Fic: The Education of Donna Noble (DW/TW, PG-13)
Title: The Education of Donna Noble
Author: amand_r
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Characters: (alphabetically) Donna, Eleven, Gwen, Ianto, Jack, Jenny, Martha
Timeline: Almost immediately after Journey's End.
Author's Notes: Does anyone get out of this fandom without doing this theme? Also, for some reason, in my TW future, Ianto leads TW London. Dunno why, but every fic, there he is. Also, I stole terminology from Firefly. Also, I seem to have a love affair with Jenny.
Summary: They'd all made a pact. They'd never actually said anything concrete about it, just a quiet conversation that had contained a few sharp glances, nods, two pair of eyes locking into place like the slip of tumblers in a lock. Oh, and a load of Chinese take-away.
This had been written for 14valentines, but I was late. Here you go.
SHE HAS TAPED AN AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH of our neighborhood to the ceiling. She looks up to see our house from above while we're in bed. This is but one example of her uncontrollable desire to look down on the structures that she's in.
(Ben Lerner, Angle of Yaw)
They'd all made a pact. They'd never actually said anything concrete about it, just a quiet conversation that had contained a few sharp glances, nods, two pair of eyes locking into place like the slip of tumblers in a lock. Oh, and a load of Chinese take-away.
It had been odd at the time, the way it had come up; Gwen was giggling with Martha on the sofa, and Jack was uncharacteristically sprawled out on the grating that was the floor in that part of the Hub, using a pair of mutilated disposable chopsticks to blindly pick Kung Pao Shrimp out of the carton Ianto held in his hand. Jack had been plying them with beer, and given the previous seventy-two hours since his and Martha's return from the TARDIS, no one was hard-pressed to find reasons to drink.
(When he had stepped into the Hub, Martha on his arm, and surveyed the Dalek carcass on the ground, some over here, some over there, he had swallowed, and just for a second, Ianto had seen something in his face that he almost fell in love with all over again. But then he'd glanced at the two of them and said, 'Every time I leave your parties get crazier. You two are grounded.' Ianto had almost mumbled something about strippers, but he just couldn't. Just.)
And Jack had relayed the last bit to them, the last bit that had happened after everyone had been returned home and the Doctor had called him on the special mobile, and Ianto had watched his jaw set. Jack had thrown the mobile onto his desk and turned abruptly, clapping his hands as he walked out of his office until they had all looked up at him from the Hub floor where Gwen and Martha had been dismantling the last of the Dalek.
'Right then-who's for Chinese?'
And then, back to Kung Pao Shrimp, giggling, beer, Jack splayed out. All things leading to an orgy and adultery. But then Martha had sobered (or reached a moment of drunken clarity) and said into the silence, 'Oh, come on, yeah? Why not?'
And Jack had told them why not.
And then Ianto had said that Jack was being dense.
Martha had agreed. Someone said 'apt.' Someone else said, 'sublime.'
Someone, (probably Ianto) had said that Jack should do it.
Jack had said no.
Martha had poured beer on him. It might or might not have been an accident.
Gwen had said something like, 'Well, then, hypothetically, it's settled. Hypothetically, right, Jack?'
And Jack had met her eyes, and Martha's open and expectant expression, and then stripped off his button down, muttering, 'Why not? It's not like we'll probably remember anyway.'
But then he'd locked eyes with Ianto, and the pact had been dully noted.
***
LONDON, 2038
Ianto Jones heard the wave chiming before he looked over his shoulder to the 3-D screen behind him. His secretary hadn't access to his line, and so it was his emergency line. Only a few people knew of it, and none of them were business priorities. He waved his hand through the security sensor to activate it.
A simple text:
I--- It's time. ---M.
He sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers for a full minute, staring out at the traffic below, far on the ground. For a second, he wished that he had the telepathy that his staff muttered about in the hallways after they left the staff meetings. It would have been so much easier then.
He pressed the button on the old fashioned intercom he'd nicked from Torchwood Three before he'd left. 'Josie, please cancel everything and purchase a train ticket to Cardiff for this afternoon. Use my personal account.'
CARDIFF:
Gwen had given him enough biscuits for fifteen lifetimes, Jack mused as he dug about in the bag while he strolled back across the Plass. Gwen was like that sometimes. Since her semi-retirement, she'd attacked cooking with zen-like patience. 'Something she'd never got round to before.'
Certainly, Rhys had told him privately as they kicked their feet up while half-watching the game, half waiting for dinner, he'd never complain again. About anything, honest.
