Farewell to Innocence 2/8?
Story: Farewell to Innocence
Author: WMR
Series: What Was Lost; follows Past Life and Cast a Cold Eye. Will not make a lot of sense if you haven't read those!
Characters: Nine, Rose, Jack
Spoilers: Up to The Doctor Dances
Rated: PG (for now)
Summary: Memory, such a fickle thing, but he wants it back. Final story in the What Was Lost trilogy.
With grateful thanks, as always, to my wonderful and invaluable BRs,
dark_aegis,
nnwest and
ponygirl72.
Chapter 1: Honour Defiled
Chapter 2: Dreams and Memories
Poet’s imaginings
And memories of love,
Memories of the words of women,
All those things whereof
Man makes a superhuman,
Mirror-resembling dream.
- William Butler Yeats: The Tower
Of all the things Jack could have remembered, why did it have to be that? And what the hell had possessed him to make such an idiot of himself, anyway?
Well, if he was very lucky Jack wouldn’t ask why he’d said it. And that wasn’t the important thing here, anyway. What was important was that Jack was remembering stuff from those missing years.
“Sounds like it’s not gone permanently, then. Or not all of it’s gone.” He released Jack’s arm. “You often get those dreams?”
The other man shrugged. “On and off, ever since I woke up that day.”
“Remember much about them when you wake up?”
Jack looked away. “Not much. Impressions, mostly. Nothing that makes any sense.”
And nothing that made him feel all that comfortable, either, by the sound of it.
There was one way of finding out how much Jack could remember amid the devastation of his stolen memories. But it wasn’t a way that appealed. It required abilities he’d mostly suppressed in this life - that he preferred to forget he possessed.
After all, what purpose did advanced telepathic powers serve when there was no-one there to communicate with any more?
Yet he’d used those abilities twice in the last week. Once just yesterday. He could hardly pretend they didn’t exist.
“How d’you feel about mind-reading, Jack?”
“What?”
Okay, by the sound of it he wasn’t fond of the idea. Fair enough. Good, in fact. That meant he could forget all about it. Forget he’d even thought of it.
And then Jack took a deep breath. “So you can read minds, Doctor.”
He tensed, but deliberately tried to relax. “I have my moments. Don’t worry, Captain, I actually have to make myself do it. No chance I’d actually want to go burrowing around in your ape-like skull.”
“So why mention it?” The question seemed casual, but Jack’s stance told him it was anything but.
Well, he’d brought it up. He had to finish it now. “Because, if you’re starting to remember stuff, there’s a chance that it’s not all gone. Especially if you’re dreamin’ about it too.” He paused. He’d come this far. Couldn’t really pull back now. “I could poke around, see what’s there, see if I can help you remember anything else.”
“Right.” Jack was deeply uncomfortable with the idea. That was obvious from his stance and closed-off expression. Actually, he wasn’t sure which of the two of them was less comfortable with it.
And then Jack nodded. “Okay. If you’re willing, then I’d like to give it a try. Thanks.”
Well, it was his own fault. He’d got himself into this. “I need you as relaxed as possible. Best if you’re lying down, I think.”
Entirely as he might have expected, Jack grinned wolfishly. “Never thought it was gonna be that easy to get you into my bedroom, Doctor!”
He didn’t even bother rolling his eyes. “Just get a move on.”
On the way to Jack’s bedroom, the ex-Time Agent commented with another grin, “Better not let Rose see you in here with me - she might get the wrong idea.”
Rose wouldn’t jump to that sort of conclusion. Or would she? Bloody humans and their insistence on complicating things!
“So, why’d you say it?”
“Say what?” What was the bloke talking about now?
“That Rose was your girlfriend. What made you say it?”
Right. So much for hoping he’d get away with it. “I was tryin’ to avoid complications.”
“Complications?” Jack, smothering another grin, raised an eyebrow. “What sort of complications, exactly?” The man was enjoying this far too much.
“There was stuff goin’ on. I needed to find out who was controllin’ the TARDIS. An’ I didn’t want to have to deal with you flirtin’ with Rose in the middle of it all.”
Stupid, stupid. He’d left himself wide open there. Why would he have to deal with Jack flirting with Rose? Why would it even bother him?
“Right.” The word was drawled. Jack pushed open the door of his room and went in, going to stand by the bed. He kicked off his shoes and lay down. “I really did get under your skin, didn’t I? But, you know, I’m no threat to you.”
Pointless denying now that Rose meant no more to him than a friend. “Nothing’s ever gonna happen. So shut it.”
Jack grinned. “See me zip it, Doctor. Okay, what d’you need me to do?”
