Fic: Heartless (Part 3)
Title: Heartless
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Pairings/Characters: Jack/TARDIS, Ten, Ianto, and wee bits of Owen & Tosh
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Nothing beyond the obvious, and probably a lot less than that.
Summary: You'll get back to him. Somehow. We both will.
Notes: Part 3 of 4 (Okay, I lied - they got away from me, it seems 3 isn't the end and there's one more bit coming after this. Sigh.)
... Oh, and the tiniest tip of the hat to Douglas Adams and/or Terry Jones. For reasons that are unlikely to become clear any time soon.
(Part One)
(Part Two)
Part Three
Jack woke up alone.
Tangled in his greatcoat and slumped on the edge of the creaking metal cot in the corner of Torchwood headquarters, an hour shy of dawn, Jack Harkness woke up -
Not alone. Jack woke staring into achingly familiar grey eyes. He blinked, reached out instinctively to touch the hand resting on his knee, stroke the wide strong fingers - and glanced down, surprised to feel instead a woman's delicate hand beneath his own. He shook his head, willing his senses into action, forcing the sleep from his brain. The woman attached to the hand on his knee kissed him suddenly, leaving Jack completely awake and gasping for breath as she finally pulled away and looked unblinkingly at him, red hair falling across her face.
"That was him," she said after a moment. "I don't think I meant to do that."
"I see. Let me know when you figure it out, would you?" Jack commented archly. "And for the moment can we assume that you're not a ghost?"
The woman nodded. Maddening, those eyes. "Well. Now that we've gotten the preliminaries out of the way, I think we should be introduced. I'm Captain Jack Harkness. Pleased to meet you. And you are?"
"Jack - "
"No, that's me. Unless by some extraordinary coincidence you're also called Jack - which I'm guessing wouldn't be the strangest thing about you."
"Listen to me - "
"Not unless you start by answering some questions. Like, who are you? What are you? And why have you been appearing and disappearing at me for the last four days? And once we deal with those, then we can talk about the whole, you know, kissing thing ... "
Her laughter was unexpected and sweet. "Captain. We missed you," she said, placing a hand delicately on his cheek. "I forgot. I always forget when they're gone." Her hand was steady against his skin, cool, almost cold. "I never saw you like this, never touched you ... We thought you were dead, Jack. We didn't know."
Small alarm bells played in his mind. This is not right, this can't be ... Deliberately Jack reached up, grasped the woman's wrist, and took her hand from his face. "Who are you?" he demanded, an edge of quiet danger to the words.
She stared back, unblinking. "It's me, Jack." His grip on the thin wrist tightened. Unconsciously, the barest whisper escaped him.
"Doctor?"
She shook her head. "Not ... no. Not quite. It's hard to explain. I've never had to introduce myself before." She considered. "I suppose - I suppose I'm the TARDIS."
Something invisible dug very cold steel fingers into Jack's gut. He released his grip on the woman's wrist, stood and and strode abruptly across the room. "That's not exactly possible," he snapped, barely taking his eyes off her as he searched the cluttered table beside him. "Being as you're more person-shaped than, say, large-blue-box-shaped." He located a small, glittering green device and aimed it at her from across the room. "Unless this is some new and exciting problem with your chameleon circuit?" The woman rose and took a step toward him. "Stay there!" he barked. "I don't know what the hell you are, but you got into my office and you got into my head, and that is not okay. And the fact that you're still not showing up on any of this fucking equipment" - he tossed the device aside - "makes you a serious problem."
Jack cursed the panic clawing at his chest. Aliens he could deal with, things with teeth and proclamations and guns that he could fight with charm and reason and bigger guns; but this thing had reached into the most locked part of his mind - the part that fed his longing, the part that tortured him with fierce dreams when he allowed himself the luxury of sleep and threatened to drown him with its shallow ache every other moment of the day - reached in to torment him with the only thing he was defenseless against: hope. He could not let it get in again.
"Don't move!" Jack snarled as the woman - this thing, whatever it was - walked towards him. He reached for the gun at his hip. "I said - "
She was before him, small hands holding his with unseen strength. Jack struggled, unable to shift her, looking anywhere but in her eyes. "It's the truth, Jack. Look at me," she commanded, "and listen. There was an accident. Another rift. Closing. I don't remember where or when - things don't work the same way for me in this form - " She broke off in frustration. "When we left, the rift closed. On us. We were - I was caught. He left - left me behind. When I reached out for him, I found you. We thought you were dead, but you're not, you're - you're here, on this rift - this open rift. I came through, but he's out there. Alone. "
"Who is?" Jack whispered - needing, dreading to hear it said.
