Fic: The Destroyer 1/3
Fic: The Destroyer
Author: wmr
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Martha Jones, Jack Harkness
Rated: PG13 for language and lots of angst; not a happy fic.
Spoilers: S3 up to Family of Blood; AU from there.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not in a million years
Summary: I break everyone who gets close to me. Sequel to Guilty Secret.
With very many thanks, as always, to
dark_aegis, who BRed despite telling me that this hurt. ;) And for everyone who asked for more after reading Guilty Secret.
The Destroyer
Chapter 1: Human Nature
“It’s not you, it’s me.” She rolls her eyes, then closes them briefly. “God, that sounds so... so clichéd. But it’s true. I knew all along, but I fooled myself there was a chance.”
She loves him. Is in love with him. And, yes, he’s known it all along and just chose to ignore it. Always easier to pretend obliviousness than provoke a confrontation.
But, still, she knew. She should have known. He didn’t encourage her. Gave her no reason to think things would ever change.
Keeping his distance from her, his feet set apart, hands buried deep in his pockets, he says, voice cool, “I never gave you any reason - ”
“I know you didn’t intend to.” Her eyes flash at him, despite the soft tone of her voice. “I just thought... some day you’d get over Rose.”
He flinches. Wants to tell her that name is none of her business - and that Rose isn’t relevant here anyway. She’s gone. She’s the past. She belongs to a happier time, a time when he fooled himself he could forget the pain and the loss and just live. But she is gone. And, if he did love her then, it’s irrelevant because she’s not here now.
He says nothing, though. Surely she can tell from his expression that this isn’t a discussion she should pursue?
But clearly not. “You did get over her,” Martha continues. He schools himself not to betray any reaction. “And you went and fell in love with someone else.”
“That wasn’t me!” This time he can’t help the reaction, the flare of anger that courses through him. John Smith, schoolmaster, human, was not him. The man who ordered boys to be beaten, who ordered children to take up deadly weapons and fire them, who treated others as his inferiors, was not him.
The man who fell in love with Joan Redfern, who dreamed of marrying her, having children with her, growing old with her, was not him.
And this was all over, too. It was a week ago. More than enough time for him to have put it out of his mind completely, as should she have.
“He’s part of you!” Martha protests, her gaze holding his, completely unintimidated. “You remember being him. You remember it all.”
I love him to bits, and I hope to god that he doesn't remember me saying this.
Kissing Joan. Holding her body close to his. Imagining being closer still. Imagining carrying her to his bed and making love to her.
Deliberately, he forces the memories away. “It wasn’t me. I did things... it wasn’t me.”
“Like sacking me? Like accusing me of wanting you dead?” Suddenly, her voice breaks and he realises with lightning clarity how hard this really is for her. She’s humiliating herself by bringing all of this, including her feelings for him, into the open, knowing he’s going to reject her. And all he’s doing is making it worse for her.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, sincerely.
She takes a sharp intake of breath, almost as if he’s just struck her. “I don’t believe you!”
“What?”
“When you came back here, after it was all over, I waited for you to at least acknowledge what it was like for me.” She looks away at last, turning to run one hand over the console, her head bent as she gazes down at something near her feet. “The thing is, I could have put up with everything - scrubbing floors, cleaning loos, mopping up other people’s dirt and picking up after them, being treated like I didn’t exist, being spoken to like I had only mush between my ears, the racism - all of that would’ve been bearable if you’d still treated me with respect.”
He flinches. Wants to deny it, but it’s true: some of the time - not all by any means, but some - he was a bastard to her.
“Oh, you did some of the time,” she acknowledges, almost as if he did protest, “but others - it was like you thought I was nothing too. You didn’t trust me. You know, you told me not to let you abandon me. But you did. You did, Doctor, long before you fell in love with Joan.”
He can only stare at her as the words pour out, aghast, wanting to object but knowing he can’t. She feels this so much; the strength of her emotion is palpable. And he did this to her. His strong, capable Martha.
Oh, he could tell her that dangerous and unpleasant experiences are all part of the deal for anyone who travels with him, but this was different. Having him turn on her the way he did is not part of the deal.
