Relict (11/14?, DW, 9/J/R, Teen but on the rise)
Chapter One - Bazaar | Chapter Two - Maintenance | Chapter Three - Off-Balance | Chapter Four - Whirl | Chapter Five - Shadows | Chapter Six - Latency | Chapter Seven - Ritual | Chapter Eight - Unpredictable | Chapter Nine - Reverberation | Chapter Ten - Propagation
Beta: wendymr
Chapter Eleven - Diffraction
“There’s a door.”
Rose lifted her head from the curve of her arm. Across the small pool, Jack was turning a white-gold handle to open a plain door in the wall of the Zero Room. “It’s got smaller,” she noted, looking around her. The room seemed more egg-shaped than ever because it was now only about a dozen feet in diameter, and she looked down at the Doctor, who was sleeping, looking more relaxed than she’d ever seen him.
She smiled without thinking, feeling her heart lift as she got to her feet a little stiffly. “The TARDIS must know he’s getting better,” she observed, trotting around to join Jack.
She’d expected the corridor, but the door simply led into another room, a much larger, more comfortable room. It looked a bit like the library, with its dark wooden floor and large fireplace, and a bit like something halfway between a comfortable cottage and a grand country house, with a trestle table on the dark rag rug near the fireplace and a large wooden-framed bed with a plain, dark duvet in one corner. A bowl of fresh fruit and vegetables, pitchers of water and some sort of pinkish-orange juice, bread, cheese, china, and cutlery were laid out neatly on the table, and the rumbling of Rose’s stomach reminded her how long it had been since the feast. A wooden wardrobe on the far side of the bed stood open, with a few pairs of jeans folded on the bottom shelf; Rose’s pink hoodie and Jack’s RAF uniform were recognizable among the clothes hanging from the rod.
“I’m starving,” commented Jack as he picked up something like an plum and sank his teeth into the purplish flesh with a crunch more like an apple.
“Mmm hmm,” agreed Rose, moving toward the wardrobe. The fresh clothes were almost as enticing as the idea of food, but she noticed immediately that there were no jumpers or dark jeans, and she realized retroactively that the Doctor’s jacket had disappeared from the Zero Room with the rest of his clothes. She squatted down to open the large drawer at the bottom, discovering a couple of sets of her bras and panties - a simple pair of white cotton briefs with matching sports bra, and a raspberry pink satin set that made her blush despite the relatively sedate cut; on the other side were some wildly coloured silk boxers that had to be Jack’s, and between was a cobalt blue tee-shirt of a light, soft knit that was remarkably enticing to the touch… Underneath, as she discovered the shirt in her hands, was a pair of boxer-brief-type shorts, and for a moment, she felt embarrassed to be touching them, but the blush seemed to evaporate before it had spread much past the curves of her cheeks. Get a grip, Tyler, they’re just underpants, she thought with a wry grin, shaking her head slightly. Where had the maidenly shyness come from, all of a sudden?
She slid the drawer back in place with a slight scraping of wood. Even though she had just left him, she found herself drawn back into the Zero Room, which had undergone further transformation until it was something more like an en suite bathroom. Against one wall was now a sink and vanity with various toiletries - some of which were very familiar to her - and on the opposite wall, on the far side of the pool, a shower head and a glass partition had appeared.
And in the pool, the Doctor was awakening, stretching. As she looked to him, his eyes opened directly into hers, crystal-blue and laser-focused, and she laughed out loud in surprised relief. “Good morning. I think.”
“Doesn’t matter what time it is,” said Jack, breezing into the room. “The TARDIS has clearly decided it’s time you were up and at ’em.” He tossed one of the plum-apple fruits at the Doctor, who caught it easily in both hands as he sat up. Jack had also brought in the cobalt-blue underwear/pajama ensemble and placed them on a shelf beside some fluffy towels. Bracing his feet apart, hands on his hips, he looked at the Doctor with a trace of concern beneath his jaunty expression. “Need help?”
The Doctor had practically inhaled the fruit, tossing the core into a little wastebasket near the vanity, then swished his hands through the water before putting them on the sides of the pool and pulling himself up. He seemed unconcerned about his nudity, Jack looked more like an orderly with a recalcitrant patient than his usual lustful rake, and Rose had become a little inured by concern, but the water sheening on his pale skin, rivulets tracing the wiry muscles that flexed in his limbs and abdomen, beneath the scars on his back. He was totally unlike Jack, or even Mickey, with their well-tended muscularity, but just as different from Jimmy Stones’s stylish, lazy skinniness, nurtured by various chemical habits. There was a fierce, stark beauty to the sharply defined muscles, unsoftened by any trace of body fat, but it made Rose inexplicably sad, and she looked away as Jack stepped forward with a towel. She surreptitiously caught a tear with her thumb and pretended to be taking a stray lash away from her eyelid.
…
The Doctor allowed Jack’s light hand under his elbow without comment as he stepped into the soft briefs - which were very brief when actually on his body - then pulled the shirt on over his head. Something changed in him as the silky material settled over his back. He seemed relieved, more relaxed, standing straighter as he tugged the shirttail down to his hips.
“Where’s the rest of it?” he asked, reaching out to take the towel from Jack and rub his cropped hair.
“Sorry, that’s it,” said Jack. “The TARDIS took your jacket, too.”
The sharp chin jutted out ever so slightly, and Jack grinned.
“There’s no door in the next room, either.”
This time, there was a genuine eye roll, and Rose laughed, a rich, throaty laugh. Jack looked over to her, arms crossed over her waist, and for a moment, he thought she might have been crying, but she bounced over to the Doctor, linking her arm through his. “Come on, let’s feed you.”
“I’m not hungry, Rose,” he protested, but he let her guide him into the next room.
“Yeah, well, you need food anyway,” she replied firmly, and Jack smiled ruefully, tossing the towel into a wicker basket that had appeared from somewhere.
Despite his protest, the Doctor did put away a fair amount of chicken broth (or some equivalent) from a tureen that had appeared in their absence, along with some fresh vegetables and fruit juice, and then, unbidden, went to the bed and slipped in, asleep practically as his head hit the pillows.
