Title: The 12th Hour (epilogue [1/3])
- Characters: the Doctor, Ianto, Jack, two minor OCs (Jack/Ianto±Doctor)
Rating: PG
Summary: This Doctor keeps his word.
Notes: I wanted to write the story that leads to this (why it's called 'epilogue'), but I realize I never will. Which is a shame, because it's got the right amount of gut-wrenching angst coupled with character insight I love toying with. So instead of getting the whole story, you get its epilogue that's less angsty, but probably just as heartbreaking (I hope).
In short: if you're really wondering why there's so much exposition and italics, well that's me making up for all that I won't write. It's a stuffed burrito of...babbling.
- b - e - g - i - n -
The Doctor loved a good rocky landing. They were exciting, unpredictable, chaotic, fun, and good for a laugh best kept to himself watching little humans fall over themselves, even after warning them to hang onto something. They were so cute, flailing about and trying not to get themselves tossed against the supports, like monkeys. Very cute. So cute that sometimes, on this side of rare, did he not say a word and let them fend for themselves.
"You could have warned us!" screamed Moira, running hands over her hair in a desperate attempt to fix whatever had come undone from its nest. The 23rd century had very odd hairstyles, ones the Doctor knew would fade out by the end of the 24th, but it was still considered a dark age in the future history of hairstylists.
Mallory was also upset, her petite chest heaving as she tried to pull herself from a hole in the floor, glaring in his general, vague, pretty-spot-on direction. The Doctor tutted and grabbed her arm to help her out. Mallory might have looked exactly like Moira when she was mad, but the Doctor was willing to help those that didn't criticize his judgments. Out loud.
"I warn you all the time," he chirped. "I figured by now you'd have grown the instinct to grab something at the faintest tremor. Looks funny when it's a false alarm, but makes the real thing less problematic."
The look he got was scathing, an equal expression found on Mallory when he pet her head–like a good pet–and promptly ignored them. The girls were bright, but far too self-centered when it came to the small picture. Their IQs were staggering compared to some, but for all they used it for, the two rather much liked shopping than actually using their brains.
A dark age for hairstylists and a golden age for ingenuity...and teenage rebellion lasting as long as thirty-one years old.
"Well, whatever," Mallory bit, stalking toward the door with Moira quick on her heels. "Hopefully we've come somewhere nice."
"Vrighto," Moira agreed.
The Doctor frowned, and someone may have even labeled it a pout. They just didn't appreciate the little things. None of them had, actually, not since...He shook his head. The girls left the TARDIS with the door wide open, a hot, bitter wind rolling through. And there was something about it, something that tasted...wrong.
He walked leisurely toward the door, and almost ran into Moira as she poked her head back in. She wasn't happy. "Where did you bring us?"
The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her, and gave himself a moment to think. This trip hadn't been of his doing. Whatever Moira was going to harp over was clearly the fault of the TARDIS, but yelling at a machine was never as satisfying as yelling at its pilot, so he didn't tell her that. Instead, he pushed passed her and took his first step into the arid soil.
Nothing.
He'd been to planets with 'nothing' on them before and was always surprised-but-not at what they were hiding. This felt different. The TARDIS had parked not forty feet from a cliff's edge, the drop hovering only a metre from Mallory's toes a paramount of space, like a cut cake of dessert neatly sliced away. The sky was a dark, less-green-and-far-more-blue shade of cerulean, like a curtain of twilight, with no sign of stars. The land a vapid, dun-red, crowned with element-corroded spires, nothing short of outdoor stalagmites, and pepperings of oval, almost reversed pock-marks of black stones strewn across the ground.
But that was just on the opposing end of the drop. The top they were standing on was sheared clean. It was as if a giant razor had skimmed across this surface and entirely missed everything below, it was that featureless. No bumps, no cracks, just an expanse of forever, with the sun's rays sliding off it at a parallel angle. Beyond the cliff was the greenish haze of a sun, its first edge almost entirely set upon their opposite horizon. The Doctor narrowed his eyes at the impending sunset, ignoring Mallory's hollers of frustration, outright questioning why they were brought here if there was nothing there, hogswarn!
Really, no creativity in the 23rd century when it came to their curses.
