wendymr: Fin de Siècle (Ten/Jack) [PG] (SUMMER HOLIDAYS, PROMPT 15)
Title: Fin de Siècle
Author: wendymr
Pairing: Jack/Ten
Rating: PG
Spoilers/warnings: If you know what’s going to be different about the Doctor in S5, you’re fine.
Challenge: Summer Holidays
Prompt group: 15: memory - the past - absolution - forgiveness
Summary: “Haven’t been much of a friend to you in this life, have I? I don’t want to die without at least trying to change that.”
**
The sky’s clear tonight.
The lights of the city get in the way, of course, but if he looks out to sea the black curtain’s dotted with stars. Constellations, of course: Orion, the Little Bear, more in the distance, barely visible. Planets that once upon a time he walked on, flew from surface to surface, without a second thought.
Planets that are still there - including the one he’s standing on now. And that’s all that matters, really.
A tingling runs down his spine. It tells him there’s someone behind him even before he sees the footfall.
Ianto? But Ianto knows better than to follow him up here. Especially not tonight; though the young Welshman has no idea why this night is different, he knows it is. It has been for the last five years.
It’s not Ianto.
“I’m sure there’s something deeply psychological about your love of high buildings at night, Jack.”
He spins. “Doctor.”
No need to ask how the Time Lord tracked him down. It’s that damn wrongness thing. If they’re anywhere in the same vicinity, the Doctor’s always gonna be able to sense him, and find him. The only surprising thing about it is that the Doctor’s deliberately sought him out. Apparently, anyway.
That’s never happened before. Although they’ve run into each other several times since the Valiant, the Doctor’s never come looking for him. Never would, he assumed. When they meet, it’s because aliens are invading and they either end up in the same place at the same time or he goes to find the Doctor.
“Hello, Jack.” The Doctor’s smiling, almost. There’s no tension in his stance, and nor is he rushing into speech, so that tells Jack he’s not here because of an imminent invasion or some other crisis.
“Hi.” Instinctively, he folds his arms, only realising after he’s done it what he’s betraying. Distancing, much? “What brings you here?” Time he took some control here. The Doctor’s ruled his existence for too long as it is. “Tonight of all nights,” he finds himself adding, then curses himself silently.
“Ah.” The Doctor’s hands slide into his pockets and he stands, feet apart, as if bracing himself. “I forget - linear time. Five years to the day for you, isn’t it?”
“How long’s it been for you?” he counters.
The Doctor clucks. “Time doesn’t work the same way for me, you know that.” He gives the man a don’t assume I’m an idiot look. The Doctor sighs. “Longer.”
Jack just nods. Figures. “So, you’ve come looking for me. I assume that means you want something?”
The Doctor doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he walks towards the edge of the building, to where there’s a railing at about waist-height. Safety precaution for workmen, most likely. “Do I have to want something? Can’t I just come to see a friend?”
He smiles wryly, moving to join the Doctor at the railing. “You don’t usually, no.”
“True.” For some time, the two of them stand side by side, not touching, not looking at each other, staring out into the night. Then the Doctor says, so softly he almost misses it, “Perhaps it’s time I started.”
“Yeah?” It’s so completely unexpected, so counter to his normal experience of this Doctor, that questions race through his mind. Why? Why now? Has something happened? Who has he lost this time?
He knows the Doctor - this Doctor - too well to ask any of that. “Sounds good to me.”
Again, there’s a long silence while the two of them search the stars again. What the Doctor’s looking for, Jack has no idea. Whatever it is, though, it’s barely conceivable that he thinks he’ll find it here, with Jack - and yet that’s what he seems to be hinting.
A long time later, the man at his side speaks again. “Something’s coming, Jack. I don’t know what, and I don’t know when, other than it’s gonna be soon. This time, I want to be prepared.”
He hates that his heart sinks so much at the realisation that, after all, it’s only that the Doctor needs his help. An edge to his voice, he points out, “Have I ever not helped when you needed me?”
Instantly, the Doctor turns to face him, and it’s immediately clear that he’s got it all wrong. “No, no, no, no. It’s not that. It’s just... well... haven’t been much of a friend to you in this life, have I? I don’t want to die without at least trying to change that.”
