vail-kagami: A Secret Flat in Cardiff, Part 3/3 (Jack/Ten, Gwen/Rhys) [PG-13]
Title: A Secret Flat in Cardiff (3/3)
Author: vail_kagami
Challenge: Domesticity
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Torchwood Series 2 Finale
Warnings: Slight creepiness on Jack's part, dark.
Summary: When Jack told her about he dangerous alien locked up in a special prison, this was not what Gwen had expected.
As far as Jack was concerned, the way back to Cardiff had been much worse than the way to the Himalaya - mostly because the first had happened instantly and he had no recollection of it. Since the ability to teleport all across the globe was a natural talent of the alien that had abducted them and not something they could steal, their chance to return the way they’d come died with their enemy.
The Doctor would not approve of the way they had handled this conflict. Jack spent most of the time on board of the plane making up stories to replace the bits he would rather not mention to his friend.
Getting to the airport alone had taken them two days. Two cold days. The icy air had still seemed to reside in Jack’s clothes when they’d left the plane, and for the first time he’d wished the flat he shared with the Doctor would be a little warmer. Well, if his Time Lord was feeling well, maybe he wouldn’t mind turning up the radiator a little.
Or crawl under the covers with Jack for a body heat sharing emergency cuddle.
But, as it turned out when he got home, the Doctor wasn’t feeling well. He wasn’t even conscious. And now Jack was feeling crappy as well, thanks to the headache caused by the rolling pin hitting his head the moment he’d stepped into the living room.
Apparently Rhys had thought him to be an intruder, although Jack could tell that he had held back somewhat, clearly unwilling to kill anyone. He didn’t know if he should be grateful for that. At least dying caused no headache.
When he’d stumbled into the room with a yelp of pain, Rhys had looked surprised, but not particularly guilty.
“Chainsaw then, rolling pin now,” Jack grumbled without turning his eyes away from the Doctor’s white face, his pride cracked along with his head. “Your taste in weapons is deteriorating.”
“They next time I attack you, I’ll make sure it’s with something that chops your head off,” came the reply. Even without looking at him, Jack could feel Rhys’ hostile stare in his back.
“I’m looking forward to it.” Jack’s gaze fell on the glass of pills on the bedside table. He picked it up and found it half empty. “Did he take these?”
“Few times a day.” Rhys’ reply only came after a few seconds. He clearly was pissed, which Jack had predicted he would be. “Wasn’t he supposed to?”
“No, it’s all right.” Jack sighed. It had been to be expected. He’d gotten the Doctor these pills for a reason after all. There would be some fallout later, but dealing with that would have to wait until the Doctor was awake and the two of them were alone.
“Don’t you want to go home?” he asked, slightly surprised that Rhys hadn’t left the moment he’d stepped into the flat. “Gwen is waiting for you.”
When Rhys said, “Well, at least she isn’t tied up while doing so,” Jack knew that getting rid of him wouldn’t be as easy as he had expected.
-
When Jack finally locked the doors after his guest had gone, he marvelled how close dear Rhys had gotten to getting his own head smashed in, and in a more consequent manner than the blow he had dealt out. How dare he question the way Jack treated his friend? How dare he think he knew better than Jack what was best for the Doctor?
Jack sighed, resting his forehead against the closed door. Of course Rhys would think restraining the Doctor all day, even when he was fine was cruel. Of course he would think there was a better way.
Well, there wasn’t - at least none the Doctor would have accepted. But Jack hadn’t felt like explaining his reasons to Gwen’s husband, and in the end Rhys had left believing him to be a complete and utter bastard. Even more so than before.
Jack could live with that. It was of no consequence to him.
One day he’d have to thank the man for keeping the Doctor alive during his absence. But not just now.
He sighed again when he made his way back to the small bedroom in the other corridor. After his adventures in the Himalaya and the long journey back, he felt weary and tired. Despite the precautions he’d taken for the case of a prolonged absence, he had been worried about the Doctor and all that could happen to him in the meantime. The tension had fallen away and left him feeling the exhaustion now he didn’t need to worry anymore. At the same time he had found that his worry had not been without reason. Rhys had done his job well enough, but in the end it was Jack who knew best how to keep the fragile Time Lord from harm.
Following his expectations, the Doctor had not moved by the time Jack got back to his side. He knew his friend would be out for another couple of hours. And then Jack would see what state he was in when he was awake.
Looking down at the bed, he longed to lay down himself. It wasn’t even sleep he craved, just the opportunity to stretch out and relax. After his long absence, however, he wanted to be with the Doctor, and the bed was barely broad enough for both of them. When Jack settled on in anyway, he ended up half lying on the Doctor, his head resting on the Time Lord’s shoulder where he could hear his uneven heartbeat and felt the heat of his body through the shirt.
Eventually he fell asleep.
-
He awoke just after dawn, because the Doctor stirred beneath him. Jack sat up to watch him, long and intently, but the Doctor didn’t wake up, just moved weakly in his restraints and fell still again.
Unable to settle back to sleep, Jack left for the bathroom, and returned five minutes later with a bowl of water and a cloth.
Ever so gently, unsure if his friend was still unconscious or now merely asleep, he washed the sweat off the Doctor’s face and neck. Then, finally, he opened the restraints, sighing sadly when he saw the state of the delicate wrists.
Rhys had been right in one thing at least: The way they were handling this didn’t help the Doctor’s physical wellbeing at all.
Pressing a soft kiss to the Time Lord’s forehead, Jack left for the kitchen. He would have liked a shower, but the bathroom was too isolated to disappear in for that long when he didn’t know how the Doctor was doing. So breakfast came first. His stomach wasn’t complaining.
The Doctor showed up during his second cup of coffee. His face was pale and drawn, and he swayed a little on his feet, but his eyes were clear as he regarded Jack from where he wearily leaned against the doorframe.
“You’re back,” he observed, offering a smile that lacked enthusiasm.
“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “Don’t fall over yourself with joy.”
Long fingers ran through unwashed hair. “Sorry,” the Doctor murmured. “I was just… I didn’t have a great night.”
“I saw.” Jack’s gaze softened. “Come here.”
After a second, the Doctor separated himself from the frame, and when he arrived at Jack’s side, the human pulled him down to sit on his lap.
With a tired sigh the Time Lord leaned against Jack, let his head rest on his shoulder so that the human could smell the dried sweat in his hair: just the faint impression of something alien, unearthly, intoxicating rather than unpleasant.
“You’ve still got a bit of a temperature,” Jack observed. “How have you been feeling these days?”
The Doctor shrugged vaguely. “Not too bad. We need to talk.”
“I’ll prepare a bath for you,” Jack promised, ignoring his last words. “You’ll feel better after that.” And before the Time Lord could say anything else, he added, “You didn’t take any of those pills today, did you?”
He felt the Doctor shake his head against his shoulder.
“Good.” The pills were supposed to keep him relatively stable, but they also made him ill, and the moment he stopped taking them the nightmares they helped keeping away came back with vengeance. They only used them when they had to - when the Doctor needed a clear head to figure out a way to save the world, for example, or when he was being cared for by someone unprepared for the task.