But there was that taste again, as the wind fluttered by. Outside with stronger by a fraction, including an instinctual reaction he preferably embraced from time to time. Very few things ever made him feel that way outright, without a suspect to pin it to, and this time, the Doctor fought the urge. He put a hand to the TARDIS' outer frame, unable to feel the paint on the wood through his leather glove. Did you sense it? he asked, knowing the TARDIS would not reply. Are we on time?
Letting the girls vent their words in one ear and out the other, the Doctor gave them a smile once they started having fewer things to complain about. Except he knew not to be happy with this lull. It was about to begin again. "Get your torches, girls," he chimed, beaming with great clarity. "We're going camping."
- t - i - m - e -
The Doctor remembered the last time he went 'camping'. How close he'd come to being someone's meal, and how only the timely entrance of his current companion had rescued him and the other captives from sharing a fate no one particularly liked. In retrospect, it was all terribly exciting and a clever expedition to learn from. At the time, it hurt. But all hurts could be healed.
But try telling that one to the girls. Bumping into each other and shouting, complaining about the path and how narrow it was, complaining that their feet ached and their hands hurt. They'd been barely walking for ten minutes, down-hill. So spoiled.
The Doctor ignored them in favor of focusing on the road ahead of them, still visible in the setting light but growing duskier by the second. Roaming unknown planets in the midst of a soon-to-be night was generally a bad idea, but he'd wandered through worse. And if the worst happens, he's got two sacrifices to work with. He grinned privately. Of course he'd never sacrifice them...unless the payoff was good. He'd trade them for a Pendarvial ingrouté platter, with jam. Had to have the jam.
"Where are we going, Doctor?" Moira all but screamed. And the Doctor ached to tell her, but he wasn't sure. Wasn't positive. And wanted to be sure.
The path that hugged the cliff face was unnatural and possibly constructed from the rock, but he wouldn't put it past the planet to have made a natural walkway. They could do that sometimes. There were little jumps to make, here and there, the girls freaking out over one that had been a little wide for their liking, but they made it, hadn't they?
The pressure was growing, and with it, the instinct. It felt tangible, which didn't surprise him. He'd spent a couple years in close proximity to this feeling, never realizing it. Of course it would have a near physical manifestation to accompany its existence.
The landing his feet hit had already been spotted long before they'd set foot on it, and the first thing his spoiled little companions did was fall butt first onto the stone floor. The Doctor wasn't so easily persuaded by the notion, and instead, took a sweeping look about their little niche in the wall.
The first thing that came to mind was ice cream--which sounded pretty good right now; he'd have to treat them after this. Rather, it was like a scoop had come down and curled a chunk of rock away, perfectly smooth. The wind didn't blow around here, which the Doctor had found odd but ultimately relieved. He couldn't have taken it if they were griping about their hair and almost being forced over the edge, on top of it all.
And were the edge of the scoop met stone, all the way at the epicenter of the concave formation, was a hole, for lack of anything else to call it (caves in his mind normally had bigger mouths). And that feeling was propelling him from the hole. And what he was about to do was stupid, reckless, and very, very reminiscent of old times.
"Hallo?"
Because all the smart people announced their presence outside the dragon's den.
The sunlight was skipping over the formation, casting only half its potency into the man-high hole, and his shadow was thrown into the foray. And if nothing would come out, the Doctor would just have to go in himself. Which he knew the girls would not like at all. They'd protested vehemently over walking into the TARDIS their first time, because of its outward size. They liked space and big, personal bubbles. It was a mindset; he didn't blame them.
But nothing stirred, which put to mind nothing was paying attention. Which was borderline rude, but again, the Doctor wasn't surprised. All he had to do was keep talking. It'd be picked up eventually. He hoped it be sooner than later, because he really didn't want to set foot in that hole. Would, but highly preferred not to. Not even for--
The great cumbersome beast of the black made a grand entrance from the curtain of shadow, with little more than a grunt of noise under a mess of mass. No time for an, "Oh bollocks," or anymore past than a impressed look of surprise before suddenly find himself grappling with what he suspected to be the last-- And only.-- surviving creature this planet could handle.
Moira screamed before Mallory even saw it; the Doctor would peg that later when stories were sorted, because all he could hear was the very real sound of his thoughts calculating how long it would take to land at the bottom of the freefall. He had every reason to bother, since that's where he was currently being forced back to and having his survival swiftly threatened. The Doctor didn't think there would be anything left to regenerate if he splattered. His immediate problem, however....
