Promises, Part 13
Promises
Part 13
Rating: R
Genre: Angst, fluff in places, violence some places also.
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, some Tosh/Owen later
Summary: Jack is back, but why did he leave in the first place? Promises broken and promises made. Shock, horror and surprises make Jack wonder about his own immortality and power.
Warnings: as I mentioned… some smut … and also some violence… angst and some fluffy bits.
part 1 is HERE http://jo19844.livejournal.com/1956.html
Part 2 is HERE http://jo19844.livejournal.com/2108.html
Part 3 is HERE http://jo19844.livejournal.com/2508.html
Part 4 is HERE http://jo19844.livejournal.com/2709.html
Part 5 is HERE http://jo19844.livejournal.com/2826.html
Part 6 is HERE http://jo19844.livejournal.com/3157.html
Part 7 is HERE http://jo19844.livejournal.com/3353.html
Part 8 is HERE http://jo19844.livejournal.com/3617.html
Part 9 is HERE http://jo19844.livejournal.com/4316.html
part 10is HERE http://jo19844.livejournal.com/5935.html
Part 11is HERE http://jo19844.livejournal.com/6216.html
Part 12is HERE http://jo19844.livejournal.com/7933.html
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Jack stood strong and aimed his old Webbley revolver, squinting to try and define the image that stood shrouded in a blanket of darkness. in front of him. He couldn't see the figure that stood in the shadows, but the voice was ghoulish and empty, and very familiar.
“Show yourself!” he ordered, stepping slowly towards the voice. His right arm hung down by his side, weighed down only a little by the glove, but his left was steady, aiming towards the shadow.
The figure stepped slowly away from the darkness and into the low light.
“The glove was too strong for you,” the voice said, edging towards Jack who backed away a little.
He recognized him instantly; the old tailored suit and the cravatte left him with no doubt in his mind. The vision rendered Jack speechless for a moment until he finally spoke.
“You!” Jack could say no more.
“I was hoping that Abaddon would have finished you off,” Billis said, walking towards Jack and pushing his revolver to the side, “you're a lot stronger than I thought.”
“What do you want?”
“I'm here to help you.”
“Why would you help me when you tried to kill me?” Jack asked, “it makes no sense.”
“Because you have something that I want, and I have something that you need. I'm here to trade.”
Jack put his revolver back into his holster and released the switch on the glove, placing on the desk beside the computer equipment. “What do you want?”
“The same thing that you do,” he said looking over at the desk, “the power of the glove.”
“You're not getting the glove!” Jack snapped, “I may be weak and I may be grieving but I'm not insane just yet.”
“I have the secret,” he told him, “the glove's power is too strong for him. Instead of bringing him back it just overloads him, but I can show you how to control the power.”
“How?”
“I believe that you have a hand of the Doctor,” Billis said, “give me the Doctor's hand and I will show you how.”
“No!” Jack said firmly, “there's no way in hell!”
“The regenerative power of the Doctor still lives within the flesh. It can control the power of the glove and it can bring him back.”
“No!” he repeated.
“You love him,” Billis said, walking to stand beside Jack who looked down at the body of his deceased lover, lying still and cold. He touched his fingers to Ianto's lips and Jack hit them away.
“Don't touch him.”
“Don't you want to bring him back?”
“Of course I want to bring him back,” Jack said, “I love him. But I wont bring him back like this.”
“He'll be just like you,” Billis told him, “living without an end, no death and no more darkness.”
“No.”
“But isn't that what you want? Never to go through this pain again, to have him with you forever?” he asked, “wouldn't you just do anything to have him in your arms again like you used to. You can protect him from the darkness that he fears so much. You can stop him from screaming, and take away the visions of all those bodies lying rotting beside him when he sleeps. Forever.”
Something inside of him snapped, and Jack wrapped his hand around his neck, pushing Billis against the cold stone wall of the autopsy room, “what did you say?”
