2036
Harry opened his eyes to the sound of singing birds and stifling heat. He was alone, as usual. It was rare for the sun to rise before his husband, even in the early dawns of late spring.
He heard feet padding past his bedroom door out in the hallway, too quickly to be the Doctor. Ganbri's bedroom door must have been what woke him. Not that it mattered . . .
"Dad!" Ganbri's voice called out, followed by a couple of good thumps on the door. "Time to get up!"
Harry only gave a loud groan in response but it was enough to satisfy his son, and the feet in the hall continued on their way. What happened to the days when the parents were supposed to wake the children?
Still, despite his body's protests, he forced himself out of bed.
He came down the stairs still looking a bit scruffy and tired and not caring about it. At least, he didn't care until he spotted the Doctor on the living room sofa in a suit and tie, perfectly shaved and hair styled. He immediately felt irritated that early mornings came so much easier to the Doctor than they did to him, despite the fact that the Doctor rarely needed to get up early.
"It was your decision," the Doctor muttered before Harry had said a word, not glancing up from the papers before him as he sipped a cup of tea. "I told you you'd hate it. You didn't listen to me."
"Stop it, Banni!" Ganbri chided from the kitchen. He emerged a moment later with freshly filled water bottles and handed one to Harry. "You hate it now but you'll love it once you start seeing results. Then you can see how jealous he gets over how you've changed."
"It's not like he's going to sprout wings or anything," the Doctor muttered into his mug. "He's looked exactly the same for twenty-five years."
Harry scowled. "I'm so inspired by your confidence in me."
The Doctor finally looked up from his papers, quickly put on his most charming smiling, and winked. "I only mean that you can't improve upon perfection, lahrre."
Despite himself, Harry smiled.
Right up until Ganbri pushed his gym bag into his hands and stated abruptly, "You can and you will."
Ah, his loving son. What happened to his sweet little boy that thought his father was the toughest, strongest man alive?
As he watched his son march off, he thought of how Ganbri looked when he was little. A tiny six-year-old with an unruly mess of black hair, missing teeth, and hands so small that Harry could fit both of them in one of his own. Ganbri was taller than him now, his beautiful hair so short that it was barely there, and his body had become built up with more muscle than Harry had ever had.
"What time is your first class today?" the Doctor asked, rising from the sofa, still holding his thick stack of papers.
"Nine."
"Would you have time to come 'round and see Edmund with me before you go?" the Doctor asked, holding up his papers for Harry to glance at briefly. "We've been getting some interesting data and I have some ideas."
Harry swept his eyes over the papers, taking in the endless scribbles and notes in all the margins and frowned. "When in the world do you have time for all that? Are you bringing in Ood when I'm not around?"
The Doctor's brows knitted together. "What?"
"Leaving!" Ganbri's voice shouted from the garage.
"I'm just kidding. Don't be so serious," Harry chuckled, leaning forward and pecking a quick kiss on his husband's lips. "Meet you around eight?"
The Doctor nodded, but the frown was still on his face. He scolded himself internally—he knew that the Doctor could be a tad sensitive when it came to the Ood. His run-ins with them had never really ended well. Oh well, it couldn't be helped now.
Ganbri was as impatient as he was every morning, waiting by the door, hopping from foot to foot as if he were preparing to dash out from a starting line. The moment Harry stepped into the garage, Ganbri grinned widely and lifted his security card.
To any stranger that ever entered their garage, the damaged and scratched up old wardrobe in the corner looked like nothing but a long forgotten piece of furniture. If they tried to open it, its doors would stay stubbornly shut and they would likely assume that it was forgotten in the garage because it jammed. But, when Ganbri slipped his security card in the gap between the doors, it clicked loudly and the doors swung open with ease.
After the past tragedies of Torchwood, Jack and Declan had come up with some elegant solutions to past security issues. The location of the last Torchwood headquarters had become one of the agencies worst kept secrets and, ultimately, it was bombed. Jack was determined to keep the new one secret. No one except Jack and Declan knew where it really was—not even Harry. All anyone really knew was that it was deep underground and whatever tunnels or elevator shafts existed that led to the surface had been bricked up and painted over to forever hide them among the other walls. The only way in and out of headquarters were through the teleport systems that Jack had set up.
Inside the wardrobe was a small panel on a stand. Ganbri swiped his card again, the panel prompted him to select one of his authorized destinations, and suddenly the back wall of the wardrobe pushed open to reveal the submerged city that hid planet Earth's front line of defense.
The area before him was a massive concrete atrium, with powerful lights built into the ceiling, mimicking sunlight so well that they clearly hadn't been created on Earth. It stretched on for in a straight line for what looked like miles and there were several bicycles and even a skateboard lined up neatly along the wall to his right. In the center of the massive tunnel, different work stations had been built every fifty feet or so—most with the same sun-mimicking lights above them and a few without. Most of the stations he could see had computers, but one had aquariums with plenty of complicated equipment hooked up to them, one had plants with clipboards attached to their stands, one was just a computer desk surrounded by cylindrical tubes large enough to put people inside, bubbling and swirling with all sorts of bizarre looking fluids and gases.
He found it odd that they had built so many work stations in the main area when there were countless doors that lined the endless stretch of tunnel. What was behind them? He knew that the first door on the left of a medical treatment room—right by the entrance, in case of emergency—and that there was a morgue, an armory, the gym, at least one garage. It all seemed fairly standard until he remembered that a creature such as Edmund was kept behind one of those doors. That door looked like any of the others. And there were so many of them.
As they made their way down the tunnel, Kelevra wandered out from one of the many rooms, staring hard at the tablet in his hands as he walked. "Oh," he said with a start, looking up at them and stopping dead in his tracks. "Is it so late?"
"It's early," Ganbri corrected.
"Time is relative, pet," Kel answered with a smile. "I'll be along soon."
The training room was a far enough walk that Harry couldn't see the teleport anymore when he looked back. He heard Doug's booming voice echoing somewhere behind them, so he assumed that meant that the Burkes had arrived. Declan bustled past them at one point with his arms full of files—he only joined them for training about half the time, and spend the other half drowning in paperwork. Today looked like a paperwork day.
J.J. was in the training room before anyone else, as expected. What wasn't expected was to see Kevin there too, only three weeks after finally getting surgery on his chest.
"You're not back already, are you?" Ganbri asked first, frowning at Kevin.
Before anyone had a chance to answer, J.J. cut in. "I told him not to. His doctor told him not to. Kel told him not to," the Alreesh boy blurted out quickly, sounding stressed. Harry could see his fingers moving on their own, going to where his cigarettes would be if he hadn't promised not to smoke until Kevin recovered. "He's gonna get hurt. Could you talk some sense into him, sir?"
Harry blinked. He didn't really know Kevin well enough to lecture him on his health.
"Would you talk some sense into him?" Kevin answered, moving to cross his arms, wincing, and suddenly thinking better of it. "You weren't this worried when Doug broke his wrist. Or when Ganbri got—"
Ganbri coughed and cleared his throat loudly.
Kevin smiled awkwardly and turned his attention back to J.J. "It's not like it was heart surgery. I had some fat removed—that's all. It's like liposuction really. You wouldn't tell me not to exercise at all if I'd had liposuction, would you?"
"Kev!"
Harry flinched at the sheer volume of Doug's voice.
The giant of a man hurried towards them and suddenly froze. "Hug?" he asked, scrunching his face up uncertainly and holding his arms out somewhat awkwardly. "One-armed hug? One-armed hug."
"Gently," J.J. growled at him.
Douglas beamed and put one arm gently around Kevin's shoulders, giving him a little squeeze. Celeste took her time putting down her gym bag, allowing her brother to ask his customary fifty questions he asked whenever he hadn't seen someone for a while or they had been ill. Once Doug had burned off some of his excitement, she wandered up, smiling kindly, and squeezed Kevin's arm.
"It's good to have you back."