The next two days would be unpleasant. Jack wasn’t sure if they were fortunate to already know what was waiting for them.
He gently rubbed the Doctor’s back, before letting his hand slide up to bury it in the other’s hair.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll get through it together.”
To his credit, the Doctor didn’t laugh.
Ten minutes later, Jack helped his friend undress and gently lowered him into the lukewarm water of the giant bathtub. The Doctor protested half-heartedly against being treated like an invalid, but after a night of illness and nightmares, he was weak as a child and Jack simply ignored him. He even considered getting into the tub with the other man, but eventually left him alone to put the kettle on.
He was, however, back in time to help the Doctor out and wrap him in a bath robe. But the bath had indeed helped the other man feel better, and his patience with being mothered was running thin.
After he’d drunken the tea Jack had made for him, he felt fine enough to fight off all attempts to help him and disappeared in his room to dress.
Jack sighed. After all this time apart, was it really so hard to accept that he wanted to be near his Doctor as much as possible? He’d been worried, and now he wanted to feel the Time Lord breathe.
When the Doctor eventually came back, he was wearing a dark blue shirt and the trousers of his brown pinstripe suit. It had been a long time since Jack had last seen them - the Doctor had settled for more comfortable clothes once he had accepted that he wouldn’t be out of his self-chosen prison within a matter of days.
To Jack, the outfit was a warning.
“Jack,” the Doctor said, and nothing else. He stood in the room, his hands on the back of the sofa, and Jack knew that this time he would not let it go.
Pretending to ignore him wasn’t going to work.
So he looked up and met the Time Lord’s serious gaze. “If you have a better idea,” he said, “I’m all ears.”
“UNIT,” the Doctor replied at once. “You wouldn’t be bound to me like this, and they could keep an eye on me, make sure I don’t hurt anyone. And they have enough people to have someone watching me all the time, so I could be out and help them when I’m fine.” He saw Jack’s face harden and interpreted it right. “Think about it! They know me, Jack! Maybe they could even find some kind of cure. In any case, it would be better than this.”
“Oh, Doctor,” Jack said sadly, getting to his feet but not yet stepping closer. His arms were hanging limp at his side. “You know just as well as I do that there is no cure to be found.”
If there was, the Doctor would have found it himself. They had eventually accepted that this was simply his life catching up with him; all his grief and guilt and hurt teaming up to get him. It made him ill, made him lose his mind and the only way to get better was by overcoming this on his own. So far he was making precious little progress.
“Still…” The Doctor wouldn’t give this up that easily. “They might find something to help me suppress it. This…” He lifted his arms in a gesture that took in the entire flat. “This is not going to work. I thought I would get better within days. It’s no long term solution, Jack.”
“And you think UNIT would be?” Jack shook his head in exasperation. “We’ve already been through this. They are not the same people you once knew. They are strangers who know a lot about you, and I’m not letting them anywhere near you!”
“Since when is that your decision to make?”
“Since I’m the one with the key to your prison!” Jack snapped his mouth shut, but the words had already been said. So he kept talking on, trying to cover them and make them be forgotten. “For all we know, the guys from UNIT would cut you open the moment they get their hands on you.”
“You think so?” the Doctor spat back. “You’re forgetting it’s not Torchwood we’re talking about.”
Jack snorted in reply, refusing to take the bait. He wasn’t going to have this discussion again. It wasn’t that he could argue against the Doctor’s view on their methods - but while he could see where the Doctor’s opinion came from, he didn’t share it. Sometimes it was necessary to take extreme measures to protect his friends, his city, the whole planet. He couldn’t even blame UNIT for acting the same way. Only when it came to the Doctor, he would do anything to keep them from getting their hands on him.
“Even if they didn’t take you apart to see how you function, they’d still keep you locked up and only let you out to do their work for them,” he pointed out.
“At least I would be able to do something, then.”
“Ah, so this is really about you being bored.”
“This is about me being useless!” Now the Doctor was almost shouting. “All the time I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling people die. People I could have saved! I can’t just sit back and wait for it to pass.”
“Yes, you can! You need to take care of yourself for once. Forget everyone else. If anyone deserved a break it’s you.”
The Doctor half turned away from him, running his hand through his hair with a frustrated sigh.
“Would you say the same thing if your friends had died in the Himalaya?” he asked. “I tried to help you, but I couldn’t. If I’d been out there, I would have been able to find you and get you out within a day.”
“As you can see, we didn’t need you. We got ourselves out.” Within a week.
“And how much longer before the day when you won’t, hm?” asked the Doctor, his voice suddenly soft. “I know you can’t die, but what about your friends? Are you really willing to sacrifice them for what you believe to be my safety?” Jack was smart enough not to answer, and the Doctor went on, “Do you really think I’m going to get better if I constantly have to feel guilty about the things that happen while I’m sitting lazily on my arse?”
“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” Jack said sharply. “You’re not lazy. I know you’d do anything to help others. I’m just here to protect you from yourself.”
“Yeah? Let me tell you a secret: Locking me in with only myself for company is not the way to do it.”
Jack walked over to his friend but resisted the impulse to shake him. The Doctor was frustrated and angry. It was understandable. He wouldn’t blame him for being snappy, even if Jack only wanted to help.
This close he saw something that gave him a chance to steer the conversation that was heading bulls eye towards a fight into a different direction. “You’re shaking,” he observed.
“I’m cold,” the Doctor explained shortly. “And we’re not finished.”
“We’re never going to be finished as long as you don’t stop arguing, since I know I’m right and am not going to give in. You’re stuck here with me.”
“Aren’t you tired of that by now?”
“No. And now I’m going to turn up the heat.” He turned to go, but the Doctor’s hand on his arm held him back. The contact made him forget the anger he was desperately trying to suppress. “Hell, Doctor,” he said, reaching out to grab both of this other’s shoulders when he felt just how badly the other was trembling. “I didn’t think it would get this bad so quickly.”
The Time Lord tried to shake him off but failed. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, it does! It doesn’t usually start so soon.”
“I never took the pills for so long before. And I wasn’t exactly feeling good to begin with. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“What happened yesterday? Why did you flip out? The pills didn’t work properly?”
The Doctor turned away. “Never mind that.”
“I need to know. If they don’t work anymore, we need to find something else.”
“They work, okay?” The Doctor sounded harsh again, unwilling to discuss this. “Leave it.”
“I can’t. What caused your spell, then? Was it something Rhys did?” His own expression darkened. “I swear, if he somehow…”
“I just saw Fitz and Compassion on tv and kind of lost it,” the Doctor interrupted him. “That is unlikely to happen again.”
“Who are Fitz and Compassion?” Jack had never heard the names before.
“Friends. Doesn’t matter.” But it clearly mattered to him.
“They’re dead,” Jack realised. “I’m sorry.” But the Doctor shook his head.
“It’s not like… No, forget it.”
“Doctor.” Jack’s voice was soft, but relentless, and he didn’t let go when the Time Lord tried to squirm out of his grip. He was so weak now. Before, he would have been gone in a second. “You killed them, didn’t you?” he said mercilessly, knowing this was the only way to get the Doctor to talk to him about it. “They died because of you.”
