Summary: When the Doctor tries to safe Donna's cat, he suddenly founds himself in a crazy and life-threatening situation. And all Donna and Jack can do, is watch him getting closer and closer to regeneration ...
Even if the story does not contain sex or the "typical kind of" violence it is still very hard.
Pairing: Ten/Jack
Disclaimer: I don't own our lovely boys. They belong to the BBC. I make no money from this.
Author's notes: I wrote this story so long ago, but just now I am able to post it in English. I translated it and then the wonderful Scifiangel tuned it into real English. And after that the as wonderful Royalladyemma put again a lot of work into it. I have no idea how to thank the two of you except for saying "thank you" – you gave me a lot of your time without even knowing me. And with that you made the dream come true, that I can show a text of mine to english-speaking readers.
# # # # # # #
Chains
"He is doing it again, Jack! What is he saying? Is that a language at all, or does he just babble along? He is not meant to sing songs, but to keep us informed! Why does that man never talk in a way that I can understand!" Donna was scolding loudly while staring at the screen.
Jack tenderly placed a hand on her shoulder. He knew that the anger in Donna's voice was not meant for the man who was visible on the small screen, but about her own helplessness.
"That might be Gallifreyan, Donna. When he falls unconscious or starts to hallucinate, the TARDIS can't translate. I think what you are hearing is his own language."
Had the circumstances been different, Jack would have loved to listen to what the Doctor had been quietly saying for hours now; it gave him a very pleasant feeling in his belly. The voice of the Time Lord sounded completely different when he spoke in the warm cadence of the language of his long-dead race. Jack was unable to prevent the feeling of sorrow he felt at the thought that this language was lost. There was only one being left in the Universe who was able to speak it.
Jack was staring at the screen as well. How long could the Time Lord keep this up; how much longer before he was forced to regenerate?
Eight days … by now it was eight damned days …
# # # #
"Place her under the shower. She's okay, but it must be washed off her immediately. Don't worry about the coat, Jack. I can repair that later."
Despite the fact that his strength was superior to the strength of a human of his physique of equal size, the Doctor was breathless when he pushed a barely conscious Donna, into the arms of their friend. Jack nodded, lifted the redhead into his arms, and grinned at the Doctor. She was undressed and wrapped only in the Time Lord's brown coat, and without any protest from her side.
"She's going to scratch your eyes out when she realizes that you have seen her this way." The Doctor laughed, while he tried to catch his breath and rushed to the console.
"Yep, I think she will. But she'll have to realize that it was her own fault. Why did she have to run into the hall after that cat? We have to be gone in less than five minutes; otherwise they can prevent the TARDIS from getting us away from here. The field is still getting stronger."
Frantically but with concentration the Doctor read the signs and symbols that ran over the screen. He then switched several controls and regulators.
"I'm adjusting the ship in a way, so that it will start by itself as soon as the Basaron-level is back to normal."
Jack nodded again and was almost out of the console room with Donna, who was quietly scolding the Time Lord with silly words, when he heard the Doctor gasping behind him.
"Oh no, no, no, no, no...!" Such a hectic repetition of one word seldom meant anything good from the Doctor. When Jack turned around again, he saw that the Time Lord had activated several exterior views on his screen and one showed the cat that Donna had run after. The one she literally risked her own life for. The one which had been the cause of all the following events in the first place.
The red feline quadruped was not, as they had all assumed, back on-board, but still on the alien ship.
The Doctor stared aghast at Jack and Donna and then made a completely unnerving sound that changed into something different. When he looked at Donna again and tilted his head, Jack knew that the Time Lord wasn't going to allow Donna's efforts to have been in vain.
"Doctor!" Jack yelled at him. "Leave that animal where it is; we have to get away from here!" But the Time Lord had already dashed off.
"She must get under the shower, Jack! I'll be back immediately! The TARDIS will start in less than five minutes! Damn it! Of all things it has to be a cat!"
With these words he raced out of the ship to chase after the wayward fur-ball that Donna had set her heart on so very intensely.
# # # # #
"All this is no drama, Jack." The voice of the Time Lord sounded astonishingly calm, even though it was a bit distorted by the computer.
"No drama?" Jack was exasperated. "You are lying there, chained! And we are stuck in here. Unable to reach you, to unchain you, to get you back, and we have no idea how long it will take until that field around the ship dissolves."
Donna was standing a bit behind Jack. She had an unusually shy expression as she looked over his shoulder at the Time Lord on the screen.
The Doctor was naked with his arms outstretched to the sides quite widely. He was fixed with metal shackles and big chains to a base made from uneven dark wooden planks that lay on a corrugated metal floor.
Donna knew that it was the exact same place and the exact same situation the Doctor had rescued her from. She'd been lying there maybe half an hour, dizzy from the drugs they had sedated her with, so she was only able to recall a few things. But the Time Lord had been lying there for hours now. His strange Gallifreyan physiology had long ago worked the drugs out of his system, so he was completely aware of everything.
