So sorry this update took so long. Busy Summer and all that. I was going to add a lot more to this chapter, but decided I'd left you hanging long enough. Next update will be soon, I hope. This chapter gets really dark, so be warned. Thank you for the reviews.
Chapter 4: Alcohol & Abuse
—2 days later—
Later that night Jack and Ianto went for a drink. It was difficult for the Captain to watch a man who was normally so energetic and talkative to be so quiet and still. So, Ianto had insisted on going out to get the relief of alcohol Jack was normally accustomed to. Jack had agreed, deciding they'd go after he put the Doctor to bed. They went to the local pub and Jack ended up drinking far more than they'd planned. The Captain and Ianto actually passed out and woke 5 hours later. It was now 5:00am. Jack and Ianto were still surprisingly drunk, but decided to head back to Torchwood.
Jack returned, laying on his bed with the Doctor. Jack suddenly heard muffled sobbing and turned over to see the Time Lord shaking softly. His body was turned away from the Captain and he was curled in on himself. He's having another nightmare.
Jack touched the back of the Doctor's shoulder and he flinched.
"Doctor." Jack shook him gently, trying to wake him.
"No, please." the Doctor cried harder.
"Come here, sweetheart." Jack pulled the Doctor to him, and the Time Lord clung to the immortal.
The Doctor's head was against his chest, slender fingers gripping Jack's shirt. The Doctor felt Jack's immortal wrongness, and ignored his animal instinct to run and hide from the fact. The Captain looked at the broken alien that clung to the first person that was within his reach to avoid touch starvation.
What have they reduced you to? Jack wondered, stroking the Doctor's hair, whispering soft reassurances to the Time Lord.
After a while, the Doctor's heart rates slowed back down, and though tears continued to fall, he no longer sobbed. His shaking reduced to a minimum and instead of crying out he only whimpered. Though Jack tried to wake him more than once to relieve this wonderful man of his demons, the Doctor was only able to be released into the void of a dreamless sleep. At about 7:00am, he did wake once and opened his brilliant brown eyes a sliver to meet Jack's kind-hearted blue ones in a half-conscious state.
"Jack?" he asked, voice hoarse from his screams.
"Yes," Jack paused for a moment, "You've been crying for the past hour and a half."
"Oh." he swallowed, throat sore then, barely a whisper, "Sorry." The Doctor could tell he'd been screaming, as he had many nights before on the Tardis. At least he had someone to cling to this time. Poor Jack, he must've woken him with his screaming.
"Hey. It's alright," he half laughed at the Doctor's apology over something he had no control over, "I'd scream too if I were having a nightmare. Actually, I have—had my fair share."
Cling, the word rang in his ears, not really hearing Jack, and then he noticed his boney knuckles were white from wrinkling Jack's T-shirt. The Doctor loosened his grip, slowly letting go. With the loss of touch, he suddenly felt anxiety race through him. If he didn't have anything to hold on to, he began to doubt. What if he wasn't really here? What if he was still with the Master? How long until the next time the Master came to hurt him? What if Jack was here to hurt him?
Would he? He knew Jack always secretly wanted him in his bed...and now he was there. Of course he would, he had left the Captain stranded in his Ninth body. Who was to say he didn't want revenge? And he was all alone. That's why he'd dealt with his screams. Jack hated him.
"Doctor?" Jack asked, grasping the Time Lord's wrists, the Doctor oblivious to the new tears that had formed.
The Doctor's eyes averted down. Jack continued to look at the fallen Doctor, before looking at the wrists he was holding and noticing something he hadn't noticed in the dark of the morning two hours earlier. There were horizontal fresh deep cuts, and underneath them were scars, showing it had been done before.
"What happened while I was gone?" Jack asked the Time Lord.
Jack had left at 1:00am, according to the Doctor's time sense. Shortly after Jack had gone, the Doctor had woken in a cold sweat, breathing heavily after another nightmare. The Doctor looked around the dark void of Jack's bedroom, and panic rose in his throat as he realized he was alone.
"Ja—," the Doctor tried to cry out but gasped as a hand covered his mouth, and another grabbed his hair, pulling his head back.
