Men on the Moon
Beta: nightrider101 who also suggested the title, and is currently being awesome right next to me. (I mean locally. Yay!)
Rating: G
Prompt: #045 - Moon
Claim: The Time War
Table: Here
Spoilers: Based on Children of Earth, though it contains no actual spoilers.
Characters: Jack, Tenth Doctor
Summary: Sometimes, even the Doctor feels helpless.
No one ever filled the Doctor in on the details. No one had to. He found Jack on the moon - the colonized, green and warm moon of the year 3486 - staring at the night sky and the far too close Earth that filled it, and found in his slumped shoulders, his eyes (but not his face) a pain that was far too familiar.
The Doctor’s friends died. They left and moved on, disappeared and faded to be replaced by others to fade at later times. And that was fine with the Doctor. It had to be, because there was nothing left for him but people who left and faded. He had adapted to it, never expecting anything else (anymore. And it had hurt to get to this point, to take the happiness that was offered to him while it was offered and accept that in the grand scheme of things he was, ultimately, on his own). In fact, he had adapted so well that he didn’t know how to handle a person who would always be there. Someone who knew more about him than he was comfortable with and would always come back to remind him of things he wanted to be over. Someone who knew him for more than just a moment.
Jack scared the Doctor, and not only because he was a fact.
Accepting Jack had been a process. Running didn’t work, but it had taken the Doctor a long time to get over his fear and see the good sides of meeting, from time to time, a friend who understood.
And now the Doctor was looking down at that friend, sitting cross-legged and lost on a world too far from and too close to home, the lights from the nearby buildings illuminating a face full of nothing. And a part of him curled up and retreated all the way it had come before, retreating to stage one because it shouldn’t be like this, with Jack - strong, reliable Jack - weak and in need of help. The Doctor didn’t know how to handle this. He couldn’t. He knew how to save worlds but not how to help a friend, and now the urge to run was back and stronger than ever.
But Jack knew the Doctor was here, even if he didn’t look at him, and the Doctor felt he at least owed him an explanation. He should sit down, squeeze Jack’s shoulder in a gesture that offered no comfort, and say, ‘Look Jack, I’d love to help, but I don’t know how so I’m just going to leave and let you deal with it yourself.’ Cowardly but honest, short enough for him to be up and running before his words even registered in Jack’s brain.
‘Look, Jack,’ he could say, if he had the guts. ‘You are important to me, and I have this bad habit of sharing the pain of people I love. And right now you are feeling an awful lot of pain and on top of my own pain I really can’t bear it. You’re crushing me.’ As if that was any kind of consolation. Or excuse.
‘Look Jack,’ he could say, standing and ready to run, never to be seen again. ‘I had a hard time accepting you as a constant in my life, but eventually I came to trust you. I might never make use of it, but the mere possibility that should I ever need someone to share the pain with you would be there became enough to keep me going. So please don’t get yourself into such a mess, Jack, because I need you to be whole.’
He didn’t say it.
Instead he said, “Let’s go for a drink. My treat.”
And offered his hand.
July 11, 2009
Rating: G
Prompt: #045 - Moon
Claim: The Time War
Table: Here
Spoilers: Based on Children of Earth, though it contains no actual spoilers.
Characters: Jack, Tenth Doctor
Summary: Sometimes, even the Doctor feels helpless.
No one ever filled the Doctor in on the details. No one had to. He found Jack on the moon - the colonized, green and warm moon of the year 3486 - staring at the night sky and the far too close Earth that filled it, and found in his slumped shoulders, his eyes (but not his face) a pain that was far too familiar.
The Doctor’s friends died. They left and moved on, disappeared and faded to be replaced by others to fade at later times. And that was fine with the Doctor. It had to be, because there was nothing left for him but people who left and faded. He had adapted to it, never expecting anything else (anymore. And it had hurt to get to this point, to take the happiness that was offered to him while it was offered and accept that in the grand scheme of things he was, ultimately, on his own). In fact, he had adapted so well that he didn’t know how to handle a person who would always be there. Someone who knew more about him than he was comfortable with and would always come back to remind him of things he wanted to be over. Someone who knew him for more than just a moment.
Jack scared the Doctor, and not only because he was a fact.
Accepting Jack had been a process. Running didn’t work, but it had taken the Doctor a long time to get over his fear and see the good sides of meeting, from time to time, a friend who understood.
And now the Doctor was looking down at that friend, sitting cross-legged and lost on a world too far from and too close to home, the lights from the nearby buildings illuminating a face full of nothing. And a part of him curled up and retreated all the way it had come before, retreating to stage one because it shouldn’t be like this, with Jack - strong, reliable Jack - weak and in need of help. The Doctor didn’t know how to handle this. He couldn’t. He knew how to save worlds but not how to help a friend, and now the urge to run was back and stronger than ever.
But Jack knew the Doctor was here, even if he didn’t look at him, and the Doctor felt he at least owed him an explanation. He should sit down, squeeze Jack’s shoulder in a gesture that offered no comfort, and say, ‘Look Jack, I’d love to help, but I don’t know how so I’m just going to leave and let you deal with it yourself.’ Cowardly but honest, short enough for him to be up and running before his words even registered in Jack’s brain.
‘Look, Jack,’ he could say, if he had the guts. ‘You are important to me, and I have this bad habit of sharing the pain of people I love. And right now you are feeling an awful lot of pain and on top of my own pain I really can’t bear it. You’re crushing me.’ As if that was any kind of consolation. Or excuse.
‘Look Jack,’ he could say, standing and ready to run, never to be seen again. ‘I had a hard time accepting you as a constant in my life, but eventually I came to trust you. I might never make use of it, but the mere possibility that should I ever need someone to share the pain with you would be there became enough to keep me going. So please don’t get yourself into such a mess, Jack, because I need you to be whole.’
He didn’t say it.
Instead he said, “Let’s go for a drink. My treat.”
And offered his hand.
July 11, 2009