| Date: 22 December 2007
Characters: The Tenth Doctor, Jack Harkness Location: hotel rooms, hotel hallway Link to IJ: thread #18037 |
 The Doctor stepped cheerfully out of the TARDIS - and stopped. He was expecting the Powell Estate, London, Christmas Eve 2006. Instead, what he got was... a hotel room? He turned back to tell Rose oops, sorry, he'd got it wrong again and they'd better try a second time, and discovered the door of the TARDIS had turned into a wardrobe door.
Ah. This was a tiny bit awkward. He crossed to the room's door and leaned out. He gawped. "Jack?" |
 He was just walking down the hall. He stopped when he heard his name, turned to look back over his shoulder. "Yeah?" |
| "Jack! Well, that's a pleasant surprise - at least I'm here in good company!"
The Doctor stepped out into the hall, grinning and holding his arms out for a great big welcoming hug. "I don't know what's going on but it's great to see you!" |
| Jack patted the strange man on the back, in a vaguely bemused way. He did recognize the clothes, but he wasn't going to put that together quickly on his own.
"It's nice to see you, too. Just show up did you?" |
| "Yeah, I stepped out of the TARDIS and found I'd come out of a wardrobe. No, hang on, that's Narnia. Well, I stepped out of a wardrobe, anyway, and - Oh!"
He suddenly got why Jack was looking so confused. "Jack, it's me. The Doctor. I just - I'd forgotten for a moment, silly me, I just regenerated. Whole new me. Ta-da!" He spun round, arms spread, to show off his spanking new body, grinning madly. |
| He followed along, complete with the back and forth and Narnia, and stayed just this side of confused.
"That explains it," he agreed and rubbed his eyes. "Nice body." |
| "Thank you." The Doctor looked down at himself. "Haven't actually found a mirror yet to see what I look like." He patted his chest and hips and thighs, feeling more space between clothes and flesh than he was used to. "I'm thinner, aren't I? Not that I was exactly fat, but. This feels thinner." He looked up at Jack. "Am I ginger?" |
| He was trying to recover and decide how he felt about the whole thing. He was just about over his attitude/anger problem at the Doctor, but just about wasn't entirely and a new face and bouncing was going to take him a bit longer. "Brunette. Brown eyes. Great cheekbones." |
| The Doctor tilted his head, grinning. "So, bit more handsome than the last one, eh?"
He glanced round at the hallway. "I'm dreaming, aren't I? Still coming round from regeneration, or something. That's why you're here. Be a bit ridiculous, otherwise, wouldn't it? I mean, what are the chances of you turning up so soon after I. Er." He stopped, and looked at Jack again with a slight frown. There was something... something he ought to notice... something tingling at the edge of his senses. |
| "I liked you just fine the way you were before, big ears and all," He said with a quick grin, and continued. "I don't think you're dreaming...."
He trailed off when the Doctor frowned, really not understanding what was going on. "What's wrong?" Besides the obvious. |
| The Doctor's frown deepened. "Not sure. Give me a minute. Still getting myself together. Takes a while, sometimes, you know. Things come and go. If I'm not dreaming, where are we?" |
| Jack gave him a minute, and kept his eye on him. He had no real idea of what was going on, but he was getting worried. "I don't really know," he admitted. "Some sort of temporal anomaly. You're running around here, at least a couple of times, which I guess is less odd than the two Roses." |
| "Temporal anomaly, eh? And I'm here already? Well, that sounds like quite an adventure!"
He beamed at Jack. Then his eyes glazed momentarily and he swayed and put a hand out to the wall. He shook his head to clear it and looked back at Jack, inhaling sharply. "Any chance they have tea-making facilities in these bedrooms?" |
| When the Doctor swayed, Jack stepped forward quickly. He didn't catch him or pull him, but he did keep a hand behind his back, just in case.
"Not in the bedrooms I'm afraid at least not that I've seen, but I can bring the tea to you, or you to the tea." |
| The contact, more sustained than the previous pat on his back, had him frowning again at the sense of - wrongness - he was getting from Jack. He tried to remember what it was, but everything before the regeneration was all misty.
Right. Deal with the here and now. "No tea in the bedrooms? What is the world coming to? Oh well, come on then, let's go and find some!" He got three paces down the hall before his legs went from under him and he crumpled to the floor. |
| Jack missed catching him, but not by much. He dropped all the way down to a crouch, frowned and splayed his hand across his chest.
"Doctor?" He was checking to see if he was conscious, breathing, and his hearts were beating. |
| The Doctor's eyes slammed open again and he sat up sharply. "Oh dear. I think you might need to go and get the tea after all." |
| "I think I need to get you in a room and a bed first." He wasn't even leering.