"Your pathetic cries for Jack Harkness are pointless." a demonic voice in front of the bed told him as a pair of red glowing eyes faded, revealing a shadowy, ghoul-like version of the Master appeared.
"You're alone," whispered another voice behind him, making him tremble.
As the Master walked forward, a chain appeared and restrained the Doctor's hand above his head.
Sitting on the end of the bed, the Master leaned toward the Doctor whispering, "I can hear your hearts pounding."
The Doctor's chest was heaving as his hearts beat loudly in his ears with terror.
The Master put a hand on the Doctor's chest, feeling his hearts beneath it, "Beat of four," the Master said, "I wonder if I stopped them..." the Doctor felt pain in his hearts as the pressure beneath the hand increased, "If the drums would cease?"
The Doctor looked at the Master with hurt in his eyes as he smiled devilishly saying, "I'll leave you two alone." The Master ruffled his hair and left, slamming the door.
The Doctor closed his eyes and tried to slow his racing hearts, but his breathing sped up and he almost slipped into a panic attack.
"Doctor," the voice whispered, then louder, "Doctor."
The Doctor opened his eyes slowly, and he looked at the man behind him, and felt a dull headache. The hand the silhouetted figure had been using to pull on his hair let go and grabbed the Doctor's unchained hand, putting his bony fingers to his temple. The Doctor entered his mind, and what he found broke his hearts. Torchwood. Time Agent. Forever. Fixed point. Wrong.
The Captain took his hand away from the Time Lord's mouth.
The Doctor swallowed, whimpering, "Jack."
"Good boy," Jack whispered back in his ear, making the Doctor shake.
Suddenly he felt his animal instincts kick in, telling him to run from the wrongness of Jack Harkness. He pulled on the handcuff roughly, almost dislocating his shoulder, as he sat up.
Jack got off the bed, "Always trying to run away from me, Doctor." He said, tightening the restraint, cutting off the Doctor's circulation.
The Doctor's current regeneration always had a weakness in his dorsal tubercle, which made it all the more difficult when the handcuff dug into his skin, drawing blood. The Time Agent pushed the Doctor back onto the headboard with a hand, not needing much effort due to the Doctor's scrawny form. Jack got on top of the Doctor, and kissed him intimately. Tears fell down his face as Jack forced himself down his throat, making his headache pound. Jack hurt. The Time Lord had learned to ignore the pain, unless he got too close, but when he had gone into the Captain's mind his defenses had been turned to ash.
"Why cry, Doctor?" Jack asked as he pulled away, "Rose never kissed you like that. She couldn't love you because you couldn't give her children. But with me—well..."
Time Lords had always been loomed on Gallifrey, love and relationships forgotten. The Doctor had been shunned and looked down upon because he had been born naturally. His wife, family, and children hadn't loved him, only his granddaughter Susan showing any remote interest in him. And once he had been forced to destroy Gallifrey, he had lost all hope in being loved. Even with Rose, he had been afraid to move forward with her in fear that she might reject him for not being able to give her a family. He wasn't compatible with anyone.
"Struck a nerve, have I?" Jack asked, seeing the Doctor's tears.
Jack pushed the Doctor on the chest, making him lay down against the pillow.
Jack stroked him and felt the Doctor's ribs easily, "You're far more thin and bony than I remember." He said disappointedly, noticing how the shirt was too big for the Doctor.
Jack continued to compare his own well-built form to the lanky Doctor's, as he reached for the Time Lord's belt, quickly removing his trousers. The Doctor turned his head to the side against the pillow, trembling, as he stared at the blob of the handcuff as his headache became a migraine. His eyes became wet again as he cried silently.
The Doctor slowly came back to reality from the hallucination. His eyes averted from the wall, then looked at his right arm as he became aware of the familiar pain in his wrist. The Doctor noticed the new, deep, crimson red cuts on his right arm. He noticed the bloodied razor in his left, rubbing away his tears with his arm and sniffed. He got out of Jack's bed, noticing he was wearing a grey hoodless sweatshirt with a T-shirt underneath and boxers. The Doctor washed the razor off in the sink, then put it back in the plastic part of Jack's razor, placing it back in its place in the Captain's bathroom.
The Doctor ran a gaunt hand through his hair roughly, then rolled his sleeves down, covering his right arm. He turned off the light, walking out of the bathroom, ignoring the hydrogen peroxide.
