vail-kagami: A Secret Flat in Cardiff, Part 2/3 (Jack/Ten, Gwen/Rhys) [PG-13]
Title: A Secret Flat in Cardiff (2/3)
Author: vail_kagami
Challenge: Domesticity
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Torchwood Series 2 Finale
Warnings: None
Summary: When Jack told her about he dangerous alien locked up in a special prison, this was not what Gwen had expected.
Rhys Williams began to get a bad feeling when he typed in the passcode to the second door, turned the key in the lock and opened it to see a third door waiting for him. This wasn’t good. Nothing that needed so many doors to be kept in could be good.
It did nothing to make his thoughts regarding Jack turn any friendlier.
“Listen closely,” Jack’s image on his tv-screen said, “this is important. I know it is hard to believe, and I would rather bite off my own tongue before I said this under different circumstances, but: I need your help.”
Rhys kept staring at what was definitely not the sports channel with what he feared was a pretty stupid expression.
“Hello?” he called carefully, when the final door opened to him and revealed a room that looked like the entrance hall of a quite normal, if large, flat. There was no answer, so Rhys tried again, louder. “Jack sent me. I’m just here to check on you!”
“My friend is very ill and a danger to himself. For that reason he has to be restrained all the time when I’m not there to watch over him.” Jack’s image kept talking. He had appeared the moment Rhys had turned on the tv, and nearly made him jump off the sofa in shock. “But for that reason he is unable to care for himself, even if he is well. I need you to go and make sure he’s all right. When he’s lucid you can free him, so he can take care of his needs on his own.”
Rhys really, really hoped the guy was lucid. He wouldn’t know what to do otherwise. As he slowly walked through the flat, looking into every room he found, he felt quite nervous. On top of that he was mad at Jack for asking this of him and just assuming he’d do it, mad at himself for doing it, worried about his wife who had been missing for a week now and generally not in a good mood.
It wasn’t like he didn’t have anything better to do.
In brief sentences, Jack was telling him what to do if his friend had one of his funny spells and threatened to turn into a homicidal maniac. It weren’t the words he used, but that was the impression that lingered for Rhys, even while his brain still tried to catch up with what was going on here.
“When you leave him alone, use the restraints to tie him to the bed,” the Jack on tv was saying. “Even when he’s fine. And don’t tell anyone about him!” He emphasised the last part a few times. Then he told Rhys the codes he needed and where to find the keys, and vanished without a word of thanks.
According to Jack, the message Rhys had received this morning was meant to start automatically should neither of his team have been to the hub for a week. Jack had also expressed the hope that there would never be a situation in which Rhys would get it, but he hadn’t missed the opportunity to tell Rhys he shouldn’t worry about Gwen too much: Jack would take care of her.
Somehow, that did nothing to make him feel better.
At least Jack’s mysterious friend had been tied up, so there would be no chance of him waiting around a corner with a knife. Rhys still expected him to jump out from behind a curtain any moment. It didn’t help that the one bedroom he had found was empty.
The corridor ended in a living room, but from there another corridor led further into the flat. Rhys stepped into it cautiously.
“Hello? Anybody there?” he tried carefully.
“Yes.” The answer came from nearby and so unexpected that Rhys nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Uhm…” Now he was at a loss for words. “Jack asked me to look after you.”
“I know.” The voice sounded almost cheerful. “You’re Rhys?”
“Uhm, yes.” At least Jack had told his friend that someone would come for him. “Where are you?”
“Third door to the right,” answered the voice. Rhys went there, much less nervous now he knew the man he was about to meet was talking like a normal person, and apparently didn’t hate him just out of spite.
Indeed there was another bedroom behind the third door to the right. It was smaller and less luxurious than the first one. The bed was for one person, instead of two, and occupied by a tall, slender man with ruffled brown hair. In the light falling in through the high, small window, Rhys saw large, alert eyes watching his every move.
And a bright smile on the man’s face.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m the Doctor.”
“Yes.” Rhys hesitated, looking down at the stranger. He was wearing loose fitting pants and a shirt he was almost drowning in, and he was lying on top of the covers, his arms bound to the bed by padded shackles around his wrists. Only now did Rhys notice that the air was cool and fresh in here, even though the window was closed. There was none of the smells he would have expected to surround someone who’d been tried to the bed for a week.
“I suppose I should untie you,” he offered.
“I would appreciate that very much,” the Doctor said. Rhys still hesitated.
“Jack warned me you’re not quite sane all the time,” he mentioned, ignoring the rules of diplomacy. “How do I know you’re harmless right now?” He wondered why he was even worried - the man didn’t exactly look like he’d have much of a chance against him in a physical fight.
“Believe me, if I wasn’t we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
That went along with what Jack’s message had told him. It was more awkwardness than actual worry that had stopped Rhys so far. This entire situation felt very strange.
Eventually he opened the restraints, finding the skin beneath raw and bruised. Even if the Doctor was calm and peaceful now, at some point he had fought against his bounds. Violently.
Sitting up, the Doctor rubbed his wrists with a sigh of relief.
“Don’t worry,” he said, as if he’d read Rhys’ mind. “I can usually tell when I’m about to lose it. I’ll give a warning, so we can deal with it before it gets too bad. Though it doesn’t happen that often. I don’t know what Jack’s told you, but he’s probably exaggerated a little.”
“Jack has a tendency to do that,” Rhys agreed, grimacing. Then he offered the other man a hand and helped him to his feet. “I suppose you are hungry.”
“A little,” the Doctor confirmed. “But first I need a shower.” He was limping slightly as he walked down the corridor. “Make yourself at home. I won’t be long.”
“Take your time.” Rhys still felt very weird, even when the Doctor had disappeared into one of the other doors and he was left alone. Some part of his brain was still trying to figure out what the hell was actually going on there.
-
At a loss what to do, Rhys ended up in the kitchen - where he found the refrigerator nearly empty. Since having something delivered to the place was out of question and he didn’t want to tie the Doctor up so soon after freeing him, he made the best of what he could find.
Noodles and ketchup. The traditional single man’s meal.
Which reminded him that he still had something better to do that sit around here. But then, there wasn’t anything left to do that he hadn’t already tried.
Distracted as he was, he nearly ruined the food, which, given the simplicity of the meal, was an art in itself. To his credit the Doctor didn’t comment on it when eventually they settled at the kitchen table to eat.
While Jack’s friend wolfed down his portion, Rhys hardly touched the food. He had little appetite these days. Actually he felt like he had lost fifty pounds since Gwen had disappeared, though his scale would probably tell him something else.
During the last few days he’d called the police every day, and got on their nerves quite a lot - if Gwen showed up, in whatever state, they’d tell him, but he still called again and again, because there was little else he could do. He tried to call her about once every hour, with equally little success. He’d watched the news three times a day to see if they’d found any unidentified dead bodies. He’d searched the city himself, but the entire team seemed to have vanished off the face of the Earth.
“Aren’t you worried?” he eventually asked, when he couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “Jack’s been gone for a week!”
“I’m sure the team is just busy with some case or other,” the Doctor said with an unconcerned shrug that made Rhys want to punch him. “It’s not like Jack could call me if he got home late.”