“He has dreams of the bodies in the darkness, half eaten corpses and maggots on his skin, crawling over him, eating away at his flesh. You hold him and the dreams go. But now he's living inside of his nightmares, in the darkness. He's alone and scared without anyone to save him, but you can stop it.”
“How do you know about his dreams?” Jack asked, “he tells nobody about those dreams apart from me.”
“I've been watching you. You and the boy. Watching you in the shadows together, holding each other, caressing each others skin, hidden from the prying eyes of the world.”
“You took him!” Jack shouted, squaring his jaw until it hurt to speak through his teeth, “you took him from me, you sent them to take him from me to make me weak, to make me feel pain! You did it because you knew I would go insane with grief, so insane in fact that I would hunt out the other glove and do your work for you!” The anger burned in Jack's eyes as the man glared at him emotionless.
“The glove is the only thing that can bring him back.”
“Do you think that I was born yesterday?” he said, backing away from him a little and loosening his grip, “you think that I'm going to buy this crap? You didn't do this just to bring him back, why should you care if he lives or dies. Theres something in this for you, now what is it?”
“I want- no- I need, the power.”
“You have way too much power already.”
“He wants to use it to blow open the sixth dimension.”
Jack turned around to see the Doctor behind him, pointing his sonic screwdriver directly at Billis. Without another move he activated it, dissolving Billis in a bright blue light.
“That hand,” the Doctor said, “my hand. My beautiful sethered hand was going to create just enough power to blow open a whole new dimension with a magnetic pull so strong that it would suck our world into his and destroy it. I'm glad I came along just in time, it could have been embarrassing.”
“Where did you come from?” Jack asked.
“Oh I've been lurking around following Billis. I've got a nice little parking spot down by the bay; lovely view, but the wind is a little rough.”
“You could have let me know.”
“What?” the Doctor chuckled, “and spoil the surprise? No thanks, the look on your face is priceless.”
“Where's Martha?”
“She's back at the TARDIS spring cleaning, apparently I'm a filthy pig.”
“You are. Ianto would have hated you.”
“I am what I am, Jack.”
“And who else would we want you to be?”
Jack walked over to the glove and looked at it, holding it in his hands.
“You do know that I'm going to have to destroy this thing, don't you?” he said, taking the glove from Jack and tossing it before catching it, “It's a shame really, it matches my chain mail handbag I picked up in the sixteenth century.”
“You cant destroy it,” Jack said and the Doctor looked up from his inspection of the glove, “I need it.”
“And I can't let you use it,” the Doctor said, placing it on the floor.
“What are you doing?”
“Sorry Jack,” he said, pointing his sonic screwdriver at it and dissolving it just like he had Billis moments before.
“No!” Jack yelled, looking at the Doctor in disbelief, “I needed that. It was the only way.”
“They're not toys Jack, you can't just abuse their power to make yourself happy!”
“You think that I look happy?” Jack asked him emptily, “do I look fucking happy when my lover, my friend, the man that I love is lying still and cold on a slab!”
“I'm sorry Jack.”
“I could have got him back!” Jack shouted, feeling his eyes heat, “I could have saved him.”
“Theres no saving him.”
“You could save him.”
“No,” the Doctor said defiantly.
“You have to,” Jack said walking towards him, “you have to save him. I saved you once and you owe me.”
“Theres nothing we can do, I can't undo this.”
“I can,” Jack said, staring into the Doctor's eyes, pleading, “if I could be there before it happened I could save him.”
“You are not asking me to do what it sounds like you're asking me to do. I cant take you back.”
“You mean you wont,” Jack challenged.
“I can't. You can't stop this from happening without there being major consequences,” the Doctor warned, “a paradox in the universe!”
“No. No, that rule does not apply. This was never meant to happen!”
“How do you know?”
“Trust me, we had a future. He had a future. This was never meant to happen.”
“It's a bad idea Jack,” The Doctor said, pacing around the room, “anything could go wrong.”
