Title: Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again,
Part Three—When You Tell Me that You Love Me
Author: veritas6_5
Fandom: Torchwood and just a little Doctor Who (Eleventh Doctor)
Rating: M for adult situations
Pairing: Gwen C. and Jack H.
Words: 12,663
Warning: Bad dreams
Classification: Ten years from now.
Genre: hurt/comfort, angst, new life
Disclaimer: All characters belong to BBC and RTD. I mean them no harm. No copyright infringement is intended. I just take them out to play with them. I'll put them right back.
Beta: karaokegal, the finest ever
Summary: Maybe there is somewhere to go from here, after all.
A/N: This was originally intended as a one-shot, but the second and third parts didn't want it that way. Now there are three parts and a coda. Please review. I'm reposting all the parts together for the sake of coherence.
Part Three—When You Tell Me that You Love Me
Without fanfare, Jack moved in, and it seemed to Gwen that they inhabited the secluded little house as if they had built it for themselves. Gwen felt in her deepest being that this life-changing thing was really meant to be. She was completely aware of the effect Jack had always had on her, and she reveled in letting herself be consumed by it.
It was getting easier for Gwen to realise, finally, that she was free to be with Jack. When Jack had looked into her eyes and said that without her, he couldn't see any usefulness to his long life, she felt like he had opened a window into a brighter universe than the one she'd been living in for the past three years, and she was now flying free in that wonderful space. She had never allowed herself the luxury of enjoying Jack's attention before, and it was exhilarating.
Since Jack had reappeared in her life, she often thought about how different this relationship was from her marriage to Rhys. She had loved Rhys with all her heart. He was devoted to her. He had withstood those early days of her job with Torchwood, when she had lied about everything to him. When he learned the truth, well, most of the truth about her job, he had managed to assimilate what she told him, and accepted her for what she was and what she did. In Rhys, she had what few women ever get to experience, an uncompromising, unquestioning, unconditional faith that let him overlook what she knew to be her most serious faults: her pride, her selfishness, her fears that someone, someday, would find out just how insecure she was.
Gwen had spent a lot of effort in her first months at Torchwood trying to find ways to keep her powerful attraction and attachment to Jack from changing the way she looked at Rhys. Jack's persona was so overwhelming that anyone else was bound to come second when he was in the equation. Jack must have recognised and understood her inherent pride, selfishness, and insecurities—he seemed to reflect them right back to her from inside himself. Gwen had felt that she and Jack were so alike, each trying to convince the world that they had none of those faults. It made them vulnerable, especially to each other.
Then Ianto Jones had happened to Jack, a coup de foudre, a thunderbolt from nowhere, and Jack had given Ianto a totally new perspective. Jack adored everything about Ianto, from his pale Welsh complexion to his deep voice and his shapely arse. Ianto was a beautiful boy, Gwen admitted, and he had grown up in terrible circumstances, but his spirit was pure, and she'd loved him too. He had become her close friend, her confidant, and her second reason for continuing to resist Jack's persistent overtures. 'Quaint categories,' indeed. Gwen knew what she saw. She could tell that Ianto was clearly smitten with Jack. Of Jack's feelings, she wasn't so sure.
Accepting Jack into her life also meant that Gwen accepted his quirks and foibles, and she suspected that there would be some interesting discussions coming up between them, once the first warm honeymoon months were over. Jack remained an enigma wrapped in a paradox. There were still so many things he didn't say, wouldn't broach. The worst part of it was that she didn't even want to ask him any of those difficult questions now. She just wanted the bliss to continue unchecked. She didn't want the peace that they were sharing to be disturbed.
She didn't know what started that train of thought, but as she sat on the beach, watching Jack swim in the bay, she huddled deeper into her jacket. Mid-September was surprisingly cool, and she knew when he got out of the water and into the chilly air, they would rush home to a warm shower, and the rest of the afternoon in bed. The very thought made her shiver. She swallowed hard, and hugged her arms to her chest. Making love with Jack was such an intensely pleasurable sensation (made all the more precious to her for the delay in consummation). He was so tender with her,and such a generous lover, that Gwen thought that she had never been so content.
Her life had bloomed to a degree that she wouldn't have believed possible. She had been very lonely in her first months in northern Wales, and seriously wondered if she had made a tragic error just trying to get far away from Cardiff. She met her next door neighbour, Mrs. Owens, and hardly anyone else. Her personal tragedies had turned her inward, made her life small. Jack's apparently newfound gregariousness saw to it that as a couple, they made new friends all over town. He had even managed to angle a part-time job for himself, teaching two sections of physics at the university.
Once Louisa Owens figured out Gwen-and-Jack as one unit, she proceeded to insinuate herself into Jack's good graces. Jack turned his attention to enlisting her to enlarge their new circle of friends. Jack had even been accepted into Mrs. Owens's group teas, the only man so honoured, and he delighted in their gossip as much as they delighted in his showy charm and old-fashioned gentility. He loved those older women, and loved being adored by them.
Of course, in the confines of a small neighbourhood in a small town, there was also an undercurrent of wonder about the nature of their relationship. Gwen declined to discuss it. Most of the women knew she had been widowed, although some ungenerously assumed that Jack was a gigolo. He roared with laughter when he heard that rumour, and started growing a pencil-thin moustache. Gwen had shaved half of it off him one morning when he was asleep.