“Wow,” observed Rose softly, a chunk of bread having been halted halfway to her mouth by that unexpected performance.
“Yeah,” Jack chuckled. “Hey, why don’t you take a shower? I’ll tidy this up.”
She looked back at him with thoughtfully narrowed eyes. “Are you sayin’ I need a bath, Mr. Harkness?”
“Captain Harkness,” he corrected cheekily. “And yeah, I am.” He ducked as the chunk of bread flew at his head, and he grinned unrepentantly as she flounced up from the table. With sharp movements, she took up a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and some white things from the underwear drawer, clutching them all to her breast.
As she backed through the bathroom door, pushing it open with her bum, a broad smile on her face as she whispered, “Thank you,” and disappeared inside.
Jack chuckled again, gathering the used china and cutlery, stacking them neatly on one corner of the table. He stretched and poured himself some more juice, taking a faintly restless “turn” around the large room. It was blank, anonymous in many ways, but felt lived-in and comfortable, despite the simplicity, and the paradoxically spare but warm quality wasn’t lost on him as he found himself at the bedside.
His hip rested against the mattress as he looked down at the sleeping face on the muslin pillow. It almost took his breath away, the lack of tension, the stark ferocity of the chiselled features softened by sleep. He had had glimpses before, those unexpected moments when the incredible focus lapsed, or the charisma was beaming in another direction, and Jack could see beyond the projection of the sheer personality to something proud, sad, intelligent, and yet with an innocence he had rarely encountered. Jack reached out, letting his fingertips lightly trace the hollow temple from hairline to eyebrow, curving around the eye and down along the high cheekbone. He could see the movement of the eyes beneath the delicate, blue-veined eyelids, and suddenly, he felt heat flash through his veins, like the ghost of fire, provoking both a shiver of fear and a distinctly more visceral and sexual response. The surprisingly fine eyebrows tensed momentarily, and Jack felt the fear subside, if not the erection. He smiled, daring to let his hand curve over the soft hair as he bent to kiss the sharp cheekbone, regretfully bypassing the softly parted lips.
“Your turn!” Rose’s voice was soft but bright as she bounced back through the door, towelling her hair. She hesitated a moment, seeing Jack draw back from the Doctor, his fingers trailing along the bare forearm on the dark duvet. “Is he all right?”
Jack smiled comfortingly, determined not to spook her as he left his glass on the table. “He’s fine,” he reassured her, putting his hands on her shoulders, on the damp patches her wet hair had left on her pink t-shirt. “Just dreaming a little.” He kissed her forehead, then went to collect his own clean clothes from the wardrobe before retiring to the bathroom.
…
Rose stood still in the middle of the room, squeezing the length of her wet hair in the towel. Jack had been bent over the Doctor so - intimately, and she still wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. She ought to be … jealous? She’d seen them dancing, after all, and it seemed like Jack drew a more overtly sexual response out of him, when all her best attempts at seduction tended to end in either a friendly cuddle or an abrupt goodnight.
That really wasn’t fair, she mused as she arranged the wet towel over a ladderback chair. Jack had been shut down as often as she had, and sometimes a lot less politely. She combed her fingers through her hair and went to the bedside. With only a moment’s hesitation, she climbed onto the bed, carefully fitting her body along the back of his, through the duvet. Her arm draped over him, her fingers finding his hand. Her fingertips traced over the strong bones and corded veins on the back of his hand, slipping between the relaxed fingers. Nestling her head in the curve of the back of his neck, she took a deep breath, inhaling his scent of cardamom and ozone. The shades of leather, machinery oil, and the honey-salt of sweat were missing, and she fought the odd temptation to taste his skin.
…
Jack was used to taking himself in hand when he had to, but for some reason, it seemed impossible on this ship. At first, he’d thought it was the sentience of the TARDIS, but Jack was hardly shy and an audience was more likely to encourage than discourage him. But, like his strangely unsatisfying trip to Zarua’s a few days earlier (was it really only a few days? time seemed to be expanding even further, here in the confines of the TARDIS), it proved fruitless. The arousal dissipated, diffused throughout his body, leaving him unsated and unfocused - well, not entirely unfocused, as the focus was quite manifestly in the next room. More confused than irritated, he rinsed off and pulled on fresh clothes.
In the next room, Rose was cuddled up on top of the duvet behind the Doctor, her arm around him almost protectively. Her hair was drying in a tangle, and he thought she was asleep, but she lifted her head as he drew closer.
“Have you slept at all?” she asked with touchingly genuine concern.
“Not much,” he conceded, and she beckoned him with a slight motion of her head. He started to climb in behind her, but she shook her head.
“Get on the other side of him,” she whispered. “That way, he’ll be less likely to be getting up and going walkabout without one of us.”
He winked. “Good plan.” He found another duvet, lighter in both colour and tog, and spread it over both recumbent figures before climbing in between the Doctor and the edge of the bed. Luckily, there was room for him to stretch out without plastering himself entirely against the sleeping Time Lord (not that plastering didn’t sound like a lot of fun in the right circumstances). Rose snuggled closer, her eyes closing as she inhaled deeply at the base of the Doctor’s skull, and Jack felt a faint surge of envy with an aftertaste of arousal. But the moment he allowed his muscles to relax, it seemed to release something within him and, slinging an arm loosely across the Doctor’s hip, he fell asleep with remarkable swiftness.
***
“Bloody hell, how does he do it?”
Jack sat up, pushing back the duvet with a grunt of frustration, and Rose stirred, stretching and yawning. Her hair was a tangled mess - the roots were beginning to get quite noticeable, too - and it took a moment for her to pry open her eyes.
“Wha’?”
“Mr. Stealth Time Lord. He’s gone.”
That snapped her awake, and she sat up, looking around the room for someone who most assuredly wasn’t there.
“There’s a new door,” she pointed out, kicking away the duvet tangled around her legs.
They shoved their feet into their boots, lined up beside the bed, and found themselves out in a corridor that was comforting in its familiarity.
“It’s about time. You humans, spend all your life asleep if you didn’t need to eat.” The Doctor waved his butter knife at them as they rushed into the galley. “Tea’s on the table, muffins in the breadbin. Jam in the fridge.” He took a bite of his bran muffin, looking at them with what seemed to be amusement.