"The Doctor."
"But ... I don't understand. What are you?"
"I'm the TARDIS. Its heart. The ship is a vessel, a shell."
"Are you one of them? Are you a Time Lord?"
She shook her head impatiently. "This form, this body, it's nothing, it's not me ... I'm part of the ship. But I'm part of him, too, Jack, and he's part of me. We've travelled together for so long. Lifetimes. We've never been apart, and now I can barely reach him." He felt the panic clawing at her. "I found you ... came here because - we missed you, Jack. We loved you and we missed you. I can't explain!" she cried in frustration. "Not used to words. This is - " She broke off, stared suddenly into his eyes, placed his palms on her chest.
For moments Jack stared helplessly back at her. Then, gradually, faintly, he felt the twin heartbeats beneath his hands. The grey eyes, so strange and so achingly familiar. The desperate empty longing in her - in him - in himself. We loved you and we missed you.
He loved you.
The eyes - his eyes, his Doctor's eyes, staring into his own, and all the naked need and desire in them mirroring his own - two heartbeats and his own heart racing as well and her lips as Jack leaned forward and kissed her - his lips, the Doctor's, his Doctor - for a moment Jack felt him across whatever distance of space and time, she reached for him and Jack felt it, his longing, he loves you, thought you were dead, hearts beating, i love you i found you do you understand? and Yes, Jack thought, yes, I understand and his heartbeats slowed, faded beneath Jack's fingers and he felt, faintly within her, a slow deep steady mechanical thrum.
Jack pulled her close. "I understand," he murmured. "You'll get back to him. Somehow."
Somehow. We both will.
***
"Why don't I make some coffee?" Ianto suggested quietly.
"Oh, brilliant, cheers," Owen replied. "That'll get it all sorted, yeah? Once the coffee's made, it'll all be put to rights. The equipment will suddenly start functioning perfectly, all the alarms will be in order, and no one will wander into the office of a morning and be surprise-attacked by bloody non-ghost-ailen-whatever-babes! Coffee all around, then!"
The red-headed woman gazed oddly at Owen from her seat next to Jack atop the big workbench. "No one attacked you."
"You might have done!"
"But - "
"Maybe I can re-route the power feeds from the backup systems into the main server," Tosh mused aloud. "If any one of the individual circuits go down, the rest should keep running ..."
"Bit late for that now, yeah?"
"Owen." Jack hopped off the table and crossed the room, rolling up his sleeves as he went. "Now that everyone has been introduced and we're all friends, I would like several things to happen," he announced. "I would like the sensors calibrated to pick up a very specific frequency over the maximum distance possible. Twice the maximum distance - Tosh, I believe you'll be able to hook our guest up to something or other and take the readings off of her. I would like Owen to put that gun away and to never draw it again in this building unless something is actually in the process of eating my lower legs, uninvited. I would like the three-weeks' backlog of papers on Owen's desk to disappear. And Ianto, I would like - no, I would love a cup of coffee. I would actually kill for it," he added with a wink. "Alright? Can we make things happen?" He turned to the red-headed woman, offering a hand as she hopped down from the workbench.
Owen looked round. "Where's Gwen in all this, then?" he asked Jack.
"Personal day."
"Is she ill?"
"She's fine, Tosh," Jack told her. "She's having a day with her Rhys, that's all. Think you can cover for her?" Unwittingly, Tosh caught Owen's scowl as he whirled about and stomped towards his desk; blushing furiously, she jabbed at the startup key on her computer station and shrugged out of her jacket.
Ianto watched the strange woman murmur something in the Captain's ear, Jack gently placing his hand on the small of her back as he bent to reply. "Jack!" Ianto called suddenly.
Jack looked up, his blue eyes glinting. "What is it, Ianto?"
"The coffee will be a few minutes," he said. "Just ... something I have to see to downstairs."
