DISCLAIMER: I do not own DOCTOR WHO, TORCHWOOD or any of the affiliated/associated characters.
THIS was brought about by an unorthodox prompt: there was a gifset of the female companions 'taking the TARDIS for a joyride', and I thought, "Brilliant! But what happened to the blokes while this was going on?"
AND THEN THIS HAPPENED.
Meanwhile, on a Distant Planet...
~)0(~
Rory has his hands full trying to babysit the ever-curious Eleven whilst somehow managing to just dodge out of reach of the ever-suave Captain Jack Harkness's seductive advances.
Neither are making it easy for the long-suffering R.N.
And the long, seemingly-never-ending hours, (days? Who the hell knows on this planet, anymore) manage to drain him of the last few remaining drops of willpower left to the surprisingly-patient man. The reserves were running on empty as the situation went from catastrophically bad to inexplicably worse.
With one of the men he was trying to keep a close eye on flitting from shiny object to alien 'doohickey', here, there and everywhere in the bustling alien city's marketplace... and the other whispering things in his ear that he's certain were, are, and/or will be... downright illegal in most sectors of the galaxy...
.
They have lost Mickey somewhere over by a Stand of Mechanical Dogs, but no one remembers he was with them... probably for the best, a few questions might be raised as to why he was riding 'Susan' the horse on Ventarii 6...
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He nearly jolts out of his skin as the third explosion of the whatever-they-used-for-time-measurement-here ripples through the air; the lone centurion begins to consider buying a leash... or perhaps a baby harness - he and Amy had bought a one in anticipation of RiverSong. Well, figuratively speaking, that is...
A mental image of their daughter wearing it now nearly has him in tears, silent laughter tickling his throat as he tried to remain straight faced. To brush it away, the two-thousand year old centurion cleared his throat and turned to face his elusive charge. Accosting him mid-grab, near a brightly coloured stall full of... full of... was that an alien-... OH.
His gaze locked onto the Doctor's and stayed there, unable to look at anything in the general vicinity; Rory could almost sense that Jack was laughing quite hard, and possibly considering purchasing one of the... squiggly things... on offer at 'suzarbash for flurgle' -which the TARDIS helpfully translated to '2 for 1'.
"Now listen here, Doctor, you may be a few centuries older tha-... hang on, wait, I'M older than YOU, so you WILL listen to me right no-... oh bugger, where's he gone?" The man is nowhere to be found, unlike a certain unhelpful brunette whispering about how much he likes a man in uniform...
Only now did it finally dawn on him why Amy and RiverSong had downright insisted he wear his Roman Centurion outfit; to think he'd been of the assumption it was because the planet they now stood on was like an alien, highly-technological version of Ancient Rome...
They were both going to be inexplicably, discreetly murdered when this all-male, travelling circus of a field trip finally made it back to the TARDIS.
.
Someone's hand is touching the plate-metal skirt very close to his right buttock... and he has accounted for his own two hands, so that leaves-...
Heat flares in his cheeks, embarrassed. Someone chuckles, grows deadly silent, then gurgles...
Moments later, one of them is dead with an actual vintage Roman sword through his heart, and the other is frantically running as best they can through the milling throng of alien flesh, calling, "Doctor... heeeeeeeeeeeeeeere Doctor-Doctor... come out, come out wherever you are!"
-Because really, how the hell did one summon a 900 year old time lord from his new-found hidey hole on an alien world, exactly? He was improvising, all he could do really?
.
Oh Zeus... if he didn't find that tall drunken giraffe of an almost omnipotent being... Amy would kill him. The permanent kind this time...
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With a gasp, Problem Number #2 roared back into life, the sword clanging at his feet. A sly grin covers the other's face as he said, "Well if you wanted to put your sword in me, you just had to say so, soldier!"
There came a lewd wink and a salute.
With a groan, the-...hang on, which one of them was oldest? Damn this wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff, it made it so hard to do birthdays and power-plays based on age alone... did mental-age count?
In anycase, Rory Williams, once a bloody brilliant nurse of planet Earth, placed his head in his hands with a sigh. This was getting out of hand. Why had Amy and RiverSong suggested this 'Boys Day Out' in the first place? They had such sly, confident, knowing looks when the pair of evil-doers had suggested it, but now...