“I'll take the responsibility for that.”
“We cant physically do it.”
“Why?”
“We're going to run into ourselves and you know the consequences of that.”
“Then we can go back earlier. It'll give you enough time to figure a way around it.”
“What of I can't?”
“You can, you're the Doctor. You once told me that you could do anything,” Jack said, pleading with his eyes. The Doctor shook his head, “please do this for me.”
“No.”
Jack let go and walked over to Ianto, looking down at him, stroking his fingers through his hair. “I'm out of options unless you help me. I'm lost without him; it's like I don't know who I am.”
“You're Captain Jack Harkness, thats who you are.”
“I'm his Capitan and his lover, without him I'm just Jack. Feel so empty and so alone that I hurt all the time, i cant continue if he's not with me.”
“I do understand Jack.” the Doctor said, and Jack turned to face him, “but theres nothing i can do to help you this time.”
“Unless you do this I'm never going to see him alive again. I'm never going to feel his heart beating against my cheek during the night, or his lips warm against mine. I will never see him look at me the way that he does just before he kisses me; all I'm going to see is his eyes staring at me vacant and full of fear with blood on his hands and a cry in his throat that he cant scream.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Didn't you feel this way when she left you?” Jack asked and he watched the other mans eyes fill with tears even before he mentioned her name. “Rose.”
“Don't do this, don't compare the two, don't mix them up. They're different.”
“Don't you remember our beautiful Rose Tyler?” Jack asked, putting his hands on the Doctors face, watching the look of sorrow that passed over it, “you loved her like I love him.”
“Yes and I lost her and I carried on.”
“You didn't have the option.”
“Neither do you.”
“But I do, because you can help me,” Jack said and the Doctor shook his head, avoiding his eyes, “if you could bring her back, even just see her to touch her for a moment, wouldn't you do it?” Jack asked, “wouldn't you do anything to have her back?”
“You know that I would.”
“But you won't do this for me?”
“Please don't ask me to do this, Jack,.”
“I'm not just asking you, I'm pleading with you,” Jack said softly, tilting his head to look at him, “for me, and for what we mean to each other, please do this for me. You know that I would do it for you.”
The Doctor moved away from him and looked down at the body that lay on the table for a moment.
“If anything goes wrong on your head be it.”
“I take full responsibility.” Jack said, moving towards hum and hugging him tightly, pulling away and kissing his lips softly, holding his face in his hands, “you don't know what this means.”
“Yes I do.” ____________________________________________________________________________________________
The Doctor led Jack through the door of the TARDIS and moved towards the controls quickly; Jack stood at the other side, helping him.
“Ahh, Just like the good old days!” the Doctor said, feeling the adrenaline rush through his veins.
“You're back!” Martha said, wandering in and leaning on the far wall.
“Just temporarily,” the Doctor said, busy at work, “he's talked me into something I wouldn't normally be talked into.”
“You dazzled himw ith your charm?” she asked.
“I would call it more emotional blackmail if i'm honest.”
“Yeah well i had to do something to get him back.”
“Get who back?” Martha asked.
“Ianto had a bit of an accident with a Transducor's spike,” the Doctor told her, “Billis was behind it of course, but that's all taken care of now.”
“So we're going back?” Martha asked, holding on as the TARDIS made its distinctive grinding noise and shook violently.
“We are back!” the Doctor said as the TARDIS came to a halt and Jack fell onto the floor, “he does that every time”
“That was a heavy landing,” Jack groaned, taking Martha's hand and pulling himself to his feet.
“Yeah, well it's always a little bit more dodgy coming to Cardiff than anywhere else because of the rift; you always have to open it just a little to fight your way through.”
“What just happened?” a voice came from behind them, a voice which only two of them recognised.
“Rose!” Jack whispered, shocked, turning around. Rose stood there holding a plate of chips, dressed in nothing but a pair of yellow fleece pajamas and giant bunny slippers.