“What, dog got your tongues?”
“Cat,” corrected Rose automatically, scratching her head through her tangled hair. “How long have you been up?”
“Oh, hours and hours. Well, a couple of hours, anyway. You two were snoring like freight trains, how’s a body to sleep?” he asked, shoving the last of his muffin into his mouth as he got up from the table, gathering used cutlery and brushing crumbs from the table into his small plate with the side of his hand before carrying it to the dishwasher. “You’d better hurry, we’ll be there in-” He checked his wristwatch. “-About ten minutes.”
“Where?” asked Jack, torn between amusement and exasperation.
He pronounced some impossible combination of consonants, vowels, and something between a click and a glottal stop, then looked at them in disbelief. “Where d’you think? C’mon, get a move on!”
“Um - do you think you should be racing around so soon?”
The Doctor looked up from stowing his dishes in the dishwasher with a quizzically lifted eyebrow. “Soon?”
“Don’t pull that on me, Mister.” Jack was a little surprised by Rose’s aggressive step forward, poking a finger directly into the Doctor’s breastbone.
He slapped his hand to his breast with an exaggerated, soundless, “Ow!”, his shoulders flexing inward protectively with a creak of the leather jacket. He then grabbed her hand, his offended expression crumbling into a grin just as hers did. He playfully wagged her hand in his, and she leaned in to bump his chest with her shoulder, their eyes twinkling in a way that betrayed some memory shared between them.
“Don’t do that.” She was laughing, but a genuine plaint underlay her tone, and his face softened tenderly as he put his hands on her shoulders, steadying her as she pushed her hair back from her face. “I’m serious. You’ve been sick, or hurt, or something and-” The tangles fell into her eyes again, and he smoothed them back with a light hand, cupping her cheek as he ducked down to catch her eyes with his. “I just want to make sure you’re okay before we go racing around somewhere.”
“I know,” he said softly, and Jack could see from the dilation of her eyes how the tone of his voice affected her. It affected him, and it wasn’t even aimed in his direction. “I promise. Everything is perfectly fine.”
“Okay,” she said in a small, doubtful voice.
“Okay,” he replied, more assertively. “Go and brush your hair. You look frightful.” He turned her around and gave her a swat on the behind, and she turned back to give him a cheeky curtsey.
“Thank you very much, sir.” She wrinkled her nose impudently at him
“You’re welcome,” he replied easily, as she slid out the door.
The Doctor was grinning as he turned to put his tea mug in the dishwasher.
“Is it?”
He looked at Jack with genuine lack of guile. “Is it what?”
“Perfectly fine.”
The grey-blue eyes never wavered, either the most open gaze or the worst tell Jack had ever seen.
“Yep.”
***
“Move, move, move, go-go-go!” Jack’s hand on the back of the leather jacket propelled the Doctor forward, and the Doctor caught Rose under one arm, half-carrying her the last few steps into the TARDIS. They tumbled inside, sprawling on the ramp in a tangle of limbs, and Jack managed to slam the door behind them before sliding down the wood panels to sit on the floor, laughing.
“Just once-” Rose lifted her head, looking down at the Doctor, who was nonchalantly stretching out on the grating, even with her draped over him. “Just once, could we possibly leave a planet at less than a dead run?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” he asked, looking up at her with wide grey eyes, and Jack chuckled as she thumped the Doctor one on the shoulder, pushing up on her elbows above him. He’d managed to extricate one long leg from the tangle, getting the sole of his boot onto the grating as if to get up, but Rose was on top of him, straddling his other thigh. If Jack had truly wanted to dice with death at that moment, he would have made a naughty comment, but he was dissuaded by the spark in Rose’s eyes.
“If it had been him-” She jerked her head in Jack’s direction.
He responded with an appropriately offended, “Hey!”, which was roundly ignored.
“If it had been him,” she reiterated strongly, emphasizing it with another thump to his chest, “we wouldn’t have got chased by the pitchfork-and-torch brigade, and the priests with muskets.”
“They weren’t muskets, Rose, they were primitive flare-muzzled sonic blasters-”
“They were muskets for all intents and purposes.” She interrupted his correction, which was halfway between a patient teacher and a five-year-old explaining to his mum why he got his hand stuck in the biscuit-tin, and Jack stifled a snigger he knew would not have been well-received. “But you had to flirt with the temple virgin - both of them - and after you’d already let them assume I was your wife, an’ all!” She growled in frustration and pulled up to her knees, still astride his thigh. “Breaking and entering, defilement of a holy site, blasphemy, adultery …” She ticked off the offenses on her fingers, giving him a little shove when he tried to protest during her litany.
“I was just asking for directions to the library,” he said in a small voice, shrugging against the floor.
Then her voice turned poisonously sweet, “Oh, I’m so sorry that they misunderstood the way you asked for admittance into their inner sanctum. Did the TARDIS mistranslate for them, or did you?” With another thumping shove, she got off him and stamped into the interior of the TARDIS, and if Jack wasn’t mistaken, her eyelashes had been a bit wet there near the end.
The Doctor watched her go, absently rubbing his abused breastbone. As she disappeared around the corner, his eyes closed briefly in what Jack thought looked suspiciously like relief; but after a moment, he bounced back up to his feet with a cheery grin. “So, where to next?” he asked, clapping his hands together and rubbing his palms.
“How about we just sail the Vortex for a couple of hours before we go somewhere and cause another riot?” Jack leaned back against the door, stretching his legs out and crossing his arms on his chest.
“Come on, Jack! I thought you were in it for the adventure, the excitement, the danger!” The Doctor squatted down before him, eyes glittering almost feverishly. A twitching muscle in his jaw betrayed his tension, and Jack reached out to put a hand on his shoulder.
“You don’t have anything to prove, you know.”
The grey eyes blinked, dilating slightly in the dim light, and another careless shrug rippled the shoulders of the leather jacket. “’M not trying to prove anything.”
Jack slanted him a look, and then got to his feet, surprised when the Doctor helped him, moving in close enough that their bodies brushed. The firm hand remained at his elbow.