“No,” Rhys agreed. “But Gwen could call me. And she hasn’t.”
The Doctor looked up. “Yes,” he said, suddenly serious. “I feared it would be something like that. I have tried to call him when I came out of the shower, but it looks like his cell phone has been destroyed.”
Rhys could almost feel the blood leaving his face. Seeing his devastated expression, the other hurried to add, “That doesn’t have to mean anything, though. I’m sure they’re all right. Jack will protect them.”
“Like he’s protected his other two teammates?” Rhys asked bitterly, too weary to feel guilty when he saw the Doctor’s face harden.
Fife minutes later the Doctor was running through the flat with a phone pressed against his ear, just like Rhys had been doing for the last seven days. After a while Jack’s friend - who Rhys suspected of being an alien, even though Jack had indicated nothing of the kind - took the phone over to the office-like room with the mutilated computers and started to wire it into the mess.
“I don’t think this is going to work,” he said. “Jack took my sonic screwdriver and everything else that would come in handy right now. I can see why he had to, but…” Something minor exploded, causing sparks to fly everywhere. The Doctor cursed, jumped up and kicked the door, cursing again. Rhys wondered if this was a sign that he was about to lose his mind now, but decided it was more likely an expression of his frustration.
“I’m totally useless like this,” the Doctor spat, running his hands through his hair until it pointed wildly in all directions. “In here I can do nothing. Nothing!” He kicked the door again.
Rhys didn’t think it would console him if he pointed out that he was able to get out, and still had accomplished nothing.
“Didn’t you say Jack’s cell phone had been destroyed?”
“Well, it’s not working anymore. Maybe ‘destroyed’ has been too dramatic an expression,” the Doctor admitted, calming down a bit. “It’s entirely possible that Jack has simply stepped on it accidentally.”
“Still, it’s not working. Why try calling it?”
The Doctor actually rolled his eyes at him. “I’m trying to reach Gwen,” he said, as if that was obvious. “Hers is still working.”
Rhys face lit up. “It is?”
“Yeah, but it’s not in use. The power cells are probably empty. Also, she’s quite far away.”
“How can you tell that?”
The Doctor ignored the question. “Now, if only I could find out where exactly she is…” He looked down at the smoking computers and kicked the door again, for good measure. “It can’t go on like this,” Rhys heard him mumble.
-
In the end, the day ended the same way as the days before: with Rhys being too worried to sleep. But now he had hope that Gwen might be still alive, based on more than the fact that he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.
And there was another important difference: Now he was in the company of someone who knew what Torchwood was doing. Who had an idea what kind of danger the team could be in, and who worried about someone himself. Rhys and the Doctor spend the night talking about aliens in Cardiff, about what a pain in the arse sharing a partner with the team could be - though the Doctor didn’t seem to mind much - and about how much experience Jack had in dealing with danger, and how unlikely it was that he’d let anything happen to his friends. As the sky outside began to brighten, Rhys was almost convinced that everything would be all right. When the Doctor claimed it would be, it was hard not to believe him.
Or maybe it was just the lack of sleep addling his mind.
He should probably go home. The thought of the way back wasn’t very appealing though.
“You can use the spare bedroom,” the Doctor told him before he could say anything. “I think you should get some sleep.”
Except that once he woke up, Rhys would look at the situation from a different angle and see that there was no cause for hope after all. He didn’t want the night to end yet.
“I need to leave for work in three hours anyway,” he said. “Going to bed isn’t really worth the effort.”
Just when the Doctor opened his mouth for a reply, the phone rang.
The two of them stared at each other. The phone rang again. Rhys found his own expression reflected on the Doctor’s face. The phone rang a third time.
Both of them bolted out of their seats at the same time, but the Doctor was faster. He had the receiver pressed against his ear practically the same moment he touched it.
“Jack?” he asked, breathless. Then his face split into a grin that shaved ten years off his age and Rhys felt his own heart do a little leap. One second later the grin was gone. “Where are you?” the Doctor asked. “Are the others with you?” He was quiet for a sew seconds, just listening. They he said, “Could you repeat that? There’s too much interference… what? Where?” Another brief pause. “I see.” He looked up and gave Rhys the thumbs up. Rhys felt like hugging him then. He also felt like stealing the phone.
“Jack, you’re… Jack?” The Doctor took the phone away from his ear and pulled a face at it. “Connection gone. It was lousy to start with.”
“But Gwen is all right?” Rhys had to make sure.
“Oh yes, right as rain, her. Apparently they’ve been abducted to the Himalaya… or to the attic of someone with a stupid name. Anyway, now they’ve gotten away…” He had to stop there, because Rhys hugged him after all.
“Of course,” said the Doctor, once he could breathe again. “Now they’ve gotten away unscratched they will come home. Which might take them a few days, as they have quite literally landed in the middle of nowhere.” The Doctor frowned. “I’m assuming here. The interference patterns remind me of the connection I got in a tiny village on top of a mountain I’ve once visited, but I could be mistaken and they’re back in a few hours. I wouldn’t count on in, though.”
Rhys thought about it. “No,” he agreed. “Me neither.” He sighed. “So, what would you like for dinner tomorrow?”
-
The day at work didn’t seem to end. Now most of the worry keeping him awake had vanished, Rhys felt himself nearly dropping off his chair more than once. He spent his break asleep on the couch and couldn’t really be mad at his co-workers for not waking him. When eventually he left for home, he felt slightly more awake.
Before he went back to the Doctor, he went shopping, buying food for several days. He’d send Jack the bill later, just to make a point.
“Not a vegetarian, are you?” he’d asked the Doctor the night before, and the Doctor had grimaced and said, “They fed me turkey before I got a chance to think about it, so I suppose I’m not, this time.” Whatever that was supposed to mean.
He’d felt bad for tying the Doctor up again when he left. Very bad in fact - the Doctor made a perfectly normal and sane impression and it seemed just wrong, but both Jack’s message and the Doctor himself had insisted on in. Rhys didn’t like the idea that before he’d come the other had been trapped like that for an entire week.
In his message Jack had mentioned that the Doctor had many enemies, and that disaster was inevitable should they find out about his friend’s state and where he was being kept. The result was that Rhys now felt not only tired and grumpy, but also paranoid, looking over his shoulder every five metres.
When he came back, the Doctor, predictably, was where he’d left him. He was smiling, but it seemed a little tight this time. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes, even more than the day before.
“You should get some sleep,” Rhys suggested, and the Doctor shook his head.
“I did. Not a good idea.”
He left for the bathroom then, emerging ten minutes later in fresh clothes and looking a little less pale. By the time he entered the kitchen, Rhys was in the middle of preparing dinner.
The Doctor watched him for a while, an amazed grin on his face.
“You can cook,” he observed. “Like, really cook! That’s brilliant!”
Rhys didn’t quite know how to respond to that. The Doctor seemed genuinely impressed by this, and that was strange, because most men he knew tended to laugh about the fact that he used to cook for his wife, and not the other way round.
In the end he just asked, “Can’t you?”