***
The Hub was dark again, empty and quiet save for the purr of the computers and the deep whoosh of the pterodactyl's wings as she swooped lazily by on her nighttime laps. Jack slowly paced his office, watching the woman's hair glow orange in the soft light of the desk lamp. Curled in the Captain's chair, she looked up at him. "But why do I need a name?" she asked again.
"I have to call you something, don't I?"
"Do you?"
"Of course. I can't just keep calling you 'Hey you!'"
"You haven't been calling me Hey You," she pointed out.
"Okay, maybe not. But I haven't been calling you anything."
"And?"
"And ... well ... I have to call you something. Everything's called something."
"Stupid bloody ape," she muttered, smiling.
Jack crossed his arms and leaned against the desk next to her. "What was that?" he grinned.
"Nothing ... look, the Doctor doesn't call me anything."
"He does too. He calls you "The TARDIS" all the time. As in, 'Let's go back to the TARDIS,' or 'Remember where we parked the TARDIS' or ... 'Don't track mud into The TARDIS' ..." He trailed off and regarded her. "Okay, so maybe that won't work. How about just 'Tardis'?" She looked at him dubiously. "No, alright, how about - "
"'The'?"
"Stop it. I'm being serious."
"Alright." She rose from the chair. "Think for a minute," she said, reaching to pull him close, her hands on the back of his neck. "Just think," she said quietly, her forehead against his. Jack closed his eyes and breathed deeply, slipping his arms around her waist and letting his mind wander. He pulled her closer. "Jack," she whispered.
Eyes still closed, he ran a hand slowly up her back. "Mmmmm?" he purred.
"Jack. You're thinking about him."
"You told me to think for a minute," he said, lips against hers.
"Not about that ... or that! You're supposed to be thinking of something to call me."
"I can think of a few things."
"Jack - "
He kissed her, slowly and deliberately, feeling as he did her fingers tighten in his hair, her surprisingly strong body press tight against his, her tongue now against his own. Idly images swam through his mind as she returned the kiss, stronger and deeper - the ship, its warm metal halls and countless small rooms, the curve of its railings, all thrumming with unseen mechanical life - dizzily Jack realized he'd have to breathe soon, though she didn't seem to need to and he didn't want to, didn't want to break the connexion with this being, this part of his Doctor, this incredible creature -
He pulled away at last, gasping for breath, images of the ship and her Doctor still running through his mind. When finally he could breathe, he told her, "Blue."
"Blue?"
"Your name. How about it?"
"It's good," she said after a moment. "'Blue.' That's why we fell in love with you, Jack Harkness: you're terribly clever - for a human, anyway."
Jack grinned gallantly. "You're no dummy yourself," he told her. "For a ship." He bent his head to her, testing with the tip of his tongue the curve of her jaw, her collarbone, the cool, slightly metallic taste of her skin. "What are you?" he murmured. Blue placed a hand on his chest, against his single slow heartbeat.
"I'm his, Jack," she said quietly. "And I'm lost."
"Who isn't?" he said with half a smile. He took her face in his hands, brought his lips to hers and they kissed hungrily - reaching for each other and outward and, searching, Jack kissed her until his head spun and his heart pounded and his chest ached - until small stars burst behind his eyes - until darkness and emptiness and silence and beyond.
***
The trip had not been easy, and he realized wearily that unless he found her it would be his last trip for some time. It had drained him, the ship fighting against him every second - No, he thought, emerging exhausted into a pale thin dawn and savagely slamming the door shut behind him, it didn't fight me; that would imply some sort of sentience, some sort of - something. Not this infuriating mechanical nothingness. The Doctor squinted into the pink light creeping over the horizon and tasted the air. With most of the ship more or less dead around him, he'd been navigating by feel and intuition, reaching out again and again for the desperate whispered tugs from the heart of the TARDIS. He could only hope that that connexion was still strong enough, that she had led him right and somehow he would find her here ... the tiny hope that Jack might somehow be here as well, that was almost too much to consider.
Idly he raked a hand through his hair, wondering where and when here was. The place felt so familiar ... as the sun slouched slowly higher in the sky, illuminating the great building beside him, the letters cut into the stone, and the river beyond, he twigged.
"What do you know," the Doctor mused. "Cardiff."
***
"The Prime Minister publicly denied the incident, but his office has requested that we send a complete report at our earliest convenience - which of course means immediately."
"Mmm-hmm."
