broad-leafed resinous shrubs. Dried, their wood burnt a long, long time with a clear, bright light. The aromatic scent given off by the glossy leaves was unmistakable. There was a name for these shrubs, and he knew it . . .
Torchwood, his undermind whispered -- but that wasn't right, that was something else that was important in its own way . . . the thought flicked its tail and darted away before he could catch it. Damn.
There was a faint trail -- made by animals, though what kind he couldn't imagine -- winding through the scrub. He followed it and the Doctor followed him, as if handing over his role of guide. The narrow trail wound back and forth between the not-torchwood shrubs, then opened out into a grassy open area. It joined another trail running parallel to the shore. Flipping a mental coin, Jack turned right, keeping the sea to his right hand (if you go right, you can't go wrong . . .), and followed the narrow trail through the grass. The hay-and-clover scent was, like everything else, maddeningly familiar.
The trail slanted left, away from the sea, then continued along, mostly straight. Jack let his feet follow. Finally, after a quarter-mile or so he stopped, tense with frustration.
"It's so close," he grated out. "I can almost feel it, then it gets away from me." He concentrated and only succeeded in making himself dizzy, now that he wasn't moving. That was another thing -- he still didn't know what had happened, back on that spaceship. The Doctor'd skated around things, never answering head-on any of Jack's questions about warp drives or possible brain damage or anything else.
He shot a frustrated glance at the Doctor, who stood watching Jack. The Doctor's chin was slightly lifted, his hands in his pockets, eyes sharp and old and measuring.
The Doctor cocked his head when Jack met his eyes, but didn't change expression in the slightest. It was a cold-blooded reaction (but then, his blood is cold), very different than the playful charm he'd exhibited in bed. For just a moment, Jack was uncertain, and that gave him another shiver of fear. The Doctor was his one stable point in a world gone strange; to doubt him was to doubt everything.
Then the Doctor's shoulders slumped, and he looked like himself again -- irritated, and nearly as frustrated as Jack. "I was certain, I thought if any place could wake your memory it'd be here . . ." he began, then stopped. He looked out over the distant rim of earth, towards the open ocean and hazy sky. From the angle, it appeared they'd climbed quite a way above the water, though the rising slope hadn't been very apparent as they walked.
"I guess it's time for a new plan B," the Doctor continued. Hands in pockets, as if deep in thought, he walked through the swishing grass, perpendicular to the path, towards the ocean.
Jack could never call what happened next a premonition, exactly. It was just another flash of isolated knowledge drifting up from his subconscious.
Undercut, the ground along the shore tends to be undercut where the waves wash in at high tide. The animals know, there's a reason the path is inland, away from the beach. The edge is unstable, dangerous . . .
"Doctor!" Jack strode after the Time Lord and was already reaching for his elbow when the world lurched, and not from Jack's unstable neurons. Jack had a momentary glimpse of the Doctor looking back over his shoulder, spiky hair waving wildly in the breeze off the water, his eyes wide and brown and surprised. Then Jack's fingers closed over his arm and with a will Jack grabbed and twisted, using his own body as a pivot to bodily fling the Doctor away from the edge back towards solid ground.
The Doctor might be stronger than he looked, but he wasn't heavier. Jack had the satisfying feeling of knowing he'd imparted a goodly oomph! of momentum before the ground gave way beneath his feet. It was weirdly quiet -- just the distant sound of the breakers and a velcro-rip as grass roots parted. Jack twisted, trying to get into a good falling position, but his clumsy limbs and slowed reactions betrayed him. He was going to land badly, he could feel it.
He owes me one, was the cryptic thought that surfaced just before he hit the packed sand of the beach, head and shoulders first. He felt the crack, but the world went black before the pain could register.
----
Memory flooded his brain as breath flooded his lungs and consciousness returned.
Deep in the TARDIS, Jack and the Doctor wrapped tightly around one another in the dim, otherworldly light. Low-voiced confessions, made in a private pocket of Time and Space, never to leave the room except in each others’ minds. Neither of them was prone to talk about such things - which might have been why it was possible to take such comfort from doing so, with the one other person who might have the faintest inkling of what was being revealed, and at what cost . . .
