Finding Jack-or whatever he's calling himself these days-isn't as hard as one might think, especially when you can follow the vague sense of wrongness from the Kashtta Tower all the way to this tiny little junk shop.
The Doctor knows it isn't too late to run. He could just turn around and go, and there's nothing that would stop him from doing it. Not even his successor could end this, so what makes him think there's anything he can do, or should do?
Two things, he tells himself. You're the one that started this mess. And you're the one that ends things. He's the one that wasn't supposed to have to.
And with that, he starts moving, directly into the centre of that wrong feeling. There's a crawling unease clawing at the base of his brain and twisting his gut, a sudden spike of adrenaline as a mind and body created on a battlefield register wrong to mean attack and compensate accordingly. His hearts are pounding
( ... )
Up until six syllables ago, there was a motorcycle engine spluttering under J's fingers.
That was six syllables before his attention got slammed into a wall and overwritten with the force of a Delta wave.
He makes a noise which would be a curse if it made it up past his throat, trying to convince the shock away because he's wrong, what he thought he heard was wrong, Rift and random chance be damned, this is one thing he's always been wrong about before and he'll always be wrong about to come and two hundred years and two universes behind him mean he's got no reason to even recognize that voice if it did show up behind him; all things are supposed to fade with time, memory and grief and meaning and pain-
Except that then he does whip around, hand dragging the bike like he's working on the old rules, any shield in an attack, any port in a oncoming storm, sure he'll be explaining that little overreaction in three, two-
He doesn't make it to one, because the one divides by zero and the world opens up beneath his feet
( ... )
The question's rhetorical, the Doctor knows, but that's never stopped him before. "The point is you were my responsibility," he says, and he fixes J with a look that falls somewhere between a stern warning not to argue and unvoiced regret-unvoiced, because the words wouldn't do either of them any good, here and now.
The other Doctor might not have taken that responsibility as seriously as he should have, but the other Doctor isn't here right now. And thus, that subtle emphasis on the pronoun. Yes, he's already spoken with himself, and no, he wasn't impressed.
"I wasn't exactly planning on visiting lovely Chicago, was a bit busy with that whole 'regeneration' thing, but we're both here, and I'm not dead. Seemed like I ought to be doing something." He shrugs and glances at the device in the corner again. "Looks like rehabilitative custody isn't working as well as some might've hoped... Who are you these days, anyway? I heard about John Thane, but I didn't see fit to tell myself just what it is you're going by now that you've had your
( ... )
The Doctor steps forward and J shies away, not making a break but keeping distance between them, trying to quell the responses shooting through his body at having this Doctor this close. Touch me. Kill me. Stay away from me! He can't keep from reading the Doctor as dangerous, and part of that is primary-authority conditioning, and part of that is Thane hunting Time Lords across the galaxy sure that they would end him, and part of that is the Doctor, the other Doctor, who knows what reason away from finishing him in the Kashtta's cellar hallway, and part of it is the sheer impossibility of this moment, closing in on him with teeth. He might not be making any sudden movements, might not try to call attention to himself, but every scrap of his awareness is either honed in on the Doctor here or thrown into tumult by him
( ... )
Comments 41
The Doctor knows it isn't too late to run. He could just turn around and go, and there's nothing that would stop him from doing it. Not even his successor could end this, so what makes him think there's anything he can do, or should do?
Two things, he tells himself. You're the one that started this mess. And you're the one that ends things. He's the one that wasn't supposed to have to.
And with that, he starts moving, directly into the centre of that wrong feeling. There's a crawling unease clawing at the base of his brain and twisting his gut, a sudden spike of adrenaline as a mind and body created on a battlefield register wrong to mean attack and compensate accordingly. His hearts are pounding ( ... )
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That was six syllables before his attention got slammed into a wall and overwritten with the force of a Delta wave.
He makes a noise which would be a curse if it made it up past his throat, trying to convince the shock away because he's wrong, what he thought he heard was wrong, Rift and random chance be damned, this is one thing he's always been wrong about before and he'll always be wrong about to come and two hundred years and two universes behind him mean he's got no reason to even recognize that voice if it did show up behind him; all things are supposed to fade with time, memory and grief and meaning and pain-
Except that then he does whip around, hand dragging the bike like he's working on the old rules, any shield in an attack, any port in a oncoming storm, sure he'll be explaining that little overreaction in three, two-
He doesn't make it to one, because the one divides by zero and the world opens up beneath his feet ( ... )
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The other Doctor might not have taken that responsibility as seriously as he should have, but the other Doctor isn't here right now. And thus, that subtle emphasis on the pronoun. Yes, he's already spoken with himself, and no, he wasn't impressed.
"I wasn't exactly planning on visiting lovely Chicago, was a bit busy with that whole 'regeneration' thing, but we're both here, and I'm not dead. Seemed like I ought to be doing something." He shrugs and glances at the device in the corner again. "Looks like rehabilitative custody isn't working as well as some might've hoped... Who are you these days, anyway? I heard about John Thane, but I didn't see fit to tell myself just what it is you're going by now that you've had your ( ... )
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