Ianto sighed soundlessly and checked the clipboard in his hand. "Oh - and the SUV will need a new rear door after all. They can't reattach the old one, there's not enough of it left." He lowered the list. "I'll pick it up on Wednesday ... Jack?"
"Wednesday. Fine."
"Jack."
The Captain's eyes flicked up dismissively. "It's fine." Ianto inclined his head tersely and turned to leave; stopped and thought, Fuck it, and came back to him. "What's going on?" he asked suddenly, leaning across the desk.
Jack looked up, eyes narrowed. "What?"
"Tell me what's going on, Jack," he said evenly. Jack stood to face him, his jaw tight.
"You know everything you need to know."
Ianto shook his head, slowly. "No, Jack, I don't. I don't know what you're looking for, or what you've been looking for. I don't know how to help you." He reached for his hand, lacing their fingers together. "And you need to let me."
For long moments Jack looked down at their hands clasped together, thinking You do know how. You always have. He looked up into the dark eyes watching him patiently, and smiled grimly. "It's a hell of a story," he said at last, "and I don't know how much of it you're going to believe."
"You'd be surprised."
"Jack!"
Both men turned as Blue pelted suddenly into the room and halted before them. Dropping Jack's hand guiltily, Ianto stepped back as Jack took her by the shoulders and searched her face: eyes unfocused, she quivered visibly and Jack felt a faint electric hum beneath his hands. "Blue?" he asked uncertainly.
Abruptly she pushed away from him and stood, listening, her unblinking grey eyes staring at nothing, one hand on Jack's chest and the other sketching small motions in the air as if feeling for something unseen. She turned her head and the two men followed her gaze to the office doorway where a tall, thin man stood, hands in the pockets of his long brown coat, staring at Blue, an unreadable expression in his warm dark eyes.
Ianto glanced at Jack. "Do we have any working alarms in this place?" Jack muttered at him, starting towards the man. "Who the - "
"Hello," the man said quietly to Blue, a slow smile spreading over his face. Jack glanced at her. She was smiling as well, her eyes on the stranger.
"Hello," she whispered.
The man took a step into the room, looking from Blue to Jack and back again. "Alright, you lot. Coming home, then?" he asked.
Part 4 (aka The End)
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Pairings/Characters: Jack/TARDIS, Ten, Ianto, and wee bits of Owen & Tosh
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Nothing beyond the obvious, and probably a lot less than that.
Summary: You'll get back to him. Somehow. We both will.
Notes: Part 3 of 4 (Okay, I lied - they got away from me, it seems 3 isn't the end and there's one more bit coming after this. Sigh.)
... Oh, and the tiniest tip of the hat to Douglas Adams and/or Terry Jones. For reasons that are unlikely to become clear any time soon.
(Part One)
(Part Two)
Part Three
Jack woke up alone.
Tangled in his greatcoat and slumped on the edge of the creaking metal cot in the corner of Torchwood headquarters, an hour shy of dawn, Jack Harkness woke up -
Not alone. Jack woke staring into achingly familiar grey eyes. He blinked, reached out instinctively to touch the hand resting on his knee, stroke the wide strong fingers - and glanced down, surprised to feel instead a woman's delicate hand beneath his own. He shook his head, willing his senses into action, forcing the sleep from his brain. The woman attached to the hand on his knee kissed him suddenly, leaving Jack completely awake and gasping for breath as she finally pulled away and looked unblinkingly at him, red hair falling across her face.
"That was him," she said after a moment. "I don't think I meant to do that."
"I see. Let me know when you figure it out, would you?" Jack commented archly. "And for the moment can we assume that you're not a ghost?"
The woman nodded. Maddening, those eyes. "Well. Now that we've gotten the preliminaries out of the way, I think we should be introduced. I'm Captain Jack Harkness. Pleased to meet you. And you are?"
"Jack - "
"No, that's me. Unless by some extraordinary coincidence you're also called Jack - which I'm guessing wouldn't be the strangest thing about you."
"Listen to me - "
"Not unless you start by answering some questions. Like, who are you? What are you? And why have you been appearing and disappearing at me for the last four days? And once we deal with those, then we can talk about the whole, you know, kissing thing ... "
Her laughter was unexpected and sweet. "Captain. We missed you," she said, placing a hand delicately on his cheek. "I forgot. I always forget when they're gone." Her hand was steady against his skin, cool, almost cold. "I never saw you like this, never touched you ... We thought you were dead, Jack. We didn't know."