“Die?” The word jumps out at him, much as the rest of what the Doctor’s just said leaves him reeling. “What do you mean, die?”
The Doctor moves back from the railing and starts pacing, coat swishing at his heels. “Regeneration, Jack. Oh, do keep up.” He turns on his heel and paces back again. “I’m going to change again, and it’s gonna be soon.”
“What?” He’s an intelligent guy. So why is it the Doctor always manages to make him feel like he’s stupid? “You’re not - I mean, I thought Time Lords could live a thousand years or more in just one body. You haven’t had anything like that, have you?”
“Course not.” The Doctor rakes a hand through his hair, then rubs his face. “I don’t look that old, do I?” He comes closer. “I’m not dying of old age. I just - I know I don’t have much longer in this life. It’s a gut feeling. If you were a Time Lord, you’d understand.”
His stomach feels as if he’s been kicked. He’s going to lose the Doctor again. A final loss this time, because this sounds like goodbye.
“You mean there’s something coming after you? Something that’s gonna kill you.” The Doctor nods, just once. “The solution’s obvious, then.” He meets the Doctor’s gaze, his own resolute. “I’m coming with you. I’m gonna stick to you like glue. Whatever it is can kill me instead. At least I come back to life the same way I am now - and I don’t have a limit on how many times I can do it.”
The Doctor’s eyes widen. “If I’d known that’s what it’d take to get you to come with me again...”
“Huh?” He shakes his head. Why does nothing ever seem to make any sense where the Doctor’s concerned? “You didn’t ask!”
“Yes, I did!” Indignant, the Doctor points downward, finger jerking emphatically. “Right down there. You said no!”
“What?” Oh, this is just ridiculous! “Of course I did! You didn’t want me with you, not really, no matter what you said. Besides, with everything we’d been through...” He exhales, hard. “I had to see for myself that my team was okay. I had to let them know I was alive. I couldn’t just leave with you, not then.”
“And after?” The Doctor’s looking straight at him now. “We’ve run into each other several times since then. Why did you never come with me?”
Again, he exclaims, “You never asked! Only that once. Never again.”
“Oh, well, if you’re gonna split hairs about it...” The Doctor shakes his head, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. And the penny drops. He asked once. No, twice, counting 1941, when he rescued Jack from his soon-to-explode ship. He wouldn’t ask a third time.
This is getting them nowhere, anyway. He leans back against the railing, looking back out at the night sky. “So this is goodbye, then, huh?”
“I suppose, in a way.” The Doctor moves to his side again, this time a bit closer. Their shoulders are almost brushing. “It’s not really goodbye, though. Course it’s not. There’ll just be a new me, that’s all. Not as if you haven’t been through that before.”
Only after the old Doctor ran away and left him stranded. But that’s ancient history. “Just thought maybe the new you might want a fresh start all round.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous! ‘Sides, bit hard to get away from you, Jack.” The Doctor’s teeth gleam brightly in the darkness. “You’ll always be there, turning up again over and over-”
“Like a bad penny, you mean?”
The Doctor sighs. “That’s what I meant, before. You expected me to say something like that, didn’t you? Because I haven’t given you any reason to expect anything else.” They’re looking straight at each other now and the Doctor’s face is inches away. If he’s feeling any discomfort from the fact that they’re this close, he’s not showing it. “I’m sorry. Should have said that long ago, shouldn’t I? Sorry I ran away from you, and sorry for avoiding you all that time. Sorry for not saying sorry sooner.”
It’s good to hear the words, even if in truth he no longer needs them. “I forgave you for that long ago.”
“You did?” The Doctor sounds surprised. “I know you still resent me for something. I thought that was it.”
He drops his gaze, focusing on his hands. Amazing how steady they are as they rest on the rail; he doesn’t feel remotely as calm inside. “I do,” he admits. “But not for that. You still don’t trust me. And I think I’ve done more than enough to earn your trust by now. I don’t know what more I can do.”
“Of course I trust you, Jack!”
How can the bastard make it sound as if he’s the one in the wrong? His head jerks up again.
“Oh, yeah? Then how come you disable my Vortex manipulator every chance you get? I know in your eyes it’s technology that shouldn’t exist in this time, but you could at least trust me to use it responsibly.” Besides, the first time he disabled it the Doctor explicitly said he didn’t trust him with it.