He was actually surprised when the Doctor tore out of his grip in an unexpected display of strength and shouted, “Yes!”
Momentarily speechless, Jack reached for him once more, but the Doctor took a few steps away from him and turned his back. “Compassion was… too closely connected to Gallifrey. If it hadn’t been for me…” He shook his head and, after a second, walked away, clearly regretting having said anything at all.
Jack followed him, his presence keeping the Doctor from stopping until they had walked all the way down the corridor and ended up in the small, uncomfortable medical room. Here he stopped, and turned, but Jack was in the doorway, blocking his way back out.
The Time Lord was already pale again, like he had been in the night, and Jack thought he saw unshed tears in his eyes. He took a further step back, enlarging the distance between himself and the human. Jack had already predicted that this day would not be a good one, but this was bad in all the wrong ways.
“It’s all right,” he tried to calm his friend. “Let it go. You’ll never get better if you keep things like that bottled up all the time. It’s fine. I understand.”
In response the Doctor gave him a sharp, desperate laugh. “You understand? How could you possible understand? How could you understand and still think I’d deserve to get better?” He sounded almost hysterical now.
“You’re upset,” Jack said calmly.
“Of course I’m upset! I should be dead!”
“Oh, no, no,” Now Jack stepped towards him, causing the Doctor to stumble backwards, nearly falling. “Don’t ever say that. You’re just ill and stressed right now. It’ll pass. Come on, let me help you.” The soothing tone didn’t work. The Doctor fought of the hands reaching for him, struggling against their hold when Jack managed to grab him anyway.
“It won’t pass! It never passes! I’ve caused more harm than I did good, and every day I’m here it’s getting worse, and now get the hell off me!” He threw himself backwards violently, but this time Jack was prepared for it and held on tight. “Leave me alone, Harkness,” the Doctor sneered. “Get back to your team and your life and stop wasting your bloody time with me!”
“You’re losing it,” Jack sighed. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I’m not losing anything!” the Doctor insisted. “I know exactly what I’m saying, and I want you to go! You are the one who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“Don’t worry, I’m here.” Jack’s grip was merciless as the Doctor fought harder to get away. His shoe-less feet slipped on the smooth linoleum and Jack seized the opportunity to bring him to the floor and pin him down with the weight of his own body while he fumbled for his pockets.
With one hand he prepared the syringe with the narcotic while the other was busy fending off the Doctor’s flailing arms.
“No! Stop it! Jack!” He ignored the urgent pleas, and how the Doctor tried to get away while insisting that he was still sane.
“You need help,” he just said, pulling the covering off the needle with his teeth and spitting it away. “You’ll feel better soon.”
“I’m fine!” the Doctor cried. “You don’t need to… Jack, please, don’t!” But the needle broke his skin of his neck a second after the words had left his mouth. Before Jack could push the narcotic into his bloodstream, however, an arm hit his hand and knocked it away, breaking the needle in the process.
Without hesitation Jack lifted his other hand and punched the Doctor in the face. Dazed, the Time Lord ceased to fight him, and Jack used the opportunity to tear the broken head of the needle out of his skin and push the remaining half into the hole it had left to finished his task.
Once he was done, he discarded the syringe, got off the Time Lord and slid his arms under the other’s back and knees. The Doctor was moving weakly when Jack lifted him up, but had fallen completely still when seconds later the human laid him down on the medical table in the centre of the room.
“Sorry,” he said, more out of habit than a true feeling of guilt. “It’s better this way. You’ll see.” He ran his fingers through the ruffled hair, still a little damp from the bath. It seemed much longer than the not quite two hours that had passed since the Time Lord had woken from his restless sleep, and already he had been taken away again.
Jack repeated the motion, stroking his friend’s hair in a comforting gesture lost to the unconscious man, before letting his fingers trail down his cheeks, his throat. Eventually he bent down and pressed a kiss to the Doctor’s slightly parted lips. It lingered longer than it should, and only when Jack felt the tip of his tongue brush against the Time Lord’s teeth he realised that he was going too far and withdrew.
Dreading the hours that lay before him, he got to work and prepared both the Doctor and himself for the long day to come.
-
Due to the pills that had kept him relatively sane until yesterday, the episode the Doctor suffered from this night was worse and more persistent than most. Knowing what to expect, Jack had kept him in the medical area, where he was secured to the table not only by bounds around his wrists, but also by restrains around his ankles and straps of leather running over his chest and thighs, leaving him almost completely immobile.
Jack would have kept him sedated all night but knew that this would not go away unless the Doctor lived through it. So he just stayed by his friend’s side as the Doctor screamed and struggled in his sleep, and eventually awoke to a world created from his memories and nightmares, where Jack was and enemy and he was terrified and angry and willing to do anything to get away. Once again Jack was glad he didn’t understand the language the Doctor was using as he screamed out his terror to the world.
It lasted for hours and hours and hours, and when finally the Doctor was too exhausted to fight anymore, he started to cry quietly, and Jack knew his presence was no comfort. It was only in the early hours of the morning that the Doctor finally fell into an uneasy sleep. Only then did Jack allow himself to sleep as well, sitting by the Doctor’s bedside and holding his hand.
The lack of comfort woke him a few hours later, when the Doctor was still lost in a deep sleep, now perfectly still. Finally, when Jack took the shower circumstance had denied him the day before, he realised that he had never even thought about going to the hub to check the rift activity the day before. It had been no problem when he’d still been living there, but now the hub was empty on Sundays, he usually made sure that either he or one of the others went there at least once a day. Just to make sure.
It also occurred to him that the weekend was over and he should have been at work an hour ago.
Calls were made without hurry. Gwen sounded annoyed, but softened when he told her that the Doctor was ill and needed to be cared for. She also told him that Rhys had been worried. It bothered Jack for a reason he couldn’t name. The Doctor made friends too easily.
Since the world still existed, Jack assumed that there had been no major incident on Sunday and didn’t mention his slip in discipline. Gwen assured him that nothing major was happening now and promised to call him the moment he was needed. When Jack went back to check on the Doctor, he didn’t feel guilty for leaving all the work to his far too small team.
-
Morning passed slowly, filled only with coffee, toast and tired concern. Around noon Jack fell asleep on the couch, waking after what felt like a long time to the surreal oppressiveness of a completely quiet world. Outside, the light was fading.
Jack prepared a dinner out of the food Rhys had left in the cabinets and found the Doctor awake before he got a chance to eat it. But while the Time Lord’s eyes were open, he was staring right through Jack, barely reacting to his presence. Despite having known what to expect, it worried Jack every time this happened.
The Doctor was too exhausted, too worn out to deal with anything yet, Jack knew. He merely needed time to recover.
After dinner he returned, finding his Time Lord in the same state as before. Gentle attempts to get his attention remained largely fruitless. With his paper white face, the hollow cheeks and bruised looking eyes, the Doctor looked even worse than the day before. Jack felt his breath rattle in the thin chest as he opened the restraints and pulled the Doctor into a sitting position. His friend stayed upright without support, but didn’t move on his own, and Jack had to pull him fully to his feet and through the corridor, until they reached the bathroom.