He pulled a chair over to the bed and, once he was seated, leaned forward. “Close your eyes.”
*******
His eyes drifted shut. And then two fingers pressed lightly against his temples. The contact felt strangely intimate.
And then he was floating...
Images of cloaked spaceships entered his mind. He was shooting up through the air. No, he was falling, tumbling to the ground. A golden angel was leaning over him - no, he was leaning over her, and her body was bathed in golden light. A dark figure hovered in the background, cloaked in grief and jealous possessiveness.
More... a man he’d thought was his closest friend holding a gun on him. More falling, falling...
A voice, vaguely familiar. “You were never supposed to find him, Jack. That was your biggest mistake.”
Ambush. That was it, wasn’t it? He’d been ambushed.
“...can’t trust you to keep this quiet, can we? Goody-goody Harkness...”
More blackness. Then a woman, darkly beautiful, trailing her fingers over his face, seducing him with her eyes. Him following through on the invitation. She had something he wanted...
...and she was gone and the blackness returned.
Images, flashes... him at the flight deck of the ship he’d loved, zipping into hyperdrive as he followed on the heels of his target... what was that all about? An important mission, but how it ended was submerged in darkness.
Shaking hands with the Agency director of staffing and being handed new bars for his uniform - oh, he was being promoted. But the blackness took hold again as he walked away.
And then the pressure was removed from his temples and his eyes opened.
*******
Bits and pieces; that was all. The removal had clearly been an incomplete process, but for the most part those two years were missing.
“It’s like this,” he began to explain as Jack sat up, looking disoriented. “Imagine you drew something with a pencil. Then you rub it out. You never get all of it off - there’s stuff left around the edges, and shadows of what was there underneath. That’s what’s left inside your head.”
Jack blinked. “Nice analogy. Not that I’ve ever actually used a pencil, but I get it. So all that stuff I was seeing just then...” He frowned suddenly. “I remember it! I still remember it. Getting promoted... Werner shooting at me... I even remember waking up in your med-lab, Doctor!”
Yeah, he’d seen that for himself. “What was that about an ambush? Someone saying you weren’t supposed to find him?”
“Right.” Jack rubbed his face again. “I only have bits of that... I went back to the Time Agency; must’ve been after I was with you guys, because I remember I had Werner’s body with me.”
He sat up, cross-legged on the bed. “Okay, so I remember getting back. Docking my ship. I’d sent a message to my boss that I needed to see him urgently, that I’d caught our thief and saboteur and I had the equipment.” He frowned. “That was a secure transmission. No way should it’ve been intercepted. But I got out of my ship and a couple of agents were waiting for me.”
“Agents you knew, right?”
“Yeah. One was a woman I knew slightly - we’d been part of mission teams a couple of times, but never worked closely together. And I just wish I could remember her name!” Jack grimaced and hit the bed with the flat of his hand.
“It’ll come. If it’s someone you knew from before those two years, you’ll remember.” He hoped, anyway. It would be useful if Jack could remember that much.
“Yeah. Or you could poke around in my head again and remember it for me, right?”
Jack’s smile didn’t contain much humour. But that was hardly surprising. Who’d enjoy having someone else getting inside their head? Hadn’t been all fun and games for him, either - he hadn’t actually wanted to see Harkness the seducer at work.
“Shouldn’t think it’d be necessary. So, any idea who the other person was?”
“I don’t remember seeing his face. That’s frustrating. I must have seen him, but it’s just not coming to me. The voice, though... I know I’d heard that voice before. Not often, but enough to know that I know whoever it is.”
“So.” The Doctor stood. Enough for one night. He’d leave Jack to sleep in a minute. “Either someone intercepted your transmission to your boss, or your boss was in on it. Do you remember anything about what happened after that?”
He saw the frown as the other man concentrated. Then Jack shook his head. “Nothing. Damnit.” He looked straight at the Doctor then. “Is that it? Is there anything you can do to get my memories back?”
“Doesn’t work like that.” At Jack’s questioning look, he continued. “If you’d been hypnotised, if forgetting two years was some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion, then, yeah, I could get them back for you. But they used neurosurgery. That means they’re gone. Just not there any more. The reason you started remembering stuff is, like I said, because the removal was fuzzy around the edges. Wasn’t a clean cut. So that’s why you were seeing stuff in your dreams - your subconscious was leaking it out. Dunno why you remembered things tonight, though. But all I did was send a few prompts to your subconscious to make it release what it remembered. Kind of like hypnotism.”
“Okay.” Jack nodded. “Makes sense. Thanks, Doctor.”