The Doctor’s eyes widen. It’s clear he never once thought of it like that. Softly, he says, “Will that be enough? If I let you have it back, if I let you keep it, will that convince you?”
The words emerge before he even knows he’s going to say it. He always did lack internal censors. “I can think of a better way.”
“Oh?” The Doctor’s gaze is open, curious, brown eyes contradictorily naïve and ancient in the same moment. The Time Lord’s hair, already untidy, is getting ruffled in the light breeze and Jack’s itching to run his fingers through it.
The only thing stopping him is the knowledge that it’d send the Doctor out of here faster than anything else - except the one thing he can’t get out of his mind. God, how is it the guy looks more shaggable every time they meet?
“Hell.” He slashes the air between them. “Forget I said anything.”
“Jack.” It’s the same long-drawn-out syllable that he remembers sending shivers through him in the radiation room back on Malcassiro.
“You asked for it,” he mutters, and leans forward.
The Doctor stills, eyes widening again in a deer-in-the-headlights look - but he doesn’t try to evade the kiss. Instead, he waits, and as Jack’s lips make contact the lips beneath his part. He feels a whispered sigh, and then cool fingers gliding over his cheek.
He intended a kiss just like he gave the last Doctor: another goodbye kiss, brief and platonic despite the emotion that lay beneath it. But this isn’t like that, because the Doctor’s not letting it be.
The short-haired, short-fused leather-jacketed Doctor stood passively, allowing the kiss but not participating. This Doctor’s kissing him back, leisurely, with lazy intent.
He steps closer, placing his hands at the Doctor’s hips. The Doctor obligingly moves closer and their bodies align and it’s hard to believe this isn’t a dream. Pulling back for a moment to draw in oxygen, he mutters, “You’re a damn tease, Doctor. All that innocent pretence that you don’t do this kind of thing...”
“Don’t, usually,” the Doctor counters with a lopsided grin. His lips cover Jack’s again, firmly and with the intent of a man who knows exactly what he’s doing and who’s determined to take charge.
Arms lock around him and suddenly he has a tongue in his mouth, a development he responds to with considerable enthusiasm. The Doctor tastes of honey and bananas and something that completely defies definition: alien and ancient and Time itself, perhaps. He’s kissed members of more alien species than he can count, but no experience has ever been anything like this. He knows nothing ever will.
Finally, breathing heavily, they break apart. He has to ask. The curiosity will drive him insane otherwise.
“Why? After all this time, why now?”
The Doctor shrugs, a half-smile hovering around his lips. “Could tell you I don’t want to end this life the way I did the last one where you’re concerned.”
“You could, yeah.” He raises an eyebrow. “So what’s the real reason?”
His response is a laugh, full-bodied and amused. “I wanted to. Simple as that, really.”
“Finally decided to let me know, huh?”
The Doctor tilts his head from side to side. “You never asked. Well, not this me, anyway.”
“You don’t ask, you don’t get,” he murmurs. “What if I asked for more than a kiss?”
He’s offered a hand; he lays his against the Doctor’s, and cool fingers wrap around his. “Come with me.”
They walk over to the fire-escape ladder, and there, below, on the Plass, close to the fountain, is the TARDIS. He never even heard it arrive.
A few minutes later, the Doctor pauses by the TARDIS door, his face lit in the glow from inside the console room. “You can’t stop what’s coming for me, Jack. I can feel it. It’s out there, getting closer all the time. I know I haven’t got long left in this body. But - if you want - you can come with me. Be there when I regenerate.” He glances down at the smooth paving of the Plass. “I’d like that, I think.”
“You should have someone with you. A friend. Someone who... cares about you.” He lays a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder.
The Doctor raises his head again and their gazes meet, so close he can see golden flecks in the brown eyes. In that look, a silent agreement is forged: when the TARDIS leaves, when he’s had time to tell the remainder of his team where he’s going, and that he will be back, he’ll be on board.
He leans forward and lightly kisses the Doctor again, and this time there’s nothing sexual about it at all. It’s forgiveness. Absolution.