Even as Jack washed him and got rid of the sweat soaked clothes, the Time Lord remained apathetic. He didn’t react when Jack cupped his cheek, barely blinked when he kissed him. Jack sighed sadly and reminded himself that he had to be patient. He had not expected this day to be any better than the one before, after all.
There was neither resistance nor cooperation when he dragged the Doctor over to the living room, settled on the couch and pulled his friend down so he was resting against Jack’s body, almost lying on top of him.
Jack leaned back, staring at the ceiling while his hand kept stroking the head resting against his shoulder. Hours seemed to pass. He was staring at the lamp and its bright light bothered him, but not enough to get up and turn it off. The Doctor was breathing steadily, without change. Jack’s hand kept stroking him until it wandered upwards, over his throat and cheek, to rest against his lips and feel the breath against his fingertips.
The Doctor didn’t react when Jack moved beneath him. He didn’t seem to care when Jack kissed his forehead, his cheek, or for the hand running over his flat stomach. And when Jack carefully tilt back his head and kissed his throat, he merely turned his face away and made a small sound, deep in his throat, that sounded like a whimper.
“I love you,” Jack breathed against his skin. “I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”
But the Doctor didn’t seem to care about that either.
-
Something, Jack felt, had gone wrong during the week and a half he had been gone. If it had been his absence, the long time the Doctor had stayed on his own or the company he had send him, he couldn’t tell, but something had changed.
The Doctor needed a few days to recover from his latest episode, but he remained, Jack thought, more unstable than before. Again and again he would bring up the topic of change, of finding another way of dealing with his situation. UNIT remained his favourite idea, so one day Jack brought home a folder with cases UNIT had handled these days, in ways the Doctor would hardly approve of. And he didn’t.
Yet, contrary to Jack’s expectations, it only fuelled his desire to get back to the organization. If he was there, he argued, he might be a good influence and maybe even change them back into what they once were. The discussion had ended in a major fight that had left Jack steaming the entire night and the following day. That day he stayed at the hub longer than he had to, just out of spite, hoping the Doctor would receive the message.
He didn’t.
Every so often Gwen would ask about the Doctor, also in Rhys’s name, and Jack began to regret ever having told anyone about him. It had been easier when it had been just him knowing. No, that probably wasn’t true. But he’d liked it better when there had been no one else to worry about his Time Lord, as if they’d understand.
At some point Jack began to lie that the Doctor was doing better and would soon be able to leave. One day he’d tell them he was gone and they’d shut up.
Meanwhile the Doctor stopped fleeing from his emotions and memories. Despite the pain it would cause him, he started to overcome the barriers he had erected himself and willingly summoned the feelings that were eating him alive, almost throwing himself into the horrible nightmares and depression they would bring. It told Jack how frustrated he was, how far he was willing to go to get over this and be free again.
It wouldn’t work. The Doctor didn’t deal with his horrors, he merely relived them. Like this, he would only make himself even more ill.
After one particularly challenging weekend spend uncovering and stopping an not entirely alien plot to poison the water of the Cardiff bay, Jack freed the grumpy but calm Doctor, forced him to eat, and spend almost an hour soaking in a hot bath. When he stepped out of the cosy warmth of the bathroom, the cold air in the rest of the flat came as a shock.
It was always cool in here, but never like this.
He found the Doctor curled up on the floor before the regulator, staring out of the narrow window at the darkening sky. Spring came late this year and it was colder than it had any right to be, still Jack was certain that it would be warmer to spend the night outside.
“It’s freezing,” he grumbled. The Doctor didn’t look at him - not even when he stepped into his line of sight. “Would you mind turning the heat up again?”
“It’s too sticky in here,” the Doctor told him, which probably meant that yes, he did mind. “Need some fresh air.” He curled up even closer, wrapping his arms around his knees. Even for him these temperatures couldn’t be comfortable anymore.
“Doctor, the air conditioning is from the fourth millenium. It works fine. It’s never sticky in here.”
“Yes, it is,” the Doctor declared. “Can’t breathe.” The soft airstream from the conditioner was playing with his hair and Jack became aware that he hadn’t felt the wind on his skin for a long time. He’d never coped well with being stuck somewhere for long. Jack had known for a long time that he would get worse the longer he was imprisoned here.
With all the trashing he did during his episodes, at least he gets enough physical exercise. Even Jack was still too sympathetic not to feel guilty for that thought.
With a sigh, Jack sat down beside his friend, reaching out a hand to ruffle his hair. But the Doctor, with unexpected speed, unfolded his long limps, got to his feet and away from Jack. Only the human’s fingertips brushed, briefly, over his arms as he got out of reach.
“No,” the Doctor said. There was no force behind it, no feeling. It was just a statement. “Don’t touch me.”
So Jack got to his feet as well and followed the Doctor as he wandered through the flat - relentless, distracted, unable to stop but aimless. Again and again he was running his hands through his hair in a nervous gesture, as he did when he was restless and on the edge of a breakdown. He looked like a caged tiger. Jack was well aware that he was.
This was killing him. Jack was killing him, but only in a metaphorical sense, and that was better than being dead for good. Out there he would only die.
Putting the Doctor to rest was a struggle that left both of them bruised. The next morning, when Jack prepared his medication for the day, he thought, not for the first time, that he should stop this. He knew his Time Lord would leave the moment he was well enough, and that he wasn’t strong enough anymore to survive all his enemies, all the terror the cosmos was throwing at him for long. But by now the medication Jack was slipping him to keep him weak was doing more harm than good.
When the Doctor had first fallen ill and Jack had created this place to keep him safe, he had realized, finally, that only in an isolated place like this he would be able to keep the Doctor close and alive. If he let him go he’d lose him, sooner or later. Yet he also knew that the Doctor wouldn’t accept that. He wouldn’t stay unless Jack forced him to.
So Jack had forced him, without the Doctor noticing. He didn’t want to lose the other’s friendship, as it was the most he would ever willingly give him.
But watching the Doctor fall apart a little more each day, even he had slowly come to accept that he was going too far. He might be protecting the Doctor, but he was hurting him too much in the process. The Time Lord wasn’t safe here after all. He was merely alive.
So it was time to stop this. Jack would give him no more of the poison and let him heal. Who knew, perhaps the Doctor even failed to get better without him doing anything, and it wouldn’t be his fault any more that he got worse.
Jack shook his head at the thought, for the first time in almost a year feeling slightly disgusted with himself. He didn’t want to see the Doctor unwell. He’d done all this just to protect him from his own carelessness, but now, it seemed, the Doctor had to be protected from Jack. And Jack was the only one who could do that. So he would stop making the Doctor ill, and if he still didn’t get better, he’d even consider asking UNIT for help.
Eventually he became aware that he was still holding the medicine in his hands, hovering just over the tea he was about to serve his friend. Jack kept staring at it for what felt like hours, before he slipped it in and let the tasteless substance dissolve inside the hot liquid.
What difference would one more day make, or one more week? That Jack had accepted he had to let the Doctor go didn’t mean that he was ready to do so.
But he would be. He had to be. One more week, he promised himself. One more week and he would give this up, let the universe decide if the Doctor survived or not. Even if it broke his heart. One more week was all he needed.