The Doctor did not react to what Jack had said because he wasn't able to hear or see him. The monitoring device that the Doctor himself had tapped into using the systems of the TARDIS was able to transfer what he said into the console room, but not the other way around. Jack reacted anyway as if the Doctor were standing right in front of him, which was understandable because the Time Lord kept looking into the camera again and again.
He seemed to be sure that Jack had done, what he had indeed done. He knew Jack was able to see and hear him, so he talked time and again. Explained, elucidated, and reassured.
"To be sure you understand, I say it again," the Time Lord started his speech over again; he let his head fall back onto the planks while he simply stared at the ceiling. "The TARDIS will start the moment the field disappears and only then will you be able to open the doors of the ship. Right now she has to protect you. You would not survive when… okay… you, Jack, you would survive somehow, but Donna would not… if you managed to open a gate into this ship while you are still in the blister of this field. It is possible... not sure, but it might be possible... that you can stop the TARDIS from leaving this inhospitable ship when the field disappears."
He grinned and raised his eyebrows. "I would not be angry at all if you could manage to rescue me, because even if I am not having such a bad time here and even if I am not expecting my position to get worse, I would rather not stay here. I wouldn't want to act improperly as a sacrifice for their goddess by regenerating instead of dying."
While talking his endless flood of words he looked to one of his wrists and sighed. "Especially when it could be very unpleasant should my regeneration lead me to change into a far more substantial man, because then these manacles, which I have to admit are very accurately applied, would cut into my arms and I really would like to abandon that option."
# # # # # #
The Doctor ran as fast as he could. He knew that he had only one chance. Should he not find Tinker immediately, he would not be back in the TARDIS before the timeframe closed.
Tinker – what kind of name was that for a cat anyway?! For a cat – for a cat of all things! - he had run back into the alien's ship! Even on this ragged ship there was enough food for the animal, so it might even feel better here then in a lot of other places. There was no shortage of rats on this ship, well the alien equivalent of rats anyway. But this was not about the cat; this was about Donna. For reasons he would never understand, she loved that furball idolatrously.
He ran so fast that he slid a bit when he tried to turn onto another floor in at a very steep angle. He managed to steady himself and rushed forward again.
He saw the cat!
And then he saw them…
Damn!
The Kutulans, the lizard-like beings, all of whom were at least a head higher then he, had made him run right into a trap! The Doctor had assumed that they all were, without exception, in the ceremonial hall of the ship, to celebrate the sacrifice - i.e.: Donna - they thought they were giving to their deity. But very obviously they had realized that their sacrifice was no longer available, and they had to replace it somehow. He had not seen this coming…
One of the Kutulans had Tinker in his arms. The cat did not look happy; he was held so tightly, that there was no chance to escape.
When the lizard-man squeezed the cat tighter and tighter, the Doctor wanted to scream at him to stop, but before he was able to even say one word, one of the Kutulans sprayed the same fluid from his weapon onto him that they had used for Donna and everything around him turned black…
# # # # # # #
He had talked … His mouth had become dry, from talking non-stop; he hoped that his companions were able to see and hear him. He was hoping, with near certanty, that Jack had understood and had loaded the last settings the Doctor had programmed.
The Doctor knew that if they could see him, they would see him naked and he was ashamed at that. Unlike Jack, he was not an exhibitionist; he didn't like having his body out on display. Not wanting Jack and Donna to see his shame he started laughing about the whole situation anyway. Emotionally he had kept the wolf from the door by laughing at himself for getting caught. He had laughed and explained at length that this might be the most bizarre situation he had ever been in. He had dug out old jokes that had been similarly crazy, but still not quite the same. He had entertained himself with this so that he didn't have to listen to the complete silence around him.
He had laughed, until tears ran down his face. He had thought about Donna and how she would make a fuss about "being forced to see him this way." The tears had tickled his face and he had been unable to wipe them away. That had been the moment when his laughter had turned into a lump in his throat. He had laughed quietly a few times more, because the silence had been unbearable, but the last laugh had sounded so artificial that he didn't wanted to hear it any longer.
So he had fallen silent.
Although the alien's containment field still enclosed the TARDIS, the Doctor continued to feel her presence, and he allowed himself to be wrapped in her certainty. She brought him comfort, and let him know that the necessary Basaron-levels had not yet been reached; she was still here, along with Jack and Donna. They would do everything they could to find a way to rescue him from his unfortunate situation. That was not him guessing. He knew it. He believed it. But they would not know how.
Again and again he looked up to the lens that was sending pictures and sound into the console room of his ship. It was the only link he had to his friends, and even though it was one-way, the Doctor was still grateful it was there. so that Jack and Donna would know where to find him.