Jack heaved convulsively, rolling onto his back, the change in position allowing the last of his bones and muscles to shift into place again, the physical pain dull and distant compared to the clawing agony of memory restored. All of it back at once, hard and brutal, fueled by the familiar scents of salt water, seagrass and candlebrush.
Gray. Dad. Home. Lost here on this shore, a thousand years in the future.
He didn’t bother to rise, even when he heard the dull approaching thud of running footsteps and the familiar voice calling, “Jack!” Instead, he lay where he was and stared up into the turquoise-green sky, gritting his teeth while tears ran down his temples from the corners of his eyes.
The footsteps slowed and stopped. The Doctor hunkered down next to him, elbows on knees, fingers loosely interlaced as he studied Jack with calm intensity. He made no move to touch or speak.
“Why here?” Jack asked, without bothering to hide his tears or the thickness in his voice. “Of all the places to give me back my memory, why here?”
“Because it held the strongest emotional associations for you that I’m aware of,” the Doctor told him, voice soft, soothing, almost bedside in its tone. He looked up and over Jack, towards the rolling breakers, squinting thoughtfully into the light. “My second choice would have been Satellite Five. I nearly took you there first, since those memories were more directly connected to me and I thought my presence might serve as a bridge, but in the end I decided that this would be most effective.”
Jack closed his eyes and sniffed to clear his nasal passages while rubbing sandy fingertips across his face, trying to wipe away as much moisture as possible.
“Have I ever told you you’re a complete bastard?” he asked - rhetorically, rather than from any gaps in memory.
“Several times,” the Doctor replied evenly, neither denying nor attempting to defend. “I’m sorry.” The same old apology, sincerely meant, but too little and too late.
Shading his eyes against the glare, Jack looked up into the Doctor’s face. Every line of the Doctor’s features was etched with sympathy and a deep, ruthless compassion that would do anything it deemed necessary to make someone - especially someone loved - better.
“So answer me this. When just being here wasn’t working, did you walk out towards the edge of the bank deliberately?” Jack asked, meeting the Doctor’s eyes, refusing to look away.
The Doctor’s mouth opened and closed as he processed the implication, disconcerted. “No,” he responded, finally. “That was completely unplanned.” His jaw firmed and tightened, and then he admitted, “Though if I’d thought of it, I might have filed the idea away for another plan B,” he paused, and continued, half-swallowing the words, “ . . . or C, or whatever.” His gaze flicked away from Jack's face, then back again. Jack could sense the effort that required.
Jack covered his eyes with his hand again, aching inside. He remembered the dazzling, tempting illusion the Doctor presented at first: adventure, laughter, freedom, friendship, a dash of magic. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole story, either. It had taken Jack over a century to learn the truth the first time; repeating the process in the space of just under a day was grueling. The sense of betrayal was nearly as terrible as when Jack had realized he was truly alone on the Game Station.
He tried to use the worst day of my life as a tool, tried to use Gray. I trusted him; did he even stop to think how I would feel . . . ?
More memory, then, fresh and clear: a city street, light years and centuries away from Cardiff, the first side trip they’d taken together after Jack had told the Doctor the story of the day his childhood died.
It was one of the quiet trips, no chaos or running or fighting, just the two of them kicking back, wandering through the place eyeing architecture and people and vehicles. Being tourists and nothing but, for once.
They’d stopped to admire a particularly imposing building - a towering, elaborate confection of blued steel and smoky copper glass, buttressed like a cathedral and set with odd domes and spires. A few gargoyles wouldn’t have been out of place, but it was still impressively gaudy without them.
For a few moments, they were companionably silent, standing shoulder to shoulder, the Doctor with his hands in his pockets, Jack with his thumbs hooked under his belt, craning their necks to see the faint flash of sunlight from dizzying height of the topmost spire.
Then, out of nowhere, the Doctor had said conversationally, “I looked, you know.”
“Huh?” Jack responded, distracted, looking from the spire to the Doctor.
The Doctor had continued to squint upwards. “After what you told me last time. I went looking.”