Jack smiled and took a deep breath, letting the rare sunshine hit his face . His path was clear before him, and so he let his eyes close for a few steps, imagining that he was somewhere else. Then again, he liked where he was now, so that was a fleeting fancy.
This was why, when he opened his eyes, he was a bit surprised to see Ianto a few feet from the Tourist Centre, leaning against the railing and looking out to the bay, his coat billowing in the wind. Obviously, his coat had been taking lessons from Jack's.
Jack wondered if Ianto had finally submitted to the telepathy implants Torchwood was offering because he turned then, one hand on the railing, his face breaking into a smile as he spied Jack. His face was lined a bit with age, but his coat opened to show the three piece suit, as tall and fashionable as ever, watch fob still in a pocket, hair still dark with youth.
God, fifty-five was the new forty.
'Hey there!' he barked when Ianto shoved his hands in his pockets, leaving the railing and meandering in his direction. Jack closed the distance and wound one arm around Ianto's broad shoulders, squeezing as much as he dared to. His hand balanced the bag of biscuits. 'How are Genevieve and the kids? Biscuit?'
Ianto peered into the bag before raising an eyebrow. 'They're in Tunesia on holiday,' he said, reaching in and pulling out a misshapen thing and sniffing it. 'Gwen still bored?'
Jack snorted and steered them towards a bench. 'Gwen's cooking is good. Just aesthetically challenged.'
Ianto broke the biscuit in two in his hands and tasted it. Jack wedged one in his mouth and sat down on the bench, setting the bag down next to him. 'I was going to give the rest to Myfanwy,' he mumbled around a partially full mouth. 'Honest.'
Ianto joined him on the bench. 'She does like chocolate chip.' He threw a few pieces out to the gulls that milled about.
Jack leant back on the bench and crossed his feet at the ankles. 'So, do you want to go down and see everyone?'
Ianto divested himself of the rest of his biscuit and brushed his hands together. Jack stared at the roughness of the backs of them, a little darkened and wrinkled with age and injury. He'd been responsible for the latter, and time was responsible for the former. 'Oh heavens no,' Ianto said, making a face of distaste. 'Every time I go down there I feel the distinct urge to tidy up.'
Jack grinned. 'I got another receptionist,' he said helpfully.
Ianto rolled his eyes. 'Who do you think red stamps all of your approval forms?'
'Oh yeah. Say, while you're at it, we could use a go-go cage.' Jack sobered. 'For research.'
Ianto glanced away, but the corner of his mouth turned up in a quick grin. 'That didn't work even when I was still working here,' he replied. 'And while this has been stimulating,' he began, sliding his hands up and down his thighs. Jack almost reached over one hand to still him. Instead he waited, listening to the wind rustling the open paper bag next to him
'Jack, it's time to make the call,' he said, still staring out at the water.
Jack's stomach flipped a bit, and he wasn't fooled for a moment that it was the biscuits. 'You have a mind like a fucking steel trap,' he said in a cheerful tone, glancing in the opposite direction at a pair of lovers half-dancing, half-skipping, down the Plass.
Ianto leant forward and rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands. He glanced at Jack, smiling wryly. Somewhere behind them, a girl shrieked; that neither of them moved in response meant that they were either too attuned to the nature of screams, or not enough. Jack knew which one.
'I prefer to think if it as eidetic memory,' he said.
Jack waved a hand. 'To-may-to, to-mah-to.' He smiled at Ianto, but it was wan. 'Let's call the whole thing off.' For a second, he thought he'd managed to convince him.
(How he could have ever done, that, Jack wasn't sure. He hadn't ever been able to convince Ianto not to do anything that he'd set his mind to, including packing up in Cardiff and settling in London, where he had opened Torchwood One in the manner of unfolding a blueprint and magically erecting a city with alight hologram. Every thing planned, everything in place, rising from the ground fully formed; if he had to give it a name, he would have called Ianto's Torchwood Athena. Jack would have been breathless with Ianto's efficiency is he hadn't known it intimately.)
Ianto didn't look at him, just stared back out to sea. Waiting.
Jack leant forward and placed his head in his hands. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine again that he was somewhere else. It wasn't the thing itself that he didn't agree with. It was his place in it, or rather, his position, or his part of the job. Martha had done her job, presumably, and Ianto was, with his very presence, doing his as well. Jack even rather liked the whole plan, but at the moment, he wasn't looking forward to the near future.
He had to try one last time. 'Do I have to?' he said shallowly from his hands.
