fic: Never Say Never Again [31/?]
Title: Never Say Never Again
Rating: R [language and Disturbing Jack-Related Themes]
Spoilers: Dead Man Walking
Disclaimer: got my bags packed for the legal boobyhatch already
Summary: Jack's in trouble. Yes, that kind of trouble. What's a pregnant guy to do when the employee handbook says "no guns at the baby shower"...?
Notes: Whacko!AU!Muse spent the weekend Downloading Things, and has already turned in an essay titled "Exit Wounds": How I Think I Can Work With Some Of This Despite My AUness, A Critical Analysis. This could be... bad. I'll keep an eye on Her and update the spoiler warning if she ends up making good on any of these new notes...
[Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30.]
**********
Of course the Doctor had managed to park in a closet. Sideways. "I'm not going to say it."
An amused snort from the "orderly" as he fitted his key into the oh-so-ordinary lock on the beautiful blue doors. "He's just about caught up, then."
The Time Lord (or rather the senior Time Lord, for of course the other half of this double act had to be one John Leo Unpronounceable-Symbol Smith-Jones-Harkness, or Jack-Jack to his friends if he hadn't grown out of that long since by now) helped Jack to alight from the gurney and offered him a steadying arm into the TARDIS. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. Would you get him into bed before he falls over?"
Jack bristled, drawing back from the younger Time Lord's attempt to take his arm. "Wait a minute, what about Rosie?"
"Covered," the Time Lord said curtly, already hammering at switches. "Well covered. We can take the long way home, give you a little more time to get back in fighting trim for what's ahead."
Jack frowned at the turn of phrase. "For you that's almost coming right out and telling me what to expect."
"Assuming I knew," the Doctor said, blue eyes dark with stormclouds. "But I don't. And that's the worst part of this. Jack..." He murmured a word in his own language that the TARDIS didn't translate, and Jack realized there were shadows under the blue eyes that suggested the Time Lord equivalent of adrenaline had been keeping him from getting even what little sleep he did ever need, waiting for the moment foreknowledge or logic or hunch said was the correct time to act. "This will make sense, eventually. I think. I hope. For now, go to bed. Please."
Reluctantly, Jack submitted to the insistent hand at his elbow. "All right, if it'll make you feel better." The ghost of a smile finally touched the Doctor's lips before he turned back to frown sternly into the monitor.
It probably said volumes that Jack-Jack led him to the Doctor's own bedroom, but loath as he was to admit it Jack was too wobbly with the lingering effects of blood loss and refrigeration and god knew what brick-wall decelerations of hormonal processes to really care to stand and parse it through. But there was no mistaking that dark-oak bed (easy to be vague about money when you were chummy with Stickley, wasn't it), even with the linens now the rich orange of wild lilies rather than flame-gold or the monkish saffron he'd seemed to favor before that under the red coverlet.
The biggest change to the room, though, was the short hall lined with bookcases where the crib had once been. Obvious where the hallway led, when the shelves were so cluttered with photographs of Jack-Jack with various girls, or the largest wolfhound that Jack had ever seen, and a few even of Jack and Martha or one or other of the Doctor's faces, no clues whatsoever as to the vaguest of timelines on any of these long-lived adults. (Not so with some of the "girls". Jack realized with a jolt that a few pictures he had initially taken to be distinct women in fact represented a progression over time.) Music began playing in the room beyond, something Jack didn't recognize that sounded like a swing band getting mugged in a dark alley. "Still living at home, then, I take it."
Heading into the hallway, the young Time Lord pulled the scrub-shirt off, revealing long lean muscles and a tattoo, a constellation of Gallifreyan script flowing from his left shoulderblade to disappear into his jeans at his right hip. "Moved in with you and Mum for a while once, that was... educational. But yeah, me and him, mostly. He did say bed, you know, do I have to come and tuck you in?"
"I'm trying very hard right now to keep in mind that the last time I saw you you were sitting in your Mum's lap eating cake with your hands." A ripple of laughter from the other room as Jack slipped under the covers. The Doctor had clearly raised the kid right, tattoos notwithstanding, if his easy manner and the evidence of the photographs were anything to go on (although Jack was a fine one to cast stones regarding the latter, the only picture he had in his office at the Hub was that one where Martha was sitting at his desk wearing his greatcoat and quite obviously nothing else), and Jack couldn't help wondering, despite years of training and later experience, what hand he himself may have had in how the boy, no, young man had turned out. And how on earth he was ever going to raise a daughter this well, assuming he got her back in time for it to make any difference.