Understanding dawned, and Jack’s pulse skipped and stuttered. “For Gray? What did you find?”
The Doctor’s brows drew down in a considering frown, and he replied, “Nothing.” He'd looked sidelong at Jack then, and his expression was difficult to read. “I couldn’t even get close. It was like things were Time-locked, or there was a paradox brewing. The TARDIS balked when I asked her to try punching through anyway, and I’ve learned to listen to her. I . . . still don’t understand.” The Doctor's jaw clenched, and Jack had read a profound disquiet beneath the composed surface. A Time Lord wasn’t used to encountering restrictions and barriers in his travel. “But I wanted you to know. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, too. Never know what might turn up.”
Jack had swallowed down the bitterness of crushed hopes. Not the Doctor’s fault - after all, a certain AWOL Time Agent hadn’t had much luck searching, either. In all honesty, he was surprised to learn the Doctor had even tried. “Thanks. You didn’t have to,” he said.
The Doctor had turned to contemplate the coppery tower once again. “No,” he said, distantly, “but I’ve lost my family, and I know what it feels like.” That had been the last they’d spoken of it.
He understands. He knew exactly what he was doing, and what it would do to me. But it was the straightest line between two points, by his reckoning.
And he wouldn’t have tried it if he didn’t think I could take it.
Can I?
The answer was unexpected but not really surprising. The Doctor applied kindness as the Master had applied cruelty -- always with an exquisite understanding of how far any subject might be pushed before breaking. Time Lords were excellent judges of material tolerances, in Jack’s experience.
Jack breathed out in a long, slow exhalation, and dropped his hand from his eyes to the sand. He considered the summer Boeshane sky - that particular shade of turquoise he’d never encountered anywhere else in the Universe - and his own mental state. It still hurt (Gods, did it ever), but was the dull sort of hurt that would eventually blend into the background and heal up as much as such things ever did. Balancing the hurt were his memories - nearly two centuries of joy, sorrow, horror and laughter. Faces and places, voices and names. Only with them back did he realize how empty he’d been in their absence.
He inhaled, and glanced at the Doctor, who remained hunkered down in the exact same pose, waiting with an old being’s alien, effortless stillness for whatever might come next. He ran before, but he's not running now.
I used to run, too, before I learned to hold my ground. Over a hundred and fifty years since I last saw this sky . . .
Looking into the Doctor's face, Jack was forcibly reminded of how it felt to stand at the edge of a graveyard watching Owen pelting towards him -- all taut, confused, agonized rage -- and how he'd steeled himself to take whatever was coming, because it was right and necessary and would define everything that happened next.
If he decided to throw a punch, he knew the Doctor wouldn't duck.
The Doctor blinked, analyzing and evaluating. Silently, he offered Jack a hand. Jack took it and let the Doctor help him to his feet. The Doctor's grip was firm and cool, offering gentle assistance with effortless steel underneath. There was no more dizziness or clumsiness when Jack stood upright. All the neural damage had been fixed this time out, it seemed; scars tended to fade with successive bouts of resurrection.
Jack shook himself. Sand sifted down off the back his greatcoat . . . and down the inside of his collar as well. He grimaced. “The TARDIS isn’t gonna like all this sand. I’ll be sure to tell her it’s your fault.”
The corners of the Doctor’s eyes crinkled with amusement, though his mouth stayed serious. “I’m sure she’ll take the word of a former con artist as purest gospel.”
From this angle, Jack could see the impressive collapse of the embankment - a gaping semicircle, ragged with shredded grass roots. He could also see the cut in the overhang where the Doctor must have made his way down to the beach.
“Yeah, she will. She likes me, remember?” Jack shot back, ruffling his hair to get the worst of the grit out. He began walking in the direction of the cut.
“Yes. Yes, I do,” the Doctor replied, falling into step with him.
Author: dameruth
Challenge: Amnesia
Rating: PG (this chapter)
Spoilers: None that I can think of.
Series: "Flowers" (AU)
Summary: Jack loses his memory. The Doctor helps him find it again.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
A/N - Rather longer than previous chapters; I might even out the breaks when I eventually repost this elsewhere. This section took me much longer to write than I expected -- the concepts I wanted to articulate seemed simple enough in my head, but getting them wrangled into English was difficult. Hopefully the effort succeeded . . .