“Yeah, well, racing around like a madman, flirting with temple virgins - and I saw you, so don’t play innocent with me, mister, I know flirting when I see it -”
“Do you, Jack?” A blue glint came into the grey eyes as the Doctor stepped into him, long thigh brushing along the inside of Jack’s as he backed him against the door, and Jack caught his breath in surprise, but took control of himself firmly.
“Yeah, and I can see you pushing and pulling Rose all over the place. And me, but I can handle it. It’s no mistake those people thought you and Rose were married - yeah, you’re always holding hands and making with the verbal foreplay and up in each other’s personal space like, ‘what’s that?’” Jack widened his eyes in mock innocence, then took a deep breath. “Look, even before I met you, I knew she was in love with you. And it took, oh, maybe a nanosecond to see that you felt the same way. So why do you keep dancing around it, you should pardon the expression?”
The glint became steelier, the jaw tighter, and Jack saw stars as the back of his head hit the door, propelled by the force of a kiss that literally took his breath away. Teeth crashed at the moment of impact, but within a heartbeat, the kiss had softened, deepened, and a large hand had come up to cradle his bruised head with remarkable tenderness as an agile tongue teased and caressed his. Jack’s hands grabbed for an anchor, finding the battered leather of the jacket as he tried to respond, to keep up with the potent sensuality of the kiss, but he felt like he was hopelessly outclassed, a disconcerting sensation to say the least.
As the Doctor pulled back, he nipped at the inside of Jack’s lower lip. Gunmetal eyes assessed him for a moment before softening. “Sorry, Jack.”
“Hey, don’t be,” Jack said softly, sneaking one hand inside the jacket to the shallow curve of waist and hip, thumb lightly caressing the inside of the Doctor’s hipbone. “It was fantastic!” He laughed a little breathlessly at his own joke, and the Doctor obliged by giving him a little eyeroll. “No, seriously.” He cleared his throat, edging his thumb under the hem of the dark blue sweater. “Best kiss I’ve had in a long, long time.” His voice dropped to a husky whisper, and even he was a little surprised by the eagerness betrayed by his voice. “Want to take this to my room?”
The Doctor blinked once. Twice. Then pulled back from Jack, looking at his hands almost as if they didn’t belong to him. His eyes slid away as he stepped back, searching the lofty arches of the console room with a curious tilt of the head. “D’you hear that?”
“Hear what?” asked Jack, swallowing his disappointment as the Doctor made his way to the console, checking some of the controls as he moved to the left.
“That wobble in the hum, at about 380 Hz. That’s not supposed to happen, not even with a pitchfork or two stuck in the panelling.” He squatted down to take a section of grating up and hopped down into the work area.
Jack checked his wristcomp, then slid his hands into his hip pockets as he went over to the edge of the grating. “Look, I’m a big boy, I can deal with a first-class cocktease like you.” The Doctor hesitated ever-so-slightly as he crouched down to the floor, ready to get underneath the machinery. “But it’s not fair, what you’re doing with Rose.”
“She’s a child,” he said softly, sitting on the floor and switching on his sonic screwdriver. Jack expected him to slide under, but he just sat there, contemplating the blue glowing light.
“She’s not, you know. Even in her own culture. Old enough to marry, bear a child, old enough to drive a motorized vehicle, old enough to vote, old enough to take intoxicants, old enough to serve in the armed forces - ” Jack saw the slight flinch, even gazing at the top of his head. “You ever done that? Served in the military?”
The Doctor muttered something and lay back on the floor, checking the sonic screwdriver minutely.
“What?” prompted Jack, with an exaggerated lean.
“With, not in,” the Doctor enunciated carefully, reaching back and not meeting Jack’s eyes, but still not sliding underneath. Jack took that as a sliver of desire to actually talk, and he squatted down on the edge of the grating. The next bit was muttered, almost under his breath, “Even drove a motorized vehicle.”
Jack swung his legs around to sit on the edge. He wasn’t going to be distracted, as fascinated as he was with any hint of the Doctor’s past life. “She’s not a child, you don’t feel about her as if she were a child, so why do you keep her a child in your mind?”
The Doctor’s arms dropped suddenly, and he lay there for a moment, staring up at the wiring before lowering his eyes to Jack. “What?”
He looked startled, wary, almost frightened.
“I remember that much. More than you thought, huh?”
Jack wished the sight of that Adam’s apple bobbing in the long, stretched throat weren’t so sexy, with that tinge of vulnerability. He wanted to stay on edge, a little angry with his concern.
Finally, the Doctor said carefully, “It’s safer that way,” and he reached up to check two wires, then suddenly sat up. “You remember what?”
Jack hopped down into the crawlspace and lowered himself onto his hip, his arm propped across the Doctor’s body in an echo of the position they had shared in the dream. “I remember kissing you,” he said softly, raising the fingers of his left hand to trace the surprisingly soft lips, and the Doctor’s eyelids drifted closed for an encouraging moment of acceptance. Jack leaned a little closer so that when he spoke, he knew his breath was touching the pale skin. “I remember Rose, looking about ten or twelve. In your mind, she’s a child. If you know she isn’t, isn’t that worse?”
The Doctor kept his eyes closed, almost squeezed shut. “It keeps her safe,” he gritted out.
“Aaaah.” Jack dragged it out, even as his fingers “accidentally” slipped down the bare skin in the v neck of the blue sweater. “Does it really? Aren’t you just hurting her more by not acknowledging that she is someone you could love and desire? Because you do, you know.”
The Doctor shook his head slightly; his eyelashes were wet, but he didn’t open his eyes. His voice was a little unsteady. “No, it’s not like that. She is - a child.” Finally, his eyes opened, dark blue, dilated. “So are you.”
Jack laughed loudly in his face, shaking his head. “Wow. You are working hard at this.” He pulled back and got easily to his feet. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. Enjoy the puttering. You’re not doing a blind bit of good to anyone out here in the real world.” Pulling himself easily up onto the grating, Jack paused for a moment, enjoying the perplexed expression on the Doctor’s face for a brief, spiteful moment. “Oh, and by the way? There’s no ‘wobble’ at 380 Hz.” Jack held up his wristcomp, hand held in a loose fist. “The TARDIS is fine.” He thrust himself to his feet and strode out of the console room on feet that were shakier than he’d like to admit, leaving the Doctor alone on the floor of the TARDIS, holding his sonic screwdriver as the TARDIS hummed quietly and smoothly around him.
