Jack Harkness was not very happy.
To be completely honest, he was never very happy where the Doctor was concerned, but on this particular day he was even less cheerful than ever before. In fact, had the Doctor been wearing his pheromone-sensing glasses (embarrassing easter gift, 1923) he would have seen an ominous deep purple cloud snaking around Jack's head and swiping misty tendrils at the Doctor's. Sadly, he wasn't, and therefore it came as a complete surprise to him when Jack began to berate him.
"I cannot believe you," Jack crossed his arms, leaning back in the red velvet armchair that the Doctor had moved into to main console room of the T.A.R.D.I.S. The Doctor himself was sprawled out on a pomegranate-colored beanbag chair that he'd dragged up from the library, hands behind his head and legs thrown akimbo over the side facing away from Jack. The overall effect was that the Doctor was looking at Jack upside-down, which might have accounted for him missing the furious expression on his face.
"What? Beanbags are brilliant!" The Doctor said with a grin. "I can't believe I'm on my tenth regeneration and it took me this long to decide to bring one into the control room."
"I'm not talking about the beanbag chair," Jack scowled at the Doctor, mentally going through every language he knew and selecting the best curse words to use whenever the Doctor figured out what he was getting at.
"Is it the fez, then?" The Doctor pulled the turkish accessory in question off and began to toss it from hand to hand. "I honestly don't know what's up with that myself, actually. The T.A.R.D.I.S. just spit it out this morning, completely out of nowhere. Although, it did have a note attached. . ." He caught the fez in his left hand and rummaged around in his pocket with the other, eventually withdrawing a small slip of paper. "'Fezzes are cool'," he read aloud. "Do you have any idea what that means?" He looked up at Jack as if waiting for a reply, then (finally) noticed the murderous look on his face. "Um," he began, "It's. . . not the fez, is it?"
"Not. Even. Close," Jack replied. The invisible cloud of angry pheromones had taken over most of the room now.
"Um. . . if I ask why you're upset, will you just become more upset?" The Doctor asked meekly.
"You know why!" Jack snapped. "It's been five. Years. Doctor. I called you, told you if you didn't come immediately that the world was going to end, and it took you five years to show up."
"Um, I'm just clarifying, but the world didn't end, right?" The Doctor flinched under the intensity of Jack's glare and hid behind the oh-so-mysterious fez. "Sorry, sorry! I just wanted to check!"
"Who cares?!" Jack yelled, then changed his mind about the question. "I mean, yes, I care and, yes, you care and, yes, about six billion humans plus billions of other miscellaneous plant and animal species care but how is that even relevant to this conversation?!"
"My point was-"
"The point is, you were so desperate to avoid me that you were willing to risk the entire earth being destroyed!"
"Look, I was avoiding you for a very logical reason," the Doctor was about to continue before he suddenly realized what he said and began backpedalling furiously. "I mean, I wasn't avoiding you," he gave a couple of nervous chuckles at the end of his sentence. "Wow, did that really come out like that? That was really funny!"
Jack remained unamused. "So you were avoiding me."
"I just said I wasn't avoiding you!" Jack obviously wasn't buying it, so the Doctor switched tactics. "I wasn't avoiding you."
Jack raised his eyebrows. The emphasis the Doctor was placing on a different word completely changed the meaning of the sentence. "What were you avoiding then?"
"A situation so horrible it makes me shudder to contemplate it." True to his word, the Doctor accompanied the statement with a shudder. It even looked genuine.
"Worse than the entire earth being destroyed?" Jack was skeptical to say the least, but with the Doctor it could very easily be true.
The Doctor's expression gave nothing away. If it was a lie, it was the best one he'd ever told. "Much worse. So much worse that I had to have Rose go stay with her mother. It would have been too dangerous for her to be within six galaxies of me if this. . . situation occurred."
"Can you be more specific?" Jack asked and an annoyed tone, but the Doctor shook his head.
"Even I don't know specifically what would have happened, but I do know who would be doing it and knowing her. . ." The Doctor shuddered again. "I'm just lucky Danny called ahead and warned me she was on a rampage." At Jack's blank look he clarified somewhat. "Danny. Nice kid, a bit older than fourteen, half ghost. . ." he trailed off. "No? Oh well. Anyway, he gave me a call after she finished messing with his dimension. Not a pretty sight."
"So if it's so dangerous for you to be talking to me, how come you're doing just that right now?" Jack didn't really need to pick holes in the Doctor's story in order to prove it wrong, since the whole thing was just absurd. Nevertheless, he found himself reluctantly enjoying the back and forth between them. It almost felt like a conversation, and Jack knew that nobody ever had anything close to a conversation where the Doctor was concerned. He steered every 'conversation' with absolutely no effort, guiding it in the direction he wanted. Even when he was flat-out drunk, he was better at getting answers from people than a hundred professional M16 interrogators. Who were sober.