With fond amusement, Jack watched the Doctor watching him. They were lying nearly nose-to-nose, giving Jack a close-up view of the way the Doctor's eyes flickered back and forth, searching. It also gave him a great view of the subtle flutter of thick, dark lashes -- and an incongruous array of freckles. The freckles amused Jack greatly. Mythical creatures weren't supposed to have freckles.
Then again, mythical creatures weren't supposed to shag like randy weasels, or to warm their chilly feet on human lovers. The Doctor had just done the former, and was currently doing the latter.
"Still nothing?" the Doctor asked, sounding slightly disappointed. "I was hoping that would shake some memories loose . . ."
"Shook a lot lot of things loose," Jack said, "but not my memory." At the moment, he really didn't give a damn, either.
The Doctor sighed. "I was hoping the easy fix would be the one that worked," he said.
"Is it ever?" Jack asked, with spinal-reflex cynicism.
"Very, very, very rarely," the Doctor admitted. He looked so sad and worried -- in a puppy-ish fashion -- Jack had to chuckle.
"Worth a try, though," he said, caressing the Doctor's (be-freckled) shoulder. The gesture was as natural as breathing, as was the way Jack was feeling now -- that wonderful, warm sense of hope and trust.
"I will get your memories back," the Doctor promised earnestly, brown eyes wide and honest.
"'Course you will."
"I'm the Doctor." The words were repeated like a talisman, a prayer; it struck Jack as odd. He didn't feel like the gesture was directed at him, necessarily; more like a gesture of defiance towards the Universe at large.
"'The man who makes people better,'" Jack said, knowing he was quoting without remembering the source.
He meant it as reassurance, but there was a fraction of a second where the Doctor stiffened, his features freezing for a moment. Then the moment was past, though it left a hint of unease in its wake.
"So I am," the Doctor said, his voice light and breezy, utterly human. It was the same voice that recently had shattered into impossible chords, crying out joy in a language at once alien and familiar.
Then the fine-boned features went still and completely serious. The Doctor's dark eyes stared into his. The angle of the dim light was such that the gold in them was hidden, but Jack knew it was there. "Do you trust me?"
"With my life," Jack said, the words speaking themselves with terrifying ease. Something in the pit of his stomach was floating, drifting, like the loss of gravity when one went into free-fall: flying for a moment, with the cruel ground still far away . . .
Gods, I'm in love with this man, Jack realized. Not just from before, thinking of his past as if it were some distant country, but here and now -- right at this moment, It scared him, but he was apparently an old hand at covering his feelings, because he was reasonably sure he gave nothing away externally.
The Doctor's eyes were nearly black again, but not with desire. "Then I have another idea."
---
The door of the Doctor's timeship opened again, not onto the interior of a doomed spaceship but instead onto a beach.
Jack, who had already given himself over to the impossible, simply accepted it.
"We're here a good thousand years before any human settlements," the Doctor informed him, almost casually. Jack understood that this was a good thing, but he couldn't say why.
The sand was golden, the sky turquoise, the rolling sea a faintly greener shade of the same. Jack inhaled, and the salt tang slammed into his senses like a physical blow . . .
Except that the wave of association stopped dead after that initial familiarity. This was a place of deep significance, Jack knew it, but what significance remained elusive. It was like watching the shadows of fish flickering by in deep water, trying to catch them by their tails and failing completely.
The Doctor was watching him closely. "Anything?" he asked.
"Something," Jack admitted. "But nothing useful."
The Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck and looked down at the sand, his entire posture radiating tension and uncertainty.
"It feels like it should be familiar," Jack said, trying to reassure the Doctor as well as himself. "That counts for something. Maybe we should wander around for a little bit. Maybe I just need to hit a certain trigger . . ."
"Maybe," the Doctor admitted, glancing down the beach to a slight bend in the shoreline. Jack followed his gaze, and his stomach dropped, as if in a predictive reaction, though he found nothing in the view to be enlightening. The sea, sky, and sand were clear and empty -- though they shouldn't be. A building, but more than that. It was, was. . .