Annie squealed when she arrived a few minutes later, reacting similarly to Doug and giving him an awkward one-armed hug and kissing him on the cheek. Harry noticed that both Ganbri and J.J. looked away from the reunion and wandered off to get set up. He also noticed the almost unbroken eye contact between Kevin and Annie as they spoke, how closely they were standing to each other, and the way neither of them seemed to be able to stop smiling.
A massive hand thumped him in the shoulder, nearly knocking him sideways, and he looked up to see Doug beside him. "See that?" Doug asked in the quietest voice that Harry had ever heard him use and gesturing towards the pair on the other side of the room. "Be nice if someone looked at me like that." Harry thought that he meant love until he blurted next. "I mean, I'm really in shape now. I'm hot, right?"
Harry rolled his eyes. It was true, he had to admit, but he didn't have to admit it out loud. In the five years that the Burkes had been under J.J.'s strict training regime, Douglas had piled muscle onto his massive frame to the point that Harry was certain that he could use his bare hands to tear the limbs from a man if he wanted to. Celeste was getting quite bulky too, though not nearly as much as her brother. She had gone from a tall wisp to a solid tower of strength, her muscles nicely shaped and clearly visible. He didn't think she could rip arms off, but he had no doubt that she could break them without much effort.
"Ew, don't you start doing it too," Doug complained, swatting Harry's shoulder again to stop him from looking at Celeste. "She already looks at you like you're a fucking Calvin Klein ad. You start looking at her like that and I'm telling the Doctor."
"Now, now," Harry answered, grinning. "I'm sure there must be someone in the universe who finds you attractive."
"Not with this face," Doug answered, grinning as well. "I'm so fucking pretty, it's too intimidating. I think I'm just gonna have to accept that I'm gonna die alone."
"You won't die alone. Your sister will be with you, I'm sure."
Doug chuckled. "Ouch."
Nista barked out orders, reminding them all of which workout they were each meant to be doing that day and sharply telling Kevin that he was only to go at a walking pace on the treadmill and to stop the moment he felt pain. Kelevra arrived ten minutes late and was punished with the task of fifty push-ups. He chose to do them right next to Kevin's treadmill, and Harry could see the mad doctor gossiping away the entire time. Declan showed up after half an hour, but J.J. was so pleased that he actually joined them that he didn't get a punishment.
Once in a while, Nista's sharp eyes would catch someone slacking off or doing something incorrectly and he'd bark at them without stopping what he was doing. "You should be sweating, Temple! Back straight, Davies!"
At one point, he heard the call, "Elbows in, Mott!". Nista had never yelled at him before and it startled him so much that he shot a glance over at the Alreesh, who suddenly flushed and quickly added. "Sir!"
"If he's 'sir', then who the fuck am I?" Doug shouted from his station. "Duchess of York!?"
Without hesitation, Nista dropped the weights he was holding and started walking quickly towards Doug's station.
"Fuck," the big man gasped, dropping the bar of weights off of his shoulders with a loud crash and started running.
Nista stopped and watched him run towards the exit with a satisfied look. "To the teleport and back five times!" he shouted.
Doug returned later, dripping with sweat and shouting loudly, "I did five! I swear, I did five! Check the fucking cameras!"
Harry went straight to Edmund's holding cell after his workout, mopping sweat from his forehead with a towel, trying to catch his breath, and wishing that he didn't feel quite so old. Ganbri jogged to the showers, as if he hadn't just spent an hour having his body ripped apart by Nista's harsh routines.
The Doctor was standing outside of Edmund's cell, frantically writing on his thick stack of papers as Harry approached. "Morning, lah—oh!" The Doctor frowned at him horribly. "You couldn't have showered first?"
"Nice to see you too, dearest husband," Harry answered darkly. "I have to get ready for work. Show me what you have."
One of the many toys they had given Edmund to play with was a typewriter. Most often, he just pushed random buttons on it, sometimes in patterns, and occasionally he wrote words. The top sheet that the Doctor handed him was a page from Edmund's typewriter.
ba9l6knj-p?h23 jjj6ddd6bbb6
kn9hun248tstf4*pbcc
heutometrajedehn
i am not here
i am here
so we can sing
1
heutometrajedehn
i am not here
i am here
19801721256251341612100099725
hello
hello goodbye
hello edmund
dnn1jjh78r237459082576
? hello
41512937235011581114075144861
k08bhip333120npdke
"Which part am I looking at?"
"So we can sing," the Doctor said excitedly, pointing at the phrase. "It says 'so we can sing'!"
Harry was clearly missing something, but he tried to fit it together. "He can't talk, let alone sing. Have the crew been singing down here?"
"No. No, Harry, look!" The Doctor got the attention of his eyes and made a gesture, holding his right hand out to his side, as though he were holding something. Harry glanced to his left and saw Edmund watching them. He smiled widely at the Doctor's gesture and mimicked it, opening his mouth a little as he did so.
"Ood, Harry!" the Doctor cried out happily. "He's trying to communicate like an Ood!"
"He picks up weird information from poking around in our heads all the time. Why is that important?"
"Ganbri described him doing that when they found him. Before he met us. Ganbri's never met an Ood in his life so how did Edmund pick up a memory of how Ood communicate?"
They compared all the major information they had gathered so far with this new thought.
Sometimes, Edmund sat in his cell, completely lifeless. He had no pulse, no breath, and no pupil responses. For all intents and purposes, he was dead. Once he had the typewriter, he began to write "I am not here" just before that happened, and announced his return when he woke up. It seemed clear that Edmund's consciousness had been traveling, leaving his body behind, and they had always theorized that he was traveling through time, perhaps even universes. He could somehow cause his body to become ethereal, able to walk through solid objects as though he didn't exist and often chose to do so rather than use doors or entrance ways. He gathered most of his information through what seemed to be telepathic means and struggled to learn or understand anything that involved the physical world.
Clearly, having a body was something relatively new, even after all these years. The physical world made little sense to him, so his physical body made little sense as well.
Ood communicated through their minds, with the help of a little technology. Of course, Edmund had latched on to that idea of communication over actual speech and seemed confused as to why it didn't work. It still didn't explain how he knew how Ood communicate, but it gave them an idea of how to teach him to communicate like a human.
Within minutes, they were inside the cell. Harry felt his hearts beating a bit faster as the Doctor carefully guided the creature's long fingers to wrap around his own throat. He sang. He spoke. He hummed. Edmund's eyes widened and his head tilted back and forth, trying to understand. Harry had to fight every urge he had to seize Edmund by the shoulders and rip him away when his hand began to glow and his fingers sunk below the Doctor's flesh, but this was how they had hoped he would learn.
The Doctor made a few odd sounds as Edmund felt around, exploring his vocal cords and throat. More than once it became obvious that he cut off the Doctor's air supply for a moment—likely on purpose, Harry realized, to see what it would do. Eventually, the ghostly hand moved downward and felt his lungs. Edmund began to open his mouth and making breathy sounds, trying to mimic the movements that he felt inside the Doctor's body.
Harry's hearts continued to beat faster, goose bumps appears on his skin, and his hair stood on end. He still didn't trust Edmund. He didn't trust anything with that sort of power willingly sitting in captivity and allowing itself to be scolded when it misbehaved. They still had no idea how or why he came across the void, and he hated the thought of this creature toying with his husband's vital organs like a child pulling apart a remote control car to find out how it works.
Suddenly, it felt too hot. He was afraid. He didn't like Edmund touching the Doctor. He didn't trust him. He could hurt him. He could hurt them all. They should have found a way to dispose of him the moment he came through the void. They should have sent him back. They should have stopped him coming through. What kind of monster was he allowing to put his husband in such danger? How could they let him near the children? The boys were young enough to listen to what they were told, but Kahlia was stubborn and too curious for her own good. What might this thing do to her?
Edmund's hand withdrew from the Doctor's throat quite suddenly and his bright, glowing eyes turned to Harry instead. Suddenly, Edmund began to stand, moving from his crouching stance and drawing up his full height. Harry gritted his teeth and his muscles tensed, but somehow he felt that he couldn't move as the thing towered over him.
One long, thin finger stretched out towards him and moved closer.