“Then it was all over,” she continues, “and you thanked me for taking care of you. And I thought - who bloody took care of me?”
Not him. She’s right: he did abandon her. And she didn’t even protest. When she was trying to convince him to give up John Smith and become himself again, the one argument she never used was the consequences for her. If he’d stayed, then she’d have been trapped, stuck almost a century before her time and in a world that might as well have been an alien planet. No medical school for Martha Jones, female and black in a time in history which would confine her to subservient status for both those reasons. Where her class and colour would mark her out as a target for any male who saw her as easy prey and undeserving of consideration or of any right to refuse.
“I did abandon you,” he admits. “I’m so sorry, Martha. And you’re right. I should have said it before.”
He’d hug her - he’s actually taking a step in her direction, intending to pull her into his arms, wrap her in his embrace for a few seconds so they can put all this behind them - but she speaks again and her words halt him.
“You should,” she agrees. “But that’s the way you are, Doctor. You’re never gonna change, and I’m just not prepared to accept that any longer. I deserve better. Actually, everyone deserves better.”
He’s said he’s sorry. What more does she want? Blood? Is she going to stand there and criticise him all night?
Rose was happy with him as he is, he can’t help thinking. But he knows Martha’s right. Sometimes, Rose didn’t challenge him enough; let him get away with far too much. If she’d been with him in 1913 he’d probably have treated her exactly the same way, and she’d never have said a word once he was himself again.
Voice taut, he asks, “So what are you saying? What do you want from me?”
“Told you.” There’s something in her voice that tells him she’s inches from losing control. “I’m going home. Now, please.”
His eyes widen. That was a bluff, what she said. He was sure of it. Is she suggesting that she actually means it?
“Because I’m not going to fall in love with you?” Finally, out of incredulity, he puts it to her bluntly.
She meets his gaze again, and there’s anger in her eyes. “Because I have a life. Exams to pass. A career to get on with. This...” She waves her hand around the console room. “It’s fun, but it’s not real life.”
Is that all? That’s easily dealt with. “No, it’s not real life - for a human, anyway - but it is fun, isn’t it?” He throws her a winning smile. “Time machine, Martha. Real life will still be there whenever you’re ready for it. Stay.”
But she shakes her head, and there’s a finality in the gesture. “No. It’s time, Doctor. Besides,” she adds, and turns away from him again, “you just don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Then she seems to relent. “Doctor - I’ve seen a side of you I don’t like much. And I don’t mean John Smith.” Her fists clench, and she faces him again. “You’re cold. Cruel. I know there’s more to you than that, cause I’ve seen that too. You do so much good. You’ve opened my eyes to so much I never even realised existed. The other side, though... that scares me.”
“What?” Disbelieving, he stares at her. “You seriously think I’d hurt you?”
The look she gives him is impatient. “Not me, not physically, but you do hurt other people, Doctor. Notice you didn’t deny that.” A slight shake of her head, and she adds, “I’m scared for you, Doctor. For what you’re becoming, and what you’ll end up. That cruel streak - it’s eating you. You’ve told me stories about things you did before I met you, and in those you had something I’ve hardly seen in you at all since I’ve known you.”
“What’s that?” Fury’s raging inside him - how dare she criticise him? - but he still has to ask.
“Compassion.”
I'm so old now. I used to have so much mercy.
Sometimes... sometimes I think you need someone to stop you.
“And if I’d shown compassion to the Family, what then?” he retorts. “Set them free to steal other innocent people’s lives?”
She ignores his question. “You’re the loneliest person I’ve ever met, Doctor. And it’s eating you up from the inside. If you were human, I’d call it PTSD, among other things - and, yes, that’s a professional diagnosis,” she adds as he’s about to object. She’s still talking, even as he’s ready to interrupt her again. “My mistake was thinking I could make you less lonely. You wouldn’t let me in. And I’m afraid that you’ll never let anyone in any more - if you ever did.”
He whirls around, striding from one side of the console to the other. “Well, that’s very nice, isn’t it? I bring you into my TARDIS, invite you to travel with me, show you all kinds of things you never dreamed of, and this is the thanks I get? Calling me crazy and traumatised - and you say you love me?”