Beta: wendymr
Chapter Eleven - Diffraction
“There’s a door.”
Rose lifted her head from the curve of her arm. Across the small pool, Jack was turning a white-gold handle to open a plain door in the wall of the Zero Room. “It’s got smaller,” she noted, looking around her. The room seemed more egg-shaped than ever because it was now only about a dozen feet in diameter, and she looked down at the Doctor, who was sleeping, looking more relaxed than she’d ever seen him.
She smiled without thinking, feeling her heart lift as she got to her feet a little stiffly. “The TARDIS must know he’s getting better,” she observed, trotting around to join Jack.
She’d expected the corridor, but the door simply led into another room, a much larger, more comfortable room. It looked a bit like the library, with its dark wooden floor and large fireplace, and a bit like something halfway between a comfortable cottage and a grand country house, with a trestle table on the dark rag rug near the fireplace and a large wooden-framed bed with a plain, dark duvet in one corner. A bowl of fresh fruit and vegetables, pitchers of water and some sort of pinkish-orange juice, bread, cheese, china, and cutlery were laid out neatly on the table, and the rumbling of Rose’s stomach reminded her how long it had been since the feast. A wooden wardrobe on the far side of the bed stood open, with a few pairs of jeans folded on the bottom shelf; Rose’s pink hoodie and Jack’s RAF uniform were recognizable among the clothes hanging from the rod.
“I’m starving,” commented Jack as he picked up something like an plum and sank his teeth into the purplish flesh with a crunch more like an apple.
“Mmm hmm,” agreed Rose, moving toward the wardrobe. The fresh clothes were almost as enticing as the idea of food, but she noticed immediately that there were no jumpers or dark jeans, and she realized retroactively that the Doctor’s jacket had disappeared from the Zero Room with the rest of his clothes. She squatted down to open the large drawer at the bottom, discovering a couple of sets of her bras and panties - a simple pair of white cotton briefs with matching sports bra, and a raspberry pink satin set that made her blush despite the relatively sedate cut; on the other side were some wildly coloured silk boxers that had to be Jack’s, and between was a cobalt blue tee-shirt of a light, soft knit that was remarkably enticing to the touch… Underneath, as she discovered the shirt in her hands, was a pair of boxer-brief-type shorts, and for a moment, she felt embarrassed to be touching them, but the blush seemed to evaporate before it had spread much past the curves of her cheeks. Get a grip, Tyler, they’re just underpants, she thought with a wry grin, shaking her head slightly. Where had the maidenly shyness come from, all of a sudden?
She slid the drawer back in place with a slight scraping of wood. Even though she had just left him, she found herself drawn back into the Zero Room, which had undergone further transformation until it was something more like an en suite bathroom. Against one wall was now a sink and vanity with various toiletries - some of which were very familiar to her - and on the opposite wall, on the far side of the pool, a shower head and a glass partition had appeared.
And in the pool, the Doctor was awakening, stretching. As she looked to him, his eyes opened directly into hers, crystal-blue and laser-focused, and she laughed out loud in surprised relief. “Good morning. I think.”
“Doesn’t matter what time it is,” said Jack, breezing into the room. “The TARDIS has clearly decided it’s time you were up and at ’em.” He tossed one of the plum-apple fruits at the Doctor, who caught it easily in both hands as he sat up. Jack had also brought in the cobalt-blue underwear/pajama ensemble and placed them on a shelf beside some fluffy towels. Bracing his feet apart, hands on his hips, he looked at the Doctor with a trace of concern beneath his jaunty expression. “Need help?”
The Doctor had practically inhaled the fruit, tossing the core into a little wastebasket near the vanity, then swished his hands through the water before putting them on the sides of the pool and pulling himself up. He seemed unconcerned about his nudity, Jack looked more like an orderly with a recalcitrant patient than his usual lustful rake, and Rose had become a little inured by concern, but the water sheening on his pale skin, rivulets tracing the wiry muscles that flexed in his limbs and abdomen, beneath the scars on his back. He was totally unlike Jack, or even Mickey, with their well-tended muscularity, but just as different from Jimmy Stones’s stylish, lazy skinniness, nurtured by various chemical habits. There was a fierce, stark beauty to the sharply defined muscles, unsoftened by any trace of body fat, but it made Rose inexplicably sad, and she looked away as Jack stepped forward with a towel. She surreptitiously caught a tear with her thumb and pretended to be taking a stray lash away from her eyelid.
…
The Doctor allowed Jack’s light hand under his elbow without comment as he stepped into the soft briefs - which were very brief when actually on his body - then pulled the shirt on over his head. Something changed in him as the silky material settled over his back. He seemed relieved, more relaxed, standing straighter as he tugged the shirttail down to his hips.
“Where’s the rest of it?” he asked, reaching out to take the towel from Jack and rub his cropped hair.
“Sorry, that’s it,” said Jack. “The TARDIS took your jacket, too.”
The sharp chin jutted out ever so slightly, and Jack grinned.
“There’s no door in the next room, either.”
This time, there was a genuine eye roll, and Rose laughed, a rich, throaty laugh. Jack looked over to her, arms crossed over her waist, and for a moment, he thought she might have been crying, but she bounced over to the Doctor, linking her arm through his. “Come on, let’s feed you.”
“I’m not hungry, Rose,” he protested, but he let her guide him into the next room.
“Yeah, well, you need food anyway,” she replied firmly, and Jack smiled ruefully, tossing the towel into a wicker basket that had appeared from somewhere.
Despite his protest, the Doctor did put away a fair amount of chicken broth (or some equivalent) from a tureen that had appeared in their absence, along with some fresh vegetables and fruit juice, and then, unbidden, went to the bed and slipped in, asleep practically as his head hit the pillows.
“Wow,” observed Rose softly, a chunk of bread having been halted halfway to her mouth by that unexpected performance.
“Yeah,” Jack chuckled. “Hey, why don’t you take a shower? I’ll tidy this up.”
