Author's Notes: Classics are classics for a reason, right? It's been done and done, but at least that makes it an easy way to finally sink my teeth into this threesome.
The Doctor knew from the minute he'd spotted the local inhabitants that he'd made a mistake. It was rather a large one, as well. In fact, he might have even gone so far as to place this on about the same level of mistake as things like accidentally pulling the King of Haradonia's wig off in front of his whole court that one time, or even taking Rose back home a full twelve months late.
Though he thought that Jackie Tyler's slaps were still a more painful (not to mention humiliating) punishment than being dragged across the main village to await the public execution that he'd undoubtedly just earned the three of them.
He wondered sometimes why he continued to bring others along with him through time and space, considering all he ever seemed to do was put them in danger. Then he met Rose's eyes, and saw the trusting look she gave him upon seeing that they were about to be ambushed, and he remembered exactlywhy he'd never been able to bring himself to give them up.
The Doctor calculated the distance back to the TARDIS and knew that even he and Jack would never make it before they were seized, let alone Rose. Running would only make things worse, then.
"Oi, hands off the jacket," the Doctor said, hoping to distract himself from his surge of anger at the sound of Jack's muffled grunt and the way Rose was unable to keep herself from crying out just for a second.
The cloth-swathed hands that grabbed him merely tightened.
An androgynous voice announced, from behind a layer of material, "You will be taken to The Capital for questioning and punishment."
"Easy with the goods there, sweetheart. Unless you want to take this party somewhere more private, of course," the Doctor heard Jack say, and he nearly groaned even before numerous sharp-tipped weapons suddenly snapped around to point at Jack's chest.
Jack raised an eyebrow at the Doctor, who shook his head reproachfully at him. "Something I said?" Jack asked with an undimmed smile.
The Doctor supposed, if half of Jack's stories had even a grain of truth to them (it was hard to tell, really, with Jack), he'd probably been in much worse scrapes. So had Rose, for that matter. The Doctor recalled the sound of a Dalek weapon being fired with a shudder.
"You will refrain from referring to us in such a manner," the being said. Its eyes, which were the only things that were just barely visible beyond on all of the coverings, were narrowed at Jack.
The three of them were each draped with formless sack-like coverings with deep hoods somewhat similar to what their captors were all wearing. The Doctor imagined that Jack and Rose minded those extra coverings quite a bit more than he did; they were, after all, dressed for Bomus in the tenth month of its cycle, where the Doctor had thought he'd aimed the TARDIS, which was a considerably colder climate than a hyper-tropical planet like Criostansis ever experienced. Their inefficient human bodies must be roasting.
When the hoods were pulled over their faces, though, even the Doctor protested. He couldn't care less about heated closeness pressing around his face as the material captured his breath. It was purely a reaction to losing sight of Jack and Rose. It was just as well that he could keep track of them both through other senses than couldn't even be conceived of by humans, or Crions for that matter. Otherwise, he would have struggled much harder.
As it was, if they actually hurt either of them...
Well, a Jackie Tyler slap would seem like nothing, then. They, like so many species who'd given him no choice in the past, would wish that they'd never heard of the Doctor.
"So," Rose said. "Arrested after just forty seconds on a planet. That must be a new record, huh?"
Jack launched into a description of his time in 1743, which had apparently preceded the trip to 1741 when Jack found out precisely why everyone had been so very angry with him and wanted to kill him on sight. The Doctor would have rolled his eyes at Jack's trouble-making, but... well, he'd be lying if he claimed that sort of thing hadn't happened to him before as well.
Typically, Jack had to go and mention explicit nudity towards the end of the story, which led to their guards shutting him up fiercely.
"All right, that time hurt." The Doctor could hear the scowl in Jack's voice and his jaw clenched. "And not in the good way, either. Doc, mind letting us in on the big secret behind all this?"
"It's political correctness gone mad, give or take a few historical details," the Doctor said. "Their species, the Crions, had such widespread discrimination based on race and gender and toenail length and all sorts of other things that their government drew up laws ensuring absolute equality by making everyone cover up every possible difference between them. It's complete rubbish, of course. It doesn't stop them from being different."
"There is no such thing as difference. There are no races or genders," one of their guards piped up, promptly proving the Doctor's point. "You'll be dealt with severely for suggesting otherwise."
"Barely even a step up from Cybermen," the Doctor muttered.
"Well then," Jack said, sounding typically unruffled, "this is clearly a big mistake. Trust me, there's no one out there who's more equal opportunities than I am."
"Stop flirting," the Doctor ordered. "It's really not helping any."
"So what, they expected us to come here dressed up from head to toe in garbage bags or somethin', just so's no one could tell what we looked like?" Rose asked, sounding incredulous.