This trip was nothing more than a living NIGHTMARE for him...
'Fixed Point in Time' his arse! Just what was so important about babysitting the Doctor and being molested by the universe's only un-murderable, immortal nymphomaniac?
.
With a final glance over the thronging crowd of more bizarre lifeforms than he had ever previously encountered in all his travels with the Doctor, he gave up the search. The Doctor had an uncanny way of finding him again when the alien needed him, or Amy... it was usually Amy. Given she wasn't here right now, this could take DAYS, though.
Surprisingly, a comforting hand rested on his shoulder from seemingly nowhere. "Not so easy being the secondary companion, is it? None of the perks. You never get to choose where or when you go, always getting told off or what to do, everything is your fault somehow... and it's always you running towards the Doctor as he turns and runs away." The tone was sad, ruminative, wistful...
In all honesty, he hadn't thought the other capable. But the deep sadness in his eyes, the eyes like his own that had seen so much destruction, and knew how hard it was to wait for something or someone through the ages...
Of course, naturally the man ruined it all by chancing to finish his speech with, "But the worst part of being the secondary companion is never getting to play 'doctor' with the Doctor, if you get me. It's always the favourite companion of the hour... except Donna, she was too classy for that... well, there was this one Christmas party, but I don't think it counts. They were both quite drunk at the time you see..."
Jack babbled on a bit, occasionally pointing out different people wearing bowties in the fleeting chance the pair might find the Universal Champion of Hide & Seek by sheer dumb luck. They moved through the crowd, until, finally over it and exhausted, they moved to a shaded area by some unusual stalls selling something that smelled like watermelons, but looked as if someone had tie-dyed a hedgehog.
"Remind me to kill him when we find him..." Rory panted, noting with surprise just how hot it actually was wearing this armour under a blazing sun when you aren't made of plastic. He reached unconsciously for the scabbard at his side, and cursed. "Oh, for the love of Hera... just great, guess who managed to lose his sword? Must have left it back when I... well, stabbed you to death, I suppose."
He looked sheepish a second, then shrugged it off as Jack waved away the admission of murder. "Plenty of other people have killed me for far less, in much worse ways than the old 'one-two, down you go' method, I assure you."
With a flourish, from under the apparently unfazed-by-the-heat and gravity-defying trenchcoat the infuriating incubus of a man always wore, came the still slightly bloody sword. "There you go, I had a feeling you might forget it... just picked it up before we went on the grand 'Where the Hell Are You, Doctor?' Tour."
"Er... thanks, sorry about the murder thing, though. Spur of the moment..." Rory shifted the heavy, rather sweaty and probably terrible-smelling breastplate about in order to find a comfortable position. "I hope we find that idiot soon, I love him and he's brilliant... but he's more of an on-coming cloud of fairy floss that's full of bunnies and easily distracted by pretty flowers, than an oncoming storm. He's always running off, with or without Amy... usually when I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on him. The man is infuriating..."
He paused for breath, and exhaled harshly. "Suppose we'd better keep looking until we find the Doctor, he's the only one who remembers where we parked the TARDIS."
Jack nudged his shoulder in a companion-y way, "Hey, don't get so down, he'll find us eventually, we just have to wait him out. Every Doctor I have ever known was brilliant, and never left a single person behind..." A frown creased the other's face. "No, I'm lying, he left me once... but to be fair, I'm kind of indestructible so it didn't really matter."
Shocked, Rory responded automatically, "Wait, he left you alone somewhere and never bothered to come back? I should say that matters... bit rude of him, didn't think the Doctor was like that at a-... well, actually..." His face said it all, then morphed into an expression of panic, "You don't think he's gone off and left us here, do you? All my spare clothes are in the TARDIS... and I just don't fancy wandering about in this for the next decade or so."
"He'll be back, don't worry... it might take a while, but the Doctor always comes back eventually. Even if sometimes he's too late to save someone you really care about..." the Captain looked quite put-out for a moment.
Trying for casual and failing, the inner-Nurse Rory resorted to a sympathetic tone, "What was he-... hi-... their name?"