The Doctor takes his hand again, and moments later the TARDIS door swings closed behind the two of them, shutting out the night sky.
Author: wendymr
Pairing: Jack/Ten
Rating: PG
Spoilers/warnings: If you know what’s going to be different about the Doctor in S5, you’re fine.
Challenge: Summer Holidays
Prompt group: 15: memory - the past - absolution - forgiveness
Summary: “Haven’t been much of a friend to you in this life, have I? I don’t want to die without at least trying to change that.”
**
The sky’s clear tonight.
The lights of the city get in the way, of course, but if he looks out to sea the black curtain’s dotted with stars. Constellations, of course: Orion, the Little Bear, more in the distance, barely visible. Planets that once upon a time he walked on, flew from surface to surface, without a second thought.
Planets that are still there - including the one he’s standing on now. And that’s all that matters, really.
A tingling runs down his spine. It tells him there’s someone behind him even before he sees the footfall.
Ianto? But Ianto knows better than to follow him up here. Especially not tonight; though the young Welshman has no idea why this night is different, he knows it is. It has been for the last five years.
It’s not Ianto.
“I’m sure there’s something deeply psychological about your love of high buildings at night, Jack.”
He spins. “Doctor.”
No need to ask how the Time Lord tracked him down. It’s that damn wrongness thing. If they’re anywhere in the same vicinity, the Doctor’s always gonna be able to sense him, and find him. The only surprising thing about it is that the Doctor’s deliberately sought him out. Apparently, anyway.
That’s never happened before. Although they’ve run into each other several times since the Valiant, the Doctor’s never come looking for him. Never would, he assumed. When they meet, it’s because aliens are invading and they either end up in the same place at the same time or he goes to find the Doctor.
“Hello, Jack.” The Doctor’s smiling, almost. There’s no tension in his stance, and nor is he rushing into speech, so that tells Jack he’s not here because of an imminent invasion or some other crisis.
“Hi.” Instinctively, he folds his arms, only realising after he’s done it what he’s betraying. Distancing, much? “What brings you here?” Time he took some control here. The Doctor’s ruled his existence for too long as it is. “Tonight of all nights,” he finds himself adding, then curses himself silently.
“Ah.” The Doctor’s hands slide into his pockets and he stands, feet apart, as if bracing himself. “I forget - linear time. Five years to the day for you, isn’t it?”
“How long’s it been for you?” he counters.
The Doctor clucks. “Time doesn’t work the same way for me, you know that.” He gives the man a don’t assume I’m an idiot look. The Doctor sighs. “Longer.”
Jack just nods. Figures. “So, you’ve come looking for me. I assume that means you want something?”
The Doctor doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he walks towards the edge of the building, to where there’s a railing at about waist-height. Safety precaution for workmen, most likely. “Do I have to want something? Can’t I just come to see a friend?”
He smiles wryly, moving to join the Doctor at the railing. “You don’t usually, no.”
“True.” For some time, the two of them stand side by side, not touching, not looking at each other, staring out into the night. Then the Doctor says, so softly he almost misses it, “Perhaps it’s time I started.”
“Yeah?” It’s so completely unexpected, so counter to his normal experience of this Doctor, that questions race through his mind. Why? Why now? Has something happened? Who has he lost this time?
He knows the Doctor - this Doctor - too well to ask any of that. “Sounds good to me.”
Again, there’s a long silence while the two of them search the stars again. What the Doctor’s looking for, Jack has no idea. Whatever it is, though, it’s barely conceivable that he thinks he’ll find it here, with Jack - and yet that’s what he seems to be hinting.
A long time later, the man at his side speaks again. “Something’s coming, Jack. I don’t know what, and I don’t know when, other than it’s gonna be soon. This time, I want to be prepared.”
He hates that his heart sinks so much at the realisation that, after all, it’s only that the Doctor needs his help. An edge to his voice, he points out, “Have I ever not helped when you needed me?”
Instantly, the Doctor turns to face him, and it’s immediately clear that he’s got it all wrong. “No, no, no, no. It’s not that. It’s just... well... haven’t been much of a friend to you in this life, have I? I don’t want to die without at least trying to change that.”
“Die?” The word jumps out at him, much as the rest of what the Doctor’s just said leaves him reeling. “What do you mean, die?”
