This can't be good, the Doctor thinks with a sense of dawning dread.
For the Doctor, it's only been a few days, relatively speaking, since he'd played his part in freeing the world, and himself, from the Master. More linearly speaking, the timeline the TARDIS has just landed him in is barely more than one Earth year in the future from then. Either way, though, there's no reason right now why he should be running into Jack Harkness halfway across the universe from where he'd just recently left him, by Jack's own choice, in Cardiff.
A lot has clearly gone wrong in the past year of Jack's life, if the look he's giving the Doctor now is any indication. After all, the Doctor had thought the two of them had managed to leave things on good terms, somehow, despite everything that had happened (and everything that the Doctor had caused). Obviously Jack's willingness to forgive him has long since passed.
Although, the Doctor has to admit that it's possible that he's not solely responsible for Jack's glower just now. Some of the blame might be attributable to the fact that Jack's currently hanging upside down over a sheer cliff, with a group of locals gathered on the edge to bear witness. They couldn't know, of course, that even a fall as severe as that wouldn't kill Jack. Or rather, he wouldn't stay dead. But it's still not an experience the Doctor would want Jack to have to go through if he can prevent it. The falling would be a worse experience than the outcome even if he could stay dead, after all.
"Making friends?" the Doctor asks loudly, announcing his presence to the group. Jack's glare intensifies, if that's even possible.
"Yeah," he replies. "Making friends. Sure. That's exactly what I thought I was doing, actually. I helped this lot end a civil war that's apparently been claiming lives for years on end, you know. I figured we'd all go out for a drink, and I'd get a chance to persuade one of those lovely ladies back in the village – or maybe one of the strapping lads over there, even – to spend the evening having a proper sort of celebration." Jack's suggestive look, the Doctor realises, appears decidedly odd when it's tinged with more than a little helping of bitterness and is being viewed upside-down. "Some party this turned out to be."
"We wanted to thank you," one of those among the group speaks up.
"How about just buying me a drink next time," Jack says wryly.
The Doctor shakes his head sadly. Jack, of course, wouldn't have any knowledge of this tradition. It well and truly dies out by the 51st century, and the Doctor doubts that Jack's time at Torchwood throughout the 20th century has caused any run-ins with the inhabitants of the second moon of Vishmail. They keep to themselves, mostly, and would never venture as far away as Vishmail itself, let alone all the way across the universe to Earth. That's why civil war had broken out in this period, the Doctor recalls. The moon just isn't big enough for all of the political factions to coexist, and none of them have ever been willing to leave their home. He's always wondered what led to the unexpected end of a war that might well have evolved into a massacre, had the people been allowed to continue living (and dying) the same way they had been.
Jack, the Doctor knows, must be downplaying his involvement. This would not have been just a day's easy work, with a swig of cold beer at the end of it to top it off. He wonders what made Jack commit himself to what must have been weeks, or maybe months, of working to stop the fighting. He just plain wonders how Jack even got to this part of space in the first place, actually.
Whatever Jack has really done, though, it's apparently enough for him to have really impressed the group of locals (the Doctor isn't sure of the name of this particular faction, since the moon's inhabitants are all very similar in looks, if not in beliefs). They have to be incredibly grateful. They don't use this ceremony for just anyone.
"I'll get you down," the Doctor offers, prepared to pay the price for doing so.
Jack snorts. "If it's all the same to you, Doctor, I don't need your help. Not this time, at least."
The Doctor hears the implication and knows he shouldn't ask about it. He knows. This Jack isn't the one he's seen so recently – a man can change significantly in the space of a year, after all – and there's a chance that this Jack knows something of the Doctor's future. Something the Doctor himself shouldn't know. He shouldn't tempt fate by giving Jack any encouragement to tell him potentially damaging information about his own timeline.