At some point he cleared his throat, stretched and turned in his position a bit back and forth, trying to relieve the ache in his shoulders. Had he been a human, he would have long ago lost all sense of time. But he was a Lord of Time and felt every single minute flow in his mind; he knew he had been here now for fifteen hours and 23 minutes.
"Ok, Jack… I thought this through. There must be a way to make it possible for me to at least hear you. If you can hear me, I think it is safe to assume that I should be able to explain to you how to use the wires of this camera to feed waves into them so I can hear you as well."
He made a face in a playful way. "Ok, it might not sound like it was fresh from a recording studio, but this room really hasn't got the acoustic options of the Rallogar Caves on Fabar, but it should be enough." He made his very typical gestures to this, as if anyone could take his screwdriver to the wires and solve this problem with ease, even if they were in his position.
"It's not as difficult as it sounds. Donna? You will have to assist him. Not with the technical stuff, but the two of you have to open a part of the console to change a few wire-connections. Uh … did I take the bright blue or the dark blue wires for the Brossam-bypassing? Ah! You will find it. So..." he started, as if he were telling a story. A story that he was telling in the exact tempo he assumed that would enable Jack and Donna to do the stuff he was telling them at the same time. Ever now and again he paused, sometimes for a few minutes. Inbetween he gave advice, and told them what they had to look for when doing this or that. All in all he talked as if he were standing beside them.
It was three hours later and he was still talking. At increasing intervals the thought came to him that Jack and Donna, if they were really doing what he described, they would have been up for about thirty-eight hours by now. He knew that Jack was able to deal with only a little sleep, but he also knew that even Jack would lose concentration when he was up for too long. He also knew that Donna had already been exhausted when he had brought her back to the ship.
So, even if they had found the settings that enabled them to see and hear him; even if they were still awake and not asleep; and even if they not only did what he had told them to in these last hours, and had followed his instructions to the very last detail, the Doctor knew that he could not expect them to keep going. There were still many hours to go before the work was finished. He made a cheerful face and smiled into the lens of the monitoring device.
"So, this is where we take a break and all of us get some sleep. I'm already lying around here anyway so I can close my eyes for a while. Besides, you two are useless to me when your heads are banging the console because of sleep depriviation. So, shush... shush... off you two go. Off to bed and in five hours we meet again. I promise not to move from this place in the mean time. And don't worry; the atmosphere levels in this room have not changed at all. It is neither cold, nor very damp and so far they don't seem to plan to switch off the light either."
# # # # #
Every single one of the buzzing sounds that chimed in the console room went right through Jack and Donna.
"Not all of them… not all of them!" Jack called out again and again. He tapped at the rim of the monitor, as if he could change what he saw by doing it. With frantic movements he opened one overview after the other – but the result stayed the same.
Every single Kutulan onboard the alien ship was dead. They had killed themselves, each and every one, in the big ceremonial hall. As hard as Jack searched, he found no other aliens onboard the whole ship. Ten hours had passed since the Doctor had gotten into his unfortunate situation; he was now the only living being on the big ship, aside from the cat that was still roaming the corridors and the two humans inside the TARDIS. Now it was no longer just unlikely that someone would unchain him; it was impossible: there was no one left to do it.
"Why all of them?" Donna said scornfully. "When they thought that it made their god angry, that they did not sacrifice – what did they call me? The female! - Then let them all kill themselves! When this is their native customs, to kill themselves when they ruined a sacrifice, we should not interfere. We just wait, go out for a walk and get the Doctor – who is now, by the way, at least no longer in danger. Pah! Me – the female!"
Jack stared at her with anger in his eyes.
"Stop talking rubbish, Donna, just because you don't understand what is happening here!"
"Aha? What IS happening, Mister I-am-as-clever-as-the-Doctor?" She crossed her arms and hissed at him. "Had Doctor Nudie been a little bit faster we wouldn't be in this whole stupid situation at all!"
Jack could see, that Donna was pining away with guilt. She knew that she had brought all of them onto this ship and that not only did the Doctor save her, but he was in his current situation because he had tried to save her cat. For her, a cat that he had never wanted onboard the TARDIS in the first place.
Jack saw in her tear-filled eyes what she felt inside, but her comments made him so very angry that he wanted to slap her face. Instead he grabbed her shoulders.
"It doesn't matter how or why, but they are all dead – and if the life support system is somehow connected to a scanner that can see that there is no longer a living Kutulan onboard to support, the life support system might shut down!"
Donna opened her mouth and stared at Jack without a word until she placed her hands over her mouth. Her question stayed unasked and still Jack answered it with a daunting nod.
# # # # # #
The picture of the man on the screen had changed visibly. There was no way to deny that any longer. Jack stood, leaning against one of the columns, and watched Donna tracing the contour of the Time Lord with the tip of one finger, as if she were able to caress him by that.
Six days … it was now six days …
He had always been lean, but these last days had emaciated his body. His ribs had been visible under his skin from the very beginning, but now even the bones of his hips were visible.