Harry opened his eyes to find he was clutching a garbage can in his hands. He wasn't in the cell anymore and, apparently, he'd been vomiting. The Doctor was rubbing his back and fussing.
"Harry? Say something. Are you okay? Harold, tell me what happened. Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine," Harry answered, putting the garbage can down. He could feel that his stomach was clearly already empty.
He looked up, and saw a small crowd gathered in the doorway that led back out to main hall. Ganbri looked sick with worry, Annie looked as though she were close to tears, and Declan appeared to be holding his breath. Celeste stared with observant eyes while Doug was watching Edmund, not missing a thing—four eyes and one mind, those two.
"What happened?" the Doctor asked again.
He thought hard, but he couldn't remember. He just said the last thing that he did remember. "I was starting to have an attack," Harry said quietly. "I was stressing out and I started to get confused." He looked up at all their worried faces and shrugged. "I'm fine."
No one looked convinced, but Harry wasn't lying. He felt fine. He felt relaxed. He even felt like he had gained back some of his energy from the morning training. A dozen doubtful eyes watched him but, when he found J.J. looking at him, he was the only one who looked calm. The Alreesh boy held eye contact for a long moment and then nodded his head once.
Harry had no idea what he meant, but he found himself nodding back and had an inexplicable feeling that he was in on some sort of secret. He was confused more than before, yet somehow he felt that he understood more than he did a moment ago.
"I have to go to work," he announced, getting to his feet. "Keep working with him. Get Doug to try—his body is bigger and the movements will be more obvious."
Doug frowned. "I didn't volunteer for that," he protested. "You just got all fucked up. I don't want that."
"You'll be fine," Harry answered him. "It's perfectly safe."
He didn't know how he knew that. But he believed it.
The teleport took him to Jenny's home. She lived quite close to the university and had graciously agreed to let Harry use the teleport to save him an hour of travel. He hated using the public transit system, but the traffic was so horrible that driving wasn't exactly agreeable either.
Her humble home was perfectly spotless, as usual. She certainly didn't take after her father when it came to keeping a house, that much was certain. Harry showered and groomed himself for work, but Jenny never appeared. She must have gone out for the day already. He walked over to the kitchen fridge and reached up for the notepad she had stuck to the door of it, scribbling a quick message.
Missed you. Pint tonight?
It was hot in his lecture hall. He could see his students struggling to focus, sweating and using papers to fan themselves while he spoke. He never once looked at Ganbri, halfway up the seats, and saw him without something in his hands acting as a fan. His son had always been a good student but today, even for him, not much was sinking in.
The Doctor texted him countless times throughout the day, checking up on him. He didn't know how many times he had to explain that he felt perfectly fine before he would finally be believed. He decided to start flirting instead of trying to reassure his husband—it seemed to work and the Doctor had soon forgotten his worries over the promise of an intimate evening.
He had a meeting in the late morning that he struggled to sit through. He kept turning his gaze to the windows, staring longingly outside. For some reason, he just kept remembering his childhood on Gallifrey and how he spent his days racing through red fields and exploring silver forests on the cold mountainside and he wanted nothing more than to be out in the sun and the fresh air. He wanted to climb trees again.
The moment the meeting ended, he rose to his feet, caught the eyes of the friends he had there, and announced, "Let's go outside."
Brandon looked at him curiously and smiled, his wobbly double-chin sweating in the heat. "We were thinking of going to the cafe round the corner for lunch."
Sarah nodded enthusiastically. "The one with the great air conditioning."
Harry frowned at them both, and turned towards Mark and Claire for support. "It's beautiful outside."
"You hate the heat more than any of us, Harry," Mark answered, blinking. "Surely, you'd rather be someplace cool for lunch?"
"You're all old and boring," Harry answered, shaking his head. "The cafe will be packed and we always go there. Let's eat outside today."
They looked at him a bit oddly, smiling with uncertainty. He understood why. He thought it was quite odd himself, so he couldn't very well blame them for thinking so.
"I've . . . got a blanket in my office somewhere," Sarah offered timidly. "We could lay it on the grass."
Harry flashed her his best smile. "Excellent."
And so, on the hottest day of the year yet, Harry found himself enjoying his lunch in the shade of a tree. Something about having a picnic on school grounds seemed to bring out the inner-children of his colleagues, and their meal involved more laughing and not nearly as much talk about lesson plans, funding, and politics as it usually did.
Michael Turner, from Anthropology, strolled past at some point and was invited to join them. Then Landon Scott and Jordan Finch from Chemistry, and Stephen Nolin from the Physics department. The fresh air seemed to do them all a bit of good. It was a funny thing really—Harry couldn't imagine why they had never thought of doing it before.
His afternoon class had an even harder time than his morning class. He watched them slowly melting in their seats. He felt fairly certain that, whatever class he was in now, Ganbri was probably reaching the point where the heat was making him ill. While his students guzzled water and slowly slumped downward in their seats, Harry's mind was back on the mountainside with his best friend, feeling frost crunch beneath his feet and listening to the kukrari chittering in the trees. When the class was over and Harry gathered his things, he closed his eyes for a moment and missed his home terribly. He missed Qhoya and the way she hummed whenever she worked in her garden. He missed Jinnar's ten thousand questions every day and pulling at his sleeve. For a second, he even missed his mother. He remembered a time when he was terribly sick with a fever and she gently applied a cool cloth to his forehead and stroked his cheek, telling him stories from when she was a little girl. He could almost feel the cold water on her fingers when she touched his skin and remembered that being more comforting than the cloth.
He opened his eyes and was shocked to feel them stinging ever so slightly. He shook his head, took a deep breath, and turned his attention back to his papers, his brief case, or his phone—anything, really.
He hadn't thought about his mother in a long time.
He swore quietly under his breath and hurriedly wiped his eyes. He scooped everything up that he needed and headed for the labs.
Progress had been slow lately. He had been gently nudging the crew with hints and hypothetical questions, trying to help them without showing that he already had the answers. This time around was proving particularly difficult.
Eventually, he gave up and made his way over to the youngest person on the team. It was never a surprise to have the young ones suggest something radical. Harry asked her a few routine questions, catching up on what she'd been doing, then casually mentioned he had heard that she wanted to try a certain method that hadn't been tried before.
She stared at him blankly, brows furrowed, clearly not sure what to say.
"I think it's a good idea," Harry assured her quickly. "Yeah, good thinking. New. I like that."
"Uh, thank you, Professor," she answered uncertainly. "I'll get started on that right away."
Harry clapped her shoulder and smiled. Hopefully, within a year or two, she might get credited with some great discovery.
A few signed papers, a few formal checks, and several handshakes and expected social gestures later, and Harry's obligations for the day were done.
Jenny was waiting for him in the shade of the same tree he'd had his lunch under.
"I had a picnic there today," Harry told her, pointing at the spot as he approached. "With the other teachers. Like a bunch of kids."
Jenny smiled wide. Smiling always came so easy to her. "Was it fun?"
"It was actually."
"Maybe you should do it more often then." She stepped up beside him and slid her arm in his, quickly matching her footsteps to his own. "You look good today. Rested . . . Did you skip your workout?"
"No," Harry answered quickly. "I think they just must be starting to do me some good."
"Good," She grinned. "Maybe I should start going too."
Jenny was always good company. Even on the darkest days, she was a ray of sunshine. On a good day, like today, she embraced other people's happiness and seemed to bath in it, simply glowing with the positive energy around her and amplifying it until no one could look at her without smiling.
She had always been kind to Harry and she had worked hard to be a good role model for Ganbri since the moment she saw him. Harry still remembered how he felt when the first Father's Day had come around after she joined them on Earth. He had expected that he and his husband would part ways at some point, so that the Doctor could spend some time with his daughter. Instead, Jenny showed up at their home, eyes shining and her face lit up with joy. She shouted "Happy Father's Day!" so suddenly that it seemed she'd been bursting to shout it her whole life and then, without blinking or hesitating or taking even a split second to think about it, she threw her arms around the Doctor and Harry both.