The Doctor moves back from the railing and starts pacing, coat swishing at his heels. “Regeneration, Jack. Oh, do keep up.” He turns on his heel and paces back again. “I’m going to change again, and it’s gonna be soon.”
“What?” He’s an intelligent guy. So why is it the Doctor always manages to make him feel like he’s stupid? “You’re not - I mean, I thought Time Lords could live a thousand years or more in just one body. You haven’t had anything like that, have you?”
“Course not.” The Doctor rakes a hand through his hair, then rubs his face. “I don’t look that old, do I?” He comes closer. “I’m not dying of old age. I just - I know I don’t have much longer in this life. It’s a gut feeling. If you were a Time Lord, you’d understand.”
His stomach feels as if he’s been kicked. He’s going to lose the Doctor again. A final loss this time, because this sounds like goodbye.
“You mean there’s something coming after you? Something that’s gonna kill you.” The Doctor nods, just once. “The solution’s obvious, then.” He meets the Doctor’s gaze, his own resolute. “I’m coming with you. I’m gonna stick to you like glue. Whatever it is can kill me instead. At least I come back to life the same way I am now - and I don’t have a limit on how many times I can do it.”
The Doctor’s eyes widen. “If I’d known that’s what it’d take to get you to come with me again...”
“Huh?” He shakes his head. Why does nothing ever seem to make any sense where the Doctor’s concerned? “You didn’t ask!”
“Yes, I did!” Indignant, the Doctor points downward, finger jerking emphatically. “Right down there. You said no!”
“What?” Oh, this is just ridiculous! “Of course I did! You didn’t want me with you, not really, no matter what you said. Besides, with everything we’d been through...” He exhales, hard. “I had to see for myself that my team was okay. I had to let them know I was alive. I couldn’t just leave with you, not then.”
“And after?” The Doctor’s looking straight at him now. “We’ve run into each other several times since then. Why did you never come with me?”
Again, he exclaims, “You never asked! Only that once. Never again.”
“Oh, well, if you’re gonna split hairs about it...” The Doctor shakes his head, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. And the penny drops. He asked once. No, twice, counting 1941, when he rescued Jack from his soon-to-explode ship. He wouldn’t ask a third time.
This is getting them nowhere, anyway. He leans back against the railing, looking back out at the night sky. “So this is goodbye, then, huh?”
“I suppose, in a way.” The Doctor moves to his side again, this time a bit closer. Their shoulders are almost brushing. “It’s not really goodbye, though. Course it’s not. There’ll just be a new me, that’s all. Not as if you haven’t been through that before.”
Only after the old Doctor ran away and left him stranded. But that’s ancient history. “Just thought maybe the new you might want a fresh start all round.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous! ‘Sides, bit hard to get away from you, Jack.” The Doctor’s teeth gleam brightly in the darkness. “You’ll always be there, turning up again over and over-”
“Like a bad penny, you mean?”
The Doctor sighs. “That’s what I meant, before. You expected me to say something like that, didn’t you? Because I haven’t given you any reason to expect anything else.” They’re looking straight at each other now and the Doctor’s face is inches away. If he’s feeling any discomfort from the fact that they’re this close, he’s not showing it. “I’m sorry. Should have said that long ago, shouldn’t I? Sorry I ran away from you, and sorry for avoiding you all that time. Sorry for not saying sorry sooner.”
It’s good to hear the words, even if in truth he no longer needs them. “I forgave you for that long ago.”
“You did?” The Doctor sounds surprised. “I know you still resent me for something. I thought that was it.”
He drops his gaze, focusing on his hands. Amazing how steady they are as they rest on the rail; he doesn’t feel remotely as calm inside. “I do,” he admits. “But not for that. You still don’t trust me. And I think I’ve done more than enough to earn your trust by now. I don’t know what more I can do.”
“Of course I trust you, Jack!”
How can the bastard make it sound as if he’s the one in the wrong? His head jerks up again.
“Oh, yeah? Then how come you disable my Vortex manipulator every chance you get? I know in your eyes it’s technology that shouldn’t exist in this time, but you could at least trust me to use it responsibly.” Besides, the first time he disabled it the Doctor explicitly said he didn’t trust him with it.