He had told them that he was able to live without food for up to two months if it were necessary. Unavoidably, Jack had asked himself what the Time Lord would look like by then. But he would not see that, because the Doctor would absolutely regenerate before that, because the far more crucial factor was water. A human was able to survive under extreme circumstances without water for about four days. The Doctor had told them that he was able to expand that time up to nearly ten days. That meant that they had, even if he could manage the longest possible time, three day at most, because the day before all this had happened they hadn't had the opportunity to eat or to drink. And what would happen if he were to regenerate? Would the ten days start all over?
The field around the TARDIS was still stable, but with the help of the Doctor, Jack had been able to calibrate the scanners, so that he would know immediately whenever the first weak point would show up. If the Doctor was right – and Jack had no doubt about that – the falling of the shield would run exponentially as soon as it started.
Jack was also very happy that before the Time Lord lost consciousness, he had been able to explain how to keep the TARDIS from leaving immediately as soon as the field disappeared.
Jack continued to look at Donna, who had been as quiet the last three days as he had ever seen her before. He felt nearly as sorry for her as he did for the Doctor. The feeling of the first days, to throw the all the responsibility and guilt for this situation onto her had disappeared. He had tried to point out to her that she couldn't help him by drowning herself in guilt. When she started to cry when he brought her something to eat and drink, he had taken her into his arms and made her promise that she would be strong so that the Doctor could be weak.
Somehow he had succeeded. Since then she tried hard to pull herself together and whenever she was in danger of being overwhelmed by her feelings, now that they could do nothing more then wait, Jack would see her lift up her chin and breath in deeply. Like she was doing right now…
They both ate and drank only what was absolutely necessary, and they both slept only when they dozed off on the ugly tiny bench in the console room. Whenever one of them fell asleep, the other one held down the fort and kept an eye on the Doctor. It helped him, to talk to them now and then. And since they were unable to do anything else to help, they felt obliged to have at least one of them in front of the computer at all times. But right at that moment no one was talking.
The Doctor was asleep.
They both knew that that was the best for him. Still they liked it more when he was awake and talking, because then they knew for sure that he was still alive. They had laughed sadly when they pointed out to each other, how obvious it would be should he die. They had even started to make jokes about how such a regeneration would be. Jack had made naughty comments. Donna had been annoyed by that - deliberately far too much. They both had laughed. Then Donna's laughing had become sobbing and Jack had pulled her into his arms to calm her with a quiet "Shhhhhh..."
"He will manage the matter, Donna. Hey, you know him. After that he will laugh at us, because we worried at all."
Donna chuckled quietly and wiped the tears out of her face while she nodded.
"Yes, he might do that."
They both looked at the screen and knew that it would not be like that.
# # # # #
The last order had been given. It was forty-eight hours since he had been chained to this spot. He felt how the muscles in his shoulders were getting stiff, because he was nearly unable to change his position. While he had been talking he had rocked himself forth and back, had tried to turn around as much as possible first one way, then the other, to take the strain off his muscles. He had sagged his back and as a countermove pulled his thighs as close to his upper body as possible – everything that he had been able to do to try and prevent cramps.
He waited. If everything had worked as he had imagined it should, he would have heard the first words from Jack an hour ago. But there was nothing…
Had Jack not been able to follow his explanations? Had the explanations been wrong?
No. That at least he could exclude for sure.
Had maybe no one listened at all…?
With every minute that went by without a sound from the console room of the TARDIS his certainty became bigger, that he had been unheard. Combined with the fact that his whole body screamed for movement, this growing certainty started to shatter his nerves in a way that made the frequency of his heartbeats rise. His breathing became more intense and at the same time it started to feel as if he couldn't get any air at all.
It was quite fascinating that the fact he felt astonishingly cool at the realization that his nerves were about to break, did not keep them from doing so.
He pulled his upper body up as far as possible. He tried, despite the pain from the cuffs around his wrists, to keep himself up as long as possible. When he was no longer able to hold the position and was forced to let himself fall back to the platform, he jerked back up immediately. He screamed to be stronger. He pulled as hard on the chains as possible, as if he were trying to rip them off. The Time Lord pulled himself to the left, then he ripped his body as far as possible in the other direction, hauled his body as high from the ground with his legs as possible and screamed out all of his frustration about his situation. He did this even louder, when he was forced again to let himself fall back, because he was unable to hold himself for very long in any of these positions. Lying on the planks with his legs bent, he kicked at them with his feet. He stretched out his arms as far as they would go and hit his fists into the wood below him. He needed to get rid of the bitter disappointment about his certain defeat.
He wanted to run! He needed to move! His screams were interrupted by exhausted gasps. To stay unmoving was worse then everything else! He was sure that he'd suffocate if he were unable to run immediately!
He reared up one more time and braced himself against the chains, when suddenly a voice mingled with his scream.
"Doctor! Stop it! Stop it! Damn it, why won't this work!" Jack's voice burned with worry and immeasurable frustration.