He kept his arm behind the Doctor's shoulders, slid the other under his knees and picked him up. It was awkward since he was tall as hell but he was light enough to make it possible, especially since it was a hotel and there were rooms with unlocked doors everywhere. He wasn't going to have to go far. |
| The sense of wrongness crashed through him again as Jack scooped him up. He tried to struggle but his body just wasn't responding properly.
He looked urgently into Jack's eyes, very close, trying to communicate just how serious he was about the tea. "Wasn't joking about the tea," he gasped. |
| He nearly dropped the Doctor, but he managed to get his hand around the doorknob and open the door without dumping his scrawny ass.
"I got that," he grunted, walked through the door and put him on the bed. "I'll be right back." It was an inane request, yes, but Jack'd been around long enough that when an alien in distress wanted something weird, he got it. Unless he wanted them to die. That didn't apply here. He closed the door behind him, and hauled ass to the dining room for tea. |
| Oh, thank goodness for Jack. He might have a tendency to argue and push back, but when it mattered he did as he was told.
The Doctor lay back against the pillows, put his forearm across his eyes to stop the room spinning, and waited. |
| It took him a few minutes, of course. He had to get down a couple of flights of stairs, into the dining room, find the tea, pour the tea and then make his way back up those flights of stairs.
He made it back before the tea had stopped steaming, and without spilling it, though, which said something about the pace he could move at. "Tea," He announced, kicked the door shut behind him and eyed the Doctor. "Can you hold it or do you need me to feed it to you?" |
| The Doctor moved his arm and glared. "Give it here," he said irritably, pushing up into a sitting position. Or at least, trying to. It was hard when his arms were made of jelly.
He made it eventually, though, and held out a hand for the cup. It was almost steady. |
| Jack handed over the cup, and hovered protectively, but he didn't interfere. Just wanted to. |
| The Doctor cradled the cup in both hands and held it close to his face so he could inhale the warm air rising from the tea. Then he took a long sip.
"Oh, that's good tea!" He raised the cup again and didn't stop until he'd drained. "Ahhhh, just the thing. Good thing you were around, Jack!" |
| He lifted his eyebrow as he watched the Doctor. "Lucky for you, I'm around a lot. What happened?" |
| "Ah well, that is the question, isn't it?"
The Doctor frowned. "I'm sure it'll come back to me in a minute." |
| "You're sure what'll come back to you?" He paced a couple of times, and then stopped to lean against the door. |
| "What happened, of course. Funny thing about regeneration. Does things to your memory sometimes. Clear as a bell from the moment I became me but I can't quite remember... before. And I need to, because - "
He trailed off, brows furrowing again as he gazed at Jack. What was it? What had happened to Jack? |
| "Because why?" he asked, still leaning. Because he didn't know what the time frame was really, and even if he had he wasn't exactly sure of what happened, either. |
| "Because you feel - different, Jack. You feel..."
The Doctor actually had the grace to look uncomfortable, but he said it anyway. "Wrong." |
| He lifted and dropped a shoulder. "Yep. Maybe because I can't die." |
| "Sort of a tingly feeling at the back of my teeth, really rather unpleasant, like at the dentist's when they're drilling your- "
He broke off, as Jack's words sank in. He stared. "What?" |
| "Yeah. Remember the Daleks?" |
| "Oh, the Daleks! Yes!"
The Doctor leaned forward, excited. "Yes, of course. Now I remebmer! It was Rose! She wiped the Daleks out, out of time. De-atomised them. Completely gone. And then..." He broke off again, and swallowed. |
| "Yeah. And then." Because he did know, but he remembered. "She's here, you know. Two of her." |
| "She's here too? What is this, a reunion party? Not that it's long since I last saw her, of course - I was with her just before I found myself here. Well, not that it's long since I saw you either, if it comes to that. 'Bout an hour, I s'pose. Talked to you over the intercom more recently, of course." He grinned. "You were magnificent, the way you talked to the Dalek Emperor!" |
| "It's been a hundred and fifty years for me, eight hundred for one of the Roses, and the other one doesn't know you've regenerated." |
| The Doctor's mouth fell open.
"A hundred and fifty... Then you really can't... Oh, Jack. I'm so sorry." |
| "Yeah, well. Stuff happens. You feeling better?" |
| The Doctor thought about it for a moment, then grinned happily. "Yep! Right as rain now! Bit of a difficult regeneration, that one was - probably absorbing all the energy of the Time Vortex, made it a bit intense - but yes. Better now!" |
| "Good." He kept staring, and frowning. "Well. Get some rest, or have a look around. It's an interesting place. May as well enjoy it while you can." |
| "Hang on." The Doctor scrambled to get up, long limbs everywhere. He made it to the edge of the bed and looked up at Jack, eyes all big and soulful. "That sounded like you're going!" |
| "Did it? That's probably because I was. Do you need something else? More tea?" |
| "Jack."