She still doesn’t take her gaze from him. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have said any of this, Doctor.”
He sighs, his protests dying away. What’s the point?
“I know.” He does; only too well. Right or wrong, she believes what she’s just said.
She’s right - maybe not about him, but about her life. About what she’s doing here, with him. About his selfishness in wanting to keep her here, though she hasn’t said it.
It’s decision-time. No life-threatening emergency this time if she stays, but danger to her all the same. What will he do to this one, this latest companion, if he holds onto her?
“Well, come on, then, Martha,” he says briskly, moving back to the console.
“What?” She blinks and looks at him, confused.
“You want to go home. All right. I’m taking you home. You’re right. You’ve got a life, and you should get back to it.”
Yes, he should let her go before he destroys her, too, the way he’s destroyed everyone who went before her: so many before the War, and after, too. Sam dead. Peri abandoned who knows where. Sarah Jane left behind in Aberdeen. Adric dead. Jamie and Zoe with their memories wiped. Gwyneth dead. Rose sobbing her heart out on a beach in Norway. Reinette living out the rest of her life waiting for him to come back. Joan with her heart broken. And Jack - from whom he stole two years of his life, and then abandoned on a satellite inhabited only by ghosts.
No. He will not break Martha, too. He’ll let her go first, no matter how much it hurts.
“Home,” she agrees, and he sees it in her eyes. This really is what she wants. She’s not looking for him to talk her out of it. She’s got enough self-respect to walk away from him, because she knows that being with him is no good for her.
He might be what she wants, but he’s not what she needs, and she’s sensible and courageous enough to admit it.
If only he was that strong. If only.
***
So that’s it, then. Martha Jones duly delivered back to her own time, her own family. Francine Jones, of course, is delighted, though he has strong suspicions that even taking her daughter home again isn’t enough to stop her sticking pins in her personal voodoo dolls. She knows more than she should about him, of that he’s certain, and he’d love to know who she’s been talking to. Still, with Martha freed from his influence, she should be ready to leave him alone.
Another companion gone, lost to him before he was ready to let her go. But at least, this time, the choice was hers. He doesn’t have to have the memory of her sobbing, torn, desperate to get back to him - or the memory of his own fear in those few seconds when he thought she was going to end up in the Void.
This time, the companion’s left of her own accord. An amicable parting, too, even if she levelled some accusations at him that he only pretends to forgive her for; well, the truth always hurts, doesn’t it? And, much as he hates to admit it, even to himself, at least some of what she said is true.
Yes, they part friends. And he’ll even pretend to himself, and to her, that he might come back and visit once in a while.
He hugs Martha goodbye and walks away without looking back.
Not really looking where he’s going, either, it seems. Because, even as one ex-companion’s very much in the forefront of his mind, he walks right into another one. One he’s been deliberately avoiding all this time, staying well away from Cardiff, even where it would have been the most convenient place to refuel the TARDIS.
Jack Harkness. Walking towards him, though still a good fifty yards away, on a street in suburban north London as if he has a perfect right to be there, when he should be back in Cardiff, driving around in a souped-up SUV or holed up in his basement headquarters.
Jack Harkness, who’s been in the early twenty-first century for a while now, if his guess is right, though he’s never quite been able to work out when the Captain arrived. Was he already there, in hiding, when the three of them came to refuel and ended up saving the planet from Blon Fel Fotch again?
If there could possibly be a worse time for this encounter, he can’t imagine it. The universe really does have a sick sense of humour.
If only he’d left the TARDIS outside Martha’s mum’s house, instead of around the corner - but then he and Martha decided it’d be better if Francine Jones didn’t see anything to make her even more suspicious. If the TARDIS had been closer, he’d have been gone by now, safely away. He’d never have known Jack was here.
But he’s safe, of course. Jack only knew the last him. He can walk right past the Captain and not be recognised.
Only a few yards to go. He focuses his gaze somewhere on the distant horizon and keeps walking, his pace brisk. He won’t look. He won’t turn to Jack, won’t notice the difference in the other man’s eyes, the laughter-lines gone and replaced by the pain of loss. Won’t see the air of distance that surrounds him, keeps him apart from the world he lives in.
