A/N: I imagine that this chapter won't be all that well received .. and it's inappropriate for the location, I will admit. Buuuuut ... I wanted to write it.
Call me Moffat. I do what I want and I don't care ... (actually don't call me that, cause I don't like him - At. All).
I really just wanted to shove forward more about the importance of the bond toward the man who will end up trying to do all he can to end it. I also can't see Jack really taking his abandonment as nonchalantly as he did in the show ... and I can see him digging here and there rather than just going nuclear all at once.
This is a very short one ... I only had, like, an hour today to write ... so this is all I could do in that time.
If anyone is still with me at this point in the fic. Thanks for sticking with me ... I promise you it will be worth it as soon as I get to where I want, which, judging by the transcript (that I have been hacking apart and tossing over my shoulder since chapter one), we should be there - or at the juncture of some really decent angst against our beloved Time Lord - by the end of next chapter.
ABOUT BLOODY TIME!
Although. Yes. I get it. If I hadn't strayed for three chapters with my own dribble, then we'd already be there, would't we? And we'd have other Doctors and kids and even a cousin to play with. right? right!?
Oh ... let's just get to it, shall we...
~~oooOOOooo~~
The moment that Jack's name left her lips, Rose felt the Doctor tense. Although he was tens of feet away from her, and deep inside the TARDIS console room, she could feel him stiffen across their telepathic link. His tension gave her pause, and Rose found herself unable to launch across the space between them to engulf the Captain in the fierce hug that her arms were itching to pull him into.
All she found herself capable of doing was to delicately lift her hands to her mouth and suck in a deep breath. "My God," she breathed against her fingers. "Jack…"
Jack definitely sensed her hesitation to come to him and so offered her a warm and somewhat flirtatious smile as he pulled his arm off Gallifrey's shoulder.
"Rosie," he said huskily as he cautiously approached her and let his eyes rake up and down her trembling body. "You look amazing."
Rose's eyes were locked on his, which lifted her head as he approached her. "Th-this old thing," she stammered lightly as she let her hands shift from her mouth and onto her chest. She inhaled sharply at the rise and fall in his chest underneath her fingertips. Emotion was heavy in her voice. "I'm in my jim-jams."
His eyes lifted to her hair. He smiled a longing expression as he smoothed his hand over the fly-away strands of hair that had escaped her hastily fastened bun while she'd napped. "The I've just been shagged look never looked so good on anyone," he whispered quietly, his gentle tone of voice completely betraying the suggestion he was trying to convey in his words. He captured a tear on her cheek with his thumb and let his eyes settle on hers. His voice was barely audible when he spoke next. "God, Rose. I've missed you."
"I-I thought you were dead," she blustered out before drawing in a sudden breath and holding it behind lips she held with her teeth.
He shook his head gently. "You are worth dying for," he said softly. "But much more valuable as someone to live for."
Her breath flew out of her at that moment with such force that she coughed out a sound much like a sob. She quickly jumped up to throw her arms around his neck.
His arms snapped around her waist to catch her as she fell, and Jack crushed Rose's quivering form up tight to his chest. He hummed a sound of happiness against her ear as she sobbed out his name and her relief at him being alive. He rocked them both in place, swaying her legs left and right, which gave him a moving view of the Doctor's appearance at the TARDIS doors…
…and the dark look of jealousy that was set in his handsome, lightly freckled face.
Whether he did it because it was something he was eager to do – and had wanted to do since the day he met her - or because he wanted to levitate the rising jealousy that he could feel emanating hotly from the Time Lord scowling from his TARDIS, Jack would never clarify to anyone. But he suddenly stopped swaying the woman in his arms. His arms locked yet tighter around her waist. And his mouth found hers. She peeped with surprise, and he knew that her eyes were wide with shock, but he maintained the press of his mouth against hers and slid a hand into her hair to pull her head firmly toward his. He used her gasp of surprise to claim her with a kiss deeper than what would've been appropriate even if he was her boyfriend.