“Right, well, I’ll leave you to it. We’ll figure out the plan for getting into the archives tomorrow.”
“Yeah. And if I remember anything else I’ll let you know.”
He nodded, then turned on his heel and left.
*******
Memory. Such a fragile thing, yet he’d never thought of it that way until he’d lost part of his.
He had some of it back. Just a smattering, but it was something.
Weirdly, he remembered almost everything about meeting the Doctor and Rose in 1916. So strange, too, that in his timeline that meeting had happened before their encounter in 1941. Now that he remembered it, that meeting overlaid the wartime one in his mind. How bizarre that he could have two first meetings with the same people.
No surprise that the Doctor had been hostile at their meeting in Dublin. He’d not just been dealing with Rose being killed, but also an unwanted encounter with a man he’d disliked on sight - with good reason, it’d turned out - and had probably hoped never to see again.
In that earlier meeting - later, from the Doctor and Rose’s point of view - he’d known from what they’d said that he’d managed to overturn the impression he’d given them of himself in London. Now, he could see that for himself. And what he wouldn’t give for that to have been their first encounter with him. Because now they’d always have the image of a conman in mind.
He pushed that thought away. It wasn’t important. Even if it did remind him of the question that had been foremost in his mind for most of the past week: just what the Doctor stood to gain from helping him. He was still none the wiser on that score. There was no obvious motive - and yet there had to be something. No-one did something for nothing.
What did matter was the rest of it. Being ambushed as he returned to the Time Agency. The Doctor was right. Someone had betrayed him.
His boss? But Devaney was a straight arrow, or so he’d always thought. Yet the communication he’d sent couldn’t have been intercepted. So either Devaney was involved, or he’d been indiscreet with the wrong person.
Another file he’d have to look up when they went to the Agency data archives.
Memories. For a year, they’d taunted him with their absence. Now, the tattered shreds that had returned to him haunted him with their presence. Who else that he’d trusted, cared about, even, had betrayed him? And did he really want to find out?
*******
“Morning, Doctor.” The greeting was accompanied by a massive yawn.
Some things didn’t change. Rose really wasn’t a morning person. He grinned as he turned to her. “Morning. You sure you’re awake?”
“Nah. Still asleep. Wake me up in an hour.” She shuffled over to him, barefoot despite being otherwise fully dressed. “That coffee nearly ready?”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders in a brief hug. “Just about. You go and sit down. I’ll bring it over.”
She stayed where she was and leaned her head against his shoulder. “ ‘M comfortable here.”
So was he. That was the problem.
The coffee-machine gurgled, signalling that it was finished. That gave him his excuse to move away from her. She grumbled, but went to sit down.
She gradually woke up as she drank her coffee, which meant he was able to tell her about what he’d learned in the library the previous evening. “ ‘S interesting,” she said. “Does Jack know?”
“Does Jack know what?” The other man appeared in the doorway, looking surprisingly alert for someone who’d only had a few hours’ sleep.
“Was just tellin’ Rose about what I found out from those books.”
“Right.” Jack poured himself coffee, then gestured to offer the two of them refills. “I need to take a proper look at that one you translated for me.”
“Yeah, an’ we need to sort out fake IDs for our visit to the archive.” The Doctor accepted his refilled mug from Jack with a nod of thanks.
“What, psychic paper won’t do?” Jack took a seat opposite him.
“Nah, wouldn’t want to risk it. Not in a time where it’s in common use. ‘Sides, Rose doesn’t have any.”
“Right.” Jack raised an eyebrow, then smiled at Rose. “We should really get you some.”
She smiled in return. Was it his imagination, or did her gaze linger on Jack longer than necessary? “That’d be fun. Why’d you never think of that, Doctor?”
“Didn’t think you needed it,” he said gruffly. Bloody Harkness, thinking of things he should have thought of himself.
Actually, it was true that he rarely tended to give his companions any of the toys or accessories he had access to himself. Oh, he’d lend Rose his sonic screwdriver if she needed it, and he’d even taught Ace to fly the TARDIS. Ace, too, had always had plenty of toys of her own, even if he hadn’t always approved, But in general he was the Doctor and he was the one with the tech and the tricks.
Maybe, too, it was all part of his expectation that she’d leave some day. Just as they all left. Why give her the tools for the job if she was only going to walk out on him? What was the point?
And yet she hadn’t left so far. There’d been plenty of times when she could have - should have, even. He’d made her choose him over her mother once. That had been manipulative in the extreme. He’d been a right bastard. Yet she’d chosen him anyway.
Yeah. It was time he started trusting her enough to take her at her word. She wasn’t going anywhere - at least for the time being. She’d told him that several times now.