Jack won’t know him. Another few yards, and he can breathe again, freed from yet another ghost of a past he can’t escape.
He’s so close now that he could reach out and brush Jack’s greatcoat. But, keeping his eyes averted, he walks on. Safe. One very much unwanted encounter spared him.
“Are all your ex-companions that forgettable, Doctor, or is it just me?”
The answer he wants to give is on the tip of his tongue. I don’t forget any of them. Ever. And you even more so than most, considering what I did to you.
But he can’t - won’t - say that. Instead, he tilts his chin upwards just a little, enough to give the impression he wants, and says just one word, his voice cool. “Jack.”
The Captain blinks, though whether at his tone or being acknowledged at all he can’t tell. “You don’t seem surprised to see me.” There’s accusation in Jack’s tone, and it suits him to respond to it.
“I’m not. Always knew you were alive - including when I left you behind on the Game Station.” Deliberately cool. Deliberately taunting.
“You bastard.” Jack’s fist is striking his nose before he has time to duck. He staggers backwards, almost but not quite losing his balance.
Straightening again, hand covering his nose as warm blood seeps through his fingers, he studies the younger man. Jack’s breathing heavily, cupping his fist in his free hand - oh, that hurt him too - and anger’s still written all over his face.
That, he could deal with. It’s the hurt behind the anger, the hurt blazing from his one-time friend’s eyes, that causes him far more pain than the possibly-broken nose does.
He wants to tell Jack that he deserved what the man just did to him. Because he does; he has no doubt whatsoever about that. But it’s the wrong thing to do, because an apology could lead to forgiveness, and forgiveness is the very last thing he can accept from this man.
He fumbles for a handkerchief, then uses it to mop up the blood. “Yes, I left you behind on that deserted satellite, Jack. Deliberately.” The cruelty in his voice is easy to manufacture; all he has to do is remind himself of what he’s already done to Jack Harkness, and what harm he could do still if he prolongs this discussion and allows Jack to slip under his guard.
But he’s overplayed his hand; he knows it the instant he sees the flicker of suspicion in Jack’s eyes. This man isn’t the glib, easygoing ex-conman he knew before, who’d forgotten the best of his soldiering years, the years when he really learned about combat, about strategy, about reading your opponent and anticipating their moves.
This is a Jack Harkness who’s lived far more years than any human should, never ageing, always having to watch his back and guard his secret. Never able to get close to anyone - not only because of his secret, but also because of what he calls his own curse. That they’ll die and leave him behind.
And he has to shut his mind to the realisation that this man, alone among the humans he’s known and travelled with, could understand what his life is like.
“What are you up to, Doctor?” Jack’s head’s tilted to one side, a knowing half-smile on his lips. “Yeah, I know you left me behind. I’ve had a long time to get used to that. And it doesn’t surprise me that it was deliberate. You always were a bastard. Nothing new there.”
Damnit. He really did overplay. Instead of the hatred he hoped for - and had after his first callous statement - he’s now aroused Jack’s curiosity. Jack knows there’s more behind that last encounter, and this one now, than is immediately obvious, and he’s not going to let it drop.
Foolish to expect the Jack he knew then not to have changed. Foolish not to take into account what a century of hiding, of surviving and, later, of running an organisation like Torchwood Three have done to the ex-Time Agent.
The only thing that’ll work now is blunt honesty. Dropping the casually cruel posture, he meets Jack’s gaze, nothing but his true self in his eyes. “Walk on, Jack. Just walk on by and pretend you never saw me.”
Jack’s stare in return is disbelieving. “You must be joking, Doctor. All these years, I’ve been searching for you - you really think I’m gonna walk away now?”
“If you’ve got any sense, you will.” More honesty. “I’m no good for you. I break everyone who gets close to me. I don’t want to break you, too.”
The look on Jack’s face almost crushes his hearts. Because he’s done that. He’s turned Jack into this person he doesn’t even recognise, so completely different is he from the man who once travelled with him. So different, too, from the soldier who saved his life and fought with him on Arcadia.
“Too late, Doctor. You already did.”