Or maybe two.
January 26, 2009
Part 2 <-
Author: vail_kagami
Challenge: Domesticity
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Torchwood Series 2 Finale
Warnings: Slight creepiness on Jack's part, dark.
Summary: When Jack told her about he dangerous alien locked up in a special prison, this was not what Gwen had expected.
As far as Jack was concerned, the way back to Cardiff had been much worse than the way to the Himalaya - mostly because the first had happened instantly and he had no recollection of it. Since the ability to teleport all across the globe was a natural talent of the alien that had abducted them and not something they could steal, their chance to return the way they’d come died with their enemy.
The Doctor would not approve of the way they had handled this conflict. Jack spent most of the time on board of the plane making up stories to replace the bits he would rather not mention to his friend.
Getting to the airport alone had taken them two days. Two cold days. The icy air had still seemed to reside in Jack’s clothes when they’d left the plane, and for the first time he’d wished the flat he shared with the Doctor would be a little warmer. Well, if his Time Lord was feeling well, maybe he wouldn’t mind turning up the radiator a little.
Or crawl under the covers with Jack for a body heat sharing emergency cuddle.
But, as it turned out when he got home, the Doctor wasn’t feeling well. He wasn’t even conscious. And now Jack was feeling crappy as well, thanks to the headache caused by the rolling pin hitting his head the moment he’d stepped into the living room.
Apparently Rhys had thought him to be an intruder, although Jack could tell that he had held back somewhat, clearly unwilling to kill anyone. He didn’t know if he should be grateful for that. At least dying caused no headache.
When he’d stumbled into the room with a yelp of pain, Rhys had looked surprised, but not particularly guilty.
“Chainsaw then, rolling pin now,” Jack grumbled without turning his eyes away from the Doctor’s white face, his pride cracked along with his head. “Your taste in weapons is deteriorating.”
“They next time I attack you, I’ll make sure it’s with something that chops your head off,” came the reply. Even without looking at him, Jack could feel Rhys’ hostile stare in his back.
“I’m looking forward to it.” Jack’s gaze fell on the glass of pills on the bedside table. He picked it up and found it half empty. “Did he take these?”
“Few times a day.” Rhys’ reply only came after a few seconds. He clearly was pissed, which Jack had predicted he would be. “Wasn’t he supposed to?”
“No, it’s all right.” Jack sighed. It had been to be expected. He’d gotten the Doctor these pills for a reason after all. There would be some fallout later, but dealing with that would have to wait until the Doctor was awake and the two of them were alone.
“Don’t you want to go home?” he asked, slightly surprised that Rhys hadn’t left the moment he’d stepped into the flat. “Gwen is waiting for you.”
When Rhys said, “Well, at least she isn’t tied up while doing so,” Jack knew that getting rid of him wouldn’t be as easy as he had expected.
-
When Jack finally locked the doors after his guest had gone, he marvelled how close dear Rhys had gotten to getting his own head smashed in, and in a more consequent manner than the blow he had dealt out. How dare he question the way Jack treated his friend? How dare he think he knew better than Jack what was best for the Doctor?
Jack sighed, resting his forehead against the closed door. Of course Rhys would think restraining the Doctor all day, even when he was fine was cruel. Of course he would think there was a better way.
Well, there wasn’t - at least none the Doctor would have accepted. But Jack hadn’t felt like explaining his reasons to Gwen’s husband, and in the end Rhys had left believing him to be a complete and utter bastard. Even more so than before.
Jack could live with that. It was of no consequence to him.
One day he’d have to thank the man for keeping the Doctor alive during his absence. But not just now.
He sighed again when he made his way back to the small bedroom in the other corridor. After his adventures in the Himalaya and the long journey back, he felt weary and tired. Despite the precautions he’d taken for the case of a prolonged absence, he had been worried about the Doctor and all that could happen to him in the meantime. The tension had fallen away and left him feeling the exhaustion now he didn’t need to worry anymore. At the same time he had found that his worry had not been without reason. Rhys had done his job well enough, but in the end it was Jack who knew best how to keep the fragile Time Lord from harm.
Following his expectations, the Doctor had not moved by the time Jack got back to his side. He knew his friend would be out for another couple of hours. And then Jack would see what state he was in when he was awake.
Looking down at the bed, he longed to lay down himself. It wasn’t even sleep he craved, just the opportunity to stretch out and relax. After his long absence, however, he wanted to be with the Doctor, and the bed was barely broad enough for both of them. When Jack settled on in anyway, he ended up half lying on the Doctor, his head resting on the Time Lord’s shoulder where he could hear his uneven heartbeat and felt the heat of his body through the shirt.
Eventually he fell asleep.
-
He awoke just after dawn, because the Doctor stirred beneath him. Jack sat up to watch him, long and intently, but the Doctor didn’t wake up, just moved weakly in his restraints and fell still again.
Unable to settle back to sleep, Jack left for the bathroom, and returned five minutes later with a bowl of water and a cloth.
Ever so gently, unsure if his friend was still unconscious or now merely asleep, he washed the sweat off the Doctor’s face and neck. Then, finally, he opened the restraints, sighing sadly when he saw the state of the delicate wrists.
Rhys had been right in one thing at least: The way they were handling this didn’t help the Doctor’s physical wellbeing at all.
Pressing a soft kiss to the Time Lord’s forehead, Jack left for the kitchen. He would have liked a shower, but the bathroom was too isolated to disappear in for that long when he didn’t know how the Doctor was doing. So breakfast came first. His stomach wasn’t complaining.
The Doctor showed up during his second cup of coffee. His face was pale and drawn, and he swayed a little on his feet, but his eyes were clear as he regarded Jack from where he wearily leaned against the doorframe.
“You’re back,” he observed, offering a smile that lacked enthusiasm.
“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “Don’t fall over yourself with joy.”
Long fingers ran through unwashed hair. “Sorry,” the Doctor murmured. “I was just… I didn’t have a great night.”
“I saw.” Jack’s gaze softened. “Come here.”
After a second, the Doctor separated himself from the frame, and when he arrived at Jack’s side, the human pulled him down to sit on his lap.
With a tired sigh the Time Lord leaned against Jack, let his head rest on his shoulder so that the human could smell the dried sweat in his hair: just the faint impression of something alien, unearthly, intoxicating rather than unpleasant.
“You’ve still got a bit of a temperature,” Jack observed. “How have you been feeling these days?”
The Doctor shrugged vaguely. “Not too bad. We need to talk.”
“I’ll prepare a bath for you,” Jack promised, ignoring his last words. “You’ll feel better after that.” And before the Time Lord could say anything else, he added, “You didn’t take any of those pills today, did you?”
He felt the Doctor shake his head against his shoulder.
“Good.” The pills were supposed to keep him relatively stable, but they also made him ill, and the moment he stopped taking them the nightmares they helped keeping away came back with vengeance. They only used them when they had to - when the Doctor needed a clear head to figure out a way to save the world, for example, or when he was being cared for by someone unprepared for the task.
The next two days would be unpleasant. Jack wasn’t sure if they were fortunate to already know what was waiting for them.