The Doctor thought about that. “I think I can,” he said. “But that doesn’t really count, does it? I mean, it would be like cheating, and I don’t need much food anyway, and my friends usually care for themselves in that regard.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask about that,” Rhys stated. “You’re alien, aren’t you?”
“Not to me,” the Doctor grinned.
“You know what I mean.”
“Uh, yes, I am. That a problem?”
“Not at all.” Rhys shook his head. “It would have been, but since I know what Gwen is really doing at work…” He trailed off, looking into the firing pan with a frown. “Come to think of it, maybe it should be a problem after all. Pretty much all the aliens I’ve seen so far were evil.”
“’Evil’,” the Doctor repeated, pulling a face. “What a word. Anyway, I’m not.”
“I thought you weren’t. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Jack wouldn’t keep you like this if you were. Well, he’d still look you up, but not in a place like this. No, wait, I think he’d probably kill you.”
“Much as it pains me, I fear you might be right about that.” The Doctor sighed, and didn’t look happy about that at all.
“So…” Rhys paused, looking for another topic, as this was beginning to become unpleasant. “I gather Jack doesn’t use this kitchen much, either.”
“Like I said, I don’t need much food, and Jack usually eats at work or brings take-out.”
“He’s not much of a cook then? Or he simply can’t be bothered?” Secretly, Rhys hoped it would be the first.
“Well, he tried once, but he got sidetracked and…” The Doctor trailed off, very deliberately not looking at the burned spot on the ceiling above the hot plate. Rhys grinned and left it at that.
-
They agreed that Rhys would sleep in the spare bedroom until Jack and his team returned. Exhausted by days of worry, he went to sleep early, and once again the Doctor insisted on his being kept from moving around while Rhys slept. This time Rhys protested.
“I’m just in the other room,” he argued. “I’ll notice when there’s something wrong with you.”
“Quite possibly the moment I stab you with a knife,” the Doctor said darkly. “This is even worse than when I’m all alone. Then, I could only hurt myself. Like this I could kill you in your sleep.” There was the barest hint of desperation in his voice, and Rhys realised that he was honestly scared of hurting him. Eventually he gave in.
The Doctor retreated to his room while Rhys took a shower, and when he returned for his unloved task, the Doctor had drifted off to sleep. He looked harmless enough like this. Frowning when he saw the damage the restraints had already done to the man’s wrists, Rhys left them less tight than usually.
He wondered if even when Jack was there, the Doctor was tied up like this every night. Sure, Jack couldn’t die as far as Rhys knew, but the Doctor could still kill himself when Jack was off to dreamland. Or so they claimed. Having never seen the Doctor even slightly unwell, all this, to Rhys, seemed merely cruel and unnecessary.
He returned to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Lost in his thoughts he didn’t notice the figure standing in the doorway until he tried to leave and nearly collided with it. With a yelp he jumped backwards, almost ending up in the bathtub.
“How the hell did you get here?” The question was preceded by a row of curses.
The Doctor smirked. “You need to do this right. If the shackles aren’t tight enough I’m out of them in two seconds.
“You could have warned me,” Rhys growled, secretly relieved that the alien hadn’t shown up with a kitchen knife. The Doctor merely raised an eyebrow.
“Consider yourself warned,” he said.
Rhys accompanied him back to his room, and this time pulled the restrains tight. None the less his fatigue had been successfully banished, and he stayed awake most of the night, any minute expecting the Doctor to come in and kill him. Either the Doctor, or one of his enemies Jack had warned about.
The next day at work turned out pretty much like the one before.
-
The Doctor was sleeping when Rhys returned from work in the evening, glad that the week was finally over, but not entirely sure what to do with the weekend. He missed his wife. He didn’t want to be locked in here with the Doctor but didn’t want to leave either, knowing that every time he did he robbed the other man of the little freedom he had left.
He already knew that he would end up spending the weekend cursing Jack, and that he could do anywhere.
After managing to free the Doctor without waking him, he settled in the living room to watch tv. He’d tried to call Gwen today, but her cell phone was still out of power. It seemed like they had no choice but wait for the others to call them.
Rhys ended up watching a football game, drinking a beer and feeling, all things considered, more relaxed than he had in a long time. He also felt hungry, but not yet willing to get up to cook.
Maybe he would skip dinner today. The Doctor didn’t need it anyway. He’d see what his stomach had to say about this in an hour or so.
Just when the half time break was over, a plate containing a steak, vegetables and mashed potatoes was placed in front of him. Rhys looked up just in time to see the Doctor flopping down beside him.
Suddenly he felt embarrassed. This man was an alien, after all, and he’d already proven that he was about five thousand times more intelligent than any human. He probably came from a culture that frowned upon things as mundane and simple as football. With a soundless sigh of regret he reached for the remote control and turned off the power. If the Doctor was kind enough to do the cooking, Rhys could at least not bother him with his primitive favour for sports.
“Hey!” the Doctor protested. “I wanted to see that!”
That was a surprise. “You did?”
The Doctor nodded, stole the remote, and turned the screen back on.
“The last time I saw a game between these two teams, I completely missed the second half,” he explained. “Must have been somewhere in this decade, judging by the players - they’re pretty much identical, I think. Of course from my seat in the stadium they all looked the same anyway, but I recognize the names.”
“You went to see a soccer game?” Rhys made sure that he’d understood this correctly.
“Oh yes.” The Doctor nodded enthusiastically. “Is there something wrong with that?”
“No, I just thought… Never mind.” Rhys turned back to the screen, where the game had begun to pick up speed. “You said you were in the stadium? Why did you have to leave?”
“A number of factors coinciding,” the Doctor said vaguely. “Mainly it had to do with a malevolent alien plotting to turn every spectator in the Millenium stadium into mind-controlled slaves and two friends of mine running into it.”
“Ah,” said Rhys.
“We stopped it, though,” the Doctor added happily. “But I never got around to check who’d won the game.”
Rhys couldn’t quite decide if he should ask for more details, or go and get the medicine he was supposed to inject the Doctor should he lose his grip on reality. Unable to reach a decision he went back to watching the game and eating his Doctor-made dinner. The Doctor himself ate nothing today but the pills Rhys saw him take every few hours that were the only indication there was something wrong with him.
One minute later the game got interrupted by two people running out of the tunnel leading to the teams’ changing rooms and across the field, in complete ignorance of the game that had been flowing quite nicely until everyone stopped to stare at them. While the commentator made confused noises, the camera zoomed in on a stubbly young man in a leather jacket and a cubby redheaded woman, who were looking over their shoulders a lot and didn’t seem to care for the speechless crowd surrounding them.
Just before they reached the other tunnel on the opposite end of the field, a third man appeared on the screen. He was wearing a broad rimmed hat and a coat that went all the way to the ground, and seemed to float across the field rather than run.
“What the hell…?” Rhys voiced what pretty much everyone seeing this scene was thinking. Except the Doctor who, as Rhys saw out of the corner of his eye, had brought one hand to his face was peering through the gabs in his fingers as one more man entered the field. This one didn’t come out of the tunnel but climbed in from the rows of spectators. He had long, wavy hair, was dressed in old fashioned clothes and running faster than all the others; despite having had a much longer way, he vanished underground only seconds after the man in the broad hat.