This strange half-smile graced Jack's face, "Ianto, his name was Ianto Jones and he was beautiful. In fact, he was everything I ever wanted in life, and then... well, the one and only time an alien threat came to Earth and the Doctor wasn't around to save the day... someone had to pay the price." His fist was clenched tightly, knuckles white; though it slackened as the immortal man sighed.
"I had always imagined finding a way to grow old and die with him, or at least being there with him until the end, but it was just too soon... to unfair. After everything... he was a bit like you, you know, someone who you would never expect to be full of such strange and wonderful qualities on first glance. And then you get to know them, and this entire world opens up, another side that was hidden, and you wonder how someone like you could ever have met someone so utterly fantastic. The first Doctor I met was like that too... so quirky, sarcastic and fun..."
There was a long, heavy pause.
"...brilliant kisser too."
.
It started as a snort, then a general shaking in all extremities, and suddenly as his sword clanged to the ornate pave stones below, Time's New Roman began to laugh uproariously at the unexpected end to the tale.
He fell to his knees, clutching at his stomach where it began to ache. Jack seemed to find it as funny as he, and was wiping tears from his streaming face... each time they calmed down, for even as funny as it was, it was still only a ridiculous little thing to laugh over, after all...
They accidentally made eye contact, and it started them off again.
Those passing by must have surely though the pair nuts, and moved faster so as to avoid making eye contact. In truth, they were merely exhausted, over-emotional and generally all-round silly at that moment and not a thing in the universe could halt the hilarity.
.
Time passes differently on other worlds, so neither could actively say how long it was before they finally calmed down enough to be coherent again. Faces red, breathing ragged, the odd strangled giggle making in there amongst the rasping inhale and exhales...
"Whew, I haven't laughed that hard since I saw the Space Pope of Sentauri Major naked..." Jack wheezed, wiping his eyes with the cuff of his coat sleeve.
"Oh?" responded Rory, curious, "And what does the Space Pope look like naked...?"
Jack looked as if he was trying to configure the image into words, opening his mouth multiple times and moving his hands about for several seconds before giving up again... finally settling on, "Have you ever imagined what a naked green lobster with saggy breasts would look like? Picture it about eight foot tall and male... and that's the Space Pope of this sector. The other one's a pleasure to see naked, I assure you."
The Captain poked his current companion in concern. Rory blinked, shook his head violently and shuddered, "I shouldn't have thought about it... don't let me do that again. I think you broke my imagination..."
"That's not all I'd break if had my way with you..." the man winked slyly, forcing the Nurse to roll his eyes with a groan.
"Do you come with an off button? Is there some way to take out your batteries?" The very moment the words left his lips, he regretted them, just KNOWING what the other was about to say.
"Yes and no, my pretty little centurion. You might be very capable of turning me on, but I regret to inform you I don't have any batteries on me, or in me at the moment -though there was this one party on one of the Moons of Poosh a few centuries ago... But I can show you were to insert them if you'd like?"
Rory flung his hands up in the air in most accurate physical representation of 'I'm Done' the universe had ever, or would ever see.
'Captain Jack Harkness', yeah right... the man was practically 'The On-Coming Innuendo'.
.
After what felt like a multitude of endless hours had passed, although the sun remained high in the sky in the same position as before, the pair chanced the milling masses once more to find the Doctor.
Maybe it was the exhaustion striking them down finally, but every second person they laid eyes on seemed to have something indefinably 'Doctor-ish' about them. Disappointment after disappointment ensued, for nowhere on this gods-forsaken rock of a planet could they locate the one person in all of creation who could actually get them out of there...
.
Unusual as it was for him, it was Rory who broke first. "Enough is enough, I waited 2000 years for that idiot once, and I'll be damned if I'm going to do it again as a human. My everything hurts and I'm going to sit down right now before my legs collapse..." he plonked down in the middle of the street. Thankfully, the planet's inhabitants and visitors appeared not to notice, and parted around them like a river would about a cumbersome rock lodged in it's centre.
"You can't sit there all day, Rory, come on, let's go find some shade and something to drink. Pretty sure it's already in the middle of tomorrow on Earth right now, the days here last for approximately six and a half of ours and we've been here quite a while already." Jack babbled, tugging on the centurion's arm, and receiving unexpected resistance.