The Doctor's voice had dropped half an octave and all the bouncy bubbliness had gone out of him. He stood up and walked over to Jack. It cost him a lot of unpleasant tingling in his back teeth, but he did it. "Don't go," he said, and it was half plea, half command. He put out a hand to touch Jack's sleeve, and made himself do it. "We need to work this out. I need to work this out." |
| The change in the Doctor's voice got him to stop. He stood there, looking at the Doctor, hand on the door's knob, but didn't turn.
"What exactly do you think you're going to work out?" |
| The Doctor drew in a sharp breath.
"How to be around you without feeling like I'm at the dentist?" He shrugged slightly. "I don't - I don't want to feel like that. Not after all we've done. It's." He paused searching for a word, and smiled wryly. "Wrong." |
| "Well, apparently so am I, and you don't look like you're in any shape to deal with it right now. Give it some time - I've got plenty."
Yes, he was being mean. |
| "I told you - I'm fine now! Amazing what a bit of tea can do!"
He grinned briefly, but what he saw in Jack's eyes made him clamp down on the humour. He looked at him seriously, with as much openness as he could muster. "Jack. Please. An hour ago, you and I were fighting for our lives. For the lives of everyone on earth. I felt you die. I felt you come back. I felt you come back wrong and I didn't know what to do and I ran away, but I'm here now and I don't want us to part like this." |
| "An hour ago for you, a hundred and fifty for me," he said, voice steady and serious. "And part like what, exactly? " He really wanted an answer to that particular question. |
| "With you hating me and blaming me and whatever else it is that's making you so cold and hard. And with me feeling like this about you. I'm not letting you out of my sight till I can look at you without my teeth hurting." |
| "I'm not hating you, and unless you find a way to take away the past century and a half I'm afraid you're going to have to live with me being a little different. Hard's not new, though." There was a flicker of a smile there. "I can't do a thing about making your teeth ache, either." |
| "Well, normally I would have a way to take away the past century and a half - but I seem to have left it behind."
The Doctor grimaced ruefully, then moved his hand down the sleeve of Jack's coat until he reached the edge of the cuff. Deliberately, he kept going, teeth gritted against the pulse of wrong, shouldn't exist until he was touching the skin of Jack's hand. He kept his fingers there, the contact light but definitely there, and looked up at Jack's face. "As for me, maybe all I need is time and a little exposure." |
| "Like I said, I've got plenty of time, but touching me making your jaw tighten up that probably means pushing it after a nasty regeneration accident probalby isn't going to help much." |
| The Doctor was starting to lose patience. He was trying, really trying, so hard, but all Jack seemed to want to do was get away.
"All right then," he said a trifle belligerently, letting his hand drop, defeated. "What do you suggest?" |
| He leaned forward, as soon as the Doctor gave up, hands on either side of his face and kissed him, warm and slow but deep.
|
| That... really hadn't been what he was expecting. He'd expected to be told (again) to get some rest and to be left alone.
He much preferred this solution. An hour ago but a different body, for him. A hundred and fifty years for Jack. None of it mattered. The Doctor yielded just a little bit more and let himself sink into Jack's kiss. |
| Jack pulled back when he felt the Doctor relax, stroked his thumbs over the shaper cheekbones, and let him go.
"Get some rest," he said, quietly. "We'll work on it, okay? Right now I need some time, too." |
| Somehow the suggestion didn't hurt so much this time. Might be because he was still a bit dazed from the warmth of the kiss.
"Didn't hurt at all. Think you might have a solution there!" he said shakily. He stepped back, grinning stupidly, hands raised placatingly. "All right, I'll rest. You go and - do whatever you need to do. Just - " He swallowed, and looked at Jack anxiously. "Promise you won't run away from me like I did from you?" |
| "I won't run away from you. I was never the one running. I've just got some other people to check in on. Keep your door locked while you're getting that rest, too," he warned. Then he grinned, warm and bright, and got the hell out of there. He needed to breathe. |
| The Doctor stood looking at the door that had closed behind Jack for a long time after he'd gone, his breath still shaky. Eventually, he stepped forwards and thumbed the lock down. Then he went and checked the wardrobe, just in case there was a TARDIS hiding there. There wasn't.
He bit his lip. Sat down on the bed, took his shoes off, stretched out, and... got some rest. |