He remembered how that felt. Standing frozen on the spot, unsure of what to do, while she squeezed tight and gave them each a kiss on the cheek. She had made plans to take the both of them to dinner—with Ganbri, of course—and had a gift for each of them. Jenny was so full of love and acceptance that no part of her had ever even considered the fact that her and Harry weren't actually related.
They were family.
He found himself smiling fondly at the memory of it—the feeling of realizing that he was loved by someone when he had never done anything to earn it. He just existed. That was enough for her.
"Do you think Ganbri would go with me?"
He blinked, realizing that he'd been so caught up in memories that he hadn't been listening. "Ganbri?"
Jenny smiled knowingly, but didn't accuse him of not paying attention. "I want to take ballroom dancing lessons, but I need a partner."
Harry frowned. "I'm not sure that's really his thing."
"I bet I could convince him," she responded, smirking with a sly look in her eye. "If I told him it was some sort of bonding experience or something and it was really important to me, I could guilt him into it."
He was about to remind her that he knew how to dance quite well and could teach her himself when something caught his eye. Up ahead, sitting on the street corner, was an all-too-familiar blue box.
Jenny followed his eyes. "Is that the TARDIS?"
Harry nodded, frowning. "It won't be ours though. It's from somewhere else in the Doctor's timeline." He could tell by the marks on the ship that it was a younger version—the paint a little newer, a couple of scratches missing from one side. He looked around him, keeping an eye out for a familiar face in the street.
"That's kind of exciting, isn't it?" Jenny said happily. "We should go in that pub! We can keep a look out the window and sneak a peek at him. Wouldn't that be fun?"
Part of Harry disagreed, thinking that it was probably safest to simply stay away, but part of him was curious. Which Doctor was here and why? Was something exciting or dangerous about to happen? He let Jenny lead him by the hand into an old pub positioned right across the street from where the TARDIS was parked.
The dark wood and dim lighting inside made it instantly seem like evening, as long as he didn't look out the windows and see the glaring sunlight outside. The pub wasn't as full as he would have liked, but he supposed there were enough people inside that he could probably disappear into the background if he had to.
"I'm starving," Jenny announced, parking herself at one of the stools right at the bar. "Are you hungry? I could really use some chips. Maybe a burger or something."
Harry sat down next to her and turned on his stool so that he was facing Jenny, which also allowed him to face the windows that looked out onto the street behind her. Jenny had never seen any of her father's other faces, so she wouldn't know him even if she saw him. He'd have to keep an eye out for them both.
Jenny ordered them some food and a couple of drinks and happily chatted away while they waited. She asked him about some of the Doctor's past selves and what he was like when he was young. Harry kept one eye on the window while he answered, and they had a few good chuckles at the Doctor's expense as they shared some stories about him.
After twenty minutes or so, Harry spied something suspicious.
"Look," he said, gesturing with his chin towards the window.
Jenny turned in her seat and almost immediately spotted what Harry had seen. "Is that him?"
There was a man on the sidewalk, wearing a black shirt with long-sleeves and a high collar, hands in his pockets, and a grey paperboy cap. It was far too hot a day to be dressed in something so warm and Harry immediately suspected that the man was trying to hide something.
He looked closer. The man's skin was deathly pale, almost bordering on a shade of blue, though it was hard to tell as the only skin that was visible was his face, and the cap was shadowing some of it.
"No," Harry answered quietly. "But either he's ill or he's not human. He might be with the Doctor."
The man stood outside the window with an amused smile on his face, looking back the way he'd come as though he were watching something. A moment later, the Doctor came into view.
It was a face that Harry had never seen with his own eyes, but he'd seen it in the Doctor's memories before. He looked older, with a strong nose and eyes that seemed to hide in in shadow. His hair was dark and short, like Ganbri's.
"That's him," Harry whispered excitedly.
Jenny's mouth fell open a little. "Him? He's wearing black jeans, a purple jumper, and a leather jacket. You're saying that's Dad?"
"Trust me, it's actually one of the least surprising things I've ever seen him wear."
"I guess he does wear T-shirts and tennis shoes with his suits."
They watched a moment as the Doctor and his friend talked outside. They seemed to be disagreeing on something. It was then that Harry noticed his friend was pointing towards the pub door and, when Harry paid attention to how his lips moved, seemed to be saying something like "too hot". The Doctor shook his head again and the other man simply shrugged his shoulders, pulled his hands out of his pockets, and began rolling up his sleeves.
In the sunlight, Harry could plainly see that his skin was a light tint of blue. When the Doctor quickly grabbed his hands to stop him, the colour subtly shifted, adding a little hint of green to the flesh.
"Ennyeseth," Harry whispered, half to himself.
"Ohh, I've seen them," Jenny chimed in, eagerly watching the pair. "There's lot of them on Satellite J5. Most people there call them Mood Skins, but they didn't care for it much. They aren't interstellar travelers in this time yet, are they?"
"Neither are humans," Harry reminded her. "It doesn't stop the Doctor."
The man being Ennyeshan didn't mean anything significant to Jenny. She hadn't lived the Nightmare's War yet. She never saw the Howling Ghost that fought at their side without ever telling them why, and disappeared afterwards without ever saying goodbye.
His name was Ghanje.
Is, Harry reminded himself. He's still alive right now.
He watched, feeling a little spellbound, as his husband and a dead man walked into the pub. Ghanje removed his hat, revealing a head of thick black hair, riddled with hints of blue. He had the same petite build as most Ennyeseth tended to have, but his eyes were bright blue instead of the usual silver or green of his people. The lighting in the pub helped to camouflage the odd colour of his skin and he happily rolled up his sleeves.
"What do they eat here? What should we have?" Ghanje asked, rubbing his hands together happily.
The Doctor shrugged. "Fish and chips are always good."
"I don't want fish and chips. I've had that. Get me something new."
The two sat down at the bar, just around the corner from them with their backs to the windows. Harry had a clear view of both, but he wasn't sure which one fascinated him more.
"You've not had steak yet," the Doctor suggested next. "Steak and beer is quite traditional on Earth."
"What is steak?"
"It's a big slab of meat. You can have them cook it just enough so that you don't get sick or you can have it pretty well burned to nothing but a lump of charcoal."
"It's not anything dodgy like people, is it?"
"No, it's beef."
"And I'm assuming beef aren't people?"
"Beef comes from cows."
Ghanje frowned at him, looking annoyed. "And cows aren't people?"
The Doctor clapped Ghanje on his shoulder and smiled in a way that looked a bit condescending. "Don't worry. You can eat cows."
"I don't like that you won't say they aren't people."
The Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes. "Cows aren't people."
Harry jumped when a plate of food was put down in front of him, so distracted with listening to the pair across from him. Jenny seemed startled too, but she recovered easier, smiling and thanking the bartender.
"We have to stop staring," she whispered urgently to him. "They'll notice us. Eat your chips."
Harry tried his hardest to eat without looking like he was hanging on their every word. They talked a bit about London and the Doctor went on about some of the wonderful things that the city had to offer that they could go and see. Ghanje didn't seem starry eyed and twitterpated like most of the Doctor's companions did. He was amazed by the city and the people and the technology, but he clearly wasn't the sort to be led around like a puppy.
"I want to go to one of these clubs I keep hearing people mention," Ghanje said, carefully sipping at his beer, trying to decide if he liked it or not.
"They're mostly for dancing, really," the Doctor answered with a bored tone.
"Then I want to go dancing."
"I don't really dance."
"That's fine. You tell me where to go and I'll go dancing without you."
Harry watched the Doctor's face and saw that he was a little hurt by the comment, though this body of his clearly liked to portray a tough exterior.
"I'm not letting you run around the city by yourself," the Doctor said irritably. "Especially at night."
"That's fine too. I'll find a local to take me around and meet up with you later."
The Doctor scoffed. "A local? How do you plan to get a local to play tour guide to a stranger all night?"
"Easily enough," Ghanje took another sip of his beer and nodded his head in their direction. "There's a cute blond over there who keeps staring at me."