The Doctor scoffed, "They didn't expect us to come here at all. Typical insular world, this. They're all for proclaiming equality and total non-discrimination in theory, but then they don't accept other species. Even their own numbers who leave the planet are exiled from then onwards, no exceptions."
"They are traitors to the beliefs," the guard holding the Doctor's left arm spat. The Doctor thought he could almost make out a masculine sort of tone to the voice.
Rose's hand, surreptitiously reaching out between them so that their guards didn't immediately notice, brushed the Doctor's. Even through the cloth, he knew the touch of her palm against his well enough.
No physical touching allowed, the Doctor remembered a moment before that very thought was echoed aloud by whichever guard literally smacked their hands away from each other. The Doctor's teeth were practically grinding by now.
"What sort of fun is that?" Jack said. A muffled grunt followed his words. Possibly one of the guards had actually hit Jack in repayment for those words, in which case the Doctor was going to have wordswith them once he'd figured out a way to free them.
Apparently even that didn't dampen Jack's irrepressible spirit, however, for he murmured, low enough that the Doctor hoped only his sensitive hearing could pick up the words, "You'll have to tell me later exactly what sort of 'physical touching' you two were getting up to over there."
The Doctor snorted, but knew better than to continue talking after that. After all, it wasn't exactly unknown for the guards of Criostansis to take matters into their own hands when they believed they were dealing with a particularly serious infraction. With Jack being... well, Jack, and with that distractingly tight shirt Rose was wearing that made her gender quite obvious, actually (had she dressed in clothes like that before Jack had joined them?), the Doctor knew that they were already balancing on a knife's edge.
They'd just have to keep balancing, though. The longer they were kept alive, the more time the Doctor had to come up with a proper plan of some sort. Or, at least, as close to a proper plan as he ever got. Something more complex than 'make sure Jack and Rose get out alive' would be preferable, since as a go-to plan that alone never seemed to work out as well as he hoped.
Luckily, both Rose and Jack followed his lead and remained silent for the rest of the long walk to whatever facility they'd be held in (or whatever stake that they'd be tied to, if the Doctor had landed them in that particular decade). It must have been practically killing Jack not to keep making cracks at them, but he was ultimately smart enough to know when something just wasn't worth the gamble. He'd spent enough time conning people, if nothing else.
"Nice digs," Jack announced after they were hauled them into a dark cell with nothing more than what looked to be a cement block furnishing it. The Doctor was glad he didn't have that annoying human need to sleep the hours away all the time; he couldn't imagine nodding off on that. Maybe that was the point, though. He didn't get the feeling that their 'hosts' intended to keep them there long before properly disposing of them.
Rose pushed her hood off her face just as the Doctor and Jack had done the second the guards stepped out of the room. She peered around. It was a relief to be able to look at each other again.
"Think we've still been in worse," Rose said.
"You'll have to tell me about that some time," Jack prompted.
"Wouldn't interest you," the Doctor said shortly. "It doesn't end in any pointless nudity." One of the guards banged angrily at the bars of the cell at just the mention of the word.
"Shame," Jack replied.
"Yeah," Rose agreed.
"Time and a place," the Doctor chastised.
"What would you rather talk about?" Jack asked. "The exact shade of stone that the walls in here are made out of? How many cracks we can count?"
"How about how much this itches, even through my other clothes?" Rose complained. She squirmed in her unwanted outfit. "That's a fair topic."
Jack snorted. "Damned right. And I've had enough of it. If they're going to try to kill me one way or another, I'd rather go in style."
"Please, spare us yet another dodgy reason why you have to go clothing-free," the Doctor muttered. "They're an embarrassment to your intelligence. Just admit that you're an exhibitionist and be done with it."
"What's the matter? Tired of seeing me naked?" Another bang, accompanied this time by an angry shout. "Rose, do you mind?"
Rose grinned. "Um, not so much."
"What if I mind?" the Doctor asked.
"Then two against one says you're overruled, unfortunately," Jack said smugly.
"Who said it was a democracy? My ship, my rules."
"Then as soon as you come up with some plan that gets us back to your ship," said Jack pointedly, "I'll make sure to bundle up and protect your delicate sensibilities again. Only if that's what you really want, of course."
Jack managed to find his way free of the sack he'd been shoved into.
"You could just stop there," the Doctor suggested. "You didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with jeans and a shirt before they draped that thing over it."
Jack grinned. "Oh, but where would be the fun in that?"
"He's gotta show the man who's boss," Rose agreed, amused.
The Doctor hated when they teamed up on him like that.
The Doctor pointedly didn't look as Jack stripped down so as not to encourage him, but he could practically sensethe way Rose was still happily staring away at him.
"Humans," the Doctor muttered.
"Aren't you cold now?" Rose asked. "It's nowhere near as hot in here as outside."
"You could warm me up," Jack suggested. The Doctor rolled his eyes, and Jack caught it. "What, did you want to offer instead?" he asked.