Ianto rubbed a circle on his back. 'Sir,' he said softly, his voice returning to something that he had given up when he had left Jack, Jack and Cardiff. If Jack closed his eyes and smelled the air, it was thirty years ago. Magic that lingered until he opened them again and looked up into the sun, into Ianto's face.
'Sir,' Ianto said again, 'what would you want?'
THE BASEMENT OF CHARING CROSS HOSPITAL:
Jack decided that the sound of the TARDIS landing was one of the only noises that he would ever associate with home, not home in the sense of a geographical location, but a sense of impending salvation. Jack hadn't needed saving in years, but he noticed that the sound had been ingrained in him, or rather, his reaction to it: his heart sped up, and he found himself licking his lips, a small smile playing on his face. The door was opening before he was even sure he could reach out and feel the grain of the painted wood surface under his fingers.
'Captain Jack!' called an unfamiliar voice. Well, familiar enough. He'd just heard it on the phone a few minutes ago, but even as he'd spoken to the person on the other end --he'd been bracing himself for what was about to happen-- when a completely foreign body and face bounded out of the TARDIS, one with breasts.
Jack let himself fall into the hug, his brain spinning with quite a little bit of confusion. The voice he'd spoken to had been male, but this-
'Jenny, let go of Captain Jack,' said a youthful voice, the one Jack remembered hearing, the one attached to the Doctor's current form. The new form.
Jenny wound her hand about his neck and pressed her forehead to his, grinning. His hands rounded her small waist and he thought about turning her around again. She looked like a girl who liked to twirl about.
The Doctor leant against the doorway of the TARDIS, his hands in his pockets. Taller than Jack remembered, longer hair foppishly thrown over one eye a bit, a longer jaw, a completely different face. A younger face. Jack wondered if Time Lords aged backwards.
'I'm Jenny,' Jenny said in his ear. He could hear the smile.
'Hi,' he finally managed, and then the Doctor cleared his throat. He was in the process of rolling his shirtsleeves up. He had arm bands to hold them up; Jack shuddered a little. He liked arm bands. A lot.
'Captain, this is, well, this is my daughter, Jenny.'
Jack promptly let go of Jenny's waist.
Jenny rolled her eyes, and the Doctor, who looked to be no older than she was, rolled his own. 'By all means, don't mind me. Jenny seems to have taken a page from the Book of Harkness as of late.' He polished something small and metal on an untucked shirttail. Jenny grinned and Jack felt more than saw the sexual gesture she made against his ribcage. The Doctor cocked his head. 'No reason she shouldn't spend some time sitting at the feet of the master.'
Jenny sighed and made a mockety face at Jack. Oh, he would have paid money to see them on the TARDIS, probably arguing and throwing things.
Oh and also, when was the Doctor having kids?
Things for later, he decided. Ianto was waiting upstairs. He shoved his hands in his pockets and ignored Jenny's deer eyes. Maybe there would be time for that later. Hell, he could make time. Jack desperately tried to remember any sexual mores that he might have gleaned about Gallifrey from the Doctor. Like, for instance their views of incestual three ways.
Right. Ianto.
'She's upstairs. Twelfth floor,' Jack said, taking a step backwards and hoping that they would follow him. They did, making a line across the hallway with the Doctor in the middle.
'I'm still not keen on this idea, Jack,' the Doctor said, flipping his hair to the side with a twitch of his head. New Body, same nervousness, new hair, old awkwardness, new smile, old consciousness.
Jack shrugged. 'If my time ever comes, I'd want you there,' he said, not looking into the Doctor's eyes, because he was pretty sure he couldn't, not until he added, 'And you could bring Rose and Martha with you, naked and wailing or something pornographically appropriate.'
For a second it was his Doctor again, the one he'd met oh so long ago, eyes furious and accusing, until the corner of his mouth twitched and he waggled a finger at Jack, resembling yet another Doctor. 'Don't.' He glanced over at Jenny and waved the finger. 'No, really, both of you, don't.'
Jack winked at Jenny, and she smiled, showing too many teeth, well, not too many, just more than most people bothered to show when they smiled.
'And you're sure Martha's sure?'
Jack shrugged. 'When has Martha ever not been sure? About these things?'
The Doctor sighed and fingered something small and metal in his hand. 'Fair cop.'
***
Donna's room was plastered with balloons and flowers and cards that said things like 'Get Well Soon,' despite that the senders knew what Jack knew, what Martha knew, what Ianto and the Doctor knew, and more importantly, what Donna herself was intimately aware of. In the corner, the telly showed an ancient rerun of Eastenders. The muted sounds of the hospital wave service pinged in his ears.
