Attempt Number
Title: Attempt Number
Author: baffled_fandom
Rating: R
Status: Finished
Pairing: Jack/Doctor
Spoilers: End of Days and Parting of Ways
Summary: This is how it ends
“Are you sure about this?” The Doctor asked skeptically, holding Jack’s hand as they stood over the abyss of Pizon.
“Pretty sure,” Jack agreed, peering down the canyon. He could sort of see the bottom. If he squinted.
“All right.” The Doctor winced and brushed his mouth against Jack’s jaw, “See you at the bottom,” before pushing him over the edge.
It took twenty minutes for the Doctor to reset all of Jack’s bones, pushing his ribs back into his chest and leaving Jack’s snapped neck for last. He sat, calm and cold on the edge of Jack’s bed in the Tardis, not touching Jack until Jack inhaled sharply, sitting up, bruised, but alive. It was only when Jack sighed and said “Attempt 24- fall. Failure,” that the Doctor started to shake.
Jack wrapped his arms around the Doctor, pulling the thinner, slighter body against his, the Doctor’s side to his chest and one leg thrown over both of the Doctor’s. “Thank you,” he murmured against the Doctor’s temple as the Doctor calmed both his hearts and tried not to dry heave because that was such an ape-like response. The Doctor clinically noted that the blood from Jack’s ribs breaking the skin had smeared onto his suit, had dried on his hands. Blood on his hands. “Thank you for this,” Jack repeated, leaving silent, thank you for helping me die.
Fifteen hundred years.
A million different worlds.
A hundred million years of time.
They’d seen two cells join on a backwater planet and, a thousand million years later had seen the entire race die in the explosion of their sun. They’d seen galaxies expand and suns implode. They’d lost friends, gained lovers, and then done it all again.
The Doctor had died twice, while Jack sobbed over his body.
Jack had died so many more times than that, but never changed his face.
“Attempt 36- decapitation. Failure”
The Doctor rinsed his mouth out, spitting the taste of blue-green bile out of his mouth and leaning weakly against the wall.
“Jack, I don’t know if I can keep doing this.”
It was the worst kind of emotional blackmail, but he said it anyway, “Don’t leave me again.”
It had been six hundred years since the last time he’d regenerated- his thirteenth life and Jack was more careful of it than he was. People had started assuming Jack was his son three hundred years ago when his hair started being threaded through with white. He’d made it all the way to grandson now, his hand pale, blue veins showing through, and hair thin.
Jack still stole kisses though and flirted like they were both as young as Jack looked and neither was. He still pressed against the doctor in the few occasions they shared a bed, fingers stroking over the Doctor’s skin like he was as precious as he wasn’t and as fragile as he was.
It had been a decade since Jack made the Doctor promise not to leave him.
“Attempt 84. Extermination.” Jack’s voice was hoarse and small and the Doctor left the medical bay, his screams of anger and rage and page echoing back to Jack as the Tardis trembled.
Author: baffled_fandom
Rating: R
Status: Finished
Pairing: Jack/Doctor
Spoilers: End of Days and Parting of Ways
Summary: This is how it ends
“Are you sure about this?” The Doctor asked skeptically, holding Jack’s hand as they stood over the abyss of Pizon.
“Pretty sure,” Jack agreed, peering down the canyon. He could sort of see the bottom. If he squinted.
“All right.” The Doctor winced and brushed his mouth against Jack’s jaw, “See you at the bottom,” before pushing him over the edge.
It took twenty minutes for the Doctor to reset all of Jack’s bones, pushing his ribs back into his chest and leaving Jack’s snapped neck for last. He sat, calm and cold on the edge of Jack’s bed in the Tardis, not touching Jack until Jack inhaled sharply, sitting up, bruised, but alive. It was only when Jack sighed and said “Attempt 24- fall. Failure,” that the Doctor started to shake.
Jack wrapped his arms around the Doctor, pulling the thinner, slighter body against his, the Doctor’s side to his chest and one leg thrown over both of the Doctor’s. “Thank you,” he murmured against the Doctor’s temple as the Doctor calmed both his hearts and tried not to dry heave because that was such an ape-like response. The Doctor clinically noted that the blood from Jack’s ribs breaking the skin had smeared onto his suit, had dried on his hands. Blood on his hands. “Thank you for this,” Jack repeated, leaving silent, thank you for helping me die.
Fifteen hundred years.
A million different worlds.
A hundred million years of time.
They’d seen two cells join on a backwater planet and, a thousand million years later had seen the entire race die in the explosion of their sun. They’d seen galaxies expand and suns implode. They’d lost friends, gained lovers, and then done it all again.
The Doctor had died twice, while Jack sobbed over his body.
Jack had died so many more times than that, but never changed his face.
“Attempt 36- decapitation. Failure”
The Doctor rinsed his mouth out, spitting the taste of blue-green bile out of his mouth and leaning weakly against the wall.
“Jack, I don’t know if I can keep doing this.”
It was the worst kind of emotional blackmail, but he said it anyway, “Don’t leave me again.”
It had been six hundred years since the last time he’d regenerated- his thirteenth life and Jack was more careful of it than he was. People had started assuming Jack was his son three hundred years ago when his hair started being threaded through with white. He’d made it all the way to grandson now, his hand pale, blue veins showing through, and hair thin.
Jack still stole kisses though and flirted like they were both as young as Jack looked and neither was. He still pressed against the doctor in the few occasions they shared a bed, fingers stroking over the Doctor’s skin like he was as precious as he wasn’t and as fragile as he was.
It had been a decade since Jack made the Doctor promise not to leave him.
“Attempt 84. Extermination.” Jack’s voice was hoarse and small and the Doctor left the medical bay, his screams of anger and rage and page echoing back to Jack as the Tardis trembled.