It smelt like death gone cold, rancid, and flushed into the sewers, like a tide of spoiled decomposition in a few acres of rubbish. Nauseating. It felt tattered, diseased, moldy, and hopeless, his hands gripping nothing but grime and grease on garments far out of their warranty, left to rot in the sunlight despite the telltale signs it saw more darkness than sun. Revolting. And a face once capable of so much was caked in blood and spittle and vomit, dirt, dust, and despondence. But above all, hidden behind hair that needed a desperate trim, those eyes were still the same blue they'd been his twenty years ago: glittery, focused, and well equipped to handle a kill. Alive.
"Doctor!"
That would be Mallory, he'd later learn, but whichever had shrilled it at the time, the Doctor became grateful. Perhaps it was the voice of a distressed woman, maybe it was the name, or maybe it was a distressed woman calling the name that did it, but his delightfully smelly issue just as suddenly stopped, and a brief glance behind him told the Doctor it had been none too soon. But the Doctor didn't chance that it was a solution and not a temporary fix, and addressed the beast in a way he'd left buried since the Doctor turned his back on him: "Jack."
In a firm, solid, and heavy Welsh accent.
"Captain Jack Harkness." Poor broken Torchwood gone lost. A little part took its satisfaction, and another took its fury, and the rest lent upon a long safe-guarded identity, saved for just this occasion, for just this person. "You're a mess, sir."
The figure straightened, an action the Doctor felt more under his hands than saw happen before him. Too busy searching behind the greasy locks for a spark that wasn't the cusp of barbarism, a sign of recognition that placed Jack in the present and not, hopefully, stowed away somewhere. This was the hard work of an impossible, never-dying thing: to survive intact forever and ever and ever. The Doctor had had faith in him, when he left 2009. Left behind a team, a settled companion, and a lover that shouldn't have been. His 'friends'. But Time Lords did not have friends who weren't Gallifreyan; they had associates, cohorts, companions, minions, allies. 'Friends' were people who understood what and who you were.
Rose was a 'friend'. Susan was family. Everyone else was...not. Except now Jack was different. Not different that he swam in the abyssal void of creation, a herald of life. Not different because Ianto's emotions still ran through him. Different because this was a Jack--he knew--who lived the life a Time Lord did, albeit without a TARDIS.
Living a paltry hundred years was nothing compared to the vastness that a Time Lord always saw. This Jack may now have been older than he was, linear time-wise. The Doctor would need a date soon.
Jack was...something. And that something was currently staring, working his mouth and making engaged noises meant to be words that sadly cut before the air. The Doctor's hearts squeezed in sympathy, but the emotion wasn't his.
Suddenly he was assaulted, yet again, by muscle and olfactorily as he was swept into a bearhug far beyond his tolerance. "Oi!" he exclaimed, patting Jack awkward on the back, all too keenly aware that the precipice was two feet from ending. "This face goes if you get too exuberant."
But Jack said nothing and kept clinging, his face buried in the Doctor's neck and only breathing. No sobs, no hyperventilating. The Doctor took it as a good sign, and took a moment for himself to bask in the moment, for Ianto's sake. But it was only brief, and far too fleeting, but the sight of Moira wielding her torch like a club was disturbing enough to remind him that there were things to do before the sun set entirely. And it was getting there fast.
The Doctor was tempted to let her go through with her obvious plan, but who knew how Jack would feel about it afterward. He'd read Robinson Crusoe, once upon a time. Castaways got funny, even if they looked sane. And for all of Jack's previous optimistic nature (when he wasn't being dark, moody, and an arse), the Doctor wasn't about to risk Jack's stability.
And so, the Doctor looked at her frankly and raised a palm forward. Stop. "For all that he deserves it, Ms. Queiba, I personally believe it would solve little." He turned to Mallory, pressing herself flat against the shelf wall, her lips twisted in abhorrence. It was quite funny, but he didn't laugh. "Head for the TARDIS, girls. We're now four and leaving."
Mallory's eyes bulged, her lips pulled over her teeth in the shape of a distraught 'o', as there was nothing more wrong about what he'd just said. "We're taking him?!" she squeaked.
Moira wore an identical expression. The Doctor beamed, just to get the point across. "You'd think otherwise?"
"But Doctor!" They looked to each other for support, the girls, and chimed in perfect unison, "He's disgusting!"
And the last of the Time Lords, with his arms full of in-the-stages-of-slumping impossibility, simply lifted a brow. And history was just made.