"JACK!" The name of his friend from his lips was a scream of pure joy. "I hear you!" He laughed loudly and let himself fall back to the planks for the last time. "I hear you, Jack. It worked!" With a triumphant "YES" he ripped his arms up one last time until they were stopped after just a few centimeters by the chains. Then he let them fall back as well. He relaxed with a bright smile on his face, as his breathing slowed down.
"Oh god, Doctor. I am so sorry. Two of the connections had not been tight enough and it took an eternity to find them."
"Naaaa", the Doctor played the issue down with his best mood face. Just the slight, nearly inaudible shaking in his voice, now hoarse from screaming, showed that the situation had bothered him.
"Don't hide your light under a bushel, Jack. And you too, Donna! You did it. That's brilliant. I'd like to see anyone else trying to do that. At least I know now, that you are there, that you are ok. You are ok, aren't you? Jack? Donna? Hey, I want to hear Donna as well!"
Compared to her normal voice, Donna's voice was nearly squeaky when it sounded through the room: "Hello Doctor, I am fine… thanks to you."
The Time Lord was beaming with joy, while staring at the ceiling.
"And I am ok, too" added Jack, despite the fact that the Doctor had heard him before.
"Good…" The Time Lord closed his eyes in relief for a moment. "Then I can start to explain to you how to measure if and when the field around the TARDIS starts to vanish and what to do then…"
# # # # # # #
When the door opened into the room in which the Doctor lay, Jack had to tense his face to fight back the tears that threatened to fall, despite promising himself he wouldn't cry. But he managed and then went the few meters to the chained friend.
The Time Lord didn't realize any of this. He was unconscious.
Nine days… it felt like nine weeks for Jack… but it had been only nine days.
He made a horrified sound, when he thought for a very brief moment that he saw yellow billows of light dancing around the unconscious Doctor. But when he blinked it was the water in his eyes, together with the incidental light in the room that had created that deception. The man lying there was again visible in normal, clear light.
Jack placed the Doctor's coat beside him on the wooden planks. The hands of the time agent were completely calm as he freed the arms of his friend. For a short moment he thought about taking him just as he was, but decided against it. Despite the fact that he was sure they wouldn't meet anyone beside the cat, it felt wrong to leave him exposed for even one minute longer.
Jack lifted the Doctor's upper body carefully and moved the arms of the unconscious man into the sleeves of his coat, dressing him with swift movements. He had difficulties moving the cramp-stiffened muscles and was grateful that the Doctor couldn't feel any of it. It didn't take long until Jack had his friend in his coat. He wrapped him in the familiar brown fabric as far as the clothing allowed. Lifting the Doctor tenderly, Jack carried his precious cargo back to the TARDIS.
The Time Lord did not move even once. He looked as though he had been lost, wandering through the desert. His lips were cracked from dehydration; his skin was rough and dry, and his closed eyes were gummy. His hearts were beating fast, but weakly; Jack knew that he didn't have much time left. He doubted that the Doctor's guessing that he would be able to survive ten days without water had been based on much more then that: guessing.
He was very grateful that the Doctor's statement, that a Time Lord was able to stop relieving himself, had turned out to be true. Jack had nearly laughed at the Doctor's assertion that he was able to do that, but now he was sure that this ability had helped a lot to keep him alive.
While walking, Jack rested his cheek against the Doctor's and smiled despite the horrible situation. The Time Lord had ceased several of his body functions to spare energy, as he had said he would. But his influence over the growth of his facial hair had vanished when he had fallen unconscious. And so right now the otherwise well shaved Doctor had a very rare three-day stubble. It would have looked really good, were it not over sunken cheeks and a now far too small chin.
Jack had not said anything up to the moment he lifted up the Doctor. He stood still for a moment and simply looked at the seemingly sleeping man in his arms. The Doctor's head rested on his shoulder, and he looked so peaceful just lying there. Jack gave him a kiss on his forehead and then started to talk quietly and insistently to him.
And he did not stop doing so all the way back to the TARDIS. He had run on his way there, but now he walked back with calm and considerate steps, chatting nearly inaudibley to the Time Lord, without even realizing what he was talking about. He just talked.
Unnoticed, Donna's cat, Tinker, padded along silently next to Jack, completely oblivious to the trouble he had caused. All he wanted was to go home, to his own bed and his own food. The Kutulanian version of rats had been plentiful and easy to catch, but they tasted horrible and didn't agree with his system at all.
Donna did not say a word when Jack came into the ship with the Doctor, but just led the two men into the room they had prepared for the Doctor. Together they got him out of the coat and dressed him in one of the vintage men's night robes that they had found when they had looked through his private rooms. It had felt as if they were reading in his secret diary, but now it was good that they knew where to find everything.
The Time Lord did not wake up.