“Well,” said the commentator. “I have no idea what that was about.”
The Doctor moaned softly, and buried his face fully in his hands. “Okay,” Rhys heard him mumble. “This game, then.”
-
Once again the Doctor missed most of the second half of the game, but at least he found out who won it. The rest of the time his attention was diverted by Rhys bombing him with questions concerning time travel, aliens in funny hats, and changing appearances. The human wasn’t quite sure he believed any of what the Doctor told him.
The answers were vague most of the time. The Doctor seemed distracted and his good mood had pretty much vanished, though he tried to hide it. One the game was over, he excused himself and disappeared in the bathroom for half an hour.
When he returned, he seemed as cheerful and relaxed as before. Rhys knew better than to bring the game up again.
Soon after that, the Doctor went to sleep, insisting once more on being tied up for the night. There was a tight edge in his voice that made Rhys do it without protest.
This night he slept like a stone, but was awakened in the still hours of the morning by a noise that slowly sank into his consciousness. He listened for a long time, trapped between dreams and waking, before he finally realised what he was hearing and bolted upright in bed.
By the time he reached the Doctor’s bedroom the screaming had stopped, and Jack’s friend was lying still and quiet on his bed. In the pale light of early dawn his face was as white as snow.
Going back to sleep was impossible after that. This time, however, Rhys didn’t untie the Doctor before he had woken up and proven that he knew who and where he was.
All morning the alien was quiet, staying by himself so that Rhys had to go and check on him at least twice an hour. Eventually he emerged to keep Rhys company in the living room, but he remained withdrawn and his face remained pale. He didn’t eat, admitting to not feeling very well, and for the first time Rhys really saw that he was indeed ill.
His wrists were in an even worse state than before, as if he had fought against his restraints all night.
After a long afternoon of silence he eventually said, “Surely you have something better to do with your weekend than staying here babysitting me.”
Rhys looked up from the magazine he was reading. “Apart from staying home in my own living room and waiting for Gwen to show up I hadn’t planned anything, no.” He was still a little worried that something might happen to her on the way back, but did his best not to show it.
“You should go out. Relax a little. Don’t you have any friends to hang out with?”
He had. He just didn’t feel like seeing them today, and wouldn’t have done so even if the mere thought of leaving hadn’t made him feel like a bastard. To his old friends he couldn’t even complain about Gwen and her job, because they were too far removed from the world he lived in since finding out about Torchwood. In the Doctor he had for the first time found someone who understood without being part of the very thing he liked to complain about.
“I’m pretty relaxed right now,” he pointed out.
“You’re watching me. Expecting me to flip out any moment.”
Rhys put the magazine aside. “Are you going to?”
The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. I don’t feel so well. I’m not going to be very good company today. You should leave.”
“I don’t think you’re going to feel very much better if you were tied to the bed.”
“What does it matter?” The Doctor sounded bitter now. “It’s bad enough if I have to be locked up here. You don’t need to be trapped along with me. All this has nothing to do with you. You’re only here because you happen to be someone Jack trusts.”
“I don’t mind.” It was a lie, but the Doctor wasn’t to blame. Jack was the one Rhys was angry at. The Doctor was right: He was only here because of Jack, even though that trust came as a surprise. He didn’t know what he should do if the Doctor’s state got any worse, and that he minded very much.
“Of course you do,” the Doctor spat. “I’d very much prefer it if you left.”
“I’m not going to!” Rhys stared at him. “What kind of person do you take me for, to leave you alone when you’re sick?” Like Jack, apparently, did all the time.
“As someone who doesn’t have anything to do with me! I’m taking enough of your time already, and Jack’s, and…” The Doctor suddenly stopped, his eyes widening, his face turning even paler. Then he scrambled to his feet and ran off to the bathroom.
Rhys watched him disappear with worry. He could very well understand how the other man was feeling. They had talked a lot these days, and from what he had gathered, the Doctor was someone always in action, always running from one place to the next, always doing something. To be locked in like this had to be bad enough. To be, on top of that, unable to do anything, feeling useless and a liability… Rhys hadn’t enjoyed being unemployed, relying on his then girlfriend to earn money with a job she never told him about, and this had to be about five thousand times worse.
Feeling shitty only added to the frustration. Rhys became aware that the Doctor would probably really prefer it if he left, so he wouldn’t feel he was stealing all of his time.
Naturally leaving was completely out of the question.
When the Doctor still hadn’t come back five minutes later, Rhys went looking for him. He found him curled up on the rug on the bathroom floor, with sweat running down his face, his fists pressed tightly against his chest. It smelled sourly - a small puddle of gall beside the Doctor’s face told Rhys that he hadn’t quite managed to reach the toilet before his stomach had turned inside out.
With sudden horror he wondered how high the risk was of the Doctor suffocating on his own vomit while he was tied up and couldn’t even turn over to throw up.
He understood less than ever how Jack could do this to his friend. Alien or not, there had to be another way to make sure he was safe than locking him up and keeping him immobile for hours and days on end. Rhys doubted that Jack was helping the Doctor’s health very much like this.
“Are you all right?” he asked, crouching down beside the ill man and feeling that the question was kind of stupid. The Doctor jerked away from his touch.
“No,” he gasped. “Go away.” He didn’t even open his eyes. “Alone. Leave me alone, please.”
“You can’t stay here on the floor,” Rhys stated, feeling slightly lost. Not knowing if he should take the Doctor to bed, or if the alien was about to go insane on him.
Jack and the other had to be back any day. Why did this have to happen now?
He reached for the Doctor’s shoulder, and the Doctor turned on his back and battled his hand away.
“Please!” he cried again, and time it was almost a scream.
“Okay,” Rhys said helplessly, withdrawing his hand. “It’s all right.”
He still couldn’t tell if the Doctor was having one of the spells Jack had warned him about, or was simply feeling very sick and disoriented, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. Sure enough the Doctor struggled against his hold when one minute later Rhys prepared to poke the needle of the syringe into his vein.
“Sorry,” he said, unsettled by how brittle the thin man’s limps felt under his hands.
Weak though he seemed, letting go of the Doctor the moment he had injected the narcotic turned out to be a mistake.
Faster than the eye could follow, the Doctor had taken hold of the now empty syringe and stabbed it into Rhys’ shoulder. Before the human could even think of yelping in pain, the other had gotten to his feet, jumped over him and disappeared down the corridor.
Rhys didn’t waste much time with cursing. Tearing the needle out of his flesh he scrambled to his feet and ran after the Doctor - only to discover that the narcotic had been faster than him.
The Doctor was lying face down in the entrance to the living room, and this time he didn’t get up again.
Rhys kept staring at him until his heart rate had slowed down to something resembling normal. He could already predict that there was another sleepless night waiting for him.
-
Five hours later Rhys for the twentieth time this evening checked up on the Doctor, who was tied to the bed again and didn’t look dangerous at all anymore. Only vulnerable and young, and in need of help.
Before he could marvel any more about the unfairness of the Doctor’s situation, his own involvement in it, and the fact that Jack was a jerk, Rhys was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of the front door falling shut, and soft footsteps down the hall.