But the Doctor wants to know what's happened to Jack to effectively return their relationship to how it had been when they'd first faced off in the year one hundred trillion. This might even be worse than then, actually. So he has to know. His curiosity is a curse, sometimes.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he finally asks, nearly cringing at the fact that he's even saying the words.
"Just that apparently it's not important for you to help me when I really need it, so why should you get to make yourself feel better by riding in on your white stallion now? You can just leave me here. Don't worry, I'll live," Jack adds with a harsh laugh.
The locals, despite the fact that they should be at least pretending to give Jack and his rescuer a private moment together, all begin to murmur among themselves. One or two even gasp at Jack's speech.
"You would turn away your rescuer?" the tallest of the locals asks, sounding appalled.
"He's not my rescuer," Jack says. "He just came here by accident."
A few minutes ago, the Doctor might have agreed that his presence on the moon had been entirely by chance. He'd just hit buttons at random, knowing that those were usually the times when the TARDIS took the opportunity to direct him to where he was most needed. It seems clear enough that he's needed right here, even if Jack won't admit it.
Perhaps there's some truth to the legend behind this ritual, he considers. The locals believe that the universe will cry out for the captive's loved ones to prove themselves, after all. Perhaps the TARDIS heard that call.
"Jack..." the Doctor implores.
"No, I'll take my chances with the murderous back-stabbers, thanks," Jack says.
The Doctor presses his lips together hard for a moment to stop himself from snapping at Jack that the Doctor doesn't even know what in the universe he's done to deserve Jack's ire. Getting into a yelling match won't help. Not this time.
"They aren't betraying you," the Doctor says instead. "They're trying to help you. It's a ritual. Or, well, more like a blessing, but not so much the type with all those unnecessary religious connotations you humans usually associate with the word."
What the Doctor doesn't say is that this particular blessing exists to repay someone for their help by revealing to them someone who cares for them enough to be willing to help them in turn. The Doctor doesn't think that knowledge, or the implications of what it means that the Doctor is currently stepping out onto the platform and reaching for the bindings that are holding Jack in place, are things that Jack would appreciate just now.
The Doctor doesn't stop when Jack continuously instructs him to leave him alone, though Jack uses embellishments that the Doctor tries very hard to ignore. It doesn't matter to him that the position the Doctor finds himself in, suspended over a drop that he doubts he could regenerate from if he fell, being held up by nothing other than his own balance and a rickety plank of wood, is incredibly precarious. Not to mention how he nearly falls when he has to grab Jack up into an odd sort of fireman's hold as he releases the bindings. The reality of the danger, he supposes, is the whole point. He's risking his life to save Jack's, and thereby proving how much he thinks Jack is worth. How much Jack is worth to him, more specifically.
Jack's lack of gratitude is unsurprising. Even though the Doctor doesn't know precisely why Jack's so angry at him (not this time, at least), he knows that even the sum of his past transgressions against Jack are enough on their own. He neither wants nor deserves to have Jack bowing and scraping to him.
Still, it would be nice to have Jack at least understand the meaning of the gesture.
The Doctor can't bring himself to actually say it, in much the same way that he hadn't quite been able to say it with Rose either, even knowing with absolute certainty that that two minute window had been his last chance. It's odd that a man with a gob like his is so wary of just a few words, loaded with meaning though they may be. That's unfortunately how it's always been for him, through all of his regenerations, when it comes to issues like this. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't still want Jack to know, without the words having to be voiced, what it is the Doctor wants so badly to say.
Jack doesn't know, though. Obviously.
"Always with the 'humans' thing. Is that why?" Jack asks. "I mean, I always knew that you thought that you were better than us humans – most of the time you are – but if that's what stopped you from coming to help us with the 456..." Jack visibly grinds his teeth slightly. "Even if you didn't want to help me, I wasn't the only one at risk. People died. Good people. An innocent child."