Donna asked herself the same thing as Jack, whether the Doctor would make it, but neither of them dared to speak that thought out loud. They both knew that he would "just" regenerate, but neither of them wanted to let go of the man that lay in front of them.
They were well aware that they could not just make him drink and eat. His body would be unable to keep anything down if they would try to rush things. As much as Jack wanted to stuff the Doctor with food with his own hands so he would no longer feel every single bone, he knew that food was not the crucial point right now.
Donna brought in the I.V. that was filled with what the Doctor had explained would be necessary for this state of emergency, when it become clear that the field around the TARDIS would hold out much longer than they all had expected. It was a slightly confusing mixture of water, small amounts of bizarre sounding salts, and a few elements that Jack would never have let flow into a human body. The Doctor had stated that this would help him, so they believed it would.
Jack quickly attached the I.V. When he allowed himself the luxury of thinking for a moment, it surprised him how calm his hands were. Jack was blessed with the skill – and often cursed by it as well – that when it was necessary he operated perfectly, almost on blind instinct. In this dire situation it was a blessing.
When he was not giving orders to Donna to hand him stuff, he was still talking non-stop to the Doctor, as if he wanted to be sure that the Time Lord knew he was not alone any more, that he was back amongst those that cared about him.
The Doctor was lying in his bed. The I.V. drip ran slowly, but steadily, feeding the odd mixture of chemicals and nutrients the Doctor had prescribed into the man's veins. Jack had to remind himself that it had only be a few minutes since the drip had started; too early for there to be any sign of change. He stood there, feeling helpless, indecisive; he felt that there had to be something more he could be doing to help the Doctor, but he knew that what the Time Lord needed now was rest.
Donna had left for a few minutes, and came back with a bowl of warm water and a soft flannel, along with a pair of the Doctor's sleep pants. Jack had gently, almost reverently, washed his oldest friend's body, and then dressed him, before pulling a warm blanket up and tucking it in. It was done. He sighed deeply. Now it was just a matter of sitting and waiting and hoping.
"Can you go on alone now?" Donna asked softly and Jack nodded. "Then I will go to the console room and prepare everything the way he told us to."
Again Jack nodded without taking his eyes off of the Doctor, but he stretched one hand backwards to touch Donna before she could leave. Jack knew that Donna was frightened by the thought that she might never look directly into the eyes of the Time Lord ever again. He was sure that this fear was ungrounded, but he understood the English women very well. It was a useless endeavour when he told her that the Doctor would not blame her for anything. He understood that this worry only the Time Lord himself could take off her shoulders.
She took Jack's hand one more time, squeezed it, and left the men alone.
For a long while Jack just looked at the Time Lord while slowly but constantly the fluid from the I.V. ran into his body. Everything they had prepared was set up on the small table so Jack could reach for things, without having to look up. He took a small can, opened it, and grabbed some of the paste that was inside with the tip of his fingers, and rubbed it carefully onto the lips of the Doctor.
Jack got a thought of something he should do before the Doctor woke up. He hoped he wouldn't wake him by doing it. He turned the Doctor on his side so that his face was laying on the side of the pillow and started rub a very soft oil into his shoulders, trying to massage out the terrible tension, at least a little bit. When he turned him back around after a long time, the Doctor was still not awake, but somehow he seemed to be calmer.
And Jack was still talking to him.
"Maybe I just think that you are calmer now, because I've calmed down myself." Jack looked at the clock. "You have been here for one hour now and you are still alive. So this brewage you told us to prepare didn't kill you after all, but is nearly completely inside you. I take that as a good sign. And if your healing abilities, especially here in the TARDIS, are as miraculous as you have never gotten tired to telling us, than you should make it, shouldn't you? And then you will be alright soon."
"I am always alright, Jack", the Doctor whispered all of a sudden with a smirky smile, slowly turning his head on from the pillow of his bed. Slowly he lifted his cleaned eyelids as much as it was possible for him and looked at Jack with his sleepy-looking, warm, brown eyes.
Jack fell silent and placed one hand over his mouth while he blinked several times, cursing himself for being so close to tears in situations like this. Then he just leaned down to his Doctor, took the small face with both his hands and kissed him very carefully on the mouth.
"There you are again. I've missed you. And it is a lie that you are always alright," Jack said with slightly rough voice when he had finally let go of his lips, but staying with his face close to the Doctor's.
The Time Lord smiled.
"Yap. I seem to be back again and, yes, it is true, it is a lie that I am always alright." With those words he closed his eyes and fell back asleep. Jack sat and looked at him for a long while, with one hand resting on the Time Lord's chest. The slow rise and fall, as well as the steady beating of twin hearts under his hand calmed and reassured him. He found his thoughts returning to the last two days, going over and over the hours of anguished waiting in his mind.
# # # # #
Donna didn't know she would sleep as deep as she was, just as she didn't know that Jack had mixed something into her tea.