Part 1 <-> Part 3
Author: vail_kagami
Challenge: Domesticity
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Torchwood Series 2 Finale
Warnings: None
Summary: When Jack told her about he dangerous alien locked up in a special prison, this was not what Gwen had expected.
Rhys Williams began to get a bad feeling when he typed in the passcode to the second door, turned the key in the lock and opened it to see a third door waiting for him. This wasn’t good. Nothing that needed so many doors to be kept in could be good.
It did nothing to make his thoughts regarding Jack turn any friendlier.
“Listen closely,” Jack’s image on his tv-screen said, “this is important. I know it is hard to believe, and I would rather bite off my own tongue before I said this under different circumstances, but: I need your help.”
Rhys kept staring at what was definitely not the sports channel with what he feared was a pretty stupid expression.
“Hello?” he called carefully, when the final door opened to him and revealed a room that looked like the entrance hall of a quite normal, if large, flat. There was no answer, so Rhys tried again, louder. “Jack sent me. I’m just here to check on you!”
“My friend is very ill and a danger to himself. For that reason he has to be restrained all the time when I’m not there to watch over him.” Jack’s image kept talking. He had appeared the moment Rhys had turned on the tv, and nearly made him jump off the sofa in shock. “But for that reason he is unable to care for himself, even if he is well. I need you to go and make sure he’s all right. When he’s lucid you can free him, so he can take care of his needs on his own.”
Rhys really, really hoped the guy was lucid. He wouldn’t know what to do otherwise. As he slowly walked through the flat, looking into every room he found, he felt quite nervous. On top of that he was mad at Jack for asking this of him and just assuming he’d do it, mad at himself for doing it, worried about his wife who had been missing for a week now and generally not in a good mood.
It wasn’t like he didn’t have anything better to do.
In brief sentences, Jack was telling him what to do if his friend had one of his funny spells and threatened to turn into a homicidal maniac. It weren’t the words he used, but that was the impression that lingered for Rhys, even while his brain still tried to catch up with what was going on here.
“When you leave him alone, use the restraints to tie him to the bed,” the Jack on tv was saying. “Even when he’s fine. And don’t tell anyone about him!” He emphasised the last part a few times. Then he told Rhys the codes he needed and where to find the keys, and vanished without a word of thanks.
According to Jack, the message Rhys had received this morning was meant to start automatically should neither of his team have been to the hub for a week. Jack had also expressed the hope that there would never be a situation in which Rhys would get it, but he hadn’t missed the opportunity to tell Rhys he shouldn’t worry about Gwen too much: Jack would take care of her.
Somehow, that did nothing to make him feel better.
At least Jack’s mysterious friend had been tied up, so there would be no chance of him waiting around a corner with a knife. Rhys still expected him to jump out from behind a curtain any moment. It didn’t help that the one bedroom he had found was empty.
The corridor ended in a living room, but from there another corridor led further into the flat. Rhys stepped into it cautiously.
“Hello? Anybody there?” he tried carefully.
“Yes.” The answer came from nearby and so unexpected that Rhys nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Uhm…” Now he was at a loss for words. “Jack asked me to look after you.”
“I know.” The voice sounded almost cheerful. “You’re Rhys?”
“Uhm, yes.” At least Jack had told his friend that someone would come for him. “Where are you?”
“Third door to the right,” answered the voice. Rhys went there, much less nervous now he knew the man he was about to meet was talking like a normal person, and apparently didn’t hate him just out of spite.
Indeed there was another bedroom behind the third door to the right. It was smaller and less luxurious than the first one. The bed was for one person, instead of two, and occupied by a tall, slender man with ruffled brown hair. In the light falling in through the high, small window, Rhys saw large, alert eyes watching his every move.
And a bright smile on the man’s face.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m the Doctor.”
“Yes.” Rhys hesitated, looking down at the stranger. He was wearing loose fitting pants and a shirt he was almost drowning in, and he was lying on top of the covers, his arms bound to the bed by padded shackles around his wrists. Only now did Rhys notice that the air was cool and fresh in here, even though the window was closed. There was none of the smells he would have expected to surround someone who’d been tried to the bed for a week.
“I suppose I should untie you,” he offered.
“I would appreciate that very much,” the Doctor said. Rhys still hesitated.
“Jack warned me you’re not quite sane all the time,” he mentioned, ignoring the rules of diplomacy. “How do I know you’re harmless right now?” He wondered why he was even worried - the man didn’t exactly look like he’d have much of a chance against him in a physical fight.
“Believe me, if I wasn’t we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
That went along with what Jack’s message had told him. It was more awkwardness than actual worry that had stopped Rhys so far. This entire situation felt very strange.
Eventually he opened the restraints, finding the skin beneath raw and bruised. Even if the Doctor was calm and peaceful now, at some point he had fought against his bounds. Violently.
Sitting up, the Doctor rubbed his wrists with a sigh of relief.
“Don’t worry,” he said, as if he’d read Rhys’ mind. “I can usually tell when I’m about to lose it. I’ll give a warning, so we can deal with it before it gets too bad. Though it doesn’t happen that often. I don’t know what Jack’s told you, but he’s probably exaggerated a little.”
“Jack has a tendency to do that,” Rhys agreed, grimacing. Then he offered the other man a hand and helped him to his feet. “I suppose you are hungry.”
“A little,” the Doctor confirmed. “But first I need a shower.” He was limping slightly as he walked down the corridor. “Make yourself at home. I won’t be long.”
“Take your time.” Rhys still felt very weird, even when the Doctor had disappeared into one of the other doors and he was left alone. Some part of his brain was still trying to figure out what the hell was actually going on there.
-
At a loss what to do, Rhys ended up in the kitchen - where he found the refrigerator nearly empty. Since having something delivered to the place was out of question and he didn’t want to tie the Doctor up so soon after freeing him, he made the best of what he could find.
Noodles and ketchup. The traditional single man’s meal.
Which reminded him that he still had something better to do that sit around here. But then, there wasn’t anything left to do that he hadn’t already tried.
Distracted as he was, he nearly ruined the food, which, given the simplicity of the meal, was an art in itself. To his credit the Doctor didn’t comment on it when eventually they settled at the kitchen table to eat.
While Jack’s friend wolfed down his portion, Rhys hardly touched the food. He had little appetite these days. Actually he felt like he had lost fifty pounds since Gwen had disappeared, though his scale would probably tell him something else.
During the last few days he’d called the police every day, and got on their nerves quite a lot - if Gwen showed up, in whatever state, they’d tell him, but he still called again and again, because there was little else he could do. He tried to call her about once every hour, with equally little success. He’d watched the news three times a day to see if they’d found any unidentified dead bodies. He’d searched the city himself, but the entire team seemed to have vanished off the face of the Earth.
“Aren’t you worried?” he eventually asked, when he couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “Jack’s been gone for a week!”
“I’m sure the team is just busy with some case or other,” the Doctor said with an unconcerned shrug that made Rhys want to punch him. “It’s not like Jack could call me if he got home late.”
“No,” Rhys agreed. “But Gwen could call me. And she hasn’t.”