“Okay. Next time I find a supplier, I’ll get you some,” he promised, and was rewarded with a wide grin.
“Should get you a weapon, too,” Jack said, his expression serious.
“There’s no need for that.” Bluntly, crisply, he countermanded the suggestion. If Jack wanted to carry guns around, he could. There wasn’t a lot he could do about that and, to be honest, they did come in useful sometimes. But he refused to carry weapons, and he didn’t much like the idea of Rose doing so either.
“Doctor.” Jack stared him down. “This stuff you guys do is dangerous. Yesterday, we went into what could’ve turned out to be a civil war. You - we all - were in the same situation in Dublin in 1916. Okay, you’ve made a choice not to be armed, and that’s fine - that’s your decision, and you’ve got a lot of experience behind you. I don’t underestimate your ability to get yourself out of trouble.”
He heard Rose snort faintly, and glared at her. She gave him a wide-eyed stare in return.
“But you shouldn’t ask Rose to take those sort of risks without giving her a means of defending herself. I saw the way you looked at me yesterday when I gave her that knife. Well, as I recall, you said later it saved your lives. Yeah, she could carry a stiletto. But I’d much prefer if she had a mini-blaster.”
“Oi!” Rose elbowed Jack in the ribs. “I am here, you know.”
Now it was his turn to stifle a grin. Stupid of Jack to talk about her in front of her. He should know by now that Rose made her own decisions, anyway.
“Sorry.” Jack turned a charming smile on Rose. The Doctor rolled his eyes. “So, what d’you think? Want me to get you a blaster and teach you how to use it?”
Rose shrugged. “I dunno.” Glancing at him, she continued, “I’m not that keen on guns, either.” She grimaced. “I mean, if I had to use one - if the Doctor was in danger, or you, then, yeah, I’d use it. But I’d rather not.”
Jack looked as if he was going to argue, but abruptly he fell silent, reaching instead for his coffee-cup.
Of course. If Jack now remembered their meeting in 1916, then he remembered Rose’s initial reaction to killing Werner Blass. Plus, he knew the two of them had talked about it since. No; persuading Rose to carry a weapon wasn’t a good idea right now. And he was happy about that.
“I didn’t tell you.” Jack was looking at Rose again. “I remembered some stuff last night. Including meeting you guys.”
“Oh?” She looked interested and expectant.
Jack launched into his account of how he’d remembered, which was surprisingly not embellished at all. Rose raised her eyebrow at the girlfriend bit. He groaned inwardly at that; that was something he’d prefer her to forget altogether.
Some chance, though, judging by what she’d said to him in the console room the previous evening, before getting changed. And the way she’d looked at him when she’d caught him watching her.
Jack grinned suddenly. “I even remember what I said to you when we said goodbye.”
“Oh?” He raised his eyebrow at the two of them. “What was that?”
Rose grinned conspiratorially at Jack. “Not sure I can tell you.”
Jack gave her what he could only describe as a leer. “Better not.”
“Yeah.” She was still looking at Jack. Still smiling. And she was giving him a wide-eyed look that the Doctor recognised. It was exactly the way she’d looked at him back in that room in the Albion when she’d been trying to get him to dance with her.
Wide-eyed. Come-hither. Seductive.
So that was it. She’d transferred her affections.
Well, that was fast.
He ignored the two of them and stood abruptly, going to get himself another coffee. Neither of them paid him any attention.
“So,” Rose said, and even her tone of voice was flirtatious, “did you remember anything else about meeting us?”
He turned to look at them. He shouldn’t. He should just ignore them, but something just seemed to be compelling him to watch.
Jack was smiling, an appreciative light in his eyes. “I remember waking up after being shot to see a gorgeous woman bending over me. That’s when I was sure I was dead.”
“Nah.” Rose grinned back at him again. “You’d more likely be seeing ugly blokes with pitchforks.”
“Maybe,” Jack countered, “but I can tell you it’d all have been worth it.”
Rose laughed again, tossing her hair. And that was a gesture he knew, too. She didn’t use it often, but when she did it was very definitely a look at me gesture.
She leaned closer still to Jack. “S’pose I can’t complain about you bein’ a bad boy. It’s made you a bloody good...” And she paused. It had to be deliberate. And, yeah, the way her tongue was peeping through the corner of her mouth said it was definitely deliberate. “... dancer, after all.”
Jack laughed.
And the Doctor slammed his mug down on the counter. He’d had enough - more than enough of watching the two of them make eyes at each other.
“Some of us have work to do,” he growled, and stalked out of the kitchen.