Rating: R [language and Disturbing Jack-Related Themes]
Spoilers: Dead Man Walking
Disclaimer: got my bags packed for the legal boobyhatch already
Summary: Jack's in trouble. Yes, that kind of trouble. What's a pregnant guy to do when the employee handbook says "no guns at the baby shower"...?
Notes: Whacko!AU!Muse spent the weekend Downloading Things, and has already turned in an essay titled "Exit Wounds": How I Think I Can Work With Some Of This Despite My AUness, A Critical Analysis. This could be... bad. I'll keep an eye on Her and update the spoiler warning if she ends up making good on any of these new notes...
[Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, and 30.]
**********
Of course the Doctor had managed to park in a closet. Sideways. "I'm not going to say it."
An amused snort from the "orderly" as he fitted his key into the oh-so-ordinary lock on the beautiful blue doors. "He's just about caught up, then."
The Time Lord (or rather the senior Time Lord, for of course the other half of this double act had to be one John Leo Unpronounceable-Symbol Smith-Jones-Harkness, or Jack-Jack to his friends if he hadn't grown out of that long since by now) helped Jack to alight from the gurney and offered him a steadying arm into the TARDIS. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. Would you get him into bed before he falls over?"
Jack bristled, drawing back from the younger Time Lord's attempt to take his arm. "Wait a minute, what about Rosie?"
"Covered," the Time Lord said curtly, already hammering at switches. "Well covered. We can take the long way home, give you a little more time to get back in fighting trim for what's ahead."
Jack frowned at the turn of phrase. "For you that's almost coming right out and telling me what to expect."
"Assuming I knew," the Doctor said, blue eyes dark with stormclouds. "But I don't. And that's the worst part of this. Jack..." He murmured a word in his own language that the TARDIS didn't translate, and Jack realized there were shadows under the blue eyes that suggested the Time Lord equivalent of adrenaline had been keeping him from getting even what little sleep he did ever need, waiting for the moment foreknowledge or logic or hunch said was the correct time to act. "This will make sense, eventually. I think. I hope. For now, go to bed. Please."
Reluctantly, Jack submitted to the insistent hand at his elbow. "All right, if it'll make you feel better." The ghost of a smile finally touched the Doctor's lips before he turned back to frown sternly into the monitor.
It probably said volumes that Jack-Jack led him to the Doctor's own bedroom, but loath as he was to admit it Jack was too wobbly with the lingering effects of blood loss and refrigeration and god knew what brick-wall decelerations of hormonal processes to really care to stand and parse it through. But there was no mistaking that dark-oak bed (easy to be vague about money when you were chummy with Stickley, wasn't it), even with the linens now the rich orange of wild lilies rather than flame-gold or the monkish saffron he'd seemed to favor before that under the red coverlet.
The biggest change to the room, though, was the short hall lined with bookcases where the crib had once been. Obvious where the hallway led, when the shelves were so cluttered with photographs of Jack-Jack with various girls, or the largest wolfhound that Jack had ever seen, and a few even of Jack and Martha or one or other of the Doctor's faces, no clues whatsoever as to the vaguest of timelines on any of these long-lived adults. (Not so with some of the "girls". Jack realized with a jolt that a few pictures he had initially taken to be distinct women in fact represented a progression over time.) Music began playing in the room beyond, something Jack didn't recognize that sounded like a swing band getting mugged in a dark alley. "Still living at home, then, I take it."
Heading into the hallway, the young Time Lord pulled the scrub-shirt off, revealing long lean muscles and a tattoo, a constellation of Gallifreyan script flowing from his left shoulderblade to disappear into his jeans at his right hip. "Moved in with you and Mum for a while once, that was... educational. But yeah, me and him, mostly. He did say bed, you know, do I have to come and tuck you in?"
"I'm trying very hard right now to keep in mind that the last time I saw you you were sitting in your Mum's lap eating cake with your hands." A ripple of laughter from the other room as Jack slipped under the covers. The Doctor had clearly raised the kid right, tattoos notwithstanding, if his easy manner and the evidence of the photographs were anything to go on (although Jack was a fine one to cast stones regarding the latter, the only picture he had in his office at the Hub was that one where Martha was sitting at his desk wearing his greatcoat and quite obviously nothing else), and Jack couldn't help wondering, despite years of training and later experience, what hand he himself may have had in how the boy, no, young man had turned out. And how on earth he was ever going to raise a daughter this well, assuming he got her back in time for it to make any difference.