"Oh, I'm certain that the danger's past now. I managed to avoid you so long that the appointed date has long since passed by now," the Doctor said with a wide grin at his achievement.
"There was a deadline for this 'situation'?" Forget absurd, this was just becoming insane. They's moved from absurdtown to insaneville.
Unfortunately, the Doctor lived in insaneville. "Yeah. It's complicated, but I think it's safe to say that she's forgotten about us by now. . ."
"You thought wrong!" A booming, echoing voice came from the center of the room. The Doctor and Jack jumped to their feet at once, spinning on their heels to confront. . . empty space.
An empty space that seemed to be giggling.
"Wow, your faces. . ." The voice giggled. "You should see your faces. I wish I'd brought a camera." There was a pause. Then a bright flash. "Well, whaddia know? It was in my hand the entire time." There was another pause, slightly longer this time, taken up by the beeps that a camera made when someone (who it was becoming increasingly apparent was a girl) was scrolling through pictures on a digital camera. If Jack had to guess, he'd put the invisible speaker around fourteen by the sound of her voice, and she had a suspiciously American accent. "Oh, jeez. . . haha, that's awesome. This is one for the scrapbook. It's going next to the one of Danny without his shirt on."
The casual reference to a Danny, not minutes after he had been told of a Danny who had warned the Doctor of impending doom, made Jack's heart freeze over. A quick glance to the side let Jack know that the Doctor has two similar chunks of ice in his chest. This had to be the 'her' that the Doctor had been talking about. Not good.
"Azure, exactly when did you become invisible?" The Doctor asked of the empty air.
"What? Me? Invisible? Oh, no, this is just a cloak of invisibility. I nabbed it from Harry Potter's room. We're gonna be needing it." There was a lengthy pause. "Um, yeah, and I stole the lucius from Vladimir Tod's room. And I may have taken a cross or two from Kyoji Yotobari. Plus I borrowed the enchantment for the Scourge of Skelet from Oliver Nocturne's multiverse. But I'll put them back!"
After hearing her talk for a while, Jack was slowly coming to the conclusion that 'Azure', while probably insane, wasn't the massive threat that the Doctor had made her out to be. Then again, the Doctor was tense and looked ready for a fight, which would be enough to set off anybody's warning bells. Jack paused, then, shoving aside his more intelligent side, snatched at the air the voice was coming from. His fingers met fabric and, like a magician preforming an especially complicated trick, yanked a cloak large enough to cover three people away to reveal the teenage girl it had been concealing.
Azure was. . . well, not what he'd expected. She'd snapped off an annoyed "hey!" when he'd pulled off the cloak, giving him a split second to glimpse her inch-long razor-sharp fangs. Even ignoring her dental issue, there was no way she'd pass for human on any given street. Why?
Because she was solid blue.
From the very top of her head to the tips of her toes, she looked as if an extremely bored and sadistic artist had inked an outline of a (semi)normal teenage girl and proceeded to fill it in with nothing but different shades of the same blue ink. It ranged from the extremely pale, almost pearly hue that spread over her skin to the deep, nearly-black velvety color that made up her curly hair and eyes. Her clothes, which seemed to be cobbled together from several different wardrobes, were yet more variations on the theme; platform combat boots, dress pants, ripped tutu, and an overly-complicated belt-covered half-jacket draped over a tank top that were all tinted blue.
"Okay," Jack said with absolute certainty, "I've finally lost my mind."
"I wish," the Doctor muttered, just loud enough for Jack to hear, "But then we'd both have lost our minds simultaneously, which is impossible. Well, not impossible. Well, actually, I've known a lot of people who did that, so it's actually pretty common, but the point is that no, you haven't lost your mind and, yes, there is an extremely blue teenage girl talking to us."
"Sorry, what was that?" Azure asked absently as she began to pull her thick blue curls up into pigtails. She tied it back with- guess what?- pale blue ribbons pinned on with skull clips. That were also blue.
Jack blinked a couple times. He was starting to get an optical migraine just from looking at her.
"Nothing, Azure." The Doctor said in his most placating tone. "Now, I'm sure you need to get back to your kingdom, so if you'll just get off of the TARDIS console I'll just let you go now-"
"Not so fast!" Azure snapped, jumping to her feet. "I'm here for a reason, and nothing in the universe will distract me from that reason!" The rest of the TARDIS grew abruptly dim, and Jack glanced around in temporary panic as Azure (somehow) managed to manipulate the lights on the inside of the time-traveling vehicle so that she was standing in a (blue) spotlight. "I, Azure Monarch, sole monarch and sovereign of an ancient land, have made a solemn promise on my crown and my honor that I will complete the mission assigned to me! I have never failed in my tasks and I will not fail at this, as it is for a dear friend of mine and I am nothing if not loyal to my friends."