He gently rubbed the Doctor’s back, before letting his hand slide up to bury it in the other’s hair.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll get through it together.”
To his credit, the Doctor didn’t laugh.
Ten minutes later, Jack helped his friend undress and gently lowered him into the lukewarm water of the giant bathtub. The Doctor protested half-heartedly against being treated like an invalid, but after a night of illness and nightmares, he was weak as a child and Jack simply ignored him. He even considered getting into the tub with the other man, but eventually left him alone to put the kettle on.
He was, however, back in time to help the Doctor out and wrap him in a bath robe. But the bath had indeed helped the other man feel better, and his patience with being mothered was running thin.
After he’d drunken the tea Jack had made for him, he felt fine enough to fight off all attempts to help him and disappeared in his room to dress.
Jack sighed. After all this time apart, was it really so hard to accept that he wanted to be near his Doctor as much as possible? He’d been worried, and now he wanted to feel the Time Lord breathe.
When the Doctor eventually came back, he was wearing a dark blue shirt and the trousers of his brown pinstripe suit. It had been a long time since Jack had last seen them - the Doctor had settled for more comfortable clothes once he had accepted that he wouldn’t be out of his self-chosen prison within a matter of days.
To Jack, the outfit was a warning.
“Jack,” the Doctor said, and nothing else. He stood in the room, his hands on the back of the sofa, and Jack knew that this time he would not let it go.
Pretending to ignore him wasn’t going to work.
So he looked up and met the Time Lord’s serious gaze. “If you have a better idea,” he said, “I’m all ears.”
“UNIT,” the Doctor replied at once. “You wouldn’t be bound to me like this, and they could keep an eye on me, make sure I don’t hurt anyone. And they have enough people to have someone watching me all the time, so I could be out and help them when I’m fine.” He saw Jack’s face harden and interpreted it right. “Think about it! They know me, Jack! Maybe they could even find some kind of cure. In any case, it would be better than this.”
“Oh, Doctor,” Jack said sadly, getting to his feet but not yet stepping closer. His arms were hanging limp at his side. “You know just as well as I do that there is no cure to be found.”
If there was, the Doctor would have found it himself. They had eventually accepted that this was simply his life catching up with him; all his grief and guilt and hurt teaming up to get him. It made him ill, made him lose his mind and the only way to get better was by overcoming this on his own. So far he was making precious little progress.
“Still…” The Doctor wouldn’t give this up that easily. “They might find something to help me suppress it. This…” He lifted his arms in a gesture that took in the entire flat. “This is not going to work. I thought I would get better within days. It’s no long term solution, Jack.”
“And you think UNIT would be?” Jack shook his head in exasperation. “We’ve already been through this. They are not the same people you once knew. They are strangers who know a lot about you, and I’m not letting them anywhere near you!”
“Since when is that your decision to make?”
“Since I’m the one with the key to your prison!” Jack snapped his mouth shut, but the words had already been said. So he kept talking on, trying to cover them and make them be forgotten. “For all we know, the guys from UNIT would cut you open the moment they get their hands on you.”
“You think so?” the Doctor spat back. “You’re forgetting it’s not Torchwood we’re talking about.”
Jack snorted in reply, refusing to take the bait. He wasn’t going to have this discussion again. It wasn’t that he could argue against the Doctor’s view on their methods - but while he could see where the Doctor’s opinion came from, he didn’t share it. Sometimes it was necessary to take extreme measures to protect his friends, his city, the whole planet. He couldn’t even blame UNIT for acting the same way. Only when it came to the Doctor, he would do anything to keep them from getting their hands on him.
“Even if they didn’t take you apart to see how you function, they’d still keep you locked up and only let you out to do their work for them,” he pointed out.
“At least I would be able to do something, then.”
“Ah, so this is really about you being bored.”
“This is about me being useless!” Now the Doctor was almost shouting. “All the time I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling people die. People I could have saved! I can’t just sit back and wait for it to pass.”
“Yes, you can! You need to take care of yourself for once. Forget everyone else. If anyone deserved a break it’s you.”
The Doctor half turned away from him, running his hand through his hair with a frustrated sigh.
“Would you say the same thing if your friends had died in the Himalaya?” he asked. “I tried to help you, but I couldn’t. If I’d been out there, I would have been able to find you and get you out within a day.”
“As you can see, we didn’t need you. We got ourselves out.” Within a week.
“And how much longer before the day when you won’t, hm?” asked the Doctor, his voice suddenly soft. “I know you can’t die, but what about your friends? Are you really willing to sacrifice them for what you believe to be my safety?” Jack was smart enough not to answer, and the Doctor went on, “Do you really think I’m going to get better if I constantly have to feel guilty about the things that happen while I’m sitting lazily on my arse?”
“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” Jack said sharply. “You’re not lazy. I know you’d do anything to help others. I’m just here to protect you from yourself.”
“Yeah? Let me tell you a secret: Locking me in with only myself for company is not the way to do it.”
Jack walked over to his friend but resisted the impulse to shake him. The Doctor was frustrated and angry. It was understandable. He wouldn’t blame him for being snappy, even if Jack only wanted to help.
This close he saw something that gave him a chance to steer the conversation that was heading bulls eye towards a fight into a different direction. “You’re shaking,” he observed.
“I’m cold,” the Doctor explained shortly. “And we’re not finished.”
“We’re never going to be finished as long as you don’t stop arguing, since I know I’m right and am not going to give in. You’re stuck here with me.”
“Aren’t you tired of that by now?”
“No. And now I’m going to turn up the heat.” He turned to go, but the Doctor’s hand on his arm held him back. The contact made him forget the anger he was desperately trying to suppress. “Hell, Doctor,” he said, reaching out to grab both of this other’s shoulders when he felt just how badly the other was trembling. “I didn’t think it would get this bad so quickly.”
The Time Lord tried to shake him off but failed. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, it does! It doesn’t usually start so soon.”
“I never took the pills for so long before. And I wasn’t exactly feeling good to begin with. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“What happened yesterday? Why did you flip out? The pills didn’t work properly?”
The Doctor turned away. “Never mind that.”
“I need to know. If they don’t work anymore, we need to find something else.”
“They work, okay?” The Doctor sounded harsh again, unwilling to discuss this. “Leave it.”
“I can’t. What caused your spell, then? Was it something Rhys did?” His own expression darkened. “I swear, if he somehow…”
“I just saw Fitz and Compassion on tv and kind of lost it,” the Doctor interrupted him. “That is unlikely to happen again.”
“Who are Fitz and Compassion?” Jack had never heard the names before.
“Friends. Doesn’t matter.” But it clearly mattered to him.
“They’re dead,” Jack realised. “I’m sorry.” But the Doctor shook his head.
“It’s not like… No, forget it.”
“Doctor.” Jack’s voice was soft, but relentless, and he didn’t let go when the Time Lord tried to squirm out of his grip. He was so weak now. Before, he would have been gone in a second. “You killed them, didn’t you?” he said mercilessly, knowing this was the only way to get the Doctor to talk to him about it. “They died because of you.”
He was actually surprised when the Doctor tore out of his grip in an unexpected display of strength and shouted, “Yes!”