Jack caught three very distinct sounds from three very precise points in the room. One, a horrified child's gasp from the wall behind him. Two, a whimper and cry of pain from Rose. Three, a thunderous growl from the Doctor at his TARDIS.
Jack didn't have the chance to consider releasing Rose before he found himself forcibly torn from her by an irate Time Lord. He was thrown back toward the table in the centre of the lab and collided heavily against it, stumbling to find his balance under the protestation of a bruised hip.
"Well that's a bit of an under-reaction don't you think?" he ground out in reply when the Doctor didn't continue to come at him. Honestly, he had hoped for something a little more hostile from the Doctor than a simple push and shove. He still had residual aggression he wanted to expend upon the Doctor for abandoning him like he did so …. So … long ago.
Thinking that now might be a good time to try and hash it out now that Rose Tyler was here to mediate and referee, Jack looked across to the Doctor with the full intent to goad him into a long-overdue argument about it, but found pause at the sight of the two of them together.
Rose was obviously weak in the knees and looked up into her husband's face with an expression that was a mix of confusion, question, hurt and apology. Her brow was pinched tight together, and her eyes wide and almost child-like in how they questioned the Doctor.
The Doctor held Rose firmly in a firm grasp that looked almost tentative in how loose it was. He looked down into her face with his own look of apology and concern. He spoke quietly to her and waited until she nodded her understanding. He then looked up to Jack with a furious glare.
"I warned you back when we first met that Rose was off limits."
Jack rolled his eyes and shook his head. "It was just a kiss, Doctor. No need to get your tie all up in a twist."
"We're telepathically bonded," he warned on a low voice. "Permanently joined in the ways of my people. What you call just a kiss is actually something that is extremely, physically painful to her."
Jack's eyes blew open wide. He quickly looked to Rose with apology. "What?"
"Time Lords aren't indiscriminate sexual deviants who will lay down with just anyone," the Doctor lectured darkly. "We mate for life. Well. For several lives, actually." He let Rose gently pull away from him and looked to her for assurance that she was okay before looking back to Jack. "Infidelity means death to the cheating Lord, and then a slow torturous existence to their partner because of the severed bond." He swallowed thickly. "A kiss, even one that isn't reciprocated is going to cause either one of us incredible pain."
He shot a look toward Rose and slumped regretfully. "Rosie…"
"There is no such thing as just a kiss with a bonded Time Lord, Jack."
Yana's voice chanted in a somewhat detached voice. "With timelines bound in Rassilon's holy sacrament, two will become one, and that one will live in the souls of two. Never stray and never falter. Honour the bond that you both have pledged under these twin suns and do vow that only on Deathday shall you part."
The Doctor snapped his attention toward Yana with alarm in his eyes. "What did you just say?"
Yana blinked rapidly and let his brows come together in the middle of his forehead. "I – I'm really not sure, Doctor."
The Doctor strode toward Yana with fast and purposeful movements. His head angled slightly in one direction as he walked as though wanting to keep a cautious side-glance at the man. "You just spoke the words of a High Gallifreyan bonding commitment ceremony." His look briefly switched to a rather juvenile wide eyed expression. "Well. The English translation of it anyway. A translation that really doesn't give the actual vows the full glorious justice it deserves. It really doesn't translate well into other languages, Gallifreyan." His hands found their place inside his trouser pockets and he walked around Yana with a relaxed gait and countenance.
…To Gallifrey, Rose, Martha and Jack, however, it was clear that the Doctor was firmly on guard.
"So how do you know it?" the Doctor queried casually.
Yana shook his head. "I really can't say, Doctor. Perhaps it's something I read in one of the many texts I've encountered in my travels. Like I said to you, I've been on many, many refuge ships. It's likely that I met someone familiar with the vows, or perhaps I was witness to a couple from your planet pledging those vows."
The Doctor pressed his lips together and hummed with a light bounce in his head. "Yeah. I can't see that being a possibility."