***
tbc
Author: wmr
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Martha Jones, Jack Harkness
Rated: PG13 for language and lots of angst; not a happy fic.
Spoilers: S3 up to Family of Blood; AU from there.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not in a million years
Summary: I break everyone who gets close to me. Sequel to Guilty Secret.
With very many thanks, as always, to
dark_aegis, who BRed despite telling me that this hurt. ;) And for everyone who asked for more after reading Guilty Secret.
The Destroyer
Chapter 1: Human Nature
“It’s not you, it’s me.” She rolls her eyes, then closes them briefly. “God, that sounds so... so clichéd. But it’s true. I knew all along, but I fooled myself there was a chance.”
She loves him. Is in love with him. And, yes, he’s known it all along and just chose to ignore it. Always easier to pretend obliviousness than provoke a confrontation.
But, still, she knew. She should have known. He didn’t encourage her. Gave her no reason to think things would ever change.
Keeping his distance from her, his feet set apart, hands buried deep in his pockets, he says, voice cool, “I never gave you any reason - ”
“I know you didn’t intend to.” Her eyes flash at him, despite the soft tone of her voice. “I just thought... some day you’d get over Rose.”
He flinches. Wants to tell her that name is none of her business - and that Rose isn’t relevant here anyway. She’s gone. She’s the past. She belongs to a happier time, a time when he fooled himself he could forget the pain and the loss and just live. But she is gone. And, if he did love her then, it’s irrelevant because she’s not here now.
He says nothing, though. Surely she can tell from his expression that this isn’t a discussion she should pursue?
But clearly not. “You did get over her,” Martha continues. He schools himself not to betray any reaction. “And you went and fell in love with someone else.”
“That wasn’t me!” This time he can’t help the reaction, the flare of anger that courses through him. John Smith, schoolmaster, human, was not him. The man who ordered boys to be beaten, who ordered children to take up deadly weapons and fire them, who treated others as his inferiors, was not him.
The man who fell in love with Joan Redfern, who dreamed of marrying her, having children with her, growing old with her, was not him.
And this was all over, too. It was a week ago. More than enough time for him to have put it out of his mind completely, as should she have.
“He’s part of you!” Martha protests, her gaze holding his, completely unintimidated. “You remember being him. You remember it all.”
I love him to bits, and I hope to god that he doesn't remember me saying this.
Kissing Joan. Holding her body close to his. Imagining being closer still. Imagining carrying her to his bed and making love to her.
Deliberately, he forces the memories away. “It wasn’t me. I did things... it wasn’t me.”
“Like sacking me? Like accusing me of wanting you dead?” Suddenly, her voice breaks and he realises with lightning clarity how hard this really is for her. She’s humiliating herself by bringing all of this, including her feelings for him, into the open, knowing he’s going to reject her. And all he’s doing is making it worse for her.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, sincerely.
She takes a sharp intake of breath, almost as if he’s just struck her. “I don’t believe you!”
“What?”
“When you came back here, after it was all over, I waited for you to at least acknowledge what it was like for me.” She looks away at last, turning to run one hand over the console, her head bent as she gazes down at something near her feet. “The thing is, I could have put up with everything - scrubbing floors, cleaning loos, mopping up other people’s dirt and picking up after them, being treated like I didn’t exist, being spoken to like I had only mush between my ears, the racism - all of that would’ve been bearable if you’d still treated me with respect.”
He flinches. Wants to deny it, but it’s true: some of the time - not all by any means, but some - he was a bastard to her.
“Oh, you did some of the time,” she acknowledges, almost as if he did protest, “but others - it was like you thought I was nothing too. You didn’t trust me. You know, you told me not to let you abandon me. But you did. You did, Doctor, long before you fell in love with Joan.”
He can only stare at her as the words pour out, aghast, wanting to object but knowing he can’t. She feels this so much; the strength of her emotion is palpable. And he did this to her. His strong, capable Martha.
Oh, he could tell her that dangerous and unpleasant experiences are all part of the deal for anyone who travels with him, but this was different. Having him turn on her the way he did is not part of the deal.