The Doctor looked up. “Yes,” he said, suddenly serious. “I feared it would be something like that. I have tried to call him when I came out of the shower, but it looks like his cell phone has been destroyed.”
Rhys could almost feel the blood leaving his face. Seeing his devastated expression, the other hurried to add, “That doesn’t have to mean anything, though. I’m sure they’re all right. Jack will protect them.”
“Like he’s protected his other two teammates?” Rhys asked bitterly, too weary to feel guilty when he saw the Doctor’s face harden.
Fife minutes later the Doctor was running through the flat with a phone pressed against his ear, just like Rhys had been doing for the last seven days. After a while Jack’s friend - who Rhys suspected of being an alien, even though Jack had indicated nothing of the kind - took the phone over to the office-like room with the mutilated computers and started to wire it into the mess.
“I don’t think this is going to work,” he said. “Jack took my sonic screwdriver and everything else that would come in handy right now. I can see why he had to, but…” Something minor exploded, causing sparks to fly everywhere. The Doctor cursed, jumped up and kicked the door, cursing again. Rhys wondered if this was a sign that he was about to lose his mind now, but decided it was more likely an expression of his frustration.
“I’m totally useless like this,” the Doctor spat, running his hands through his hair until it pointed wildly in all directions. “In here I can do nothing. Nothing!” He kicked the door again.
Rhys didn’t think it would console him if he pointed out that he was able to get out, and still had accomplished nothing.
“Didn’t you say Jack’s cell phone had been destroyed?”
“Well, it’s not working anymore. Maybe ‘destroyed’ has been too dramatic an expression,” the Doctor admitted, calming down a bit. “It’s entirely possible that Jack has simply stepped on it accidentally.”
“Still, it’s not working. Why try calling it?”
The Doctor actually rolled his eyes at him. “I’m trying to reach Gwen,” he said, as if that was obvious. “Hers is still working.”
Rhys face lit up. “It is?”
“Yeah, but it’s not in use. The power cells are probably empty. Also, she’s quite far away.”
“How can you tell that?”
The Doctor ignored the question. “Now, if only I could find out where exactly she is…” He looked down at the smoking computers and kicked the door again, for good measure. “It can’t go on like this,” Rhys heard him mumble.
-
In the end, the day ended the same way as the days before: with Rhys being too worried to sleep. But now he had hope that Gwen might be still alive, based on more than the fact that he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.
And there was another important difference: Now he was in the company of someone who knew what Torchwood was doing. Who had an idea what kind of danger the team could be in, and who worried about someone himself. Rhys and the Doctor spend the night talking about aliens in Cardiff, about what a pain in the arse sharing a partner with the team could be - though the Doctor didn’t seem to mind much - and about how much experience Jack had in dealing with danger, and how unlikely it was that he’d let anything happen to his friends. As the sky outside began to brighten, Rhys was almost convinced that everything would be all right. When the Doctor claimed it would be, it was hard not to believe him.
Or maybe it was just the lack of sleep addling his mind.
He should probably go home. The thought of the way back wasn’t very appealing though.
“You can use the spare bedroom,” the Doctor told him before he could say anything. “I think you should get some sleep.”
Except that once he woke up, Rhys would look at the situation from a different angle and see that there was no cause for hope after all. He didn’t want the night to end yet.
“I need to leave for work in three hours anyway,” he said. “Going to bed isn’t really worth the effort.”
Just when the Doctor opened his mouth for a reply, the phone rang.
The two of them stared at each other. The phone rang again. Rhys found his own expression reflected on the Doctor’s face. The phone rang a third time.
Both of them bolted out of their seats at the same time, but the Doctor was faster. He had the receiver pressed against his ear practically the same moment he touched it.
“Jack?” he asked, breathless. Then his face split into a grin that shaved ten years off his age and Rhys felt his own heart do a little leap. One second later the grin was gone. “Where are you?” the Doctor asked. “Are the others with you?” He was quiet for a sew seconds, just listening. They he said, “Could you repeat that? There’s too much interference… what? Where?” Another brief pause. “I see.” He looked up and gave Rhys the thumbs up. Rhys felt like hugging him then. He also felt like stealing the phone.
“Jack, you’re… Jack?” The Doctor took the phone away from his ear and pulled a face at it. “Connection gone. It was lousy to start with.”
“But Gwen is all right?” Rhys had to make sure.
“Oh yes, right as rain, her. Apparently they’ve been abducted to the Himalaya… or to the attic of someone with a stupid name. Anyway, now they’ve gotten away…” He had to stop there, because Rhys hugged him after all.
“Of course,” said the Doctor, once he could breathe again. “Now they’ve gotten away unscratched they will come home. Which might take them a few days, as they have quite literally landed in the middle of nowhere.” The Doctor frowned. “I’m assuming here. The interference patterns remind me of the connection I got in a tiny village on top of a mountain I’ve once visited, but I could be mistaken and they’re back in a few hours. I wouldn’t count on in, though.”
Rhys thought about it. “No,” he agreed. “Me neither.” He sighed. “So, what would you like for dinner tomorrow?”
-
The day at work didn’t seem to end. Now most of the worry keeping him awake had vanished, Rhys felt himself nearly dropping off his chair more than once. He spent his break asleep on the couch and couldn’t really be mad at his co-workers for not waking him. When eventually he left for home, he felt slightly more awake.
Before he went back to the Doctor, he went shopping, buying food for several days. He’d send Jack the bill later, just to make a point.
“Not a vegetarian, are you?” he’d asked the Doctor the night before, and the Doctor had grimaced and said, “They fed me turkey before I got a chance to think about it, so I suppose I’m not, this time.” Whatever that was supposed to mean.
He’d felt bad for tying the Doctor up again when he left. Very bad in fact - the Doctor made a perfectly normal and sane impression and it seemed just wrong, but both Jack’s message and the Doctor himself had insisted on in. Rhys didn’t like the idea that before he’d come the other had been trapped like that for an entire week.
In his message Jack had mentioned that the Doctor had many enemies, and that disaster was inevitable should they find out about his friend’s state and where he was being kept. The result was that Rhys now felt not only tired and grumpy, but also paranoid, looking over his shoulder every five metres.
When he came back, the Doctor, predictably, was where he’d left him. He was smiling, but it seemed a little tight this time. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes, even more than the day before.
“You should get some sleep,” Rhys suggested, and the Doctor shook his head.
“I did. Not a good idea.”
He left for the bathroom then, emerging ten minutes later in fresh clothes and looking a little less pale. By the time he entered the kitchen, Rhys was in the middle of preparing dinner.
The Doctor watched him for a while, an amazed grin on his face.
“You can cook,” he observed. “Like, really cook! That’s brilliant!”
Rhys didn’t quite know how to respond to that. The Doctor seemed genuinely impressed by this, and that was strange, because most men he knew tended to laugh about the fact that he used to cook for his wife, and not the other way round.
In the end he just asked, “Can’t you?”
The Doctor thought about that. “I think I can,” he said. “But that doesn’t really count, does it? I mean, it would be like cheating, and I don’t need much food anyway, and my friends usually care for themselves in that regard.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask about that,” Rhys stated. “You’re alien, aren’t you?”