*******
tbc
x-posted to
better_with_3
Author: WMR
Series: What Was Lost; follows Past Life and Cast a Cold Eye. Will not make a lot of sense if you haven't read those!
Characters: Nine, Rose, Jack
Spoilers: Up to The Doctor Dances
Rated: PG (for now)
Summary: Memory, such a fickle thing, but he wants it back. Final story in the What Was Lost trilogy.
With grateful thanks, as always, to my wonderful and invaluable BRs,
dark_aegis,
nnwest and
ponygirl72.
Chapter 1: Honour Defiled
Chapter 2: Dreams and Memories
Poet’s imaginings
And memories of love,
Memories of the words of women,
All those things whereof
Man makes a superhuman,
Mirror-resembling dream.
- William Butler Yeats: The Tower
Of all the things Jack could have remembered, why did it have to be that? And what the hell had possessed him to make such an idiot of himself, anyway?
Well, if he was very lucky Jack wouldn’t ask why he’d said it. And that wasn’t the important thing here, anyway. What was important was that Jack was remembering stuff from those missing years.
“Sounds like it’s not gone permanently, then. Or not all of it’s gone.” He released Jack’s arm. “You often get those dreams?”
The other man shrugged. “On and off, ever since I woke up that day.”
“Remember much about them when you wake up?”
Jack looked away. “Not much. Impressions, mostly. Nothing that makes any sense.”
And nothing that made him feel all that comfortable, either, by the sound of it.
There was one way of finding out how much Jack could remember amid the devastation of his stolen memories. But it wasn’t a way that appealed. It required abilities he’d mostly suppressed in this life - that he preferred to forget he possessed.
After all, what purpose did advanced telepathic powers serve when there was no-one there to communicate with any more?
Yet he’d used those abilities twice in the last week. Once just yesterday. He could hardly pretend they didn’t exist.
“How d’you feel about mind-reading, Jack?”
“What?”
Okay, by the sound of it he wasn’t fond of the idea. Fair enough. Good, in fact. That meant he could forget all about it. Forget he’d even thought of it.
And then Jack took a deep breath. “So you can read minds, Doctor.”
He tensed, but deliberately tried to relax. “I have my moments. Don’t worry, Captain, I actually have to make myself do it. No chance I’d actually want to go burrowing around in your ape-like skull.”
“So why mention it?” The question seemed casual, but Jack’s stance told him it was anything but.
Well, he’d brought it up. He had to finish it now. “Because, if you’re starting to remember stuff, there’s a chance that it’s not all gone. Especially if you’re dreamin’ about it too.” He paused. He’d come this far. Couldn’t really pull back now. “I could poke around, see what’s there, see if I can help you remember anything else.”
“Right.” Jack was deeply uncomfortable with the idea. That was obvious from his stance and closed-off expression. Actually, he wasn’t sure which of the two of them was less comfortable with it.
And then Jack nodded. “Okay. If you’re willing, then I’d like to give it a try. Thanks.”
Well, it was his own fault. He’d got himself into this. “I need you as relaxed as possible. Best if you’re lying down, I think.”
Entirely as he might have expected, Jack grinned wolfishly. “Never thought it was gonna be that easy to get you into my bedroom, Doctor!”
He didn’t even bother rolling his eyes. “Just get a move on.”
On the way to Jack’s bedroom, the ex-Time Agent commented with another grin, “Better not let Rose see you in here with me - she might get the wrong idea.”
Rose wouldn’t jump to that sort of conclusion. Or would she? Bloody humans and their insistence on complicating things!
“So, why’d you say it?”
“Say what?” What was the bloke talking about now?
“That Rose was your girlfriend. What made you say it?”
Right. So much for hoping he’d get away with it. “I was tryin’ to avoid complications.”
“Complications?” Jack, smothering another grin, raised an eyebrow. “What sort of complications, exactly?” The man was enjoying this far too much.
“There was stuff goin’ on. I needed to find out who was controllin’ the TARDIS. An’ I didn’t want to have to deal with you flirtin’ with Rose in the middle of it all.”
Stupid, stupid. He’d left himself wide open there. Why would he have to deal with Jack flirting with Rose? Why would it even bother him?
“Right.” The word was drawled. Jack pushed open the door of his room and went in, going to stand by the bed. He kicked off his shoes and lay down. “I really did get under your skin, didn’t I? But, you know, I’m no threat to you.”
Pointless denying now that Rose meant no more to him than a friend. “Nothing’s ever gonna happen. So shut it.”
Jack grinned. “See me zip it, Doctor. Okay, what d’you need me to do?”