She looked back at him with thoughtfully narrowed eyes. “Are you sayin’ I need a bath, Mr. Harkness?”
“Captain Harkness,” he corrected cheekily. “And yeah, I am.” He ducked as the chunk of bread flew at his head, and he grinned unrepentantly as she flounced up from the table. With sharp movements, she took up a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and some white things from the underwear drawer, clutching them all to her breast.
As she backed through the bathroom door, pushing it open with her bum, a broad smile on her face as she whispered, “Thank you,” and disappeared inside.
Jack chuckled again, gathering the used china and cutlery, stacking them neatly on one corner of the table. He stretched and poured himself some more juice, taking a faintly restless “turn” around the large room. It was blank, anonymous in many ways, but felt lived-in and comfortable, despite the simplicity, and the paradoxically spare but warm quality wasn’t lost on him as he found himself at the bedside.
His hip rested against the mattress as he looked down at the sleeping face on the muslin pillow. It almost took his breath away, the lack of tension, the stark ferocity of the chiselled features softened by sleep. He had had glimpses before, those unexpected moments when the incredible focus lapsed, or the charisma was beaming in another direction, and Jack could see beyond the projection of the sheer personality to something proud, sad, intelligent, and yet with an innocence he had rarely encountered. Jack reached out, letting his fingertips lightly trace the hollow temple from hairline to eyebrow, curving around the eye and down along the high cheekbone. He could see the movement of the eyes beneath the delicate, blue-veined eyelids, and suddenly, he felt heat flash through his veins, like the ghost of fire, provoking both a shiver of fear and a distinctly more visceral and sexual response. The surprisingly fine eyebrows tensed momentarily, and Jack felt the fear subside, if not the erection. He smiled, daring to let his hand curve over the soft hair as he bent to kiss the sharp cheekbone, regretfully bypassing the softly parted lips.
“Your turn!” Rose’s voice was soft but bright as she bounced back through the door, towelling her hair. She hesitated a moment, seeing Jack draw back from the Doctor, his fingers trailing along the bare forearm on the dark duvet. “Is he all right?”
Jack smiled comfortingly, determined not to spook her as he left his glass on the table. “He’s fine,” he reassured her, putting his hands on her shoulders, on the damp patches her wet hair had left on her pink t-shirt. “Just dreaming a little.” He kissed her forehead, then went to collect his own clean clothes from the wardrobe before retiring to the bathroom.
…
Rose stood still in the middle of the room, squeezing the length of her wet hair in the towel. Jack had been bent over the Doctor so - intimately, and she still wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. She ought to be … jealous? She’d seen them dancing, after all, and it seemed like Jack drew a more overtly sexual response out of him, when all her best attempts at seduction tended to end in either a friendly cuddle or an abrupt goodnight.
That really wasn’t fair, she mused as she arranged the wet towel over a ladderback chair. Jack had been shut down as often as she had, and sometimes a lot less politely. She combed her fingers through her hair and went to the bedside. With only a moment’s hesitation, she climbed onto the bed, carefully fitting her body along the back of his, through the duvet. Her arm draped over him, her fingers finding his hand. Her fingertips traced over the strong bones and corded veins on the back of his hand, slipping between the relaxed fingers. Nestling her head in the curve of the back of his neck, she took a deep breath, inhaling his scent of cardamom and ozone. The shades of leather, machinery oil, and the honey-salt of sweat were missing, and she fought the odd temptation to taste his skin.
…
Jack was used to taking himself in hand when he had to, but for some reason, it seemed impossible on this ship. At first, he’d thought it was the sentience of the TARDIS, but Jack was hardly shy and an audience was more likely to encourage than discourage him. But, like his strangely unsatisfying trip to Zarua’s a few days earlier (was it really only a few days? time seemed to be expanding even further, here in the confines of the TARDIS), it proved fruitless. The arousal dissipated, diffused throughout his body, leaving him unsated and unfocused - well, not entirely unfocused, as the focus was quite manifestly in the next room. More confused than irritated, he rinsed off and pulled on fresh clothes.
In the next room, Rose was cuddled up on top of the duvet behind the Doctor, her arm around him almost protectively. Her hair was drying in a tangle, and he thought she was asleep, but she lifted her head as he drew closer.
“Have you slept at all?” she asked with touchingly genuine concern.
“Not much,” he conceded, and she beckoned him with a slight motion of her head. He started to climb in behind her, but she shook her head.
“Get on the other side of him,” she whispered. “That way, he’ll be less likely to be getting up and going walkabout without one of us.”
He winked. “Good plan.” He found another duvet, lighter in both colour and tog, and spread it over both recumbent figures before climbing in between the Doctor and the edge of the bed. Luckily, there was room for him to stretch out without plastering himself entirely against the sleeping Time Lord (not that plastering didn’t sound like a lot of fun in the right circumstances). Rose snuggled closer, her eyes closing as she inhaled deeply at the base of the Doctor’s skull, and Jack felt a faint surge of envy with an aftertaste of arousal. But the moment he allowed his muscles to relax, it seemed to release something within him and, slinging an arm loosely across the Doctor’s hip, he fell asleep with remarkable swiftness.
***
“Bloody hell, how does he do it?”
Jack sat up, pushing back the duvet with a grunt of frustration, and Rose stirred, stretching and yawning. Her hair was a tangled mess - the roots were beginning to get quite noticeable, too - and it took a moment for her to pry open her eyes.
“Wha’?”
“Mr. Stealth Time Lord. He’s gone.”
That snapped her awake, and she sat up, looking around the room for someone who most assuredly wasn’t there.
“There’s a new door,” she pointed out, kicking away the duvet tangled around her legs.
They shoved their feet into their boots, lined up beside the bed, and found themselves out in a corridor that was comforting in its familiarity.
“It’s about time. You humans, spend all your life asleep if you didn’t need to eat.” The Doctor waved his butter knife at them as they rushed into the galley. “Tea’s on the table, muffins in the breadbin. Jam in the fridge.” He took a bite of his bran muffin, looking at them with what seemed to be amusement.
“What, dog got your tongues?”
“Cat,” corrected Rose automatically, scratching her head through her tangled hair. “How long have you been up?”