"No. Going to sit here until I keel over, I've had enough... let the universe find a new way to bring me back, I don't care anymore." The sandy-haired individual stated petulantly, acting quite the child all of a sudden. Jack blinked in surprise, this was a new side to the current secondary companion that he never thought he'd see.
Reminded him of Ianto, actually. People like them could be so strong, orderly, in control and calm through the majority of cataclysmic events but it only lasted so long before their other, more childish and desperate side reared it's head. Like some sort of switch had flipped in their heads and now they were the ones needing a calm, guiding hand...
Fair enough. He'd gone crazily childish more than once, himself.
There was a good way to fix this, always worked with Ianto... but he wasn't sure it would be received quite so well by skittish Mr Williams, therefore the immortal Captain Harkness took a moment to devise another strategy. In one swift movement, he hoisted the squirming, protesting body over his shoulder and began a casual, easy pace towards the nearest shelter. Which just so happened to be a tiny shaded area in the centre of the strangest little garden either men had ever seen in their long, long lives...
...especially when one of the plants leant over and casually gave Rory a bit of a nibble, then decided against it with a sad sigh.
.
Placed on a seat before him, it was easy to see that the Roman was casually going out of his mind with stress, so Jack took it upon himself to go and find some refreshments.
He needn't have gone far, for around the corner was a stall selling a multitude of liquids both familiar and foreign to the experienced intergalactic traveller. He flashed a bleeping disk the Doctor had imparted, one to each of them, before he left, at the sales merchant and received two large jars of something approaching raspberry mineral water in return.
Returning to the centurion, he became frequently more infuriated as the man refused to pay attention, and had to calm himself before trying once again to coax the Roman into having a drink. Eventual success was the result of his hard-work, and the liquid seemed to revitalise the pair of them...
"Are you feeling better, or are you just going to sit there and continue pouting...? Because either way, you just so happen to look adorable..." Jack teased, earning a glare that could have killed Batman at a hundred paces. "Alright, alright, you aren't 'adorable', you are 'exceptionally manly and cute', better?"
The immortal Captain took off at a jog, abandoning the last remains of his drink as the bottle fell away behind him; a warcry split the air and Rory was after him. The pair dodging, leaping and swimming through throngs of aliens and vaguely familiar faces, one trying to evade the other and not helping the situation by laughing all the while.
.
"THERE You Are!" came the exultant cry, and Jack cursed his luck, he had been certain that he'd lost the other back by the squiggly-thing store. But no, there he stood like some dramatic silhouette at the end of the alleyway the pair had originally began the search from, beaming because he had his prey cornered.
Jack was watching over his shoulder, slowly raising both arms in surrender as the Roman brought his unsheathed sword closer to his back. It would seem the victor of their little game was evident, but it still brought the pair no closer to finding the Doctor...
The realisation hit the sandy-haired nurse like a tonne of bricks, and he lowered the sword with a sigh, brain suddenly registering that they were in the same place they had started from. Rory seemed to be opening his mouth to say as much, when, without warning, the immortal walking-innuendo whirled about and flung himself at a completely unprepared Centurion.
For the second time in his life, Roranicus the Roman was unexpectedly kissed by a man who had seen the wonders of the universe, was almost his equal in 'age'... and obviously had no idea what 'personal space' stood for.
.
Naturally, that was the very moment the Doctor choose to reappear...
Stumbling back around the corner as if nothing had changed and only moments had passed, the Time Lord seemed to have something weighing heavily on his mind. When his face cleared the shadows it became apparent that the expression on his features could be read in any language, sans the TARDIS translation matrix...
His face, to put it succinctly, had arranged itself in an expression that clearly read, 'Where the F_ck is my TARDIS?!'
.
Which then almost immediately changed to something akin to the expression on a small child's face when they accidentally walk in on their parents are kissing, after just having learned what 'cooties' are.
The voice was strained as it came out, "Kissing? Is that all you humans ever do when I'm not around? First Amy, now-... Oh, Jack, there you are...Jack, Jack NO. This one has a wife, she's the other companio-... no, wipe that expression off your face as well. NO, I SAID STOP. When a Lord of bloody Time itself gives you a command you do NOT go back to kissing the ruggedly-handsome Roman Centurion!"