Ianto opted to wait outside, his overcoat over one arm, and Jack wasn't one to linger either, but the Doctor hadn't told him to stay away. Jenny hovered near him, and Jack wondered if he was going to have to beat her off with a stick sometime later in the day.
The Doctor ventured into the room and reached to pull the isolation curtain back, resting his hand on the material and bowing his head before he slid it aside, the metal rings clanking in the runner.
Parts of Donna Noble had aged well; specifically, her face was smooth and only recently had sunken in with decay. Her cheeks were hollow, but he could see that her hands, those long tapered fingers that had one typed a hundred words per minute and also, by the way, saved the universe, were wrinkled and pale and a little curled with pain. Her hair, once red, had turned the yellow color that red hair becomes, never really white or silver, but a color that Jack associated with lemonade shandy and 1920's garden parties. Champagne.
'Hello, Ms. Noble,' the Doctor said brightly, hands returned to his pockets. He bent over and smelled a bouquet of flowers on the table next to Donna's bed. 'Ah, calalillies. Lovely.' As Donna scrunched up her face, examining his clothes, the hair, the slight jilty swagger in his step as the Doctor came around the other side of the bed and tapped a musical card with two fingers, Jack wondered if he was going to have to press him.
'So, I hear you're a bit ill. Let's have a look at your chart, shall we?' He slid the chart from the foot of the bed and flipped papers back and back and back, eyes moving preternaturally fast along the charts and readouts and printouts. Jack knew what he was looking for. He was looking for surety. He must have found it, because he returned the chart to the foot of the bed and returned his hands to his pockets.
Donna looked the Doctor up and down. Of course she wouldn't recognise this face. She wouldn't have recognised the previous face either, not in her current state. 'You're young for a doctor, right?' she said suspiciously. 'They already told me that it's incurable.' She looked to the window, dismissive.
Jack leant in the doorjamb and watched as the Doctor sat on the edge of Donna's bed. 'Not that kind of Doctor,' he replied cheerfully. 'Well, a little bit that kind of Doctor.' He smiled. 'I'm a bit of a genius, actually.'
Behind him, Jenny snickered, and Jack reached out with one hand and pushed her from the room. She fell into Ianto's waiting arms with a squeal, and the two of them sat down on a bench on the hallway.
Inside, Jack sighed. Oh, youth.
Donna snorted. 'Oh no, we're not full of ourselves, are we?'
The Doctor seemed to hesitate then, his eyes closing briefly again before one of his hands dug about in his shirt pocket. 'No, not remotely. But I have a gift. This, is for you,' he said, pulling a small, battered locket from his pocket, and letting it fall from his fingers, entangled with a golden chain until it stopped inches from Donna's face and swung gently. Jack held his breath. He wasn't sure that he wanted to see, but he did. He really did.
'What is it?' Donna asked, squinting her eyes as her hand grasped at it.
'An answer.' The Doctor pressed it into her hand and sat back, his spine stiff, as Donna brought the locket up to her face, her eyesight so poor (the tumor was pressing, pressing) that she couldn't read the writing she could feel was present on the outside of it's tarnished sides.
'What's it say?' she whispered, and he hands began to shake.
The Doctor didn't move, instead glanced at Jack, his eyes skating to the hallway for another flash before he said softly, 'Open it.'
Donna's fingers scrabbled with the tiny seam, but then her fingers seemed to remember what they were for, and she prised the locket open. For a second, there was nothing, and then, a puff of something, something golden and mist-like rolled from the inside of the locket, drifting towards Donna's eyes. One of her hands dropped from the locket and fastened to his, and Jack watched the cloudiness fade in her eyes, a cloudiness that he hadn't even known was there until it lifted like mist rolling off the bay.
'I was going to be with you forever, rest of my life,' she whispered. 'Traveling in the TARDIS. The Doctor Donna.' Her hand tightened around his, and the Doctor lifted it in both of his, his fingers making circular patterns of the tissue paper like skin of her palm.
'I know,' he said softly, glancing back at Jack.
Jack pushed off from the doorway and reached out to the handle, pulling the door shut behind him. Jenny stood and he held up a hand to her.
'Come on, Jones,' he mumbled. 'Let's go get a drink. A drink to Doctor Donna.'
Jenny smiled wanly. 'I could use a drink,' she said with a brightness that belied her face.
'Oh, I think we can manage something age appropriate, he joked half-heartedly. Jack let her wind her even younger hand about his arm, and he wound his older but still younger (but still older) one about Ianto's, and the three of them set off down the hall, but not before they all glimpsed the flash of light from the seam in the door.