"Actually, I think having a certain part of you that closely in contact with freezing cold cement composite for a while can only be an improvement."
"You'd miss it if I froze it off." Jack smirked.
"All the more reason for you to stop waving it around in situations where people are aiming pointy weapons at us, don't you think?"
"He's got a point there," Rose observed as she struggled out of her own sack covering, though she at least didn't seem to feel it was necessary to strip down any further. Rose received from Jack a look so overly wounded that it was clear he was putting it on. Still, it was clear he wasn't actually expecting Rose to take the Doctor's side on that particular issue. They'd see how he liked the whole ganging up thing when it was aimed at him for once, the Doctor thought gleefully.
Jack shivered, then, belying his brave jokes about whether he was cold.
The Doctor sighed. "Get over here. Stubborn idiot." Even if it hadn't been said with more than a little affection, the way the Doctor held a hand out towards Jack would have made his intent obvious nonetheless.
"Are you kidding?" Jack asked. "I just got away from those stupid clothes. I'm not rubbing myself up against them again. Besides, Rose is much warmer." He pointedly shuffled over to Rose's side instead, ostensibly so that he could share her body heat. He shot a challenging look at the Doctor. The Doctor rolled his eyes and discarded the covering his two companions found so offensive before joining them.
"You're so manipulative," the Doctor complained as Jack leaned back against him. The Doctor's hand found Rose's, their fingers twining against Jack's hip as they trapped him between them to keep him 'warm', as if the Doctor believed for a second that that was all Jack was angling for.
"Former con man," Jack answered flippantly. "You shouldn't forget that."
"I never do," the Doctor answered seriously.
Rose cleared her throat overly loudly, trying to break up a frequent topic of contention between them before an argument could really get off the ground.
The Doctor wondered, sometimes, whether he and Jack would have killed each other by now (or at least regenerated, in the Doctor's case) if it wasn't for Rose. It wasn't just that she stood directly between them sometimes out of necessity. Just her presence and her own reactions to them often made Jack's antics easier for the Doctor to handle, somehow. He supposed it was just one of nearly too many reasons to count that he should be glad he'd asked twice.
"Think we might make it all the way to the gallows this time?" Rose asked to change the topic.
Jack snorted. "Please. This place is a dive. I've fought my way out of a more complicated paper bag after drinking the entire bottle of liquor that was inside that bag. Of course, it might have helped that I had a very helpful blond ready to give me a hand when I needed it."
"One day your flirting's going to get you in trouble instead of somehow always saving your life," the Doctor remarked dryly. He received a lick to his neck from Jack that might have been supposed to be retribution (if so, it failed to make the point spectacularly, as the Doctor wouldn't at all mind if Jack would do that again, just there) or encouragement.
The Doctor felt Rose's hand twitch in his and realised she was laughing at the two of them.
"What d'you say, Doctor?" Rose asked. "An hour for us to get gone? Two?"
"What do I get if I play along with your little guessing game?" the Doctor asked.
"Anything you like," Rose breathed. A shiver seemed to travel through Jack to reach the Doctor.
"Count me in on that wager, then," Jack said eagerly.
Right then, the Doctor thought. He wasn't really the betting type in this body, but with stakes like that, he was willing to take his chances. Besides, there was nothing saying he couldn't make sure his guess was spot on.
One hour and forty-seven minutes later – the exact time the Doctor had guessed right down to the minute, of course – they were running for their lives with a mob of people who were shrouded from head to toe hot on their trail, though thankfully not following so closely that the Doctor wasn't sure they could make it.
As long as Jack didn't distract them along the way, of course. He ran back to the TARDIS still completely naked just to prove he could (and to put their lives in just that little bit more jeopardy, presumably), though he claimed it was because of the heat outside. As far as the Doctor was concerned, it just proved that Jack had been lying when he'd told Rose that his nudity had been a necessity in all of those stories that had kept her alternatively perched on the edge of her seat and almost falling off it from laughter.
Just for that, the Doctor thought, he'd make sure that the next planet they visited was covered in ice. They'd see if Jack thought it was so crucial that he run around undressed then.
He wasn't annoyed because he was jealous that other people were looking at Jack. Of course not. Jack wasn't capable of being within a mile of someone without making them stare at him for one reason or another even when he was completely covered.
No, he just wanted to protect both of them. It just so happened that this time what he had a particular vested interest in was keeping safe certain at-risk parts of Jack that he insisted on making unnecessarily vulnerable.
Of course, he supposed that this one time there was no need for Jack to get dressed straight away, at least once they were back inside the relative safety of the TARDIS. After all, Rose owed him 'anything'. The Doctor was certain Jack would want to be there for that.
Maybe he could get Jack to agree to 'anything' as well.
~FIN~