Fic, well ficlet, a little AU for Last of the Time Lords
This is my fic journal after all so here is some fic - seems like ages since I last posted any
Title: untitled
Rating: pg, maybe pg-13 at a push
Spoilers: Last of the Time Lords (DW) and End of Days (TW)
Summary: Just a little bit of random AU for the end of Last Of The Time Lords.
A/N Not beta'd as it's short. I may do more with the AU idea that i've set up in this, but that's not a definate.
Comments always welcome
The paradox machine explodes in a shower of sparks and fractured time. It feels like a million stinging insects against his skin, blood pounding in his ears and through his veins.
Jack had expected this, you couldn’t just run in and shoot up a paradox machine and expect no ill effect.
What he hadn’t expected was the feeling of life being sucked out of him. It was Abaddon over again, the same tugging sense of wrongness, the sensation of the world going at first grey and then black as life and consciousness is torn from him
The floor of the TARDIS is cold under his cheek as he wakes, the smell of oil and ozone thick and heavy in the air.
Dragging himself upright against the central console, Jack draws deep shuddering breaths, trying to stop the feeling of vertigo that threatens to overwhelm him. His whole body aches and he feels every one of his hundred and seventy odd years.
Staggering over to one of the metal panels Jack looks fearfully at his reflection, half expecting to see an old man looking back at him.
The face that returns his gaze though is his own. Tired, covered in grime and things that Jack will never let himself remember, but still the same face he has had for the last century.
Pushing himself unsteadily away from the panel Jack grabs his gun from where it had fallen, before stumbling out of the Tardis.
Reeling from wall to wall Jack makes his way to the Valiant’s control room. Everything still seems greyed at the edges, the lights in the corridor too bright and stinging to his eyes, images double and blur before spinning into focus, only to shift and swim again when he blinks or shakes his head.
Whether it is an after effect of the breaking the paradox machine, the time reversal or a concussion, Jack’s not sure. Whatever it is it’s nauseating and Jack has to stop. Leaning against the wall, eyes closed, sucking in lung fulls of air, willing himself to not pass out, throw up or both.
Ahead a shot rings out and Jack breaks into a stumbling run.
Tripping, falling, pulling himself back to his feet by will power alone Jack makes his way through the corridors to the bridge.
Running, corridors, pain, death, too late, course disjointedly through his mind. I’ll not be left behind again, not this time, he tells himself as he scrambles to his feet yet again, hands scraped and torn on the metal floor, not again, never again.
The scene that greets him is jumbled. Martha holds back her mother, while Tish clings to her father and Lucy Saxon, white with shock and fury, is restrained by the guards, a gun lies at her feet, whilst in the midst of this the Doctor rocks the Master’s body, tears streaming silently down his face.
Throwing down his gun Jack wraps his arms around the Doctor, sinking to the ground behind him, burying his head against the Doctors back.
Jack wants to comfort him, wants to tells the Doctor that it’s alright, that everything is back to how it was, how it should be, that it’s all going to be fine, but it is all can do not to break, to dissolve into tears now that his tormentor is dead.
Lifting his head Jack looks at Saxon, the Master, the only other Timelord, his jailer, his executioner, the man who’d delighted in bringing him nothing but pain and death over and over again, until Jack had thought that he’d go mad from it.
The Master's empty brown eyes stare back at him, still challenging and defiant in death. Jack’s resolve cracks then, everything, every emotion, every feeling that he has buried this last year floods to the surface and he clings to the Doctor, trembling with relief and exhaustion, glad that it is finally is over.