Jack shook his head. More and more, he was getting a sense of foreboding, as if those flickering shadows of memory were dangerous predators, circling in at the scent of blood. I trust him, he reminded himself. He knows what he's doing.
To keep from thinking too much, he began walking inland. The beach was bordered by a thick stand of broad-leafed resinous shrubs. Dried, their wood burnt a long, long time with a clear, bright light. The aromatic scent given off by the glossy leaves was unmistakable. There was a name for these shrubs, and he knew it . . .
Torchwood, his undermind whispered -- but that wasn't right, that was something else that was important in its own way . . . the thought flicked its tail and darted away before he could catch it. Damn.
There was a faint trail -- made by animals, though what kind he couldn't imagine -- winding through the scrub. He followed it and the Doctor followed him, as if handing over his role of guide. The narrow trail wound back and forth between the not-torchwood shrubs, then opened out into a grassy open area. It joined another trail running parallel to the shore. Flipping a mental coin, Jack turned right, keeping the sea to his right hand (if you go right, you can't go wrong . . .), and followed the narrow trail through the grass. The hay-and-clover scent was, like everything else, maddeningly familiar.
The trail slanted left, away from the sea, then continued along, mostly straight. Jack let his feet follow. Finally, after a quarter-mile or so he stopped, tense with frustration.
"It's so close," he grated out. "I can almost feel it, then it gets away from me." He concentrated and only succeeded in making himself dizzy, now that he wasn't moving. That was another thing -- he still didn't know what had happened, back on that spaceship. The Doctor'd skated around things, never answering head-on any of Jack's questions about warp drives or possible brain damage or anything else.
He shot a frustrated glance at the Doctor, who stood watching Jack. The Doctor's chin was slightly lifted, his hands in his pockets, eyes sharp and old and measuring.
The Doctor cocked his head when Jack met his eyes, but didn't change expression in the slightest. It was a cold-blooded reaction (but then, his blood is cold), very different than the playful charm he'd exhibited in bed. For just a moment, Jack was uncertain, and that gave him another shiver of fear. The Doctor was his one stable point in a world gone strange; to doubt him was to doubt everything.
Then the Doctor's shoulders slumped, and he looked like himself again -- irritated, and nearly as frustrated as Jack. "I was certain, I thought if any place could wake your memory it'd be here . . ." he began, then stopped. He looked out over the distant rim of earth, towards the open ocean and hazy sky. From the angle, it appeared they'd climbed quite a way above the water, though the rising slope hadn't been very apparent as they walked.
"I guess it's time for a new plan B," the Doctor continued. Hands in pockets, as if deep in thought, he walked through the swishing grass, perpendicular to the path, towards the ocean.
Jack could never call what happened next a premonition, exactly. It was just another flash of isolated knowledge drifting up from his subconscious.
Undercut, the ground along the shore tends to be undercut where the waves wash in at high tide. The animals know, there's a reason the path is inland, away from the beach. The edge is unstable, dangerous . . .
"Doctor!" Jack strode after the Time Lord and was already reaching for his elbow when the world lurched, and not from Jack's unstable neurons. Jack had a momentary glimpse of the Doctor looking back over his shoulder, spiky hair waving wildly in the breeze off the water, his eyes wide and brown and surprised. Then Jack's fingers closed over his arm and with a will Jack grabbed and twisted, using his own body as a pivot to bodily fling the Doctor away from the edge back towards solid ground.
The Doctor might be stronger than he looked, but he wasn't heavier. Jack had the satisfying feeling of knowing he'd imparted a goodly oomph! of momentum before the ground gave way beneath his feet. It was weirdly quiet -- just the distant sound of the breakers and a velcro-rip as grass roots parted. Jack twisted, trying to get into a good falling position, but his clumsy limbs and slowed reactions betrayed him. He was going to land badly, he could feel it.
He owes me one, was the cryptic thought that surfaced just before he hit the packed sand of the beach, head and shoulders first. He felt the crack, but the world went black before the pain could register.
----
Memory flooded his brain as breath flooded his lungs and consciousness returned.