“Then it was all over,” she continues, “and you thanked me for taking care of you. And I thought - who bloody took care of me?”
Not him. She’s right: he did abandon her. And she didn’t even protest. When she was trying to convince him to give up John Smith and become himself again, the one argument she never used was the consequences for her. If he’d stayed, then she’d have been trapped, stuck almost a century before her time and in a world that might as well have been an alien planet. No medical school for Martha Jones, female and black in a time in history which would confine her to subservient status for both those reasons. Where her class and colour would mark her out as a target for any male who saw her as easy prey and undeserving of consideration or of any right to refuse.
“I did abandon you,” he admits. “I’m so sorry, Martha. And you’re right. I should have said it before.”
He’d hug her - he’s actually taking a step in her direction, intending to pull her into his arms, wrap her in his embrace for a few seconds so they can put all this behind them - but she speaks again and her words halt him.
“You should,” she agrees. “But that’s the way you are, Doctor. You’re never gonna change, and I’m just not prepared to accept that any longer. I deserve better. Actually, everyone deserves better.”
He’s said he’s sorry. What more does she want? Blood? Is she going to stand there and criticise him all night?
Rose was happy with him as he is, he can’t help thinking. But he knows Martha’s right. Sometimes, Rose didn’t challenge him enough; let him get away with far too much. If she’d been with him in 1913 he’d probably have treated her exactly the same way, and she’d never have said a word once he was himself again.
Voice taut, he asks, “So what are you saying? What do you want from me?”
“Told you.” There’s something in her voice that tells him she’s inches from losing control. “I’m going home. Now, please.”
His eyes widen. That was a bluff, what she said. He was sure of it. Is she suggesting that she actually means it?
“Because I’m not going to fall in love with you?” Finally, out of incredulity, he puts it to her bluntly.
She meets his gaze again, and there’s anger in her eyes. “Because I have a life. Exams to pass. A career to get on with. This...” She waves her hand around the console room. “It’s fun, but it’s not real life.”
Is that all? That’s easily dealt with. “No, it’s not real life - for a human, anyway - but it is fun, isn’t it?” He throws her a winning smile. “Time machine, Martha. Real life will still be there whenever you’re ready for it. Stay.”
But she shakes her head, and there’s a finality in the gesture. “No. It’s time, Doctor. Besides,” she adds, and turns away from him again, “you just don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Then she seems to relent. “Doctor - I’ve seen a side of you I don’t like much. And I don’t mean John Smith.” Her fists clench, and she faces him again. “You’re cold. Cruel. I know there’s more to you than that, cause I’ve seen that too. You do so much good. You’ve opened my eyes to so much I never even realised existed. The other side, though... that scares me.”
“What?” Disbelieving, he stares at her. “You seriously think I’d hurt you?”
The look she gives him is impatient. “Not me, not physically, but you do hurt other people, Doctor. Notice you didn’t deny that.” A slight shake of her head, and she adds, “I’m scared for you, Doctor. For what you’re becoming, and what you’ll end up. That cruel streak - it’s eating you. You’ve told me stories about things you did before I met you, and in those you had something I’ve hardly seen in you at all since I’ve known you.”
“What’s that?” Fury’s raging inside him - how dare she criticise him? - but he still has to ask.
“Compassion.”
I'm so old now. I used to have so much mercy.
Sometimes... sometimes I think you need someone to stop you.
“And if I’d shown compassion to the Family, what then?” he retorts. “Set them free to steal other innocent people’s lives?”
She ignores his question. “You’re the loneliest person I’ve ever met, Doctor. And it’s eating you up from the inside. If you were human, I’d call it PTSD, among other things - and, yes, that’s a professional diagnosis,” she adds as he’s about to object. She’s still talking, even as he’s ready to interrupt her again. “My mistake was thinking I could make you less lonely. You wouldn’t let me in. And I’m afraid that you’ll never let anyone in any more - if you ever did.”
He whirls around, striding from one side of the console to the other. “Well, that’s very nice, isn’t it? I bring you into my TARDIS, invite you to travel with me, show you all kinds of things you never dreamed of, and this is the thanks I get? Calling me crazy and traumatised - and you say you love me?”