The spotlight faded just as Jack was starting to feel somewhat touched by Azure's speech. Maybe she wasn't really as bad as he'd thought. . .
"Now, I'm going to go raid the Doctor's costume room," Azure said offhandedly as she swept out of the main console room. Jack and the Doctor were left staring at each other with the vacant air of two people who'd just had their brains vacuumed.
"She doesn't seem. . . dangerous. Insane, yes, but not strictly dangerous," Jack said finally, earning himself a pitying look from the Doctor.
"That's what everyone thinks, and then it's too late," he replied, snapping out of his stupor and racing to the main console of the TARDIS. He began to fiddle with various buttons in what looked like his very best attempt to appear as if he knew what he was doing. "Now, if I can just pinpoint how she got in here. . ."
"Doctor." Jack's voice made the Doctor look up halfway through pressing a particularly promising looking button, one that was bright red and simply labeled 'NO'.
". . .yeah?"
"What, exactly, is Azure here for?" Jack could see the hesitation in the Doctor's light brown eyes just before he broke eye contact and looked down at the floor. Jack sensed the mood in the room shifting towards a seriousness usually devoid within twenty yards of the Time Lord.
"It's complicated, but more or less a friend of hers would like her to mess with the dynamics of our universe and force events in a direction they wouldn't have gone otherwise. Since she's from another universe, she's got almost absolute power over what happens now."
"And she's really planning on doing it just because her friend asked?!" Jack was incredulous. "Does she realize how many lives that could change?! How many people could die as a result?!"
"Well, it was her friend's birthday. . . around six months ago. . ." the Doctor wasn't exactly doing much to calm Jack down, but he did manage to shift his anger to another nearby individual.
"You've been avoiding me for five years, though! Were the first four-and-a-half arbitrary?!" Jack snapped.
"Look, time correlates differently between our universes. Five years for you was around six months for her." The Doctor sighed, massaging his temples with one hand. "I mean, I should have dropped you a note or something but c'mon! You've seen her! Giving her near-ultimate universal power is like handing the activation codes to every nuclear bomb in the galaxy to a three-year-old! It just won't end well!"
"What won't end well?" Azure asked.
Jack and the Doctor froze, then slowly turned around and gave Azure identical innocent looks that then turned into stunned stares. Azure was dressed very like a noble from the late fifteen-hundreds, excepting the fact that every piece of clothing she'd 'borrowed' from the Doctor's 'costume room', as she'd called it, was a violent shade of blue. She was also wearing most of them incorrectly.
"Well, whatever, it's not important. Let's get going!" Azure raced across the room and began banging on the TARDIS console with both hands.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" The Doctor shouted, racing over. Jack watched, amused, as the Doctor tried ineffectively to hold Azure back. Every time he grabbed one of her hands, she reached out with the other and continued to press the pretty lights. "What are you doing?!" The Doctor yelled, spiky brown hair being blown backwards as one of Azure's wildly flailing hands narrowly missed smacking him in the face.
"Starting the TARDIS, what does it look like?" Azure asked as she yanked a funny-looking lever.
"You're not doing it right!" The Doctor shouted. He looked like a father who's teenage daughter had decided to take her first driving lesson in a freshly-scrubbed ferrari. He finally managed to capture both her wrists, pinning them behind her back. She looked up at him with impossibly big blue eyes.
"But this is how you do it. . ." She said in what was probably her most pitiful voice.
Jack chuckled, earning a glare from the Doctor. "What? It's true, you know."
"It's not funny!" The Doctor said in a peeved tone.
"It's okay, I know what I'm doing," Azure said with a big, fanged smile. Then she kicked the underside of the console and the whole room shuddered violently as the TARDIS came to life. The Doctor immediately dropped Azure's hands and raced to the controls, fiddling with knobs as he began to panic.
"You've locked the coordinates! How did you know how to do that?!"
"I didn't! Tardi-wardy just likes me, don't you tardi-wardi?" A particularly violent lurch followed Azure's words and all three TARDIS occupants found themselves sprawled out on the floor. Jack banged his head on the rough metal floor as he fell, and the pain made his head clear up long enough for him to think of an important question.
"Where are we going?" Jack asked, suddenly realizing they could wind up virtually anywhere. In a volcano, for example. Or about to be stepped on by a dinosaur.
The funny whooshy noise that heralded the TARDIS' landing filled the room. Azure grinned and jumped to her feet, seemingly none the worse for wear after the crash-landing. "I present the earth's most romantic city. . ." she began, then threw open the TARDIS doors. "Venice!"