END
Author: amand_r
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Characters: (alphabetically) Donna, Eleven, Gwen, Ianto, Jack, Jenny, Martha
Timeline: Almost immediately after Journey's End.
Author's Notes: Does anyone get out of this fandom without doing this theme? Also, for some reason, in my TW future, Ianto leads TW London. Dunno why, but every fic, there he is. Also, I stole terminology from Firefly. Also, I seem to have a love affair with Jenny.
Summary: They'd all made a pact. They'd never actually said anything concrete about it, just a quiet conversation that had contained a few sharp glances, nods, two pair of eyes locking into place like the slip of tumblers in a lock. Oh, and a load of Chinese take-away.
This had been written for 14valentines, but I was late. Here you go.
SHE HAS TAPED AN AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH of our neighborhood to the ceiling. She looks up to see our house from above while we're in bed. This is but one example of her uncontrollable desire to look down on the structures that she's in.
(Ben Lerner, Angle of Yaw)
They'd all made a pact. They'd never actually said anything concrete about it, just a quiet conversation that had contained a few sharp glances, nods, two pair of eyes locking into place like the slip of tumblers in a lock. Oh, and a load of Chinese take-away.
It had been odd at the time, the way it had come up; Gwen was giggling with Martha on the sofa, and Jack was uncharacteristically sprawled out on the grating that was the floor in that part of the Hub, using a pair of mutilated disposable chopsticks to blindly pick Kung Pao Shrimp out of the carton Ianto held in his hand. Jack had been plying them with beer, and given the previous seventy-two hours since his and Martha's return from the TARDIS, no one was hard-pressed to find reasons to drink.
(When he had stepped into the Hub, Martha on his arm, and surveyed the Dalek carcass on the ground, some over here, some over there, he had swallowed, and just for a second, Ianto had seen something in his face that he almost fell in love with all over again. But then he'd glanced at the two of them and said, 'Every time I leave your parties get crazier. You two are grounded.' Ianto had almost mumbled something about strippers, but he just couldn't. Just.)
And Jack had relayed the last bit to them, the last bit that had happened after everyone had been returned home and the Doctor had called him on the special mobile, and Ianto had watched his jaw set. Jack had thrown the mobile onto his desk and turned abruptly, clapping his hands as he walked out of his office until they had all looked up at him from the Hub floor where Gwen and Martha had been dismantling the last of the Dalek.
'Right then-who's for Chinese?'
And then, back to Kung Pao Shrimp, giggling, beer, Jack splayed out. All things leading to an orgy and adultery. But then Martha had sobered (or reached a moment of drunken clarity) and said into the silence, 'Oh, come on, yeah? Why not?'
And Jack had told them why not.
And then Ianto had said that Jack was being dense.
Martha had agreed. Someone said 'apt.' Someone else said, 'sublime.'
Someone, (probably Ianto) had said that Jack should do it.
Jack had said no.
Martha had poured beer on him. It might or might not have been an accident.
Gwen had said something like, 'Well, then, hypothetically, it's settled. Hypothetically, right, Jack?'
And Jack had met her eyes, and Martha's open and expectant expression, and then stripped off his button down, muttering, 'Why not? It's not like we'll probably remember anyway.'
But then he'd locked eyes with Ianto, and the pact had been dully noted.
***
LONDON, 2038
Ianto Jones heard the wave chiming before he looked over his shoulder to the 3-D screen behind him. His secretary hadn't access to his line, and so it was his emergency line. Only a few people knew of it, and none of them were business priorities. He waved his hand through the security sensor to activate it.
A simple text:
I--- It's time. ---M.
He sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers for a full minute, staring out at the traffic below, far on the ground. For a second, he wished that he had the telepathy that his staff muttered about in the hallways after they left the staff meetings. It would have been so much easier then.
He pressed the button on the old fashioned intercom he'd nicked from Torchwood Three before he'd left. 'Josie, please cancel everything and purchase a train ticket to Cardiff for this afternoon. Use my personal account.'
CARDIFF:
Gwen had given him enough biscuits for fifteen lifetimes, Jack mused as he dug about in the bag while he strolled back across the Plass. Gwen was like that sometimes. Since her semi-retirement, she'd attacked cooking with zen-like patience. 'Something she'd never got round to before.'
Certainly, Rhys had told him privately as they kicked their feet up while half-watching the game, half waiting for dinner, he'd never complain again. About anything, honest.