“Oh, hours and hours. Well, a couple of hours, anyway. You two were snoring like freight trains, how’s a body to sleep?” he asked, shoving the last of his muffin into his mouth as he got up from the table, gathering used cutlery and brushing crumbs from the table into his small plate with the side of his hand before carrying it to the dishwasher. “You’d better hurry, we’ll be there in-” He checked his wristwatch. “-About ten minutes.”
“Where?” asked Jack, torn between amusement and exasperation.
He pronounced some impossible combination of consonants, vowels, and something between a click and a glottal stop, then looked at them in disbelief. “Where d’you think? C’mon, get a move on!”
“Um - do you think you should be racing around so soon?”
The Doctor looked up from stowing his dishes in the dishwasher with a quizzically lifted eyebrow. “Soon?”
“Don’t pull that on me, Mister.” Jack was a little surprised by Rose’s aggressive step forward, poking a finger directly into the Doctor’s breastbone.
He slapped his hand to his breast with an exaggerated, soundless, “Ow!”, his shoulders flexing inward protectively with a creak of the leather jacket. He then grabbed her hand, his offended expression crumbling into a grin just as hers did. He playfully wagged her hand in his, and she leaned in to bump his chest with her shoulder, their eyes twinkling in a way that betrayed some memory shared between them.
“Don’t do that.” She was laughing, but a genuine plaint underlay her tone, and his face softened tenderly as he put his hands on her shoulders, steadying her as she pushed her hair back from her face. “I’m serious. You’ve been sick, or hurt, or something and-” The tangles fell into her eyes again, and he smoothed them back with a light hand, cupping her cheek as he ducked down to catch her eyes with his. “I just want to make sure you’re okay before we go racing around somewhere.”
“I know,” he said softly, and Jack could see from the dilation of her eyes how the tone of his voice affected her. It affected him, and it wasn’t even aimed in his direction. “I promise. Everything is perfectly fine.”
“Okay,” she said in a small, doubtful voice.
“Okay,” he replied, more assertively. “Go and brush your hair. You look frightful.” He turned her around and gave her a swat on the behind, and she turned back to give him a cheeky curtsey.
“Thank you very much, sir.” She wrinkled her nose impudently at him
“You’re welcome,” he replied easily, as she slid out the door.
The Doctor was grinning as he turned to put his tea mug in the dishwasher.
“Is it?”
He looked at Jack with genuine lack of guile. “Is it what?”
“Perfectly fine.”
The grey-blue eyes never wavered, either the most open gaze or the worst tell Jack had ever seen.
“Yep.”
***
“Move, move, move, go-go-go!” Jack’s hand on the back of the leather jacket propelled the Doctor forward, and the Doctor caught Rose under one arm, half-carrying her the last few steps into the TARDIS. They tumbled inside, sprawling on the ramp in a tangle of limbs, and Jack managed to slam the door behind them before sliding down the wood panels to sit on the floor, laughing.
“Just once-” Rose lifted her head, looking down at the Doctor, who was nonchalantly stretching out on the grating, even with her draped over him. “Just once, could we possibly leave a planet at less than a dead run?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” he asked, looking up at her with wide grey eyes, and Jack chuckled as she thumped the Doctor one on the shoulder, pushing up on her elbows above him. He’d managed to extricate one long leg from the tangle, getting the sole of his boot onto the grating as if to get up, but Rose was on top of him, straddling his other thigh. If Jack had truly wanted to dice with death at that moment, he would have made a naughty comment, but he was dissuaded by the spark in Rose’s eyes.
“If it had been him-” She jerked her head in Jack’s direction.
He responded with an appropriately offended, “Hey!”, which was roundly ignored.
“If it had been him,” she reiterated strongly, emphasizing it with another thump to his chest, “we wouldn’t have got chased by the pitchfork-and-torch brigade, and the priests with muskets.”
“They weren’t muskets, Rose, they were primitive flare-muzzled sonic blasters-”
“They were muskets for all intents and purposes.” She interrupted his correction, which was halfway between a patient teacher and a five-year-old explaining to his mum why he got his hand stuck in the biscuit-tin, and Jack stifled a snigger he knew would not have been well-received. “But you had to flirt with the temple virgin - both of them - and after you’d already let them assume I was your wife, an’ all!” She growled in frustration and pulled up to her knees, still astride his thigh. “Breaking and entering, defilement of a holy site, blasphemy, adultery …” She ticked off the offenses on her fingers, giving him a little shove when he tried to protest during her litany.
“I was just asking for directions to the library,” he said in a small voice, shrugging against the floor.
Then her voice turned poisonously sweet, “Oh, I’m so sorry that they misunderstood the way you asked for admittance into their inner sanctum. Did the TARDIS mistranslate for them, or did you?” With another thumping shove, she got off him and stamped into the interior of the TARDIS, and if Jack wasn’t mistaken, her eyelashes had been a bit wet there near the end.
The Doctor watched her go, absently rubbing his abused breastbone. As she disappeared around the corner, his eyes closed briefly in what Jack thought looked suspiciously like relief; but after a moment, he bounced back up to his feet with a cheery grin. “So, where to next?” he asked, clapping his hands together and rubbing his palms.
“How about we just sail the Vortex for a couple of hours before we go somewhere and cause another riot?” Jack leaned back against the door, stretching his legs out and crossing his arms on his chest.
“Come on, Jack! I thought you were in it for the adventure, the excitement, the danger!” The Doctor squatted down before him, eyes glittering almost feverishly. A twitching muscle in his jaw betrayed his tension, and Jack reached out to put a hand on his shoulder.
“You don’t have anything to prove, you know.”
The grey eyes blinked, dilating slightly in the dim light, and another careless shrug rippled the shoulders of the leather jacket. “’M not trying to prove anything.”
Jack slanted him a look, and then got to his feet, surprised when the Doctor helped him, moving in close enough that their bodies brushed. The firm hand remained at his elbow.
“Yeah, well, racing around like a madman, flirting with temple virgins - and I saw you, so don’t play innocent with me, mister, I know flirting when I see it -”
“Do you, Jack?” A blue glint came into the grey eyes as the Doctor stepped into him, long thigh brushing along the inside of Jack’s as he backed him against the door, and Jack caught his breath in surprise, but took control of himself firmly.