Jenny choked on her chips and quickly turned in her seat towards Harry, trying to hide her face from the other two. Harry nearly spat up his drink at the same moment and hurriedly pretended that he had spilled some of it on his shirt, giving him an excuse to look down and shift about on his stool, desperately trying to hide his face.
"So much for not being noticed," Jenny chuckled quietly, joining Harry in his ruse and handing him a handful of napkins.
He heard the Doctor and Ghanje chuckle at them a bit and carry on their conversation. "I didn't think I was staring," Harry grumbled, sneaking glances to see when the other two had stopped paying attention to them.
"Uh, I think he was talking about me, Harry," Jenny said in a voice that implied she was stating the obvious.
"We're both blond."
"Yeah, but I'm cute."
Harry frowned out her, his mouth dropping open slightly. "I'm offended."
"Be offended," she answered simply, sitting back in her seat and crossing her arms. "You're a man. You're all rugged and stuff. If he were talking about you, he wouldn't have used the word 'cute'. He would've used something else. It doesn't matter anyway."
"It does a little bit!" Harry scowled.
Before anyone left, the Doctor went to the washroom and gave them a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Jenny bounded over to Ghanje, smiling her best smile and using her most friendly voice. There was a bit of small talk—asking him if he was new in town and saying how much she loved the blue in his hair. He seemed friendly enough, beaming at her and asking her a few questions about the city, including if she knew of a good "one of those dancing club places" for him to go to.
"I want my friend to go with me, but he's a bit shy," Ghanje explained. "Maybe you would like to go? Or maybe your friend would like to go with me?"
Harry shifted in his seat again, trying to hide his face. He didn't know why he was bothering though, when Ghanje had clearly seen him. He wondered if Ghanje remembered him when they met again, so many years later in the heat of battle? Did he know who he was and just never said anything?
Jenny cleared her throat, sounding slightly embarrassed. "Oh, that's actually my father." Then, after a brief and awkward pause. "He's married."
"Shame," Ghanje said with a smile. "Let me know if you change your mind? I don't have many friends and I would like to have more. You seem like you would make a good friend."
Jenny didn't know he'd met Ghanje in the future. She couldn't possibly know. But Harry felt annoyed anyway when she grabbed Ghanje's hand and dragged him over to him.
"In case we don't see you again," Jenny said happily, pushing Ghanje in between them, slipping her arm around them both to squeeze them together, and raising her phone in the air. "I want a picture to remember you by!"
After the photo, Harry quickly made an excuse for them to leave and took Jenny's arm. They crept off to the farthest walls of the pub, taking advantage of its odd shape and the little nooks in the walls where booths had been set up. Harry didn't want Ghanje introducing the Doctor to his new friends upon his return.
They hid in the shadows and watched as the Doctor returned. Everything about the Time Lord's body language had changed to show himself as more open and friendly. Perhaps he'd changed his mind about not taking Ghanje where he wanted while he had a moment to think alone.
And then they were gone.
Harry felt a bit sad about it.
"You think Dad will be happy with this?" Jenny asked, holding up her phone to show the photo she had taken of the two of them with Ghanje. "I doubt he has any photos of most of his friends."
"It's hard to say," Harry answered truthfully. "I'm sure he'll like it, but it might make him sad."
"Why?" Jenny's eyes widened and she clutched the phone to her chest as if she were suddenly afraid it might break or be stolen from her. "Do you know who he is? Is he dead?"
Harry smiled a little. "I just know he's gone."
They walked back to Jenny's place, chatting over what had happened and teasing each other. Jenny had decided that she would give the photo to the Doctor after all, but that Harry should give him a little warning first. It seemed like the best plan.
She kissed him on the cheek and wished him a good evening before he stepped into the teleport.
He returned to Torchwood, planning to see Edmund again and hoping to find the Doctor still there.
The place was as quiet now as it had been in the morning. The only evidence to show that people had been there was a missing bike from the wall, and a pile of papers and a coffee cup on one of the central working stations. No doubt Declan was still there somewhere, surviving off of caffeine and determination alone in his never ending quest to catch up on paperwork and keep everything running smoothly.
The concrete echoed his footsteps as he walked down the empty halls. How large did Jack plan to make the Torchwood team with this much space? At the moment, he had a team of nine, but headquarters seemed large enough to easily work for an organization of hundreds. The man was immortal, Harry realized, so perhaps his dreams were bigger than they had ever thought.
The Doctor was gone. His pile of notes was sitting on a chair in the hallway, facing Edmund's holding cell. He had clearly been down there for hours, scribbling away notes and attempting to communicate. There was a sticky note on top of the pile, written in thick marker for whoever was first to find it.
HE SPOKE.
Harry looked through the Plexiglas wall at the creature on the other side. Edmund sat, crouched in the corner. He had a bundled up blanket in his hands and watched Harry with observing and yet distant eyes.
He picked up the pile of notes and sat down in the chair, flicking through them. The Doctor had started countless numbers of equations that led to nowhere, either trailing off into nothing or being furiously scratched out. There were bullet lists of things that they knew and things that they didn't. Most of it was all things he'd heard before in the years that they'd been trying to unlock the secrets of the Ghost.
It wasn't until he was on the fifth page that something caught his attention.
How would you talk to an amoeba?
"Hello."
Harry's head shot up. Edmund had silently crept up to the glass wall separating them, still clutching his blanket. He smiled.
"Harry," Edmund said, in an odd sounding low, whispery voice that didn't sound anything close to human. "Hello, Harry."
Harry froze for a moment. "Hello, Edmund."
Edmund's smile widened. "Hello."
Okay. So he spoke. It seemed that he still didn't have much to say. Harry continued reading the notes, trying not to get creeped out by the occasional chirp of "Hello". The Doctor had written down his new theory so quickly that the handwriting was a complete mess—he had even written some in Gallifreyan, he was so distracted.
They had known all along that Edmund was a far more advanced being than they were aware of, but the Doctor was proposing something on a grand scale. How would a Time Lord, or even a human, talk to an amoeba? Humans know they exist. They watch them. Experiment with them. Control their very lives. They could be quite intimately connected with each other and, yet, the amoeba had no idea that the human existed. A human was simply too big for it to be aware of and too different to communicate with. Even if a human had desperately wanted to speak to an amoeba, how could they possibly do it? Where would you even start?
Harry glanced up at Edmund again—at his odd, misshapen body that had taken him so long to build and so long to learn how to control—and realized what the Doctor's conclusion had been.
"Friend," Edmund suddenly piped up. "Help. Friend."
Harry's brows knitted together as Edmund lifted the bundle in his hands. The blanket was covering something. And it was moving.
"What is that?" Harry asked, perhaps too sharply.
Edmund held his hands out, but the blanket kept the moving thing from view. "Help, Harry." Edmund repeated.
Harry hit the button on the wall beside the cell to open the door. He didn't know why they kept it locked anyway when Edmund could simply travel through the walls. He hurriedly took the bundle from Edmund's hands and pulled at the blankets to reveal what he had been hiding.
A tiny, grey kitten was wiggling around underneath. It was so small that its eyes were barely open. Tiny needle-like claws reached out, gripping whatever they could find as it mewed pathetically. Its fur was wet, some areas appeared slick with oil, and a patch on its shoulder was missing the fur completely.
"Where did you get this?"
Edmund smiled again and touched a single finger to his own forehead. "Edmund help." Then he turned his head, his finger still touching his forehead, then turned the same finger to point down the hallway where he was still looking. "Help."
Harry frowned, wondering what Edmund wanted him to go find. He moved to stride down the hallway but Edmund's long fingers shot outward and gripped his arm. They were cold as ice and Harry suddenly felt like he couldn't move. He stared at the creature before him, watching as those silver eyes glazed over with a strange, distant look.
"Friend. Doctor. My friend. Harry." Edmund babbled repeatedly, his eyes misting over as though they were seeing through time itself. "My friend. Doctor. Help."