Jack smiled and took a deep breath, letting the rare sunshine hit his face . His path was clear before him, and so he let his eyes close for a few steps, imagining that he was somewhere else. Then again, he liked where he was now, so that was a fleeting fancy.
This was why, when he opened his eyes, he was a bit surprised to see Ianto a few feet from the Tourist Centre, leaning against the railing and looking out to the bay, his coat billowing in the wind. Obviously, his coat had been taking lessons from Jack's.
Jack wondered if Ianto had finally submitted to the telepathy implants Torchwood was offering because he turned then, one hand on the railing, his face breaking into a smile as he spied Jack. His face was lined a bit with age, but his coat opened to show the three piece suit, as tall and fashionable as ever, watch fob still in a pocket, hair still dark with youth.
God, fifty-five was the new forty.
'Hey there!' he barked when Ianto shoved his hands in his pockets, leaving the railing and meandering in his direction. Jack closed the distance and wound one arm around Ianto's broad shoulders, squeezing as much as he dared to. His hand balanced the bag of biscuits. 'How are Genevieve and the kids? Biscuit?'
Ianto peered into the bag before raising an eyebrow. 'They're in Tunesia on holiday,' he said, reaching in and pulling out a misshapen thing and sniffing it. 'Gwen still bored?'
Jack snorted and steered them towards a bench. 'Gwen's cooking is good. Just aesthetically challenged.'
Ianto broke the biscuit in two in his hands and tasted it. Jack wedged one in his mouth and sat down on the bench, setting the bag down next to him. 'I was going to give the rest to Myfanwy,' he mumbled around a partially full mouth. 'Honest.'
Ianto joined him on the bench. 'She does like chocolate chip.' He threw a few pieces out to the gulls that milled about.
Jack leant back on the bench and crossed his feet at the ankles. 'So, do you want to go down and see everyone?'
Ianto divested himself of the rest of his biscuit and brushed his hands together. Jack stared at the roughness of the backs of them, a little darkened and wrinkled with age and injury. He'd been responsible for the latter, and time was responsible for the former. 'Oh heavens no,' Ianto said, making a face of distaste. 'Every time I go down there I feel the distinct urge to tidy up.'
Jack grinned. 'I got another receptionist,' he said helpfully.
Ianto rolled his eyes. 'Who do you think red stamps all of your approval forms?'
'Oh yeah. Say, while you're at it, we could use a go-go cage.' Jack sobered. 'For research.'
Ianto glanced away, but the corner of his mouth turned up in a quick grin. 'That didn't work even when I was still working here,' he replied. 'And while this has been stimulating,' he began, sliding his hands up and down his thighs. Jack almost reached over one hand to still him. Instead he waited, listening to the wind rustling the open paper bag next to him
'Jack, it's time to make the call,' he said, still staring out at the water.
Jack's stomach flipped a bit, and he wasn't fooled for a moment that it was the biscuits. 'You have a mind like a fucking steel trap,' he said in a cheerful tone, glancing in the opposite direction at a pair of lovers half-dancing, half-skipping, down the Plass.
Ianto leant forward and rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands. He glanced at Jack, smiling wryly. Somewhere behind them, a girl shrieked; that neither of them moved in response meant that they were either too attuned to the nature of screams, or not enough. Jack knew which one.
'I prefer to think if it as eidetic memory,' he said.
Jack waved a hand. 'To-may-to, to-mah-to.' He smiled at Ianto, but it was wan. 'Let's call the whole thing off.' For a second, he thought he'd managed to convince him.
(How he could have ever done, that, Jack wasn't sure. He hadn't ever been able to convince Ianto not to do anything that he'd set his mind to, including packing up in Cardiff and settling in London, where he had opened Torchwood One in the manner of unfolding a blueprint and magically erecting a city with alight hologram. Every thing planned, everything in place, rising from the ground fully formed; if he had to give it a name, he would have called Ianto's Torchwood Athena. Jack would have been breathless with Ianto's efficiency is he hadn't known it intimately.)
Ianto didn't look at him, just stared back out to sea. Waiting.
Jack leant forward and placed his head in his hands. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine again that he was somewhere else. It wasn't the thing itself that he didn't agree with. It was his place in it, or rather, his position, or his part of the job. Martha had done her job, presumably, and Ianto was, with his very presence, doing his as well. Jack even rather liked the whole plan, but at the moment, he wasn't looking forward to the near future.
He had to try one last time. 'Do I have to?' he said shallowly from his hands.
Ianto rubbed a circle on his back. 'Sir,' he said softly, his voice returning to something that he had given up when he had left Jack, Jack and Cardiff. If Jack closed his eyes and smelled the air, it was thirty years ago. Magic that lingered until he opened them again and looked up into the sun, into Ianto's face.