Small alarm bells played in his mind. This is not right, this can't be ... Deliberately Jack reached up, grasped the woman's wrist, and took her hand from his face. "Who are you?" he demanded, an edge of quiet danger to the words.
She stared back, unblinking. "It's me, Jack." His grip on the thin wrist tightened. Unconsciously, the barest whisper escaped him.
"Doctor?"
She shook her head. "Not ... no. Not quite. It's hard to explain. I've never had to introduce myself before." She considered. "I suppose - I suppose I'm the TARDIS."
Something invisible dug very cold steel fingers into Jack's gut. He released his grip on the woman's wrist, stood and and strode abruptly across the room. "That's not exactly possible," he snapped, barely taking his eyes off her as he searched the cluttered table beside him. "Being as you're more person-shaped than, say, large-blue-box-shaped." He located a small, glittering green device and aimed it at her from across the room. "Unless this is some new and exciting problem with your chameleon circuit?" The woman rose and took a step toward him. "Stay there!" he barked. "I don't know what the hell you are, but you got into my office and you got into my head, and that is not okay. And the fact that you're still not showing up on any of this fucking equipment" - he tossed the device aside - "makes you a serious problem."
Jack cursed the panic clawing at his chest. Aliens he could deal with, things with teeth and proclamations and guns that he could fight with charm and reason and bigger guns; but this thing had reached into the most locked part of his mind - the part that fed his longing, the part that tortured him with fierce dreams when he allowed himself the luxury of sleep and threatened to drown him with its shallow ache every other moment of the day - reached in to torment him with the only thing he was defenseless against: hope. He could not let it get in again.
"Don't move!" Jack snarled as the woman - this thing, whatever it was - walked towards him. He reached for the gun at his hip. "I said - "
She was before him, small hands holding his with unseen strength. Jack struggled, unable to shift her, looking anywhere but in her eyes. "It's the truth, Jack. Look at me," she commanded, "and listen. There was an accident. Another rift. Closing. I don't remember where or when - things don't work the same way for me in this form - " She broke off in frustration. "When we left, the rift closed. On us. We were - I was caught. He left - left me behind. When I reached out for him, I found you. We thought you were dead, but you're not, you're - you're here, on this rift - this open rift. I came through, but he's out there. Alone. "
"Who is?" Jack whispered - needing, dreading to hear it said.
"The Doctor."
"But ... I don't understand. What are you?"
"I'm the TARDIS. Its heart. The ship is a vessel, a shell."
"Are you one of them? Are you a Time Lord?"
She shook her head impatiently. "This form, this body, it's nothing, it's not me ... I'm part of the ship. But I'm part of him, too, Jack, and he's part of me. We've travelled together for so long. Lifetimes. We've never been apart, and now I can barely reach him." He felt the panic clawing at her. "I found you ... came here because - we missed you, Jack. We loved you and we missed you. I can't explain!" she cried in frustration. "Not used to words. This is - " She broke off, stared suddenly into his eyes, placed his palms on her chest.
For moments Jack stared helplessly back at her. Then, gradually, faintly, he felt the twin heartbeats beneath his hands. The grey eyes, so strange and so achingly familiar. The desperate empty longing in her - in him - in himself. We loved you and we missed you.
He loved you.
The eyes - his eyes, his Doctor's eyes, staring into his own, and all the naked need and desire in them mirroring his own - two heartbeats and his own heart racing as well and her lips as Jack leaned forward and kissed her - his lips, the Doctor's, his Doctor - for a moment Jack felt him across whatever distance of space and time, she reached for him and Jack felt it, his longing, he loves you, thought you were dead, hearts beating, i love you i found you do you understand? and Yes, Jack thought, yes, I understand and his heartbeats slowed, faded beneath Jack's fingers and he felt, faintly within her, a slow deep steady mechanical thrum.
Jack pulled her close. "I understand," he murmured. "You'll get back to him. Somehow."
Somehow. We both will.
***
"Why don't I make some coffee?" Ianto suggested quietly.
"Oh, brilliant, cheers," Owen replied. "That'll get it all sorted, yeah? Once the coffee's made, it'll all be put to rights. The equipment will suddenly start functioning perfectly, all the alarms will be in order, and no one will wander into the office of a morning and be surprise-attacked by bloody non-ghost-ailen-whatever-babes! Coffee all around, then!"