He pulled a chair over to the bed and, once he was seated, leaned forward. “Close your eyes.”
*******
His eyes drifted shut. And then two fingers pressed lightly against his temples. The contact felt strangely intimate.
And then he was floating...
Images of cloaked spaceships entered his mind. He was shooting up through the air. No, he was falling, tumbling to the ground. A golden angel was leaning over him - no, he was leaning over her, and her body was bathed in golden light. A dark figure hovered in the background, cloaked in grief and jealous possessiveness.
More... a man he’d thought was his closest friend holding a gun on him. More falling, falling...
A voice, vaguely familiar. “You were never supposed to find him, Jack. That was your biggest mistake.”
Ambush. That was it, wasn’t it? He’d been ambushed.
“...can’t trust you to keep this quiet, can we? Goody-goody Harkness...”
More blackness. Then a woman, darkly beautiful, trailing her fingers over his face, seducing him with her eyes. Him following through on the invitation. She had something he wanted...
...and she was gone and the blackness returned.
Images, flashes... him at the flight deck of the ship he’d loved, zipping into hyperdrive as he followed on the heels of his target... what was that all about? An important mission, but how it ended was submerged in darkness.
Shaking hands with the Agency director of staffing and being handed new bars for his uniform - oh, he was being promoted. But the blackness took hold again as he walked away.
And then the pressure was removed from his temples and his eyes opened.
*******
Bits and pieces; that was all. The removal had clearly been an incomplete process, but for the most part those two years were missing.
“It’s like this,” he began to explain as Jack sat up, looking disoriented. “Imagine you drew something with a pencil. Then you rub it out. You never get all of it off - there’s stuff left around the edges, and shadows of what was there underneath. That’s what’s left inside your head.”
Jack blinked. “Nice analogy. Not that I’ve ever actually used a pencil, but I get it. So all that stuff I was seeing just then...” He frowned suddenly. “I remember it! I still remember it. Getting promoted... Werner shooting at me... I even remember waking up in your med-lab, Doctor!”
Yeah, he’d seen that for himself. “What was that about an ambush? Someone saying you weren’t supposed to find him?”
“Right.” Jack rubbed his face again. “I only have bits of that... I went back to the Time Agency; must’ve been after I was with you guys, because I remember I had Werner’s body with me.”
He sat up, cross-legged on the bed. “Okay, so I remember getting back. Docking my ship. I’d sent a message to my boss that I needed to see him urgently, that I’d caught our thief and saboteur and I had the equipment.” He frowned. “That was a secure transmission. No way should it’ve been intercepted. But I got out of my ship and a couple of agents were waiting for me.”
“Agents you knew, right?”
“Yeah. One was a woman I knew slightly - we’d been part of mission teams a couple of times, but never worked closely together. And I just wish I could remember her name!” Jack grimaced and hit the bed with the flat of his hand.
“It’ll come. If it’s someone you knew from before those two years, you’ll remember.” He hoped, anyway. It would be useful if Jack could remember that much.
“Yeah. Or you could poke around in my head again and remember it for me, right?”
Jack’s smile didn’t contain much humour. But that was hardly surprising. Who’d enjoy having someone else getting inside their head? Hadn’t been all fun and games for him, either - he hadn’t actually wanted to see Harkness the seducer at work.
“Shouldn’t think it’d be necessary. So, any idea who the other person was?”
“I don’t remember seeing his face. That’s frustrating. I must have seen him, but it’s just not coming to me. The voice, though... I know I’d heard that voice before. Not often, but enough to know that I know whoever it is.”
“So.” The Doctor stood. Enough for one night. He’d leave Jack to sleep in a minute. “Either someone intercepted your transmission to your boss, or your boss was in on it. Do you remember anything about what happened after that?”
He saw the frown as the other man concentrated. Then Jack shook his head. “Nothing. Damnit.” He looked straight at the Doctor then. “Is that it? Is there anything you can do to get my memories back?”
“Doesn’t work like that.” At Jack’s questioning look, he continued. “If you’d been hypnotised, if forgetting two years was some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion, then, yeah, I could get them back for you. But they used neurosurgery. That means they’re gone. Just not there any more. The reason you started remembering stuff is, like I said, because the removal was fuzzy around the edges. Wasn’t a clean cut. So that’s why you were seeing stuff in your dreams - your subconscious was leaking it out. Dunno why you remembered things tonight, though. But all I did was send a few prompts to your subconscious to make it release what it remembered. Kind of like hypnotism.”
“Okay.” Jack nodded. “Makes sense. Thanks, Doctor.”
“Right, well, I’ll leave you to it. We’ll figure out the plan for getting into the archives tomorrow.”