Jack needed a break from her. In the last eight days his own strength had been nearly used up. There was nothing left he could give her. She didn't ask for anything, but it was inevitable that she leaned on him even without touching him and even without words. In a few hours he would be able to handle that again, but right now he could not. And so he had forced her to rest without her knowing it.
It was better for her, better for him, and better for the Doctor. When ever the Time Lord realized that Donna was falling apart, he started talking to her, even joking around with her, teasing her, until she even got angry at him a little bit. Jack had seen several times how Donna had been visibly uplifted by the words of the Doctor, especially when he made her angry with him.
Jack knew that the Time Lord did what he did on purpose, but he wanted to stop him. However, understanding that the arguments seemed to help the Doctor regain a little bit of normality, even if he spent more time unconscious then awake, kept him from stopping those arguments.
Besides, what Jack wanted to say now was not meant for Donna's ears.
"The field is down to forty-nine percent, Doctor. It will not take much longer," he started with the facts. The Time Lord looked up to the ceiling as if he were unable to hear Jack. But he had his eyes open, so Jack continued to speak. "How are you? You did sleep a bit… ok... you were unconscious… did that help at least a bit?" Jack did not see any reaction despite the still open eyes of the Time Lord.
Suddenly the Doctor closed his eyes, breathed in and out one time and then he said something, slowly, in words that Jack did not understand, while he turned his head towards the monitoring device.
Gallifreyan… Jack loved the sound of that language! But right now it was like a knife into his heart, because if he could hear the man speaking his native language, that meant that the consciousness of the Time Lord was now so clouded, that the TARDIS was no longer able to translate. The Doctor had not answered, because he knew that Jack would be unable to understand him.
Jack swallowed a few times before he continued to speak.
"Doctor… I know, that you can still understand me, even if you hear my language differently now. I need to know how you are. It will take another day before we can come and get you… It is impossible to do it faster!"
The chest of the Doctor heaved in one frantic breath and lowered back. A second breath, also a bit too fast, followed, then he continued to breath normally again. It was obvious that Jack's words scared him.
"Can you do that, Doctor? Please, tell me that you can manage one day more." Jack grabbed the monitor with both hands while he was talking to the man he saw on it.
The Doctor closed his eyes for a short moment and nodded before he opened them again to continue to stare at the ceiling.
Jack got the impression that he clenched his teeth as if trying to keep himself from talking, but then he spoke anyway.
"I will be here tomorrow as well, Jack."
Jack blinked back a few sudden tears. The TARDIS could translate again! He was back to consciousness at least a bit more then before.
"How is Donna?" he asked in a somewhat strange tone.
"She is sleeping. I drugged her." Jack smirked. "When she finds out she will surely beat me up for it."
The Doctor grinned, but the same time he made a face and moved his arms in a way that stretched his shoulders at least a little bit. A new cramp… Jack was able to read in the Doctor's face, how it got worse every second.
"If I… did not know… better, Jack…" he was talking to deal better with the intensifying pain. "I'd almost think… that she did… this… on purpose, to finally… have some time with… you alone." He laughed about his own joke, but the sound that was meant to be a laugh turned abruptly into a pressed sound of pain. He lifted his head and pulled his chin as far as possible to his chest, to stretch his neck, so that he might at least avoid the cramp jumping into that area. Gasping he stayed that way and tried to pull himself together.
Jack placed his hand flat on the screen. Seeing the Doctor in such pain was breaking his heart. Silently he cursed himself for being unable to do more to save this brave man.
"She is asleep, Doctor. She can't hear you and that will stay that way for a long while." Jack said the words calmly but he felt so terribly sick when he did.
As if Jack had turned a switch with those words, the Doctor let out everything he had been holding back. The gasping became louder and then came the sounds of someone who had endured intense pain for a long time, pain that was now reaching a new level.
"The cramp will be over soon, Doctor." Jack silently asked himself where he found the calmness that was in his voice, when at the same time there were tears running down his face. "It will be over soon."
He gave the Doctor small reminders of the things that the Time Lord had done himself in the first days, to avoid what was happened right now. Jack knew that he changed nothing for the current cramps and maybe the Time Lord even knew that himself, but there was a small chance that it at least distracted him a bit.
But at some point this new cramp in his shoulders and in the back of his head reached a level that made it impossible for him to move any more. All he could do now was wait until this wave was over and for the pain to change into the dark thudding that always follow the cramps.
He no longer tried to play-act; with Donna gone, he no longer had to put on a brave face. He knew Jack could handle the reality of what he was suffering. He allowed his face to show what he felt and no longer fought against what was happening to his body.
"Jack..." The absolute despair in the voice of the Time Lord was almost corporeal. "I don't know… I don't know whether I can make it…"
Desperately glad that the visual connection was only one-way and that the Doctor couldn't see him, Jack closed his eyes when he heard those words and for a moment he stopped breathing. As he opened his eyes, he also opened his mouth to speak, but for a moment, not a single tone came out.