The red-headed woman gazed oddly at Owen from her seat next to Jack atop the big workbench. "No one attacked you."
"You might have done!"
"But - "
"Maybe I can re-route the power feeds from the backup systems into the main server," Tosh mused aloud. "If any one of the individual circuits go down, the rest should keep running ..."
"Bit late for that now, yeah?"
"Owen." Jack hopped off the table and crossed the room, rolling up his sleeves as he went. "Now that everyone has been introduced and we're all friends, I would like several things to happen," he announced. "I would like the sensors calibrated to pick up a very specific frequency over the maximum distance possible. Twice the maximum distance - Tosh, I believe you'll be able to hook our guest up to something or other and take the readings off of her. I would like Owen to put that gun away and to never draw it again in this building unless something is actually in the process of eating my lower legs, uninvited. I would like the three-weeks' backlog of papers on Owen's desk to disappear. And Ianto, I would like - no, I would love a cup of coffee. I would actually kill for it," he added with a wink. "Alright? Can we make things happen?" He turned to the red-headed woman, offering a hand as she hopped down from the workbench.
Owen looked round. "Where's Gwen in all this, then?" he asked Jack.
"Personal day."
"Is she ill?"
"She's fine, Tosh," Jack told her. "She's having a day with her Rhys, that's all. Think you can cover for her?" Unwittingly, Tosh caught Owen's scowl as he whirled about and stomped towards his desk; blushing furiously, she jabbed at the startup key on her computer station and shrugged out of her jacket.
Ianto watched the strange woman murmur something in the Captain's ear, Jack gently placing his hand on the small of her back as he bent to reply. "Jack!" Ianto called suddenly.
Jack looked up, his blue eyes glinting. "What is it, Ianto?"
"The coffee will be a few minutes," he said. "Just ... something I have to see to downstairs."
***
The Hub was dark again, empty and quiet save for the purr of the computers and the deep whoosh of the pterodactyl's wings as she swooped lazily by on her nighttime laps. Jack slowly paced his office, watching the woman's hair glow orange in the soft light of the desk lamp. Curled in the Captain's chair, she looked up at him. "But why do I need a name?" she asked again.
"I have to call you something, don't I?"
"Do you?"
"Of course. I can't just keep calling you 'Hey you!'"
"You haven't been calling me Hey You," she pointed out.
"Okay, maybe not. But I haven't been calling you anything."
"And?"
"And ... well ... I have to call you something. Everything's called something."
"Stupid bloody ape," she muttered, smiling.
Jack crossed his arms and leaned against the desk next to her. "What was that?" he grinned.
"Nothing ... look, the Doctor doesn't call me anything."
"He does too. He calls you "The TARDIS" all the time. As in, 'Let's go back to the TARDIS,' or 'Remember where we parked the TARDIS' or ... 'Don't track mud into The TARDIS' ..." He trailed off and regarded her. "Okay, so maybe that won't work. How about just 'Tardis'?" She looked at him dubiously. "No, alright, how about - "
"'The'?"
"Stop it. I'm being serious."
"Alright." She rose from the chair. "Think for a minute," she said, reaching to pull him close, her hands on the back of his neck. "Just think," she said quietly, her forehead against his. Jack closed his eyes and breathed deeply, slipping his arms around her waist and letting his mind wander. He pulled her closer. "Jack," she whispered.
Eyes still closed, he ran a hand slowly up her back. "Mmmmm?" he purred.
"Jack. You're thinking about him."
"You told me to think for a minute," he said, lips against hers.
"Not about that ... or that! You're supposed to be thinking of something to call me."
"I can think of a few things."
"Jack - "
He kissed her, slowly and deliberately, feeling as he did her fingers tighten in his hair, her surprisingly strong body press tight against his, her tongue now against his own. Idly images swam through his mind as she returned the kiss, stronger and deeper - the ship, its warm metal halls and countless small rooms, the curve of its railings, all thrumming with unseen mechanical life - dizzily Jack realized he'd have to breathe soon, though she didn't seem to need to and he didn't want to, didn't want to break the connexion with this being, this part of his Doctor, this incredible creature -
He pulled away at last, gasping for breath, images of the ship and her Doctor still running through his mind. When finally he could breathe, he told her, "Blue."