"You'd be surprised about what's out there, Doctor," Yana defended with mild condescension. "And more importantly who is out there."
"Oh," the Doctor breathed out somewhat hoarsely. "Not really." He thumbed to the door. "There's not much left out there to surprise me." He dipped his head toward his shrugging shoulder. "At least not where my people are concerned anyway. Not too many of them left. Well. There's one." He sniffed and looked to his son. "Two." He then looked to Rose and her midsection. "Two and a half." He then inhaled deeply through an open mouth. "Been that way for, oh, trillions of years in your timeline."
"You mentioned that you were a Time Traveller, Doctor," Yana commented with a rub at his head. "I expect that you're not the only one of your people who toyed with time travel."
"No," the Doctor admitted with a grimace tightening up one side of his face. "No. You're right about that. We were called Time Lords for a reason."
Yana winced at the name and rubbed at his temples. "Then it isn't unreasonable to expect that one or two of them might've ended up somewhere along my time line."
"Destination wedding," Jack said with a chuckle from the behind them.
"Wrong species to be considering something like that," the Doctor answered indignantly. "That's a human-y twist on ceremonial customs." He snorted. "My people weren't exactly renegades against the time honoured ceremonial clap trap set down by council."
"And just where did you take your vows, Doc?" Jack said with a smirk.
"On the banks of the Cadonflood River under Mount Lung near my family home on Gallifrey." He answered with affront. "And if I refuse to part from tradition…"
"Point well given," Jack said with a sigh. He looked to Martha and Gallifrey, who were silently chuckling. "And driven straight through my spleen. It's a good thing I can't die."
They looked at him in surprise. Athough they asked the question at the same time, it was Martha's voice that overrode young Gallifrey's. "You can't what?"
The communications line crackled over their heads, making the Doctor's head snap upward so that he could look to the speaker in the ceiling that only served to provide feedback from the monitor at the side of the room. "What's going on now?"
"Professor. The Systems are down. Professor, are you getting me?"
Yana moved to the communications panel and half scowled into the camera. "Yes. I'm here. We're ready. Now all you need to do is connect the couplings, then we can launch."
The image of the officer flickered off screen.
Yana grunted in annoyance. "God sakes. This equipment! It needs rebooting all the time!" He leaned forward and rubbed at his temples again, letting out a long moan that drew the Doctor's attention.
"Professor," he called curiously. "Are you okay?"
Yana nodded and set his hands on the table. "Just a headache, Doctor. Just noise inside my head."
The Doctor snaked his head in front of Yana's face to look into his eyes in analysis. 'Noise?"
Yana let out a breath and gave a dismissive wave. "It's nothing of note, Doctor. It's a sound I've had in my head for as long as I can remember. A constant noise."
"What kind of noise?"
He looked to the Doctor. "It's the sound of drums. Pounding more and more as though it's getting closer."
The Doctor frowned. "When did this start?"
Yana laughed ruefully. "Oh, I've had it all my life. Every waking hour." He exhaled hard. "Still. No rest or the wicked. Still have plenty to do, you know. No sense in continuing to engage in the madness that seems to surround you, Doctor."
"Oh," he said with a grin. "Madness is my middle name." His grin fell. "Well. Not really. I don't exactly have a middle name, nor a last one actually. My name's more of a multi-syllable combination of Gallifreyan descriptives that ended up not really describing anything about me at all. But what it does do is make it about this long." He held his arms out either side of him for effect.
Yana looked at him wearily. "Then perhaps one day you'll sing to me this impossibly long and descriptive name of yours."
"Funny that you say sing," he said breathily as he scratched his sideburn. "High Gallifreyan is rather musical."
The Doctor suddenly drew in a sharp breath and straightened himself. He clapped his hands and then rubbed them together. "So. Connecting the couplings and rebooting your system. Tell me where to begin, Professor. I'll see to it that everything is in line, hooked up and ready to send you and your people to Utopia."