'Sir,' Ianto said again, 'what would you want?'
THE BASEMENT OF CHARING CROSS HOSPITAL:
Jack decided that the sound of the TARDIS landing was one of the only noises that he would ever associate with home, not home in the sense of a geographical location, but a sense of impending salvation. Jack hadn't needed saving in years, but he noticed that the sound had been ingrained in him, or rather, his reaction to it: his heart sped up, and he found himself licking his lips, a small smile playing on his face. The door was opening before he was even sure he could reach out and feel the grain of the painted wood surface under his fingers.
'Captain Jack!' called an unfamiliar voice. Well, familiar enough. He'd just heard it on the phone a few minutes ago, but even as he'd spoken to the person on the other end --he'd been bracing himself for what was about to happen-- when a completely foreign body and face bounded out of the TARDIS, one with breasts.
Jack let himself fall into the hug, his brain spinning with quite a little bit of confusion. The voice he'd spoken to had been male, but this-
'Jenny, let go of Captain Jack,' said a youthful voice, the one Jack remembered hearing, the one attached to the Doctor's current form. The new form.
Jenny wound her hand about his neck and pressed her forehead to his, grinning. His hands rounded her small waist and he thought about turning her around again. She looked like a girl who liked to twirl about.
The Doctor leant against the doorway of the TARDIS, his hands in his pockets. Taller than Jack remembered, longer hair foppishly thrown over one eye a bit, a longer jaw, a completely different face. A younger face. Jack wondered if Time Lords aged backwards.
'I'm Jenny,' Jenny said in his ear. He could hear the smile.
'Hi,' he finally managed, and then the Doctor cleared his throat. He was in the process of rolling his shirtsleeves up. He had arm bands to hold them up; Jack shuddered a little. He liked arm bands. A lot.
'Captain, this is, well, this is my daughter, Jenny.'
Jack promptly let go of Jenny's waist.
Jenny rolled her eyes, and the Doctor, who looked to be no older than she was, rolled his own. 'By all means, don't mind me. Jenny seems to have taken a page from the Book of Harkness as of late.' He polished something small and metal on an untucked shirttail. Jenny grinned and Jack felt more than saw the sexual gesture she made against his ribcage. The Doctor cocked his head. 'No reason she shouldn't spend some time sitting at the feet of the master.'
Jenny sighed and made a mockety face at Jack. Oh, he would have paid money to see them on the TARDIS, probably arguing and throwing things.
Oh and also, when was the Doctor having kids?
Things for later, he decided. Ianto was waiting upstairs. He shoved his hands in his pockets and ignored Jenny's deer eyes. Maybe there would be time for that later. Hell, he could make time. Jack desperately tried to remember any sexual mores that he might have gleaned about Gallifrey from the Doctor. Like, for instance their views of incestual three ways.
Right. Ianto.
'She's upstairs. Twelfth floor,' Jack said, taking a step backwards and hoping that they would follow him. They did, making a line across the hallway with the Doctor in the middle.
'I'm still not keen on this idea, Jack,' the Doctor said, flipping his hair to the side with a twitch of his head. New Body, same nervousness, new hair, old awkwardness, new smile, old consciousness.
Jack shrugged. 'If my time ever comes, I'd want you there,' he said, not looking into the Doctor's eyes, because he was pretty sure he couldn't, not until he added, 'And you could bring Rose and Martha with you, naked and wailing or something pornographically appropriate.'
For a second it was his Doctor again, the one he'd met oh so long ago, eyes furious and accusing, until the corner of his mouth twitched and he waggled a finger at Jack, resembling yet another Doctor. 'Don't.' He glanced over at Jenny and waved the finger. 'No, really, both of you, don't.'
Jack winked at Jenny, and she smiled, showing too many teeth, well, not too many, just more than most people bothered to show when they smiled.
'And you're sure Martha's sure?'
Jack shrugged. 'When has Martha ever not been sure? About these things?'
The Doctor sighed and fingered something small and metal in his hand. 'Fair cop.'
***
Donna's room was plastered with balloons and flowers and cards that said things like 'Get Well Soon,' despite that the senders knew what Jack knew, what Martha knew, what Ianto and the Doctor knew, and more importantly, what Donna herself was intimately aware of. In the corner, the telly showed an ancient rerun of Eastenders. The muted sounds of the hospital wave service pinged in his ears.