"Blue?"
"Your name. How about it?"
"It's good," she said after a moment. "'Blue.' That's why we fell in love with you, Jack Harkness: you're terribly clever - for a human, anyway."
Jack grinned gallantly. "You're no dummy yourself," he told her. "For a ship." He bent his head to her, testing with the tip of his tongue the curve of her jaw, her collarbone, the cool, slightly metallic taste of her skin. "What are you?" he murmured. Blue placed a hand on his chest, against his single slow heartbeat.
"I'm his, Jack," she said quietly. "And I'm lost."
"Who isn't?" he said with half a smile. He took her face in his hands, brought his lips to hers and they kissed hungrily - reaching for each other and outward and, searching, Jack kissed her until his head spun and his heart pounded and his chest ached - until small stars burst behind his eyes - until darkness and emptiness and silence and beyond.
***
The trip had not been easy, and he realized wearily that unless he found her it would be his last trip for some time. It had drained him, the ship fighting against him every second - No, he thought, emerging exhausted into a pale thin dawn and savagely slamming the door shut behind him, it didn't fight me; that would imply some sort of sentience, some sort of - something. Not this infuriating mechanical nothingness. The Doctor squinted into the pink light creeping over the horizon and tasted the air. With most of the ship more or less dead around him, he'd been navigating by feel and intuition, reaching out again and again for the desperate whispered tugs from the heart of the TARDIS. He could only hope that that connexion was still strong enough, that she had led him right and somehow he would find her here ... the tiny hope that Jack might somehow be here as well, that was almost too much to consider.
Idly he raked a hand through his hair, wondering where and when here was. The place felt so familiar ... as the sun slouched slowly higher in the sky, illuminating the great building beside him, the letters cut into the stone, and the river beyond, he twigged.
"What do you know," the Doctor mused. "Cardiff."
***
"The Prime Minister publicly denied the incident, but his office has requested that we send a complete report at our earliest convenience - which of course means immediately."
"Mmm-hmm."
Ianto sighed soundlessly and checked the clipboard in his hand. "Oh - and the SUV will need a new rear door after all. They can't reattach the old one, there's not enough of it left." He lowered the list. "I'll pick it up on Wednesday ... Jack?"
"Wednesday. Fine."
"Jack."
The Captain's eyes flicked up dismissively. "It's fine." Ianto inclined his head tersely and turned to leave; stopped and thought, Fuck it, and came back to him. "What's going on?" he asked suddenly, leaning across the desk.
Jack looked up, eyes narrowed. "What?"
"Tell me what's going on, Jack," he said evenly. Jack stood to face him, his jaw tight.
"You know everything you need to know."
Ianto shook his head, slowly. "No, Jack, I don't. I don't know what you're looking for, or what you've been looking for. I don't know how to help you." He reached for his hand, lacing their fingers together. "And you need to let me."
For long moments Jack looked down at their hands clasped together, thinking You do know how. You always have. He looked up into the dark eyes watching him patiently, and smiled grimly. "It's a hell of a story," he said at last, "and I don't know how much of it you're going to believe."
"You'd be surprised."
"Jack!"
Both men turned as Blue pelted suddenly into the room and halted before them. Dropping Jack's hand guiltily, Ianto stepped back as Jack took her by the shoulders and searched her face: eyes unfocused, she quivered visibly and Jack felt a faint electric hum beneath his hands. "Blue?" he asked uncertainly.
Abruptly she pushed away from him and stood, listening, her unblinking grey eyes staring at nothing, one hand on Jack's chest and the other sketching small motions in the air as if feeling for something unseen. She turned her head and the two men followed her gaze to the office doorway where a tall, thin man stood, hands in the pockets of his long brown coat, staring at Blue, an unreadable expression in his warm dark eyes.
Ianto glanced at Jack. "Do we have any working alarms in this place?" Jack muttered at him, starting towards the man. "Who the - "
"Hello," the man said quietly to Blue, a slow smile spreading over his face. Jack glanced at her. She was smiling as well, her eyes on the stranger.
"Hello," she whispered.
The man took a step into the room, looking from Blue to Jack and back again. "Alright, you lot. Coming home, then?" he asked.
Part 4 (aka The End)