The big size of the bed wasn't comforting as he curled into a foetal position while he waited for Jack to return. Even if the Time Agent did hurt him, the pain was more bearable than loneliness.
"Doctor?" Jack asked, still looking at the Time Lord's wrist.
The Doctor slowly rolled his sleeve down and said quietly, "Nothing."
Jack took his wrist in his hands, examining the wounds.
"Have you been taking the anti-depressants?"
"Yes," then, a whisper, "No."
The Time Agent leaned over to the night stand and grabbed a bottle of pills, pouring one out into his hand. He looked over to the Time Lord and put the pill into his uninjured hand, which the Doctor swallowed dryly without water. Jack saw this and grabbed the water bottle next to the bed, tilting it, which the Doctor sipped a small amount of.
"Doctor," Jack sighed, his hand outstretched, trying to get him to drink more.
But the Time Lord just continued to stare forward, not paying attention.
Jack went to get Martha, which the doctor disinfected and wrapped his wrist and, after Jack informed her, inserted an IV into his other wrist.
After Martha left, the Doctor started to lightly pick at the tape where the IV was, and Jack gently chastised him for. After a few moments of silence between the two, Jack broke the ice.
"Can I ask why?" Jack asked, referring to his newly bandaged wrist, "What were you doing, Doctor?" Jack pushed gently.
The Doctor looked at him for a moment, before averting his eyes down again, "Counting." He scratched the IV tape nervously.
Jack put a hand over the Doctor's tenderly, stopping him without moving his eyes from the Time Lord, "What were you counting?" He kept his voice soft.
The Doctor could only get a word out, "Gallifrey." It was supposed to mean home for him, and he longed desperately to see the planet again. Even though all he had ever received there had been rejection, hurt, pain. It was where the self-loathing had began, and yet he wanted with all of his being to see Gallifrey, and his family again.
Though it had been only a word, Jack understood. He had been counting everyone that had burned during the Time War. And since the Doctor had been the last one, no one had been around to tell him, "It's okay." No one had ever told him it wasn't his fault.
"You still don't deserve to hurt yourself. No one does—God, especially you, Doctor. After that day, you have devoted your life to saving people. You have saved many more than you could have ever burned on Gallifrey. You are the kindest and most merciful, and forgiving man I have ever met." Jack tried to tell him.
"Penance," the Doctor interrupted, "I deserve penance." He believed his debt of genocide could never be paid. The only time he felt he was on his way to redemption was when he bled.
Later that night, Jack had gone to get the Doctor's pyjamas from the Tardis. Once he had found the pair, he headed back to Torchwood and given them to the Doctor, who went into the bathroom to dress. The Doctor's brown eyes averted from the mirror while he undressed and redressed into the pyjamas. When the Doctor was done, he felt mortified when he realised the trousers didn't fit as they had the last time he had worn them. He tried to tie them tighter, but to no avail. The Doctor had lost a lot of weight.
The Doctor felt his own stomach and waist, disappointed when he felt his pelvis easily. He pinched his stomach and had trouble doing so, when he found that he had barely any fat. His abdomen was beyond flat. The Doctor looked in the mirror, seeing his obvious collar bone and pale skin and almost punched the mirror. He pulled on Jack's grey sweatshirt over his own nightshirt, hoping it would help to hide his emaciated frame.
He left the bathroom, and curled up next to Jack in the bed.
"I see you like my clothes," Jack noticed he was still wearing his sweatshirt, smiling.
Jack's smile faded when the Doctor didn't reply, rubbing the Time Lord's back gently, feeling the Doctor's shoulder blades. Jack got up from his sitting position on the bed, heading near the door, turning off the light. He heard the Doctor whimper. Jack walked to the bedside, pulling something out of the drawer of the nightstand. He got back into the bed and the Doctor clung onto the Captain's shirt underneath the blankets, trembling. Jack stroked the Time Lord's hair with tenderness, and put the sonic screwdriver (on a harmless setting) in front of the Doctor's eyes terrified eyes. The Doctor took it from him with care, his eyes silently thanking him a thousand times over, and held the screwdriver to him like a teddy bear.
He held Jack and the sonic close to him for the rest of the night.