She still doesn’t take her gaze from him. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have said any of this, Doctor.”
He sighs, his protests dying away. What’s the point?
“I know.” He does; only too well. Right or wrong, she believes what she’s just said.
She’s right - maybe not about him, but about her life. About what she’s doing here, with him. About his selfishness in wanting to keep her here, though she hasn’t said it.
It’s decision-time. No life-threatening emergency this time if she stays, but danger to her all the same. What will he do to this one, this latest companion, if he holds onto her?
“Well, come on, then, Martha,” he says briskly, moving back to the console.
“What?” She blinks and looks at him, confused.
“You want to go home. All right. I’m taking you home. You’re right. You’ve got a life, and you should get back to it.”
Yes, he should let her go before he destroys her, too, the way he’s destroyed everyone who went before her: so many before the War, and after, too. Sam dead. Peri abandoned who knows where. Sarah Jane left behind in Aberdeen. Adric dead. Jamie and Zoe with their memories wiped. Gwyneth dead. Rose sobbing her heart out on a beach in Norway. Reinette living out the rest of her life waiting for him to come back. Joan with her heart broken. And Jack - from whom he stole two years of his life, and then abandoned on a satellite inhabited only by ghosts.
No. He will not break Martha, too. He’ll let her go first, no matter how much it hurts.
“Home,” she agrees, and he sees it in her eyes. This really is what she wants. She’s not looking for him to talk her out of it. She’s got enough self-respect to walk away from him, because she knows that being with him is no good for her.
He might be what she wants, but he’s not what she needs, and she’s sensible and courageous enough to admit it.
If only he was that strong. If only.
***
So that’s it, then. Martha Jones duly delivered back to her own time, her own family. Francine Jones, of course, is delighted, though he has strong suspicions that even taking her daughter home again isn’t enough to stop her sticking pins in her personal voodoo dolls. She knows more than she should about him, of that he’s certain, and he’d love to know who she’s been talking to. Still, with Martha freed from his influence, she should be ready to leave him alone.
Another companion gone, lost to him before he was ready to let her go. But at least, this time, the choice was hers. He doesn’t have to have the memory of her sobbing, torn, desperate to get back to him - or the memory of his own fear in those few seconds when he thought she was going to end up in the Void.
This time, the companion’s left of her own accord. An amicable parting, too, even if she levelled some accusations at him that he only pretends to forgive her for; well, the truth always hurts, doesn’t it? And, much as he hates to admit it, even to himself, at least some of what she said is true.
Yes, they part friends. And he’ll even pretend to himself, and to her, that he might come back and visit once in a while.
He hugs Martha goodbye and walks away without looking back.
Not really looking where he’s going, either, it seems. Because, even as one ex-companion’s very much in the forefront of his mind, he walks right into another one. One he’s been deliberately avoiding all this time, staying well away from Cardiff, even where it would have been the most convenient place to refuel the TARDIS.
Jack Harkness. Walking towards him, though still a good fifty yards away, on a street in suburban north London as if he has a perfect right to be there, when he should be back in Cardiff, driving around in a souped-up SUV or holed up in his basement headquarters.
Jack Harkness, who’s been in the early twenty-first century for a while now, if his guess is right, though he’s never quite been able to work out when the Captain arrived. Was he already there, in hiding, when the three of them came to refuel and ended up saving the planet from Blon Fel Fotch again?
If there could possibly be a worse time for this encounter, he can’t imagine it. The universe really does have a sick sense of humour.
If only he’d left the TARDIS outside Martha’s mum’s house, instead of around the corner - but then he and Martha decided it’d be better if Francine Jones didn’t see anything to make her even more suspicious. If the TARDIS had been closer, he’d have been gone by now, safely away. He’d never have known Jack was here.
But he’s safe, of course. Jack only knew the last him. He can walk right past the Captain and not be recognised.
Only a few yards to go. He focuses his gaze somewhere on the distant horizon and keeps walking, his pace brisk. He won’t look. He won’t turn to Jack, won’t notice the difference in the other man’s eyes, the laughter-lines gone and replaced by the pain of loss. Won’t see the air of distance that surrounds him, keeps him apart from the world he lives in.