Deep in the TARDIS, Jack and the Doctor wrapped tightly around one another in the dim, otherworldly light. Low-voiced confessions, made in a private pocket of Time and Space, never to leave the room except in each others’ minds. Neither of them was prone to talk about such things - which might have been why it was possible to take such comfort from doing so, with the one other person who might have the faintest inkling of what was being revealed, and at what cost . . .
Jack heaved convulsively, rolling onto his back, the change in position allowing the last of his bones and muscles to shift into place again, the physical pain dull and distant compared to the clawing agony of memory restored. All of it back at once, hard and brutal, fueled by the familiar scents of salt water, seagrass and candlebrush.
Gray. Dad. Home. Lost here on this shore, a thousand years in the future.
He didn’t bother to rise, even when he heard the dull approaching thud of running footsteps and the familiar voice calling, “Jack!” Instead, he lay where he was and stared up into the turquoise-green sky, gritting his teeth while tears ran down his temples from the corners of his eyes.
The footsteps slowed and stopped. The Doctor hunkered down next to him, elbows on knees, fingers loosely interlaced as he studied Jack with calm intensity. He made no move to touch or speak.
“Why here?” Jack asked, without bothering to hide his tears or the thickness in his voice. “Of all the places to give me back my memory, why here?”
“Because it held the strongest emotional associations for you that I’m aware of,” the Doctor told him, voice soft, soothing, almost bedside in its tone. He looked up and over Jack, towards the rolling breakers, squinting thoughtfully into the light. “My second choice would have been Satellite Five. I nearly took you there first, since those memories were more directly connected to me and I thought my presence might serve as a bridge, but in the end I decided that this would be most effective.”
Jack closed his eyes and sniffed to clear his nasal passages while rubbing sandy fingertips across his face, trying to wipe away as much moisture as possible.
“Have I ever told you you’re a complete bastard?” he asked - rhetorically, rather than from any gaps in memory.
“Several times,” the Doctor replied evenly, neither denying nor attempting to defend. “I’m sorry.” The same old apology, sincerely meant, but too little and too late.
Shading his eyes against the glare, Jack looked up into the Doctor’s face. Every line of the Doctor’s features was etched with sympathy and a deep, ruthless compassion that would do anything it deemed necessary to make someone - especially someone loved - better.
“So answer me this. When just being here wasn’t working, did you walk out towards the edge of the bank deliberately?” Jack asked, meeting the Doctor’s eyes, refusing to look away.
The Doctor’s mouth opened and closed as he processed the implication, disconcerted. “No,” he responded, finally. “That was completely unplanned.” His jaw firmed and tightened, and then he admitted, “Though if I’d thought of it, I might have filed the idea away for another plan B,” he paused, and continued, half-swallowing the words, “ . . . or C, or whatever.” His gaze flicked away from Jack's face, then back again. Jack could sense the effort that required.
Jack covered his eyes with his hand again, aching inside. He remembered the dazzling, tempting illusion the Doctor presented at first: adventure, laughter, freedom, friendship, a dash of magic. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole story, either. It had taken Jack over a century to learn the truth the first time; repeating the process in the space of just under a day was grueling. The sense of betrayal was nearly as terrible as when Jack had realized he was truly alone on the Game Station.
He tried to use the worst day of my life as a tool, tried to use Gray. I trusted him; did he even stop to think how I would feel . . . ?
More memory, then, fresh and clear: a city street, light years and centuries away from Cardiff, the first side trip they’d taken together after Jack had told the Doctor the story of the day his childhood died.
It was one of the quiet trips, no chaos or running or fighting, just the two of them kicking back, wandering through the place eyeing architecture and people and vehicles. Being tourists and nothing but, for once.
They’d stopped to admire a particularly imposing building - a towering, elaborate confection of blued steel and smoky copper glass, buttressed like a cathedral and set with odd domes and spires. A few gargoyles wouldn’t have been out of place, but it was still impressively gaudy without them.
For a few moments, they were companionably silent, standing shoulder to shoulder, the Doctor with his hands in his pockets, Jack with his thumbs hooked under his belt, craning their necks to see the faint flash of sunlight from dizzying height of the topmost spire.