Momentarily speechless, Jack reached for him once more, but the Doctor took a few steps away from him and turned his back. “Compassion was… too closely connected to Gallifrey. If it hadn’t been for me…” He shook his head and, after a second, walked away, clearly regretting having said anything at all.
Jack followed him, his presence keeping the Doctor from stopping until they had walked all the way down the corridor and ended up in the small, uncomfortable medical room. Here he stopped, and turned, but Jack was in the doorway, blocking his way back out.
The Time Lord was already pale again, like he had been in the night, and Jack thought he saw unshed tears in his eyes. He took a further step back, enlarging the distance between himself and the human. Jack had already predicted that this day would not be a good one, but this was bad in all the wrong ways.
“It’s all right,” he tried to calm his friend. “Let it go. You’ll never get better if you keep things like that bottled up all the time. It’s fine. I understand.”
In response the Doctor gave him a sharp, desperate laugh. “You understand? How could you possible understand? How could you understand and still think I’d deserve to get better?” He sounded almost hysterical now.
“You’re upset,” Jack said calmly.
“Of course I’m upset! I should be dead!”
“Oh, no, no,” Now Jack stepped towards him, causing the Doctor to stumble backwards, nearly falling. “Don’t ever say that. You’re just ill and stressed right now. It’ll pass. Come on, let me help you.” The soothing tone didn’t work. The Doctor fought of the hands reaching for him, struggling against their hold when Jack managed to grab him anyway.
“It won’t pass! It never passes! I’ve caused more harm than I did good, and every day I’m here it’s getting worse, and now get the hell off me!” He threw himself backwards violently, but this time Jack was prepared for it and held on tight. “Leave me alone, Harkness,” the Doctor sneered. “Get back to your team and your life and stop wasting your bloody time with me!”
“You’re losing it,” Jack sighed. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I’m not losing anything!” the Doctor insisted. “I know exactly what I’m saying, and I want you to go! You are the one who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“Don’t worry, I’m here.” Jack’s grip was merciless as the Doctor fought harder to get away. His shoe-less feet slipped on the smooth linoleum and Jack seized the opportunity to bring him to the floor and pin him down with the weight of his own body while he fumbled for his pockets.
With one hand he prepared the syringe with the narcotic while the other was busy fending off the Doctor’s flailing arms.
“No! Stop it! Jack!” He ignored the urgent pleas, and how the Doctor tried to get away while insisting that he was still sane.
“You need help,” he just said, pulling the covering off the needle with his teeth and spitting it away. “You’ll feel better soon.”
“I’m fine!” the Doctor cried. “You don’t need to… Jack, please, don’t!” But the needle broke his skin of his neck a second after the words had left his mouth. Before Jack could push the narcotic into his bloodstream, however, an arm hit his hand and knocked it away, breaking the needle in the process.
Without hesitation Jack lifted his other hand and punched the Doctor in the face. Dazed, the Time Lord ceased to fight him, and Jack used the opportunity to tear the broken head of the needle out of his skin and push the remaining half into the hole it had left to finished his task.
Once he was done, he discarded the syringe, got off the Time Lord and slid his arms under the other’s back and knees. The Doctor was moving weakly when Jack lifted him up, but had fallen completely still when seconds later the human laid him down on the medical table in the centre of the room.
“Sorry,” he said, more out of habit than a true feeling of guilt. “It’s better this way. You’ll see.” He ran his fingers through the ruffled hair, still a little damp from the bath. It seemed much longer than the not quite two hours that had passed since the Time Lord had woken from his restless sleep, and already he had been taken away again.
Jack repeated the motion, stroking his friend’s hair in a comforting gesture lost to the unconscious man, before letting his fingers trail down his cheeks, his throat. Eventually he bent down and pressed a kiss to the Doctor’s slightly parted lips. It lingered longer than it should, and only when Jack felt the tip of his tongue brush against the Time Lord’s teeth he realised that he was going too far and withdrew.
Dreading the hours that lay before him, he got to work and prepared both the Doctor and himself for the long day to come.
-
Due to the pills that had kept him relatively sane until yesterday, the episode the Doctor suffered from this night was worse and more persistent than most. Knowing what to expect, Jack had kept him in the medical area, where he was secured to the table not only by bounds around his wrists, but also by restrains around his ankles and straps of leather running over his chest and thighs, leaving him almost completely immobile.
Jack would have kept him sedated all night but knew that this would not go away unless the Doctor lived through it. So he just stayed by his friend’s side as the Doctor screamed and struggled in his sleep, and eventually awoke to a world created from his memories and nightmares, where Jack was and enemy and he was terrified and angry and willing to do anything to get away. Once again Jack was glad he didn’t understand the language the Doctor was using as he screamed out his terror to the world.
It lasted for hours and hours and hours, and when finally the Doctor was too exhausted to fight anymore, he started to cry quietly, and Jack knew his presence was no comfort. It was only in the early hours of the morning that the Doctor finally fell into an uneasy sleep. Only then did Jack allow himself to sleep as well, sitting by the Doctor’s bedside and holding his hand.
The lack of comfort woke him a few hours later, when the Doctor was still lost in a deep sleep, now perfectly still. Finally, when Jack took the shower circumstance had denied him the day before, he realised that he had never even thought about going to the hub to check the rift activity the day before. It had been no problem when he’d still been living there, but now the hub was empty on Sundays, he usually made sure that either he or one of the others went there at least once a day. Just to make sure.
It also occurred to him that the weekend was over and he should have been at work an hour ago.
Calls were made without hurry. Gwen sounded annoyed, but softened when he told her that the Doctor was ill and needed to be cared for. She also told him that Rhys had been worried. It bothered Jack for a reason he couldn’t name. The Doctor made friends too easily.
Since the world still existed, Jack assumed that there had been no major incident on Sunday and didn’t mention his slip in discipline. Gwen assured him that nothing major was happening now and promised to call him the moment he was needed. When Jack went back to check on the Doctor, he didn’t feel guilty for leaving all the work to his far too small team.
-
Morning passed slowly, filled only with coffee, toast and tired concern. Around noon Jack fell asleep on the couch, waking after what felt like a long time to the surreal oppressiveness of a completely quiet world. Outside, the light was fading.
Jack prepared a dinner out of the food Rhys had left in the cabinets and found the Doctor awake before he got a chance to eat it. But while the Time Lord’s eyes were open, he was staring right through Jack, barely reacting to his presence. Despite having known what to expect, it worried Jack every time this happened.
The Doctor was too exhausted, too worn out to deal with anything yet, Jack knew. He merely needed time to recover.
After dinner he returned, finding his Time Lord in the same state as before. Gentle attempts to get his attention remained largely fruitless. With his paper white face, the hollow cheeks and bruised looking eyes, the Doctor looked even worse than the day before. Jack felt his breath rattle in the thin chest as he opened the restraints and pulled the Doctor into a sitting position. His friend stayed upright without support, but didn’t move on his own, and Jack had to pull him fully to his feet and through the corridor, until they reached the bathroom.