"You can't go out there looking like that!" The Doctor exclaimed. Jack sat up, rubbing his head, and looked around for the Doctor's familiar form. For a second he saw nothing, then realized that the pair of converse-clad feet sticking up from behind the main console belonged to the currently pissed-off Time Lord. The Doctor hauled himself off the ground and continued his rant as he picked up and redonned the mysterious fez.
"I mean, you're blue! And you're wearing your petticoat as a cape!"
". . .so?"
"It's like wearing underwear on you head!"
"I did that once. . ." Azure said absently. "Went to school like that too." Then she shook her head and snapped back to the present. "Anyway, c'mon!" With that, she dashed out the door and slammed it behind her.
"We've got to go after her." The Doctor said grimly, then began to make for the door. As he cleared the main console, he noticed Jack still lying on the floor. "Hang on, what are you still doing there? We've got to get moving!"
"I plan to lie here until she gives up and goes away." Jack said, shutting his eyes. He could really use a nap right now. . .
The next thing Jack knew, he was standing outside with no recollection of having gotten there, in completely different clothes than he'd had on previously.
"What in the name of-" Jack turned at the sudden exclamation to his left and saw the doctor in a blue, brown, gold and white ensemble that- if Jack was honest- ridiculously elevated his natural good looks. Pale and dark browns brought out his brown hair and eyes, the whites offset his tan skin, gold mirrored the flecks in his eyes and the shine on his hair, and the blue accents saved the outfit from becoming monochrome. The outfit itself was all ruffles and embroidery, making the Doctor seem like a prince. In other words. . .
"Holy hotness, batman." Jack breathed, then added, "You don't look so bad either, Doctor."
The Doctor glanced over at him, then raised an eyebrow. Jack was wearing an outfit similar in design, only made up of mainly dark blues and silver with some gray and black mixed in.
"Near-ultimate universal power and Azure uses it to make snappy costume changes. This is just sad," the Doctor muttered under his breath so only Jack could hear.
"I don't know, I kind of dig that look on you," Jack said, flirting playfully in that special way that people had repeatedly told him that only he could make look alright.
"Really? Because blue is really your color. . ." the Doctor joked back, turning to Jack and sliding his arms around his shoulders. They were both coping, using their own personal version of humor to distract themselves from the fact that a lunatic had control of their universe.
"You've got really pretty eyes. . ." Jack trailed off, staring into the Doctor's gold-flecked brown eyes. There had been a theory tossed around at Torchwood that the Doctor exuded some sort of make-people-love-me gas, but looking this closely at his face Jack realized that if any given human wasn't drawn in by his looks alone they were too far gone to be influenced by any gas in the first place. Jack slowly leaned in. Yeah, they were joking with each other, but that didn't mean this couldn't be a really good joke. . .
The Doctor suddenly turned away. "Azure! I just realized! You're holding that invisibility cloak in a rather odd place. . ."
Azure turned and did her absolute best to look innocent. She was lifting two fists up in midair in a way that was very like someone holding a sheet to cover something they wanted to keep hidden.
"No, really, keep on going! That's what I'm here for! Chicky goes nuts for it!"
"Azure. . ." the Doctor's tone was full of warning. "What are you hiding?"
"Nothing. . ." Azure's innocent smile was kicked up a notch.
Jack knew it was time to break out the big guns.
"I'll kiss the Doctor if you show us what you're hiding," he said simply.
"Hold on just a second-" The Doctor began, but Azure was already nodding.
"Deal!" She agreed enthusiastically. She dropped the cloak of invisibility and Jack saw the TARDIS. . . another TARDIS. . . that had been hidden from sight.
"Wha. . . wha. . ." the Doctor gaped. "Azure! You're not seriously telling me you've crossed my timeline, are you?! Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?!"
Azure shrugged noncommittally. "This is going in the romance category. Vampires In Venice equals romantic."
"You. . . you. . !" the Doctor sputtered until Jack sank one hand into his hair and pulled him in for the kiss he'd promised Azure. The Doctor and Jack were both. . . experienced. . . in this particular action, and after a few seconds Jack felt like he was going to melt onto the floor. He could feel sparks dancing where their skin touched and hear the Doctor's double heartbeat in his ears.
When they finally broke for air, Jack realized he and the Doctor were hugging each other much closer than they strictly had to be. . .
"I need a drink," the Doctor said, glaring at the second TARDIS. "Or twenty-five."
"I second that," Jack replied for a completely different reason.
The next morning, Jack woke up in the uppermost room of a royal castle on Raxacoricofallapatorius in an Elvis costume. He realized he was lying next to the Doctor, who was inexplicably dressed as Bruno Mars and painted green.
"We will never speak of this again," the Doctor said simply.
"Alright."
". . .see you on friday?"
Jack smirked. "Only if I get to pick the movie this time."
BVQA: Happy belated birthday, TheyCallMeChicky!