The next words that came from Edmund's mouth sounded more focused than anything he had said yet, as if he had somehow tapped into a part of his mind that knew how to communicate what he wanted to say.
"Help my friend," Edmund said, his voice deeper and even less human than before, somehow sounding like it was coming from far away. "Or this one will die."
Edmund let go of his arm. His eyes suddenly shifted, becoming clear and present again. He smiled at Harry. "I am here."
Harry stared at the thing with wide eyes and felt his hearts thundering in his chest. If Edmund was announcing that he was there now, then who was there a moment ago?
He clutched the kitten to his chest and hurried down the hallway in the direction that Edmund had pointed. There was nothing in the other holding cells, except a sleeping Weevil in one. He reached the end of the hall and found a door that he had never gone through before. Without thinking, he pushed through it.
It was a small and bare room, set up with a simple desk and chair to one side and a small military cot on the other. But sitting on the floor, against the far wall, was J.J.
Harry almost dropped the kitten at the sight of him. There was blood all over his hands and on the floor. His shirt had been discarded to some corner of the room and a small pile of bandages and medical supplies sat beside him.
J.J.'s bright golden eyes looked up at him, looking almost fearful at getting caught in such a state. "Hello, sir," he said quietly. "Did you need help with something?"
Harry quickly put the kitten down on the cot, the poor thing's mewling cries becoming much louder. "What the hell happened?" Harry demanded, kneeling beside the boy to get a better look.
"It went clean through," J.J. answered quickly. "I'm fine, sir. It just needs cleaning up. That's all."
He'd been shot. Harry could clearly see the bullet hole just above his right hip, barely missing the bone. He grabbed J.J.'s elbow, forcing him to move his arm and sit forward so that he could get a look at the back. There was an exit wound out the other side, creating the main source of the bleeding.
"You have a doctor on the crew," Harry growled at him. "What are you doing hiding in here and trying to dress this yourself? Where is Presley?"
J.J. began lifting his chin in submission and Harry couldn't even tell if he was aware he was doing it. "I didn't tell them I'd been hit." He answered simply.
"Why the fuck not!?"
J.J. flinched, one of his arms twitching upward as though he half expected that he would need to defend himself. Harry felt an instant stab of guilt and forced himself to take a deep breath and push his anger aside.
"J.J.," he began again, slowly and as calmly as he could manage. "Why wouldn't you tell the others?"
"Ganbri is my back up," the Alreesh boy answered quietly. "He's always my back up."
Harry began picking through the supplies on the floor, grabbing a bottle of saline to wash the wound with. "He didn't cover you?"
"He did," J.J. assured him quickly. "His rolled an ankle and was having trouble keeping up. I ran at the front to clear the way and told him to watch our backs. It was no one's fault. Things happen on this job. But Ganbri would think it was his fault and I needed him to be thinking clearly. The bullet went clean through and I know how to dress the wound."
Harry narrowed his eyes at the boy. "You could have passed out from the bleeding and been in here all night, and then where would you be?"
"Probably dead," J.J. answered without hesitation.
"Do you see how stupid that is?"
"Yes, sir."
"Call me Harry, Jack."
J.J. blinked, his brows furrowing in confusion.
"You yelled at me this morning."
"I apolo—"
"You're my trainer," Harry interrupted. "You're supposed to yell at me. That's how I learn. Just like me yelling at you for hiding out in here with a bullet wound. Right now, right here, I am in charge. But, in the gym, you are in charge. Don't you think that makes us equals?"
J.J. looked up at him with uncertainty. "I hadn't really thought of it that way before."
Harry lifted a finger to poke at J.J.'s chest, the muscle proving to be more solid than he expected. The boy way small, but what he did have was pure muscle. Harry admired the carved shape of the muscles surrounding J.J.'s arms and chest, wondering how many years it would take him to reach that point.
"I want to look like you," he began. "All chiseled and strong so that my husband likes to look at me."
"I assure you—"
"I need to know that you're up to the task of being my trainer, and helping me look like that," Harry interrupted again, not having the patience for J.J.'s polite assurances. "If you're going to be my trainer—and a good one–you can't keep thinking of me as your superior. At least here, at Torchwood, in your territory, you should call me Harry. Or Mott, if you prefer."
J.J. actually smiled a little bit. "Then you will call me Jack."
"Yes, Jack," Harry allowed a quick smile before returning to his stern voice. "And if I ever find out you've been injured and didn't report it again, we are going to have a serious problem. You can't train me if you're crippled or dead, you understand?"
He felt J.J.'s body jump slightly and Harry was certain that, if he had been standing, he would have saluted out of pure instinct. "Yes, s—uh, Harry."
Harry finished applying the bandage in silence. He felt those golden eyes watching his every move and saw J.J. shift or take a breath a few times as though he were going to say something, but kept changing his mind.
Harry suspected there was more to why J.J. would hide such a serious wound than just saving his friend the guilt. He knew that it was probably part of his nature to hide injury and weakness, being an Alreesh. Maybe he didn't want to worry Kevin, who was still healing from his surgery. Maybe he didn't want to worry Jack, who still regularly expressed concern about J.J. not living at home. It was difficult to say.
He secured the bandage and grabbed J.J.'s hand to help him to his feet. "Something on your mind?" he asked as casually as he could.
J.J. looked at his feet, looked at the wall, shifted his weight and put a hand to his fresh bandage when the movement pained him. His mouth opened a couple of times, but no words came out.
"Don't be shy now, Jack."
J.J. cleared his throat and shifted his weight again. He was moving his arms across his body now, as if he were suddenly aware that he was shirtless and felt vulnerable.
"If I, uh, were to ever need advice about something," he began, continuing to avoid eye contact, but his words trailed off into awkward silence.
"You know you can tell me anything," Harry assured him quickly. "We're family." When J.J. didn't say anything, Harry frowned slightly. "Is it something you might be better off asking Jack about? Or . . . is it something you want to ask Jack with someone else there?"
"No," he muttered quietly in return. "I think you're probably the one to talk to."
Harry parted his hands and held his arms apart slightly, trying to make his body language appear open and friendly. J.J. communicated far more with body language than anyone Harry had ever met and he knew he wouldn't talk if Harry's body didn't say he was willing to be receptive.
"I'm free now."
J.J. hesitated, thinking, fidgeting. His fingers looked for his absent cigarettes again. "No," he answered finally. "It's okay." He crossed his arms, even though Harry could see him wince from the pain of the movement. He wasn't going to talk today.
"You talk to me when you're ready?"
J.J. nodded his head quickly. "Yeah."
"Do me a favour," Harry said, quickly changing his tone and stance to let J.J. know that he was allowing the subject to change. "I've got something that needs taking care of." He scooped the mewing kitten off of the bed and pushed it into the boy's hands. "You're good with kids."
J.J. blinked at the tiny animal but, even as he spoke, he instinctually began to cradle it against the warmth of his chest. "Are you . . . Are you being racist, sir?"
"That's 'Are you being racist, Harry'," he corrected, grinning. "Edmund had it. I'm guessing he travelled outside of headquarters and found it in a pipe or something. Someone needs to help it."
He left J.J. to clean up the mess from his wound and wondered what would become of the kitten. He was aware that it was entirely possible that J.J. might eat it, rather than save it, but he hoped not. Maybe it would do the kid some good to have something defenseless to take care of and, heaven forbid, maybe even love.
Edmund's head turned like an owl's as Harry walked past his cell and gathered the Doctor's notes, watching him with his wide, round eyes.
"Goodbye," his odd, whispery voice echoed after him down the halls. "Goodbye, Harry."
He was almost at the teleport when he saw Kelevra standing at one of the work stations nearby, his hands folded over each other on a desk as if he were waiting for an appointment. Harry narrowed his eyes at him and wondered how long he had been sitting there and how he knew that Harry was coming back.
"Harry," Kel said pleasantly as the Time Lord approached, rising from his seat. "If you have a moment, I would like to discuss what happened today."
"Did you know that J.J. was hurt?" Harry hissed, grabbing the front of the doctor's coat before he even knew what he was doing.