The Doctor gave a long-suffering sigh and muttered sadly, "...would you believed this is the SECOND time this has happened to me this century? What are the chances of that?" before doing the only thing he could think to do: use the sonic, because everything could stand to be a bit more sonic. Nothing seems to be happening though, even after much fanciful waving of the sonic screwdriver.
Eventually, after a lewd suggestion by one Captain Jack Harkness that the reason the sonic wasn't working was due to the fact that it 'didn't work on wood', the Time Lord throws his hands up in the air, states some choice phrases in Gallifreyan neither had ever heard before (or probably ever would again), and storms off up the alleyway.
Casually throwing back over his shoulder, "Come Along, Williams!"
.
Rory stiffens inside Jack's octopus-like embrace, as if a bolt of pure lightning had struck him with great force in the blink of an eye; the Doctor had never said THAT before...
Instinctively the nurse-turned-lone centurion, hero of the entire-bloody-universe wiggles out of the other man's grip, moving towards the Doctor cautiously as if this were a dream and he was afraid to wake up. Still, Rory paused halfway to the Doctor and turned back towards Jack, whose smile had lost it's brilliance now he wasn't aiming it at anyone, he looked almost forlorn...
Just about to interject and tell the Doctor they wouldn't be leaving Jack alone again on some random planet for any reason whatsoever, the Time Lord actually pre-empted the statement with almost an aggrieved whine to his voice. "AND... if you two would just let me get my sentences out in full before you judge me, my magnificent, though exceptionally touchy aliens. And... you, Captain Jack Harkness, the bloody eighth wonder of the universe you are... just brilliant! I don't know what I'd do without you, so why not come along, Harkness, because I need you." He clapped his hands together with a bit more enthusiasm, whirling to face them, "That, and I'd hate to have wasted all that time asking Sexy- er, the TARDIS, to double-bolt all the bedroom doors..."
A goofy laugh exploded fromt eh Time Lord's lips before he could stop it.
.
Jack raced to the Doctor's side, Rory keeping pace and slipping to the other side of the Time Lord.
"Right," said the Doctor, draping a lanky arm over either man's shoulders, Rory nearly blinded as the Sonic landed a few centimetres before his nose, flashing innocently enough. "My brilliant, marvellous, won-der-ful humans... let's go see f we can find my TARDIS, shall we?"
With a high pitched giggle, he was off, yelling back from a distance, "Quick Rory, say the thing!"
Naturally the expression on Rory's face read, 'Thing? What thi-... oh!'
"...er... GERONIMO!" Rory yelled as he charged along behind, Jack laughing and speeding up his pace to try and catch up to the alien Time Lord, nearly a full row of stalls ahead of the pair.
Pausing momentarily to look back as he jogged, the Doctor yelled back, "That's my Centurion!", and ran right into the loudly re-materialising TARDIS. Which he promptly leapt up and hugged the moment it's form was solid enough not to phase an arm or leg off.
A shock of red hair poked through the doorway, followed by a sheepish expression, "Oh, er, hi Doctor... RiverSong and I just wanted to let you know we may have takentheTARDISforajoyrideandwe'rereallyreallysorry , is that alright with you? Good? Good. I'll be hiding in the hidden swimming pool, by the library if you need to kill me..." with that, Amy Pond was gone and the Doctor was left gaping in the doorway.
"What just happened...?" inquired the confused Time Lord on behalf of all the remaining companions present, not quite following the conversation that had just occurred, and were looking to RiverSong for some sort of guidance. The time-travelling archaeologist was smiling, hands on hips, like the cat who knew where the bodies were hidden... or however that human saying goes...
"Oh Sweetie, SPOILERS..." she smiled knowingly, turned and walked away.
.
THE CONFUSING END.
So yes, it's not brilliant, but to be fair... the carefully typed out one I had was eaten by Tumbllr after it crashed... and this is the best reconstruction I could make from memory.
It was written in a great rush, let me know if you liked it, hated it, or have found a mistake.
~*SailorSilvanesti/Phoenix Fire*~