“Yeah, and I can see you pushing and pulling Rose all over the place. And me, but I can handle it. It’s no mistake those people thought you and Rose were married - yeah, you’re always holding hands and making with the verbal foreplay and up in each other’s personal space like, ‘what’s that?’” Jack widened his eyes in mock innocence, then took a deep breath. “Look, even before I met you, I knew she was in love with you. And it took, oh, maybe a nanosecond to see that you felt the same way. So why do you keep dancing around it, you should pardon the expression?”
The glint became steelier, the jaw tighter, and Jack saw stars as the back of his head hit the door, propelled by the force of a kiss that literally took his breath away. Teeth crashed at the moment of impact, but within a heartbeat, the kiss had softened, deepened, and a large hand had come up to cradle his bruised head with remarkable tenderness as an agile tongue teased and caressed his. Jack’s hands grabbed for an anchor, finding the battered leather of the jacket as he tried to respond, to keep up with the potent sensuality of the kiss, but he felt like he was hopelessly outclassed, a disconcerting sensation to say the least.
As the Doctor pulled back, he nipped at the inside of Jack’s lower lip. Gunmetal eyes assessed him for a moment before softening. “Sorry, Jack.”
“Hey, don’t be,” Jack said softly, sneaking one hand inside the jacket to the shallow curve of waist and hip, thumb lightly caressing the inside of the Doctor’s hipbone. “It was fantastic!” He laughed a little breathlessly at his own joke, and the Doctor obliged by giving him a little eyeroll. “No, seriously.” He cleared his throat, edging his thumb under the hem of the dark blue sweater. “Best kiss I’ve had in a long, long time.” His voice dropped to a husky whisper, and even he was a little surprised by the eagerness betrayed by his voice. “Want to take this to my room?”
The Doctor blinked once. Twice. Then pulled back from Jack, looking at his hands almost as if they didn’t belong to him. His eyes slid away as he stepped back, searching the lofty arches of the console room with a curious tilt of the head. “D’you hear that?”
“Hear what?” asked Jack, swallowing his disappointment as the Doctor made his way to the console, checking some of the controls as he moved to the left.
“That wobble in the hum, at about 380 Hz. That’s not supposed to happen, not even with a pitchfork or two stuck in the panelling.” He squatted down to take a section of grating up and hopped down into the work area.
Jack checked his wristcomp, then slid his hands into his hip pockets as he went over to the edge of the grating. “Look, I’m a big boy, I can deal with a first-class cocktease like you.” The Doctor hesitated ever-so-slightly as he crouched down to the floor, ready to get underneath the machinery. “But it’s not fair, what you’re doing with Rose.”
“She’s a child,” he said softly, sitting on the floor and switching on his sonic screwdriver. Jack expected him to slide under, but he just sat there, contemplating the blue glowing light.
“She’s not, you know. Even in her own culture. Old enough to marry, bear a child, old enough to drive a motorized vehicle, old enough to vote, old enough to take intoxicants, old enough to serve in the armed forces - ” Jack saw the slight flinch, even gazing at the top of his head. “You ever done that? Served in the military?”
The Doctor muttered something and lay back on the floor, checking the sonic screwdriver minutely.
“What?” prompted Jack, with an exaggerated lean.
“With, not in,” the Doctor enunciated carefully, reaching back and not meeting Jack’s eyes, but still not sliding underneath. Jack took that as a sliver of desire to actually talk, and he squatted down on the edge of the grating. The next bit was muttered, almost under his breath, “Even drove a motorized vehicle.”
Jack swung his legs around to sit on the edge. He wasn’t going to be distracted, as fascinated as he was with any hint of the Doctor’s past life. “She’s not a child, you don’t feel about her as if she were a child, so why do you keep her a child in your mind?”
The Doctor’s arms dropped suddenly, and he lay there for a moment, staring up at the wiring before lowering his eyes to Jack. “What?”
He looked startled, wary, almost frightened.
“I remember that much. More than you thought, huh?”
Jack wished the sight of that Adam’s apple bobbing in the long, stretched throat weren’t so sexy, with that tinge of vulnerability. He wanted to stay on edge, a little angry with his concern.
Finally, the Doctor said carefully, “It’s safer that way,” and he reached up to check two wires, then suddenly sat up. “You remember what?”
Jack hopped down into the crawlspace and lowered himself onto his hip, his arm propped across the Doctor’s body in an echo of the position they had shared in the dream. “I remember kissing you,” he said softly, raising the fingers of his left hand to trace the surprisingly soft lips, and the Doctor’s eyelids drifted closed for an encouraging moment of acceptance. Jack leaned a little closer so that when he spoke, he knew his breath was touching the pale skin. “I remember Rose, looking about ten or twelve. In your mind, she’s a child. If you know she isn’t, isn’t that worse?”
The Doctor kept his eyes closed, almost squeezed shut. “It keeps her safe,” he gritted out.
“Aaaah.” Jack dragged it out, even as his fingers “accidentally” slipped down the bare skin in the v neck of the blue sweater. “Does it really? Aren’t you just hurting her more by not acknowledging that she is someone you could love and desire? Because you do, you know.”
The Doctor shook his head slightly; his eyelashes were wet, but he didn’t open his eyes. His voice was a little unsteady. “No, it’s not like that. She is - a child.” Finally, his eyes opened, dark blue, dilated. “So are you.”
Jack laughed loudly in his face, shaking his head. “Wow. You are working hard at this.” He pulled back and got easily to his feet. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. Enjoy the puttering. You’re not doing a blind bit of good to anyone out here in the real world.” Pulling himself easily up onto the grating, Jack paused for a moment, enjoying the perplexed expression on the Doctor’s face for a brief, spiteful moment. “Oh, and by the way? There’s no ‘wobble’ at 380 Hz.” Jack held up his wristcomp, hand held in a loose fist. “The TARDIS is fine.” He thrust himself to his feet and strode out of the console room on feet that were shakier than he’d like to admit, leaving the Doctor alone on the floor of the TARDIS, holding his sonic screwdriver as the TARDIS hummed quietly and smoothly around him.