“Yeah. And if I remember anything else I’ll let you know.”
He nodded, then turned on his heel and left.
*******
Memory. Such a fragile thing, yet he’d never thought of it that way until he’d lost part of his.
He had some of it back. Just a smattering, but it was something.
Weirdly, he remembered almost everything about meeting the Doctor and Rose in 1916. So strange, too, that in his timeline that meeting had happened before their encounter in 1941. Now that he remembered it, that meeting overlaid the wartime one in his mind. How bizarre that he could have two first meetings with the same people.
No surprise that the Doctor had been hostile at their meeting in Dublin. He’d not just been dealing with Rose being killed, but also an unwanted encounter with a man he’d disliked on sight - with good reason, it’d turned out - and had probably hoped never to see again.
In that earlier meeting - later, from the Doctor and Rose’s point of view - he’d known from what they’d said that he’d managed to overturn the impression he’d given them of himself in London. Now, he could see that for himself. And what he wouldn’t give for that to have been their first encounter with him. Because now they’d always have the image of a conman in mind.
He pushed that thought away. It wasn’t important. Even if it did remind him of the question that had been foremost in his mind for most of the past week: just what the Doctor stood to gain from helping him. He was still none the wiser on that score. There was no obvious motive - and yet there had to be something. No-one did something for nothing.
What did matter was the rest of it. Being ambushed as he returned to the Time Agency. The Doctor was right. Someone had betrayed him.
His boss? But Devaney was a straight arrow, or so he’d always thought. Yet the communication he’d sent couldn’t have been intercepted. So either Devaney was involved, or he’d been indiscreet with the wrong person.
Another file he’d have to look up when they went to the Agency data archives.
Memories. For a year, they’d taunted him with their absence. Now, the tattered shreds that had returned to him haunted him with their presence. Who else that he’d trusted, cared about, even, had betrayed him? And did he really want to find out?
*******
“Morning, Doctor.” The greeting was accompanied by a massive yawn.
Some things didn’t change. Rose really wasn’t a morning person. He grinned as he turned to her. “Morning. You sure you’re awake?”
“Nah. Still asleep. Wake me up in an hour.” She shuffled over to him, barefoot despite being otherwise fully dressed. “That coffee nearly ready?”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders in a brief hug. “Just about. You go and sit down. I’ll bring it over.”
She stayed where she was and leaned her head against his shoulder. “ ‘M comfortable here.”
So was he. That was the problem.
The coffee-machine gurgled, signalling that it was finished. That gave him his excuse to move away from her. She grumbled, but went to sit down.
She gradually woke up as she drank her coffee, which meant he was able to tell her about what he’d learned in the library the previous evening. “ ‘S interesting,” she said. “Does Jack know?”
“Does Jack know what?” The other man appeared in the doorway, looking surprisingly alert for someone who’d only had a few hours’ sleep.
“Was just tellin’ Rose about what I found out from those books.”
“Right.” Jack poured himself coffee, then gestured to offer the two of them refills. “I need to take a proper look at that one you translated for me.”
“Yeah, an’ we need to sort out fake IDs for our visit to the archive.” The Doctor accepted his refilled mug from Jack with a nod of thanks.
“What, psychic paper won’t do?” Jack took a seat opposite him.
“Nah, wouldn’t want to risk it. Not in a time where it’s in common use. ‘Sides, Rose doesn’t have any.”
“Right.” Jack raised an eyebrow, then smiled at Rose. “We should really get you some.”
She smiled in return. Was it his imagination, or did her gaze linger on Jack longer than necessary? “That’d be fun. Why’d you never think of that, Doctor?”
“Didn’t think you needed it,” he said gruffly. Bloody Harkness, thinking of things he should have thought of himself.
Actually, it was true that he rarely tended to give his companions any of the toys or accessories he had access to himself. Oh, he’d lend Rose his sonic screwdriver if she needed it, and he’d even taught Ace to fly the TARDIS. Ace, too, had always had plenty of toys of her own, even if he hadn’t always approved, But in general he was the Doctor and he was the one with the tech and the tricks.
Maybe, too, it was all part of his expectation that she’d leave some day. Just as they all left. Why give her the tools for the job if she was only going to walk out on him? What was the point?
And yet she hadn’t left so far. There’d been plenty of times when she could have - should have, even. He’d made her choose him over her mother once. That had been manipulative in the extreme. He’d been a right bastard. Yet she’d chosen him anyway.
Yeah. It was time he started trusting her enough to take her at her word. She wasn’t going anywhere - at least for the time being. She’d told him that several times now.