Even as Jack washed him and got rid of the sweat soaked clothes, the Time Lord remained apathetic. He didn’t react when Jack cupped his cheek, barely blinked when he kissed him. Jack sighed sadly and reminded himself that he had to be patient. He had not expected this day to be any better than the one before, after all.
There was neither resistance nor cooperation when he dragged the Doctor over to the living room, settled on the couch and pulled his friend down so he was resting against Jack’s body, almost lying on top of him.
Jack leaned back, staring at the ceiling while his hand kept stroking the head resting against his shoulder. Hours seemed to pass. He was staring at the lamp and its bright light bothered him, but not enough to get up and turn it off. The Doctor was breathing steadily, without change. Jack’s hand kept stroking him until it wandered upwards, over his throat and cheek, to rest against his lips and feel the breath against his fingertips.
The Doctor didn’t react when Jack moved beneath him. He didn’t seem to care when Jack kissed his forehead, his cheek, or for the hand running over his flat stomach. And when Jack carefully tilt back his head and kissed his throat, he merely turned his face away and made a small sound, deep in his throat, that sounded like a whimper.
“I love you,” Jack breathed against his skin. “I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”
But the Doctor didn’t seem to care about that either.
-
Something, Jack felt, had gone wrong during the week and a half he had been gone. If it had been his absence, the long time the Doctor had stayed on his own or the company he had send him, he couldn’t tell, but something had changed.
The Doctor needed a few days to recover from his latest episode, but he remained, Jack thought, more unstable than before. Again and again he would bring up the topic of change, of finding another way of dealing with his situation. UNIT remained his favourite idea, so one day Jack brought home a folder with cases UNIT had handled these days, in ways the Doctor would hardly approve of. And he didn’t.
Yet, contrary to Jack’s expectations, it only fuelled his desire to get back to the organization. If he was there, he argued, he might be a good influence and maybe even change them back into what they once were. The discussion had ended in a major fight that had left Jack steaming the entire night and the following day. That day he stayed at the hub longer than he had to, just out of spite, hoping the Doctor would receive the message.
He didn’t.
Every so often Gwen would ask about the Doctor, also in Rhys’s name, and Jack began to regret ever having told anyone about him. It had been easier when it had been just him knowing. No, that probably wasn’t true. But he’d liked it better when there had been no one else to worry about his Time Lord, as if they’d understand.
At some point Jack began to lie that the Doctor was doing better and would soon be able to leave. One day he’d tell them he was gone and they’d shut up.
Meanwhile the Doctor stopped fleeing from his emotions and memories. Despite the pain it would cause him, he started to overcome the barriers he had erected himself and willingly summoned the feelings that were eating him alive, almost throwing himself into the horrible nightmares and depression they would bring. It told Jack how frustrated he was, how far he was willing to go to get over this and be free again.
It wouldn’t work. The Doctor didn’t deal with his horrors, he merely relived them. Like this, he would only make himself even more ill.
After one particularly challenging weekend spend uncovering and stopping an not entirely alien plot to poison the water of the Cardiff bay, Jack freed the grumpy but calm Doctor, forced him to eat, and spend almost an hour soaking in a hot bath. When he stepped out of the cosy warmth of the bathroom, the cold air in the rest of the flat came as a shock.
It was always cool in here, but never like this.
He found the Doctor curled up on the floor before the regulator, staring out of the narrow window at the darkening sky. Spring came late this year and it was colder than it had any right to be, still Jack was certain that it would be warmer to spend the night outside.
“It’s freezing,” he grumbled. The Doctor didn’t look at him - not even when he stepped into his line of sight. “Would you mind turning the heat up again?”
“It’s too sticky in here,” the Doctor told him, which probably meant that yes, he did mind. “Need some fresh air.” He curled up even closer, wrapping his arms around his knees. Even for him these temperatures couldn’t be comfortable anymore.
“Doctor, the air conditioning is from the fourth millenium. It works fine. It’s never sticky in here.”
“Yes, it is,” the Doctor declared. “Can’t breathe.” The soft airstream from the conditioner was playing with his hair and Jack became aware that he hadn’t felt the wind on his skin for a long time. He’d never coped well with being stuck somewhere for long. Jack had known for a long time that he would get worse the longer he was imprisoned here.
With all the trashing he did during his episodes, at least he gets enough physical exercise. Even Jack was still too sympathetic not to feel guilty for that thought.
With a sigh, Jack sat down beside his friend, reaching out a hand to ruffle his hair. But the Doctor, with unexpected speed, unfolded his long limps, got to his feet and away from Jack. Only the human’s fingertips brushed, briefly, over his arms as he got out of reach.
“No,” the Doctor said. There was no force behind it, no feeling. It was just a statement. “Don’t touch me.”
So Jack got to his feet as well and followed the Doctor as he wandered through the flat - relentless, distracted, unable to stop but aimless. Again and again he was running his hands through his hair in a nervous gesture, as he did when he was restless and on the edge of a breakdown. He looked like a caged tiger. Jack was well aware that he was.
This was killing him. Jack was killing him, but only in a metaphorical sense, and that was better than being dead for good. Out there he would only die.
Putting the Doctor to rest was a struggle that left both of them bruised. The next morning, when Jack prepared his medication for the day, he thought, not for the first time, that he should stop this. He knew his Time Lord would leave the moment he was well enough, and that he wasn’t strong enough anymore to survive all his enemies, all the terror the cosmos was throwing at him for long. But by now the medication Jack was slipping him to keep him weak was doing more harm than good.
When the Doctor had first fallen ill and Jack had created this place to keep him safe, he had realized, finally, that only in an isolated place like this he would be able to keep the Doctor close and alive. If he let him go he’d lose him, sooner or later. Yet he also knew that the Doctor wouldn’t accept that. He wouldn’t stay unless Jack forced him to.
So Jack had forced him, without the Doctor noticing. He didn’t want to lose the other’s friendship, as it was the most he would ever willingly give him.
But watching the Doctor fall apart a little more each day, even he had slowly come to accept that he was going too far. He might be protecting the Doctor, but he was hurting him too much in the process. The Time Lord wasn’t safe here after all. He was merely alive.
So it was time to stop this. Jack would give him no more of the poison and let him heal. Who knew, perhaps the Doctor even failed to get better without him doing anything, and it wouldn’t be his fault any more that he got worse.
Jack shook his head at the thought, for the first time in almost a year feeling slightly disgusted with himself. He didn’t want to see the Doctor unwell. He’d done all this just to protect him from his own carelessness, but now, it seemed, the Doctor had to be protected from Jack. And Jack was the only one who could do that. So he would stop making the Doctor ill, and if he still didn’t get better, he’d even consider asking UNIT for help.
Eventually he became aware that he was still holding the medicine in his hands, hovering just over the tea he was about to serve his friend. Jack kept staring at it for what felt like hours, before he slipped it in and let the tasteless substance dissolve inside the hot liquid.
What difference would one more day make, or one more week? That Jack had accepted he had to let the Doctor go didn’t mean that he was ready to do so.
But he would be. He had to be. One more week, he promised himself. One more week and he would give this up, let the universe decide if the Doctor survived or not. Even if it broke his heart. One more week was all he needed.
Or maybe two.
January 26, 2009
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