Then, out of nowhere, the Doctor had said conversationally, “I looked, you know.”
“Huh?” Jack responded, distracted, looking from the spire to the Doctor.
The Doctor had continued to squint upwards. “After what you told me last time. I went looking.”
Understanding dawned, and Jack’s pulse skipped and stuttered. “For Gray? What did you find?”
The Doctor’s brows drew down in a considering frown, and he replied, “Nothing.” He'd looked sidelong at Jack then, and his expression was difficult to read. “I couldn’t even get close. It was like things were Time-locked, or there was a paradox brewing. The TARDIS balked when I asked her to try punching through anyway, and I’ve learned to listen to her. I . . . still don’t understand.” The Doctor's jaw clenched, and Jack had read a profound disquiet beneath the composed surface. A Time Lord wasn’t used to encountering restrictions and barriers in his travel. “But I wanted you to know. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, too. Never know what might turn up.”
Jack had swallowed down the bitterness of crushed hopes. Not the Doctor’s fault - after all, a certain AWOL Time Agent hadn’t had much luck searching, either. In all honesty, he was surprised to learn the Doctor had even tried. “Thanks. You didn’t have to,” he said.
The Doctor had turned to contemplate the coppery tower once again. “No,” he said, distantly, “but I’ve lost my family, and I know what it feels like.” That had been the last they’d spoken of it.
He understands. He knew exactly what he was doing, and what it would do to me. But it was the straightest line between two points, by his reckoning.
And he wouldn’t have tried it if he didn’t think I could take it.
Can I?
The answer was unexpected but not really surprising. The Doctor applied kindness as the Master had applied cruelty -- always with an exquisite understanding of how far any subject might be pushed before breaking. Time Lords were excellent judges of material tolerances, in Jack’s experience.
Jack breathed out in a long, slow exhalation, and dropped his hand from his eyes to the sand. He considered the summer Boeshane sky - that particular shade of turquoise he’d never encountered anywhere else in the Universe - and his own mental state. It still hurt (Gods, did it ever), but was the dull sort of hurt that would eventually blend into the background and heal up as much as such things ever did. Balancing the hurt were his memories - nearly two centuries of joy, sorrow, horror and laughter. Faces and places, voices and names. Only with them back did he realize how empty he’d been in their absence.
He inhaled, and glanced at the Doctor, who remained hunkered down in the exact same pose, waiting with an old being’s alien, effortless stillness for whatever might come next. He ran before, but he's not running now.
I used to run, too, before I learned to hold my ground. Over a hundred and fifty years since I last saw this sky . . .
Looking into the Doctor's face, Jack was forcibly reminded of how it felt to stand at the edge of a graveyard watching Owen pelting towards him -- all taut, confused, agonized rage -- and how he'd steeled himself to take whatever was coming, because it was right and necessary and would define everything that happened next.
If he decided to throw a punch, he knew the Doctor wouldn't duck.
The Doctor blinked, analyzing and evaluating. Silently, he offered Jack a hand. Jack took it and let the Doctor help him to his feet. The Doctor's grip was firm and cool, offering gentle assistance with effortless steel underneath. There was no more dizziness or clumsiness when Jack stood upright. All the neural damage had been fixed this time out, it seemed; scars tended to fade with successive bouts of resurrection.
Jack shook himself. Sand sifted down off the back his greatcoat . . . and down the inside of his collar as well. He grimaced. “The TARDIS isn’t gonna like all this sand. I’ll be sure to tell her it’s your fault.”
The corners of the Doctor’s eyes crinkled with amusement, though his mouth stayed serious. “I’m sure she’ll take the word of a former con artist as purest gospel.”
From this angle, Jack could see the impressive collapse of the embankment - a gaping semicircle, ragged with shredded grass roots. He could also see the cut in the overhang where the Doctor must have made his way down to the beach.
“Yeah, she will. She likes me, remember?” Jack shot back, ruffling his hair to get the worst of the grit out. He began walking in the direction of the cut.
“Yes. Yes, I do,” the Doctor replied, falling into step with him.