“Okay. Next time I find a supplier, I’ll get you some,” he promised, and was rewarded with a wide grin.
“Should get you a weapon, too,” Jack said, his expression serious.
“There’s no need for that.” Bluntly, crisply, he countermanded the suggestion. If Jack wanted to carry guns around, he could. There wasn’t a lot he could do about that and, to be honest, they did come in useful sometimes. But he refused to carry weapons, and he didn’t much like the idea of Rose doing so either.
“Doctor.” Jack stared him down. “This stuff you guys do is dangerous. Yesterday, we went into what could’ve turned out to be a civil war. You - we all - were in the same situation in Dublin in 1916. Okay, you’ve made a choice not to be armed, and that’s fine - that’s your decision, and you’ve got a lot of experience behind you. I don’t underestimate your ability to get yourself out of trouble.”
He heard Rose snort faintly, and glared at her. She gave him a wide-eyed stare in return.
“But you shouldn’t ask Rose to take those sort of risks without giving her a means of defending herself. I saw the way you looked at me yesterday when I gave her that knife. Well, as I recall, you said later it saved your lives. Yeah, she could carry a stiletto. But I’d much prefer if she had a mini-blaster.”
“Oi!” Rose elbowed Jack in the ribs. “I am here, you know.”
Now it was his turn to stifle a grin. Stupid of Jack to talk about her in front of her. He should know by now that Rose made her own decisions, anyway.
“Sorry.” Jack turned a charming smile on Rose. The Doctor rolled his eyes. “So, what d’you think? Want me to get you a blaster and teach you how to use it?”
Rose shrugged. “I dunno.” Glancing at him, she continued, “I’m not that keen on guns, either.” She grimaced. “I mean, if I had to use one - if the Doctor was in danger, or you, then, yeah, I’d use it. But I’d rather not.”
Jack looked as if he was going to argue, but abruptly he fell silent, reaching instead for his coffee-cup.
Of course. If Jack now remembered their meeting in 1916, then he remembered Rose’s initial reaction to killing Werner Blass. Plus, he knew the two of them had talked about it since. No; persuading Rose to carry a weapon wasn’t a good idea right now. And he was happy about that.
“I didn’t tell you.” Jack was looking at Rose again. “I remembered some stuff last night. Including meeting you guys.”
“Oh?” She looked interested and expectant.
Jack launched into his account of how he’d remembered, which was surprisingly not embellished at all. Rose raised her eyebrow at the girlfriend bit. He groaned inwardly at that; that was something he’d prefer her to forget altogether.
Some chance, though, judging by what she’d said to him in the console room the previous evening, before getting changed. And the way she’d looked at him when she’d caught him watching her.
Jack grinned suddenly. “I even remember what I said to you when we said goodbye.”
“Oh?” He raised his eyebrow at the two of them. “What was that?”
Rose grinned conspiratorially at Jack. “Not sure I can tell you.”
Jack gave her what he could only describe as a leer. “Better not.”
“Yeah.” She was still looking at Jack. Still smiling. And she was giving him a wide-eyed look that the Doctor recognised. It was exactly the way she’d looked at him back in that room in the Albion when she’d been trying to get him to dance with her.
Wide-eyed. Come-hither. Seductive.
So that was it. She’d transferred her affections.
Well, that was fast.
He ignored the two of them and stood abruptly, going to get himself another coffee. Neither of them paid him any attention.
“So,” Rose said, and even her tone of voice was flirtatious, “did you remember anything else about meeting us?”
He turned to look at them. He shouldn’t. He should just ignore them, but something just seemed to be compelling him to watch.
Jack was smiling, an appreciative light in his eyes. “I remember waking up after being shot to see a gorgeous woman bending over me. That’s when I was sure I was dead.”
“Nah.” Rose grinned back at him again. “You’d more likely be seeing ugly blokes with pitchforks.”
“Maybe,” Jack countered, “but I can tell you it’d all have been worth it.”
Rose laughed again, tossing her hair. And that was a gesture he knew, too. She didn’t use it often, but when she did it was very definitely a look at me gesture.
She leaned closer still to Jack. “S’pose I can’t complain about you bein’ a bad boy. It’s made you a bloody good...” And she paused. It had to be deliberate. And, yeah, the way her tongue was peeping through the corner of her mouth said it was definitely deliberate. “... dancer, after all.”
Jack laughed.
And the Doctor slammed his mug down on the counter. He’d had enough - more than enough of watching the two of them make eyes at each other.
“Some of us have work to do,” he growled, and stalked out of the kitchen.
*******
tbc
x-posted to
better_with_3