“Not to me,” the Doctor grinned.
“You know what I mean.”
“Uh, yes, I am. That a problem?”
“Not at all.” Rhys shook his head. “It would have been, but since I know what Gwen is really doing at work…” He trailed off, looking into the firing pan with a frown. “Come to think of it, maybe it should be a problem after all. Pretty much all the aliens I’ve seen so far were evil.”
“’Evil’,” the Doctor repeated, pulling a face. “What a word. Anyway, I’m not.”
“I thought you weren’t. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Jack wouldn’t keep you like this if you were. Well, he’d still look you up, but not in a place like this. No, wait, I think he’d probably kill you.”
“Much as it pains me, I fear you might be right about that.” The Doctor sighed, and didn’t look happy about that at all.
“So…” Rhys paused, looking for another topic, as this was beginning to become unpleasant. “I gather Jack doesn’t use this kitchen much, either.”
“Like I said, I don’t need much food, and Jack usually eats at work or brings take-out.”
“He’s not much of a cook then? Or he simply can’t be bothered?” Secretly, Rhys hoped it would be the first.
“Well, he tried once, but he got sidetracked and…” The Doctor trailed off, very deliberately not looking at the burned spot on the ceiling above the hot plate. Rhys grinned and left it at that.
-
They agreed that Rhys would sleep in the spare bedroom until Jack and his team returned. Exhausted by days of worry, he went to sleep early, and once again the Doctor insisted on his being kept from moving around while Rhys slept. This time Rhys protested.
“I’m just in the other room,” he argued. “I’ll notice when there’s something wrong with you.”
“Quite possibly the moment I stab you with a knife,” the Doctor said darkly. “This is even worse than when I’m all alone. Then, I could only hurt myself. Like this I could kill you in your sleep.” There was the barest hint of desperation in his voice, and Rhys realised that he was honestly scared of hurting him. Eventually he gave in.
The Doctor retreated to his room while Rhys took a shower, and when he returned for his unloved task, the Doctor had drifted off to sleep. He looked harmless enough like this. Frowning when he saw the damage the restraints had already done to the man’s wrists, Rhys left them less tight than usually.
He wondered if even when Jack was there, the Doctor was tied up like this every night. Sure, Jack couldn’t die as far as Rhys knew, but the Doctor could still kill himself when Jack was off to dreamland. Or so they claimed. Having never seen the Doctor even slightly unwell, all this, to Rhys, seemed merely cruel and unnecessary.
He returned to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Lost in his thoughts he didn’t notice the figure standing in the doorway until he tried to leave and nearly collided with it. With a yelp he jumped backwards, almost ending up in the bathtub.
“How the hell did you get here?” The question was preceded by a row of curses.
The Doctor smirked. “You need to do this right. If the shackles aren’t tight enough I’m out of them in two seconds.
“You could have warned me,” Rhys growled, secretly relieved that the alien hadn’t shown up with a kitchen knife. The Doctor merely raised an eyebrow.
“Consider yourself warned,” he said.
Rhys accompanied him back to his room, and this time pulled the restrains tight. None the less his fatigue had been successfully banished, and he stayed awake most of the night, any minute expecting the Doctor to come in and kill him. Either the Doctor, or one of his enemies Jack had warned about.
The next day at work turned out pretty much like the one before.
-
The Doctor was sleeping when Rhys returned from work in the evening, glad that the week was finally over, but not entirely sure what to do with the weekend. He missed his wife. He didn’t want to be locked in here with the Doctor but didn’t want to leave either, knowing that every time he did he robbed the other man of the little freedom he had left.
He already knew that he would end up spending the weekend cursing Jack, and that he could do anywhere.
After managing to free the Doctor without waking him, he settled in the living room to watch tv. He’d tried to call Gwen today, but her cell phone was still out of power. It seemed like they had no choice but wait for the others to call them.
Rhys ended up watching a football game, drinking a beer and feeling, all things considered, more relaxed than he had in a long time. He also felt hungry, but not yet willing to get up to cook.
Maybe he would skip dinner today. The Doctor didn’t need it anyway. He’d see what his stomach had to say about this in an hour or so.
Just when the half time break was over, a plate containing a steak, vegetables and mashed potatoes was placed in front of him. Rhys looked up just in time to see the Doctor flopping down beside him.
Suddenly he felt embarrassed. This man was an alien, after all, and he’d already proven that he was about five thousand times more intelligent than any human. He probably came from a culture that frowned upon things as mundane and simple as football. With a soundless sigh of regret he reached for the remote control and turned off the power. If the Doctor was kind enough to do the cooking, Rhys could at least not bother him with his primitive favour for sports.
“Hey!” the Doctor protested. “I wanted to see that!”
That was a surprise. “You did?”
The Doctor nodded, stole the remote, and turned the screen back on.
“The last time I saw a game between these two teams, I completely missed the second half,” he explained. “Must have been somewhere in this decade, judging by the players - they’re pretty much identical, I think. Of course from my seat in the stadium they all looked the same anyway, but I recognize the names.”
“You went to see a soccer game?” Rhys made sure that he’d understood this correctly.
“Oh yes.” The Doctor nodded enthusiastically. “Is there something wrong with that?”
“No, I just thought… Never mind.” Rhys turned back to the screen, where the game had begun to pick up speed. “You said you were in the stadium? Why did you have to leave?”
“A number of factors coinciding,” the Doctor said vaguely. “Mainly it had to do with a malevolent alien plotting to turn every spectator in the Millenium stadium into mind-controlled slaves and two friends of mine running into it.”
“Ah,” said Rhys.
“We stopped it, though,” the Doctor added happily. “But I never got around to check who’d won the game.”
Rhys couldn’t quite decide if he should ask for more details, or go and get the medicine he was supposed to inject the Doctor should he lose his grip on reality. Unable to reach a decision he went back to watching the game and eating his Doctor-made dinner. The Doctor himself ate nothing today but the pills Rhys saw him take every few hours that were the only indication there was something wrong with him.
One minute later the game got interrupted by two people running out of the tunnel leading to the teams’ changing rooms and across the field, in complete ignorance of the game that had been flowing quite nicely until everyone stopped to stare at them. While the commentator made confused noises, the camera zoomed in on a stubbly young man in a leather jacket and a cubby redheaded woman, who were looking over their shoulders a lot and didn’t seem to care for the speechless crowd surrounding them.
Just before they reached the other tunnel on the opposite end of the field, a third man appeared on the screen. He was wearing a broad rimmed hat and a coat that went all the way to the ground, and seemed to float across the field rather than run.
“What the hell…?” Rhys voiced what pretty much everyone seeing this scene was thinking. Except the Doctor who, as Rhys saw out of the corner of his eye, had brought one hand to his face was peering through the gabs in his fingers as one more man entered the field. This one didn’t come out of the tunnel but climbed in from the rows of spectators. He had long, wavy hair, was dressed in old fashioned clothes and running faster than all the others; despite having had a much longer way, he vanished underground only seconds after the man in the broad hat.