Jack won’t know him. Another few yards, and he can breathe again, freed from yet another ghost of a past he can’t escape.
He’s so close now that he could reach out and brush Jack’s greatcoat. But, keeping his eyes averted, he walks on. Safe. One very much unwanted encounter spared him.
“Are all your ex-companions that forgettable, Doctor, or is it just me?”
The answer he wants to give is on the tip of his tongue. I don’t forget any of them. Ever. And you even more so than most, considering what I did to you.
But he can’t - won’t - say that. Instead, he tilts his chin upwards just a little, enough to give the impression he wants, and says just one word, his voice cool. “Jack.”
The Captain blinks, though whether at his tone or being acknowledged at all he can’t tell. “You don’t seem surprised to see me.” There’s accusation in Jack’s tone, and it suits him to respond to it.
“I’m not. Always knew you were alive - including when I left you behind on the Game Station.” Deliberately cool. Deliberately taunting.
“You bastard.” Jack’s fist is striking his nose before he has time to duck. He staggers backwards, almost but not quite losing his balance.
Straightening again, hand covering his nose as warm blood seeps through his fingers, he studies the younger man. Jack’s breathing heavily, cupping his fist in his free hand - oh, that hurt him too - and anger’s still written all over his face.
That, he could deal with. It’s the hurt behind the anger, the hurt blazing from his one-time friend’s eyes, that causes him far more pain than the possibly-broken nose does.
He wants to tell Jack that he deserved what the man just did to him. Because he does; he has no doubt whatsoever about that. But it’s the wrong thing to do, because an apology could lead to forgiveness, and forgiveness is the very last thing he can accept from this man.
He fumbles for a handkerchief, then uses it to mop up the blood. “Yes, I left you behind on that deserted satellite, Jack. Deliberately.” The cruelty in his voice is easy to manufacture; all he has to do is remind himself of what he’s already done to Jack Harkness, and what harm he could do still if he prolongs this discussion and allows Jack to slip under his guard.
But he’s overplayed his hand; he knows it the instant he sees the flicker of suspicion in Jack’s eyes. This man isn’t the glib, easygoing ex-conman he knew before, who’d forgotten the best of his soldiering years, the years when he really learned about combat, about strategy, about reading your opponent and anticipating their moves.
This is a Jack Harkness who’s lived far more years than any human should, never ageing, always having to watch his back and guard his secret. Never able to get close to anyone - not only because of his secret, but also because of what he calls his own curse. That they’ll die and leave him behind.
And he has to shut his mind to the realisation that this man, alone among the humans he’s known and travelled with, could understand what his life is like.
“What are you up to, Doctor?” Jack’s head’s tilted to one side, a knowing half-smile on his lips. “Yeah, I know you left me behind. I’ve had a long time to get used to that. And it doesn’t surprise me that it was deliberate. You always were a bastard. Nothing new there.”
Damnit. He really did overplay. Instead of the hatred he hoped for - and had after his first callous statement - he’s now aroused Jack’s curiosity. Jack knows there’s more behind that last encounter, and this one now, than is immediately obvious, and he’s not going to let it drop.
Foolish to expect the Jack he knew then not to have changed. Foolish not to take into account what a century of hiding, of surviving and, later, of running an organisation like Torchwood Three have done to the ex-Time Agent.
The only thing that’ll work now is blunt honesty. Dropping the casually cruel posture, he meets Jack’s gaze, nothing but his true self in his eyes. “Walk on, Jack. Just walk on by and pretend you never saw me.”
Jack’s stare in return is disbelieving. “You must be joking, Doctor. All these years, I’ve been searching for you - you really think I’m gonna walk away now?”
“If you’ve got any sense, you will.” More honesty. “I’m no good for you. I break everyone who gets close to me. I don’t want to break you, too.”
The look on Jack’s face almost crushes his hearts. Because he’s done that. He’s turned Jack into this person he doesn’t even recognise, so completely different is he from the man who once travelled with him. So different, too, from the soldier who saved his life and fought with him on Arcadia.
“Too late, Doctor. You already did.”
***
tbc