The Doctor’s eyes widen. It’s clear he never once thought of it like that. Softly, he says, “Will that be enough? If I let you have it back, if I let you keep it, will that convince you?”
The words emerge before he even knows he’s going to say it. He always did lack internal censors. “I can think of a better way.”
“Oh?” The Doctor’s gaze is open, curious, brown eyes contradictorily naïve and ancient in the same moment. The Time Lord’s hair, already untidy, is getting ruffled in the light breeze and Jack’s itching to run his fingers through it.
The only thing stopping him is the knowledge that it’d send the Doctor out of here faster than anything else - except the one thing he can’t get out of his mind. God, how is it the guy looks more shaggable every time they meet?
“Hell.” He slashes the air between them. “Forget I said anything.”
“Jack.” It’s the same long-drawn-out syllable that he remembers sending shivers through him in the radiation room back on Malcassiro.
“You asked for it,” he mutters, and leans forward.
The Doctor stills, eyes widening again in a deer-in-the-headlights look - but he doesn’t try to evade the kiss. Instead, he waits, and as Jack’s lips make contact the lips beneath his part. He feels a whispered sigh, and then cool fingers gliding over his cheek.
He intended a kiss just like he gave the last Doctor: another goodbye kiss, brief and platonic despite the emotion that lay beneath it. But this isn’t like that, because the Doctor’s not letting it be.
The short-haired, short-fused leather-jacketed Doctor stood passively, allowing the kiss but not participating. This Doctor’s kissing him back, leisurely, with lazy intent.
He steps closer, placing his hands at the Doctor’s hips. The Doctor obligingly moves closer and their bodies align and it’s hard to believe this isn’t a dream. Pulling back for a moment to draw in oxygen, he mutters, “You’re a damn tease, Doctor. All that innocent pretence that you don’t do this kind of thing...”
“Don’t, usually,” the Doctor counters with a lopsided grin. His lips cover Jack’s again, firmly and with the intent of a man who knows exactly what he’s doing and who’s determined to take charge.
Arms lock around him and suddenly he has a tongue in his mouth, a development he responds to with considerable enthusiasm. The Doctor tastes of honey and bananas and something that completely defies definition: alien and ancient and Time itself, perhaps. He’s kissed members of more alien species than he can count, but no experience has ever been anything like this. He knows nothing ever will.
Finally, breathing heavily, they break apart. He has to ask. The curiosity will drive him insane otherwise.
“Why? After all this time, why now?”
The Doctor shrugs, a half-smile hovering around his lips. “Could tell you I don’t want to end this life the way I did the last one where you’re concerned.”
“You could, yeah.” He raises an eyebrow. “So what’s the real reason?”
His response is a laugh, full-bodied and amused. “I wanted to. Simple as that, really.”
“Finally decided to let me know, huh?”
The Doctor tilts his head from side to side. “You never asked. Well, not this me, anyway.”
“You don’t ask, you don’t get,” he murmurs. “What if I asked for more than a kiss?”
He’s offered a hand; he lays his against the Doctor’s, and cool fingers wrap around his. “Come with me.”
They walk over to the fire-escape ladder, and there, below, on the Plass, close to the fountain, is the TARDIS. He never even heard it arrive.
A few minutes later, the Doctor pauses by the TARDIS door, his face lit in the glow from inside the console room. “You can’t stop what’s coming for me, Jack. I can feel it. It’s out there, getting closer all the time. I know I haven’t got long left in this body. But - if you want - you can come with me. Be there when I regenerate.” He glances down at the smooth paving of the Plass. “I’d like that, I think.”
“You should have someone with you. A friend. Someone who... cares about you.” He lays a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder.
The Doctor raises his head again and their gazes meet, so close he can see golden flecks in the brown eyes. In that look, a silent agreement is forged: when the TARDIS leaves, when he’s had time to tell the remainder of his team where he’s going, and that he will be back, he’ll be on board.
He leans forward and lightly kisses the Doctor again, and this time there’s nothing sexual about it at all. It’s forgiveness. Absolution.
The Doctor takes his hand again, and moments later the TARDIS door swings closed behind the two of them, shutting out the night sky.