Ianto opted to wait outside, his overcoat over one arm, and Jack wasn't one to linger either, but the Doctor hadn't told him to stay away. Jenny hovered near him, and Jack wondered if he was going to have to beat her off with a stick sometime later in the day.
The Doctor ventured into the room and reached to pull the isolation curtain back, resting his hand on the material and bowing his head before he slid it aside, the metal rings clanking in the runner.
Parts of Donna Noble had aged well; specifically, her face was smooth and only recently had sunken in with decay. Her cheeks were hollow, but he could see that her hands, those long tapered fingers that had one typed a hundred words per minute and also, by the way, saved the universe, were wrinkled and pale and a little curled with pain. Her hair, once red, had turned the yellow color that red hair becomes, never really white or silver, but a color that Jack associated with lemonade shandy and 1920's garden parties. Champagne.
'Hello, Ms. Noble,' the Doctor said brightly, hands returned to his pockets. He bent over and smelled a bouquet of flowers on the table next to Donna's bed. 'Ah, calalillies. Lovely.' As Donna scrunched up her face, examining his clothes, the hair, the slight jilty swagger in his step as the Doctor came around the other side of the bed and tapped a musical card with two fingers, Jack wondered if he was going to have to press him.
'So, I hear you're a bit ill. Let's have a look at your chart, shall we?' He slid the chart from the foot of the bed and flipped papers back and back and back, eyes moving preternaturally fast along the charts and readouts and printouts. Jack knew what he was looking for. He was looking for surety. He must have found it, because he returned the chart to the foot of the bed and returned his hands to his pockets.
Donna looked the Doctor up and down. Of course she wouldn't recognise this face. She wouldn't have recognised the previous face either, not in her current state. 'You're young for a doctor, right?' she said suspiciously. 'They already told me that it's incurable.' She looked to the window, dismissive.
Jack leant in the doorjamb and watched as the Doctor sat on the edge of Donna's bed. 'Not that kind of Doctor,' he replied cheerfully. 'Well, a little bit that kind of Doctor.' He smiled. 'I'm a bit of a genius, actually.'
Behind him, Jenny snickered, and Jack reached out with one hand and pushed her from the room. She fell into Ianto's waiting arms with a squeal, and the two of them sat down on a bench on the hallway.
Inside, Jack sighed. Oh, youth.
Donna snorted. 'Oh no, we're not full of ourselves, are we?'
The Doctor seemed to hesitate then, his eyes closing briefly again before one of his hands dug about in his shirt pocket. 'No, not remotely. But I have a gift. This, is for you,' he said, pulling a small, battered locket from his pocket, and letting it fall from his fingers, entangled with a golden chain until it stopped inches from Donna's face and swung gently. Jack held his breath. He wasn't sure that he wanted to see, but he did. He really did.
'What is it?' Donna asked, squinting her eyes as her hand grasped at it.
'An answer.' The Doctor pressed it into her hand and sat back, his spine stiff, as Donna brought the locket up to her face, her eyesight so poor (the tumor was pressing, pressing) that she couldn't read the writing she could feel was present on the outside of it's tarnished sides.
'What's it say?' she whispered, and he hands began to shake.
The Doctor didn't move, instead glanced at Jack, his eyes skating to the hallway for another flash before he said softly, 'Open it.'
Donna's fingers scrabbled with the tiny seam, but then her fingers seemed to remember what they were for, and she prised the locket open. For a second, there was nothing, and then, a puff of something, something golden and mist-like rolled from the inside of the locket, drifting towards Donna's eyes. One of her hands dropped from the locket and fastened to his, and Jack watched the cloudiness fade in her eyes, a cloudiness that he hadn't even known was there until it lifted like mist rolling off the bay.
'I was going to be with you forever, rest of my life,' she whispered. 'Traveling in the TARDIS. The Doctor Donna.' Her hand tightened around his, and the Doctor lifted it in both of his, his fingers making circular patterns of the tissue paper like skin of her palm.
'I know,' he said softly, glancing back at Jack.
Jack pushed off from the doorway and reached out to the handle, pulling the door shut behind him. Jenny stood and he held up a hand to her.
'Come on, Jones,' he mumbled. 'Let's go get a drink. A drink to Doctor Donna.'
Jenny smiled wanly. 'I could use a drink,' she said with a brightness that belied her face.
'Oh, I think we can manage something age appropriate, he joked half-heartedly. Jack let her wind her even younger hand about his arm, and he wound his older but still younger (but still older) one about Ianto's, and the three of them set off down the hall, but not before they all glimpsed the flash of light from the seam in the door.
END