Pairing/Characters: Jack, Donna/Tenth Doctor
Rating: PG-13 for theme
Summary: Snippet from a shag or die idea, slight Doctor angst
The Doctor paced the floor. Back and forth, back and forth. His fellow captives had long since given up trying to make conversation with him, backing away from the look in his eyes like they were afraid he might lop off their tongues if they spoke out of turn.
He blinked rapidly, trying and failing for the umpteenth time to stop the scenes replaying in his head over and over from what his chronometer told him was only 26 minutes ago, but felt like an eternity.
She had looked surprised, and uncertain. He could grant himself her uncertainty. He could not in all good conscience upgrade that to fear. No, at most he could tell she had been uncertain, taken off guard.
Her eyes… but he hadn't been close when the word came down, and she had already been backing up when Jack slid so smoothly into his pitch. The Doctor hadn't wanted to crowd her further, hadn't wanted to do anything to make that look in her eyes (which was uncertainty and not quite fear) be directed at him.
Coward. How much had that mistake cost him? Or was it a mistake? Was Jack right? Was it better to let Jack take her, lest the… the thing he was taking her to do cause a lasting awkwardness between the Doctor and his companion?
Jack talked a good game, didn't he always? The bitter venom in his own unuttered words stung the Doctor even as he tried to pretend it was simple chagrin.
He had stopped walking and his hands balled into fists at his side. The condemning silence of the cavernous reception hall was overpowering and soon the Doctor began pacing again just to hear the soft pad of his chucks on the burnished floor.
Jack and Donna were the same species, there was an undeniable attraction, the human man could get it over with quickly, they could move on much easier afterward than if it was the Doctor who took her. If things got weird, Jack had continued, his words flowing easily as his arms snaked around Donna's waist, they could always drop him back in Cardiff whenever they got away from here.
And Jack wanted her. That much was apparent to both men even before Donna's protestations that she wouldn't want some poor bloke to be forced into shagging her had caused Jack to round on her, almost bowling her over in his enthusiasm to reassure her that nothing could be further from the truth. He wanted her.
He wanted her and he told her so. In no uncertain terms. He was quick like that, Captain Jack Harkness. He had told the Doctor once that he considered it cruelty to do otherwise; a woman should know where she stood with you, no use stringing them along until they get hurt.
The Doctor hadn't needed that pep talk; he had sniffed dismissively and pointedly ignored him.
And he had wanted her. And he had not spoken up.
And she had looked at him right before Jack threaded his arm through hers and gently led her away, tri-pedal beings with guns flanking them.
Twenty-eight minutes now.
It was that last look in her eyes that haunted him the most. Uncertainty, yes, but something more. Regret? Beseeching?
He didn't blame them. Although her acquiescence had come slowly, it had been freely given. It made sense, the only way to freedom, a simple ritual.
With nothing simple about it. How long had it been for her anyway? He pondered that question as he thought about their years together, almost three in Earth terms now. The moment anyone became too interested, even stepped too close, he was there, flitting around her, warning other men (and occasionally women) to stay away. Clear territorial markings. She was his.
Jack knew that. But he had swooped in the moment the demands fell from their captors' lips. Been there before he said, honeyed tones of reassurance as his hand stroked her hair. Didn't have to be a Thing, he promised her. He would make it fun for her.
And the whole time, the flush in her cheeks belying the barbed jokes she traded with him, making lightness of it, a lightness she obviously didn't feel.
The doorway creaked open suddenly and the Doctor's body flooded with adrenaline as he stood taller, tension straightening his spine. As if in slow motion he saw Jack's hand first, holding the door back for the strangely diminutive Donna at his side. They had taken her shoes, the Doctor noted, his mind working at a million miles a minute to process everything before him.
Her socks were gone too, but Jack still wore his boots. His other arm wrapped around her shoulders and then she lifted her head and her eyes met the Doctor's. His stomach clenched.
He realized then that Jack had been very wrong. It had been a mistake to think Donna could do this with Jack instead of the Doctor and have it be less awkward. The guilt in her eyes was overwhelming, and something inside the Doctor cracked.
She broke away from Jack then and headed for the Doctor. He forced his legs to move, meeting her halfway across the cold marble foyer that had been his prison all morning. Her steps faltered and she stopped just before they met in the middle of the room.
He held out his hands to her as he slowly closed the distance between them, watching her face very carefully. She looked at the ground and scrunched her toes.
"Donna," he breathed, wanting to tell her that everything would be all right, that they would get through this, that he was sorry, that he should have spoken up, but they could fix it, they had to, anything, just please please don't leave me for Jack.
But before he could speak she looked up at him again and the pain in her eyes silenced him.
"I'm sorry," she mouthed. He felt the brokenness inside him split open further but he took her hands in his and pulled her closer until their bodies where inches apart.
"You don't have anything to be sorry about."
Around them tri-pedal troops were amassing and the Doctor squeezed Donna's hands, keeping her attention on him. He didn't know what was going on with the tribespeople now and he frankly didn't care. All that mattered was Donna.
She tilted her head to the side and her eyebrows knitted together.
"Yeah. I do, Doctor." She sounded sheepish, embarrassed but not distressed.
He began to hush her, drawing her gently into his arms. She flattened the palms of her hands on his chest, a token resistance that ceased his movements to hold her. He looked down at her instead, his hearts hammering – did she not even want him to hold her now?
"Doctor, I…"
He spoke over her, anxious to drown out what he felt for sure was an impending rejection. "It's all right, Donna, we will get you home, and we'll sort this—"
"I couldn't do it," she blurted out. Then she dropped her head on his chest and banged her forehead against his sternum a few times for good measure.
At her words, his mouth went dry and his brain seemed to have stopped working entirely. Automatically the Doctor's arms came around her shoulders, stilling her movements and smoothing down her hair.
He swallowed convulsively a few times before he managed to speak again. "What?"
Jack came closer then, he'd been hovering on the edges of the Doctor's peripheral vision and when the two men looked at each other, the human shook his head. There was tension around his eyes, the Doctor noticed.
Donna mumbled against his chest. "I'm sorry, I know, it was supposed to be no big deal. And it wasn't, and then it was, and I'm sorry cause now we're stuck here."
Her words tumbled out somewhere in the vicinity of his tie and not even knowing what he was doing, the Doctor chuckled. It was like a huge weight had been lifted from him.
"We'll figure it out, Donna, don't worry, and stop apologizing." He held up a finger to the approaching man and hushed him too. "Ah! You too, Jack, no more being sorry, we'll get out of this some other way, you'll see!"
He grinned at the other man and held out his hand to him, pulling him into a hug until Donna grunted slightly from being trapped in between the two of them. They pulled back and the Doctor was gratified to see the two of them looking much less tense now, even smiling slightly as the indignant guards led them all away.
The Doctor kept a firm arm around his companion this time. He found he couldn't wait to be in a jail cell with her again. They had some talking to do.