The Doctor looks away, swallowing. He understands the things that Jack fails to say and wishes that he didn't. "So then you left Earth to get away from that," he guesses. "That's what led you here, where you found some people who you could save." He's fairly certain that that's what happened without having to be told, or without even knowing the rest of the details of this '456' business. He knows because it's what he would have done, and Jack is sometimes uncomfortably similar to him. He'd like very much for that not to be the case. The Doctor doesn't even want to be this way himself most of the time. He certainly wouldn't wish that on someone else. Especially on Jack, who he...
"Yeah," Jack mutters.
"Oh Jack," the Doctor says, "I wish you hadn't told me all that."
Jack scowls. "I had to live through it, Doctor, so if you can't even take having to listen to it, then you can just –"
The Doctor catches Jack in a hug. He doesn't know whether he surprises himself or Jack more by doing so, though Jack's shock certainly manifests in a much more violent way. He thrashes against the Doctor, but the Doctor doesn't break his hold. He's stronger than people might think to look at him (the memory of Donna referring endlessly to how skinny he is might be just as culpable in making his hearts race as the feeling of holding Jack, even unwilling, so closely against him). Even so, Jack could probably shove him away pretty easily if he really tried. The Doctor's glad he doesn't. Rather, Jack eventually slumps slightly against him, just enough that it's clear that he's given up on fighting, though not actually given up completely. Jack grips the Doctor's coat tightly in his fists and his body shakes slightly.
Jack doesn't cry, exactly. The Doctor wonders whether Jack's cried at all for those who he's clearly lost. But this moment is nonetheless a type of outpouring of emotion that the Doctor can't help but think must be cathartic. Jack needs this.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor says quietly. "I'm so sorry."
Jack presses his lips to the Doctor's, then. The Doctor will never know whether it was because Jack's so at the end of his rope emotionally that it just happens, as it should probably have done years ago, or whether it's purely to shut the Doctor up. To be honest, the Doctor doesn't really care about the whys so much when he's in the moment.
He can tell that Jack expects him to pull away, and can practically taste his surprise when the Doctor doesn't, pulling him even closer instead.
His tongue duels with Jack's for a while, as if they're engaged in a battle of dominance. Perhaps at any other time they would be, but the Doctor realises that this, right now, is something that Jack needs to win. As such, he has no problems allowing Jack to steer the kiss in the direction he wants it to go. After all, even despite how many people have insisted on planting one on the Doctor over the years, Jack is certainly far more experienced at kissing than the Doctor.
And it shows.
When Jack does pull his mouth away, he rests his forehead against the Doctor's shoulder and breathes hard against him. They stay that way for a while, both recovering in their different ways. Jack's heart is racing about as quickly as the Doctor's mind has been all throughout.
He knows what he's going to have to do to Jack (what he's already done, from Jack's point of view), because he knows that Jack has to be here, at this moment, to save a race of people who couldn't manage to save themselves. A day will come when Jack will call, and the Doctor won't answer. That knowledge is a heavy burden, especially since he knows he can never let on to Jack that he wouldn't have known to stay away on that particular day if not for the fact that Jack himself unconsciously let him know it was necessary.
He's run away from Jack before. Even though he thinks it might damn near kill him to hurt Jack that much yet again, he knows he has that in him. It's a sobering thought.
Without looking up, Jack asks, "Why now?"
The Doctor shakes his head. "You deserve at least this much from me," he replies.
Even before he recoils, the Doctor knows that Jack will take his words in the worst possible way, believing that the only reason the Doctor has kissed him is as some kind of compensation. Of course it's not. It could never be just that. Not between the two of them. But in some ways that impression makes things easier. He doesn't correct it.
He can't stay with Jack right now, no matter how much he might wish it could be otherwise. That much is obvious. Perhaps it's better if Jack doesn't even want him to stay.
So he backs away from Jack, ignoring the many gathered people who are staring at both of them with a sort of dismay that seems to match Jack's current expression. He says, "I'm sorry," once more as he goes.
He doesn't say what he's sorry for. There are just too many things to count.
~FIN~