“Well,” said the commentator. “I have no idea what that was about.”
The Doctor moaned softly, and buried his face fully in his hands. “Okay,” Rhys heard him mumble. “This game, then.”
-
Once again the Doctor missed most of the second half of the game, but at least he found out who won it. The rest of the time his attention was diverted by Rhys bombing him with questions concerning time travel, aliens in funny hats, and changing appearances. The human wasn’t quite sure he believed any of what the Doctor told him.
The answers were vague most of the time. The Doctor seemed distracted and his good mood had pretty much vanished, though he tried to hide it. One the game was over, he excused himself and disappeared in the bathroom for half an hour.
When he returned, he seemed as cheerful and relaxed as before. Rhys knew better than to bring the game up again.
Soon after that, the Doctor went to sleep, insisting once more on being tied up for the night. There was a tight edge in his voice that made Rhys do it without protest.
This night he slept like a stone, but was awakened in the still hours of the morning by a noise that slowly sank into his consciousness. He listened for a long time, trapped between dreams and waking, before he finally realised what he was hearing and bolted upright in bed.
By the time he reached the Doctor’s bedroom the screaming had stopped, and Jack’s friend was lying still and quiet on his bed. In the pale light of early dawn his face was as white as snow.
Going back to sleep was impossible after that. This time, however, Rhys didn’t untie the Doctor before he had woken up and proven that he knew who and where he was.
All morning the alien was quiet, staying by himself so that Rhys had to go and check on him at least twice an hour. Eventually he emerged to keep Rhys company in the living room, but he remained withdrawn and his face remained pale. He didn’t eat, admitting to not feeling very well, and for the first time Rhys really saw that he was indeed ill.
His wrists were in an even worse state than before, as if he had fought against his restraints all night.
After a long afternoon of silence he eventually said, “Surely you have something better to do with your weekend than staying here babysitting me.”
Rhys looked up from the magazine he was reading. “Apart from staying home in my own living room and waiting for Gwen to show up I hadn’t planned anything, no.” He was still a little worried that something might happen to her on the way back, but did his best not to show it.
“You should go out. Relax a little. Don’t you have any friends to hang out with?”
He had. He just didn’t feel like seeing them today, and wouldn’t have done so even if the mere thought of leaving hadn’t made him feel like a bastard. To his old friends he couldn’t even complain about Gwen and her job, because they were too far removed from the world he lived in since finding out about Torchwood. In the Doctor he had for the first time found someone who understood without being part of the very thing he liked to complain about.
“I’m pretty relaxed right now,” he pointed out.
“You’re watching me. Expecting me to flip out any moment.”
Rhys put the magazine aside. “Are you going to?”
The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. I don’t feel so well. I’m not going to be very good company today. You should leave.”
“I don’t think you’re going to feel very much better if you were tied to the bed.”
“What does it matter?” The Doctor sounded bitter now. “It’s bad enough if I have to be locked up here. You don’t need to be trapped along with me. All this has nothing to do with you. You’re only here because you happen to be someone Jack trusts.”
“I don’t mind.” It was a lie, but the Doctor wasn’t to blame. Jack was the one Rhys was angry at. The Doctor was right: He was only here because of Jack, even though that trust came as a surprise. He didn’t know what he should do if the Doctor’s state got any worse, and that he minded very much.
“Of course you do,” the Doctor spat. “I’d very much prefer it if you left.”
“I’m not going to!” Rhys stared at him. “What kind of person do you take me for, to leave you alone when you’re sick?” Like Jack, apparently, did all the time.
“As someone who doesn’t have anything to do with me! I’m taking enough of your time already, and Jack’s, and…” The Doctor suddenly stopped, his eyes widening, his face turning even paler. Then he scrambled to his feet and ran off to the bathroom.
Rhys watched him disappear with worry. He could very well understand how the other man was feeling. They had talked a lot these days, and from what he had gathered, the Doctor was someone always in action, always running from one place to the next, always doing something. To be locked in like this had to be bad enough. To be, on top of that, unable to do anything, feeling useless and a liability… Rhys hadn’t enjoyed being unemployed, relying on his then girlfriend to earn money with a job she never told him about, and this had to be about five thousand times worse.
Feeling shitty only added to the frustration. Rhys became aware that the Doctor would probably really prefer it if he left, so he wouldn’t feel he was stealing all of his time.
Naturally leaving was completely out of the question.
When the Doctor still hadn’t come back five minutes later, Rhys went looking for him. He found him curled up on the rug on the bathroom floor, with sweat running down his face, his fists pressed tightly against his chest. It smelled sourly - a small puddle of gall beside the Doctor’s face told Rhys that he hadn’t quite managed to reach the toilet before his stomach had turned inside out.
With sudden horror he wondered how high the risk was of the Doctor suffocating on his own vomit while he was tied up and couldn’t even turn over to throw up.
He understood less than ever how Jack could do this to his friend. Alien or not, there had to be another way to make sure he was safe than locking him up and keeping him immobile for hours and days on end. Rhys doubted that Jack was helping the Doctor’s health very much like this.
“Are you all right?” he asked, crouching down beside the ill man and feeling that the question was kind of stupid. The Doctor jerked away from his touch.
“No,” he gasped. “Go away.” He didn’t even open his eyes. “Alone. Leave me alone, please.”
“You can’t stay here on the floor,” Rhys stated, feeling slightly lost. Not knowing if he should take the Doctor to bed, or if the alien was about to go insane on him.
Jack and the other had to be back any day. Why did this have to happen now?
He reached for the Doctor’s shoulder, and the Doctor turned on his back and battled his hand away.
“Please!” he cried again, and time it was almost a scream.
“Okay,” Rhys said helplessly, withdrawing his hand. “It’s all right.”
He still couldn’t tell if the Doctor was having one of the spells Jack had warned him about, or was simply feeling very sick and disoriented, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. Sure enough the Doctor struggled against his hold when one minute later Rhys prepared to poke the needle of the syringe into his vein.
“Sorry,” he said, unsettled by how brittle the thin man’s limps felt under his hands.
Weak though he seemed, letting go of the Doctor the moment he had injected the narcotic turned out to be a mistake.
Faster than the eye could follow, the Doctor had taken hold of the now empty syringe and stabbed it into Rhys’ shoulder. Before the human could even think of yelping in pain, the other had gotten to his feet, jumped over him and disappeared down the corridor.
Rhys didn’t waste much time with cursing. Tearing the needle out of his flesh he scrambled to his feet and ran after the Doctor - only to discover that the narcotic had been faster than him.
The Doctor was lying face down in the entrance to the living room, and this time he didn’t get up again.
Rhys kept staring at him until his heart rate had slowed down to something resembling normal. He could already predict that there was another sleepless night waiting for him.
-
Five hours later Rhys for the twentieth time this evening checked up on the Doctor, who was tied to the bed again and didn’t look dangerous at all anymore. Only vulnerable and young, and in need of help.
Before he could marvel any more about the unfairness of the Doctor’s situation, his own involvement in it, and the fact that Jack was a jerk, Rhys was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of the front door falling shut, and soft footsteps down the hall.
Part 1 <-> Part 3