A few heartbeats later he found his voice again, and his words were tinged with both anger and desperation.
"You have to, Doctor! You have no other choice, because I'm not giving you one. You have to . Because I love you and I will not lose you because of a cat, do you hear me? You have to! Should you regenerate out there and present some other guy to me, then I promise you that hell will break lose. I love you… the way you are right now."
For a long time the Doctor didn't say anything at all, just moaned, getting quieter with every breath he took while the cramp did indeed seem to fade away very slowly. Jack thought that the Doctor hadn't heard him at all, when he suddenly said quietly: "I know…" And then he turned his head back again to the monitoring camera, "And I want you to say that to me tomorrow when I'm back in the TARDIS. I want you to look into my eyes, Jack… and say that to me tomorrow."
# # # # #
"Why did you cut this? You cut this!" The Doctor held the open end of a wire pack up as high as possible given his position under the console.
Three days after his return to the TARDIS, everything that had happened in the other ship seemed to have been forgotten for him, and he was all back to his old self. Apart from the fact that the trousers of his brown suit were extremely loose around his hips; he had to wear a belt keep them up.
"Oi! I knew you'd say something. Of course now it's our fault again!" Donna scolded. Crouched halfway under the console so she could give him all kinds of tools and things, she kept her cat, Tinker, from walking under the console to the Doctor. She was not sure if he would make good on his threat to accidentally let the cat run over an open electrical wire, should he find her there ever again.
"When we did cut this wire, it was Because YOU told us to!" Donna was indignant.
"ME? You are telling me that I told you to cut this? Maybe I was chained to the floor, but my mind was very much free and intact. I told you to cut the mantel, not the whole wire!"
Jack did not take part in the fight. He stood above both of them at the console, calibrating several elements the way the Doctor had told him to. The Doctor explained to Donna which part to hold, and how, until he could come back with another wire, and then he climbed out from under the console.
The grin he gave to Jack when he went past him made it more then clear that he was having so much fun with this fight with Donna and that in fact none of it was meant seriously from his side.
When he went passed the time agent, Jack automatically stretched out his hand to the Time Lord and touched his arm. His hand run down the Doctor's arm and held his hand for a second. When the Time Lord returned, he held Jack's hand in the same way, and gave him the same tender look that Jack had given him.
# # # # # #
The morning of the tenth day had come. Jack was still laying beside the sleeping Doctor and held him softly but securely in his arms. He wasn't sure who it was better for, the Time Lord or for him.
The evening before, Jack had lain without touching the Doctor. Donna had come into the room several times to check with Jack and reassure herself that everything was all right. Finally, he had sent her to her bed, promising that he would stay with the Doctor. Jack didn't say it out loud, but there was nothing in the universe that could have made him leave the sleeping man's side. Sometime in the middle of the night, he had helped the Time Lord to turn onto his side and to bring his arms in front of his body. It was obvious that it hurt him a lot, but he absolutely wanted it. He wanted to have his arms loosely bent in front of him on the bed, his hands relaxed close to his face.
The pain in his shoulders did nothing to diminish the pleasure and gratitude clearly evident on the face that he made while falling back to sleep.
Jack wanted so badly to pull him into his arms, but he wasn't sure how the Time Lord would react to that, so he didn't do it. The last thing Jack wanted to do was to disturb or hurt him.
He wanted to stay awake, to watch the man he loved so dearly sleep. He wanted to memorise every detail while the Doctor was unaware that Jack was studying him, something the Time Lord would not have been pleased with if he were awake. So he was very astonished when he woke up sometime later to find the Doctor in his arms. Jack couldn't tell if he had finally pulled the Time Lord into his arms anyway or if the Doctor had placed himself there. It was most probably a combination from both.
But to be truthful, he did not care about the how. Especially when the Doctor woke up and snuggled himself, extremely carefully, a little bit closer to Jack.
For a long time they just lay there like that and Jack asked himself whether the Doctor was awake or still sleeping. The question was no longer necessary when the Time Lord suddenly lifted his head in a way that he was able to look at Jack without breaking the contact. He looked at him expectantly as if there were something Jack had been supposed to say but hadn't yet. Jack smiled.
He asked himself if there was any way to be sure that he understood the Doctor. But then he decided that he was sure and nodded. He looked into the warm, brown, and now so wonderfully alive again eyes and said very calmly: "I love you."
The Doctor looked at Jack for a very long moment, saying nothing in return. It was as if he was still just listening to that sentence repeat over and over in his mind, and in his heart.
At long last, the Doctor nodded with a smile that made Jack's heart beat faster, and then he lifted his face a bit towards Jack's, gave him a tiny, very, very short kiss to his lips with a very blissful sound, he snuggled himself deeper into the embrace of the time agent. He laid his head on Jack's arm, so Jack could see his face. The Time Lord was still smiling… even after he had fallen back to sleep again.
END