Kel appeared unperturbed and simply smiled that eerie little smile of his. "As an outsider to the team, you may be unaware of this, but Nista is often hurt. Even those on the team rarely see that. He is small, more fragile than he cares to admit, and he takes large risks."
"He'd been shot," Harry answered angrily, releasing Kel's shirt.
"Yes, I thought that might have been what happened," the doctor answered calmly as he straightened out his clothing. "He was wearing a jacket when they returned, so I couldn't see a wound, but he was walking as if he were in pain and trying to pretend he wasn't. He's a stubborn man."
"You didn't help him."
"No."
Harry was a little thrown off by how calm Kel was. He was used to people being afraid or, at the very least, eager to fix the problem whenever he was angry. Kel didn't even seem bothered.
"I won't apologize for it," Kelevra continued, once he saw that Harry was listening. "Nista wanted to help himself and I let him. It's best that he learns how to effectively treat his own wounds. As I said, he is small, fragile, and takes risks. And people like Kevin and myself won't always be there to tend to his wounds. My job is to keep him alive, not to make things easy on him. I let him suffer today so that he doesn't die tomorrow. I wouldn't care to wear him next." The Zumecki doctor tilted the head on his stolen body and raised an eyebrow. "Do you think I was wrong?"
Harry caught sight of the computer screen beside Kel and saw that it was security footage of the holding cells. He could see, in one of the little windows, Nista cradling the grey kitten with one arm and turning his shirt over with the other, trying to decide if it was still wearable or not. That meant that the footage was live.
Kel had been watching. If J.J. had passed out, the doctor would have known, and he could have gone in to help him.
"Do you watch everyone?" Harry asked, pointing at the screen.
Kel didn't even turn to look at it. "Yes," he answered, smiling serenely. He looked Harry up and down, pausing when his eyes reached the notes in Harry's hands, a smear of oil on his shirt sleeve, a drop of blood on his wrist, the traces of grass stains on the knees of his trousers, and finally pausing to study his face. "But I don't usually need cameras, pet."
There was a long silence then. Harry glared at the Zumecki, unsure of whether he was still angry at him or not, and Kel simply smiled back.
"I have a gift for you," Kel blurted suddenly, his smile widening more. "You like gardening?"
Harry narrowed his eyes, not liking that he felt thrown off again. "Yes."
"I grew this for you," Kel said happily, pointing to a fern on a desk behind him. "They're quite calming, you know. That might be helpful to you. You seem like a man who could use something calming. This one is George."
When Harry didn't move, Kelevra scooped the fern up in his arms and held it out for Harry to take. "I would like us to be friends, Harry."
Harry hesitated a second, but did take the fern from Kel's arms. "Thank you."
"I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. It's calming," Kel answered with a wide smile. "Now, go home to your family. We'll talk another day."
Kel didn't wait for an answer. He bustled off to one of the many offices that lined the main tunnel and closed the door behind him without so much as a goodbye or a glance backward. Part of Harry wanted to follow the odd man and question him until he said something that made sense, but thought better of it.
Harry decided that Kel was a fucking weirdo and took his calming fern home.
Ganbri was sitting on the couch in the living room, icing his ankle and watching some documentary on squid. He laughed when he saw Harry's fern and said that, one by one, everyone seemed to be getting a fern from Kelevra.
"Mine is Roger," Ganbri said with a shake of his head, turning his eyes back to the TV. "J.J.'s pretty sure he puts drugs in them. We checked but couldn't find anything. I wouldn't put it anywhere near where you actually tend to sit or anything though, just in case. Who knows with him?"
The Doctor was busy in the kitchen, preparing dinner. He was in that focused kind of zone where he didn't like to be bothered, so Harry put his notes on the table, stole a quick kiss, and went upstairs to get dressed.
Ganbri told them about the exciting chase through the London streets from earlier that day, tracking down a gang of intergalactic slave smugglers. It sounded dangerous and exciting and Ganbri complained that he wasn't as much help as he would have liked because he injured his ankle jumping over a wall. He never mentioned J.J. getting hurt, so it must have been true that he simply didn't notice. Apparently, no one else did either. How many times had something like that happened?
Ganbri returned to his room to study after dinner, saying goodnight early as he didn't intend to come out again till morning. The Doctor picked up his stack of notes on Edmund and flopped with a huff onto the sofa.
"Get me a pencil, will you, lahrre?"
Harry frowned. "You've been working on that all day."
"No, I haven't," the Doctor answered quickly. "Well . . . I sort of haven't. I had a few patients to visit and then I got dinner together so I wasn't working on it for that. Did he talk to you by the way? Edmund? When you picked up my notes?"
"He said hello."
The Doctor looked unimpressed. "Hello's good, I s'pose."
"He had a kitten."
That caught his attention. "A kitten?"
Harry smirked and said nothing. The Doctor took the hint and put his pile of notes down on the table. Then he gestured for Harry to sit on the sofa with him.
"He had a kitten?"
Harry sat down, pleased with himself, and began to tell his story. The Doctor laid back on the couch as he listened, occasionally interrupting with questions, and Harry pulled his husband's feet onto his lap. He watched the Doctor's face relax and his eyelids slide down ever so slightly as Harry massaged his feet and spoke. He told him about Edmund's kitten and Kel's fern. He told him about dragging his colleagues into the heat for a picnic on the grass and earned a few surprised laughs. He told him about his lovely outing with Jenny and their lunch at the pub.
"We saw you, you know," he added quietly.
The Doctor frowned. "I didn't go anywhere near Jenny's place today."
"A younger you."
His eyebrows raised up into his hairline. "Oh?"
"You were with someone. An Ennyeseth."
His eyebrows came back down into what was almost a frown, but he didn't say anything.
"You came into the same pub as us while we were having lunch," Harry explained quickly, carefully choosing not to mention that they were only in the pub so that they could get a good look at the younger version of the Doctor that they already knew was around somewhere. "It was kind of fun though. He seemed quite independent and you were a bit . . . Well, you seemed a little needy."
"I remember," the Doctor sighed, pouting. "He wanted to just leave me behind and go around with other people. It was quite rude."
Harry couldn't help but grin, finding it oddly enjoyable to watch his husband squirm a little in discomfort. "You were fucking him, weren't you?"
The Doctor's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. "Harold!" But his red face told all.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Harry answered, his grin extending. "Were you making love?"
"Alright, just stop it," the Doctor said irritably, pulling his feet from Harry's hands and trying to get up from the couch.
Harry grabbed hold of his legs and started pulling, dragging him back onto the couch and holding on tight as he struggled and yelled to be released. "Well, which one was it? I mean, I know you like the colour blue but I didn't think that extended to people. Should I get some blue body paint next time I'm out? Blue's not really my colour, I'm afraid."
"Harry, enough!" the Doctor roared, but an escaped chuckle betrayed him. "Let me go, right now!"
"Don't they turn green when they get all turned on? Did it sort of ruin it or did that make it better? Because I think green would work nicely—bring out the brown in my eyes."
The Doctor struggled more as Harry carried on, slowly losing his control over his attempts to sound stern and dissolving into a laughing mess. Eventually, he was too out of breath to keep struggling and allowed himself to get dragged onto Harry's lap and held firmly in place.
The Doctor wound up explaining that he and Ghanje were never in a relationship, nor were they interested in one. "He was lonely. I was lonely," he explained slowly, cheeks burning pink from embarrassment. "We both had a lot of stress and . . ." he cleared his throat and turned a brighter shade of pink. "Neither of us had . . . been with anyone for a long time, so . . ."
"So you were fucking him?" Harry offered again, grinning wickedly.
"We shared certain experiences," The Doctor scowled at him. "I never mentioned it because I didn't want you to think it was something it wasn't and get jealous."
"Oh, of course not," Harry answered. "I wouldn't blame you for that one. He was quite cute for a blue person. I actually thought it was very interesting to see that he looked quite a bit like I did in my first body. Don't you think he did?"
"You weren't blue."
"He actually flirted with me a bit, you know?" Harry continued, completely ignoring the comment. "I liked it. I almost brought him home."
The Doctor's brows knitted together for a moment, working hard to remember, and then his face suddenly dawned with realization. "You were the cute blond at the bar."
"Jenny still insists that he was talking about her."
"Oh, my god."
"Your boyfriend tried to pick up your husband in front of your daughter. How does that make you feel?"
"He wasn't my boyfriend," the Doctor corrected sternly.
"Okay. Your fuck buddy tried to pick up—"
"Oh, no, that's ten times worse!"
Harry took pride in the fact that the Doctor never drifted off to that gloomy self of his that tended to come out when talking about old friends. He told Harry a few stories about travelling with Ghanje, including the night they first came to London and Ghanje absolutely insisted on going to a nightclub and then decided he hated nightclubs after being there for ten minutes. He even, with an enormous amount of teasing and reassurance that Harry wouldn't get jealous, told the story of how he and Ghanje had been screaming in anger at each other and then Ghanje had implied that the Doctor was "just being a bitch" because he hadn't had sex in a long time. Somehow, that turned into them screaming at each other about sex and took some very weird turns until Ghanje was essentially yelling at the Doctor that he was celibate because he didn't have the nerve to just kiss somebody if he wanted to.
So the Doctor kissed him.
And one thing led to another.
It sounded to Harry like Ghanje had intended the argument to end up that way all along.
He also suspected that perhaps the Doctor had secretly known that, and chose to fall for the trick anyway.
Harry remembered watching the body-less Ghanje soaring through the halls of Kahlia's ship, screaming furiously as he took out soldiers. The man he'd seen in the bar was small and attractive in a very nonthreatening sort of way—Harry would have sworn he was harmless if he didn't know what he'd done. It seemed odd to think that a man like that could stand up to the last Time Lord, fresh from the worst war in history, and scream in his face that he was a coward. But, when he combined the furious light he saw with the man in the bar, it wasn't so hard to imagine anymore.
They spent hours just talking. At one point, Ganbri popped his head out of his bedroom door and yelled down the stairs that he was trying to sleep and that they were laughing too much. He supposed that was a good thing.
Eventually, they decided to call it a night. They tidied up whatever mess was left in the kitchen together and then headed up the stairs. As they prepared for bed, he noticed the Doctor was trying to put on some kind of a subtle show for him—undressing slowly and in full view of Harry, stretching his arms when had his shirt off, and taking a little too much care with his movements to look natural.
The pinch on the bum while he was brushing his teeth was less subtle.
The Doctor didn't hesitate to slip right over to Harry's side of the bed and attach himself to Harry's side. His fingers wandered, drawing random patterns on Harry's skin, talking softly of their own, old memories together. Twenty-five years they'd been living on Earth, and the stories from their domestic life were just as fun and memorable to them as their stories of adventures in the stars. At least they were to Harry.
The Doctor began pecking kisses here and there as he talked, just enough to keep Harry from getting sleepy. His fingers slowly drifted downwards in their little patterns, wandering lower and lower, until Harry decided to put an end to the teasing and slipped an arm beneath the Doctor's side to pull him on top of him.
The Doctor kissed his chest and his neck and his mouth and Harry felt his hearts speeding up and the heat rising in him. He didn't notice that the Doctor had been shifting around, removing his pyjamas, until the Doctor pressed his body firmly against Harry and he felt skin on skin.
He shut his eyes and just enjoyed the feel of it as the Doctor moved. He felt a hand reach down between them and took hold of them both, stroking them together while the Doctor's tongue explored his mouth. His Doctor worked hard until he finally earned an uncontrolled moan from Harry's mouth.
The Doctor paused momentarily, grinning impishly as he began to shift positions again. "Harry," he whispered, moving so he straddled his husband, kissing his neck and sending hot breath into his ear. "My Harry."
Harry bit his lip in anticipation, knowing what was coming. His hands slid down the Doctor's body, feeling every inch of him, running over the slight curve of his hips and around beyond. He told a firm hold of flesh in each hand, pulling slightly, spreading the Doctor's cheeks to make way for him.
"Yes, Doctor?"
"I love you," the Doctor said quietly, pulling away just enough to look Harry in the eye. "And I want to see if I can make you turn green."
The Doctor lowered himself and Harry's breath caught in his throat as the tight warmth enveloped him. His body was already so excited that he had to fight the urge to start bucking his hips immediately, his fingers clamping down on the Doctor's hips and trying to force himself in deeper.
As soon as he thought he had control over himself, the Doctor would squeeze the muscles inside him or let out the most delicious moans, and Harry had to fight to stop himself from flipping them over so that he could drive himself in as deeply and as hard as his body would allow him.
"You don't want to watch?" The Doctor's voice was teasing, challenging him. Harry bit down on his lip and grinned. He could never resist a challenge.
He opened his eyes and looked down. The Doctor had spread his legs wide, giving him a good view as he lowered himself over and over onto Harry, and he was using one of his own hands to stroke himself as he went. Harry couldn't help it—another moan escaped him at the sight, and his hands gripped tightly at the Doctor's hips to pull him down hard.
The Doctor gasped and shuddered. For a moment, he stayed still with Harry fully inside him, rotating his hips slightly, the muscles inside of him tensing and relaxing in a very deliberate pattern. Harry let his head fall back on the pillow, trying to keep the sounds escaping him at a reasonable volume.
The Doctor was gasping and sighing, with little moans escaping him here and there. He was trying to sound controlled, but Harry could hear his breath starting to grow heavy, coming in faster. The patterns in his movements were slowly becoming random as he lost focus, moving in whichever way his body told him to instead.
Harry reached down and took the Doctor's length in his hand, swirling his thumb around the tip a few times. "Kiss me," he ordered.
The Doctor obeyed without hesitation, leaning forward to bring their mouths together. Narin exchanged freely as their lips parted and tongues met again, helping them each to feel the pleasure of the other, on top of their own sensations. The Doctor started to moan unwillingly, losing himself as Harry's hand began to pump, his hips starting to thrust without his leave.
Suddenly, the Doctor pushed off of Harry's chest to sit up again, rising and falling with increasing speed. Harry watched, thrusting his hips upwards and matching the speed of his hand to that of the Doctor's movements.
The Doctor was gasping for breath so desperately that Harry almost didn't hear him when he panted, "I'm ready."
Harry took the cue to squeeze his hand around the Doctor just a little harder, and thrust upward with a little more force. The Doctor gasped again as his body tensed up, throbbing in Harry's hand as he came onto his husband's chest.
Harry watched eagerly and thrust hard with each new spurt, finally letting go of himself and letting his body do what it wanted. He moved both hands to the Doctor's hips again, afraid of squeezing too hard as he neared his own finish. He felt the Doctor's muscles squeeze him tightly one last time to push him over the edge, and Harry moaned loudly as he came inside his husband's body. He thrust a few more times, more slowly, savouring the feel of it as the pleasure ebbed and flowed into a retreat.
When he looked up again, the Doctor was looking down at him with a truly smug smile. "You didn't turn green."
"Neither did you."
"Hmm, I suppose that just proves that we're both actually Time Lords then," the Doctor answered merrily as he climbed off of Harry to fetch a towel from the hamper. "Although, really, every good scientist knows that you have to perform an experiment more than once before you can claim to have an answer."
Harry chuckled and shook his head. "Mind if I catch my breath first?"
"I don't know why," the Doctor teased as he climbed back into the bed. "I did all the work."
"Well, next time, I'll do all the work," Harry promised, and then dropped his voice to an ominous pitch. "And then you'll be sorry."
The Doctor nestled himself in comfortably, his body shaping itself around Harry's effortlessly after years of practice. "I won't," he argued. "If I can't walk, that means I get to sit and read and watch telly all day and you'll have to stay home to do housework and take care of me, lest I starve. That sounds alright to me."
Harry chuckled and kissed his husband's forehead. "I love you, lahrre," he whispered into the tangle of dark hair. The Doctor hummed happily in return, his breathing already turning slow and even.
Harry closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