After weeks of making love in the afternoon, in the morning, and all through the night, Gwen thought surely at some time, the frequency of their need for each other must necessarily decrease, but it didn't. She would wake in the night and find him watching her, and when he saw that she was awake, their desire for each other would heat up again, the craving, adoration, friction, skin-to-skin contact, feathery kisses, thrusting, angels in song . . . Sometimes she could look at his face in repose and simply marvel at his beauty, the glorious perfection, the glow, the luscious scent that was only Jack's, the fine smoothness of his skin, the blue eyes that could burn with desire and also comfort her with deep understanding . . . his long fingers on her body or twined in her hair . . .
Gwen was shocked from her reveries by the cold drops of water falling on her face. Jack leaned over her, wrapped in his big towel, grinning, his lips blue from the cold. "Want to go home?" he said, through chattering teeth. "That might just be my last swim this year!" Gwen got up from her spot out of the wind, and they ran for home, stumbling in their haste to get quickly to that hot shower, and each other.
The breeze was particularly chilly that night, blowing the curtains away from the sills, and Jack pulled the covers up over Gwen's shoulders. It was probably going to be one of the last nights they would be able to keep all the windows open at night. Gwen had fallen asleep early, lulled by the soughing of the wind through the trees in the garden. Jack stayed awake a bit longer, reading. As he reached to put his book down, and turned to look at Gwen as she slept by his side, he felt a warm flush rise in his face, and considered how they had nearly missed each other. He had loved her for more than twelve years of her linear time, and he still saw her as that curious, tenacious PC who had found a way into the secret spaces of Torchwood.
I want to call the stars down from the sky,I want to live a day that never dies,
I want to change the world only for you,
All the impossible, I want to do.
I want to hold you close under the rain,
I want to kiss your smile and feel the pain,
I know it's beautiful, looking at you,
In a world of lies, you are the truth.
Her eyelashes made shadows on her freckled cheek, and he reached out to push her hair off her neck, resisting the urge to kiss her awake. He had been with enough partners in his time to wonder what it was that made her so special to him, in this time, in this place. There had been many men and women in his life, he had made outstanding memories with some of them, but everyone else, and everything else, were eclipsed by the surge of emotions he felt when he thought about Gwen now. Touching her, breathing the same air, gave him a sense of security that he had lost . . . years and lifetimes ago.
He wondered if he might eventually have found that elusive security with Ianto, but his life had been drastically altered by circumstances completely out of his control. Roaming disjointedly across the universe after the disaster of the 456 had emphasized only his extreme inability to settle, literally or figuratively, anywhere, and he eventually realized that it was Gwen who drew him back to Cardiff again and again.
I want to make you see just what I was,
Show you the loneliness and what it does.
You walked into my life to stop the tears,
Everything's easy now I have you near.
Jack turned off the light, slid down into the bed, and pulled the blankets up around his shoulders. He spooned Gwen from behind and held her loosely. He draped one arm over her, and she took his hand between her breasts. He breathed her in deeply, the scent of her clean skin, her shampoo, not quite able to fall asleep.
He was disturbed from his restless half-sleep by Gwen's twitching and tossing in the bed, whimpering softly at first, then crying out. He tried to calm her, but she woke, startled, with a shuddering gasp. "I've got you, Gwen. It's ok, I've got you," he soothed, but she was deep in her dream, and couldn't see or hear him, although her eyes were wide open.
Jack struggled to hold her until she focused her eyes to recognise him. Her arms were clutched across her chest, and she was curled up tight. Her breathing was raspy and jagged until she seemed to gain some control, relax, and sip from the glass of water that Jack had fetched for her.
She returned the glass to him with shaking hands, and he climbed back into the bed, pulling up the duvet to warm her, holding her close as she trembled in the aftermath of her dream. She laid her tear-stained face against his chest where she could feel the comfort of his heart beating against her cheek.
Jack ran his fingers through her hair. He loved touching her hair, and it seemed to settle her. "What was that?" he inquired softly, letting the strands trickle through his fingers.
She couldn't answer him for a long minute, and finally murmured, "Bad dream."
"Want to talk about it?" he said.
"Fear," she said in a low tone. "Fear and death."
Jack knew words were useless. He just held her, rocking gently until he felt the trembling ease and the tension begin to leave her body. Her hands were cold, and he pressed them against himself, twining his legs with hers to warm her feet. He wanted her to feel safe, comforted, and loved.
Jack tried to talk to her about the dream in the morning, but Gwen retreated into a place he couldn't reach. She was mostly silent, but he saw tears slipping down her cheeks from time to time. She slumped in her chair holding, but not reading, a book. When Jack pointed out that the book was upside down, he drew a small smile from her, but she simply turned the book around and continued the pretence of reading.
He paced the small room, helpless, and finally leaned over, kissed the top of her head, and lifted her out of her chair to settle her next to him on the couch. "Was it about Rhys or Anwen?" he said.
Gwen startled for a moment. "Why would you think that?" she said.
"You were devastated. You would only say it was about death," he responded.
"No, it wasn't about . . . them." She shook her head.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head on his shoulder, and rubbed her cheek against his throat until she felt/heard the rumble of his voice. "Stop that," he said, "talk to me."
"There were these metal rods," she admitted, "impaling me, and my blood was all over me, and pooling at my feet. I couldn't move. I was desperate, lonely, frightened. I felt like I had lost everything I cared about." She pressed closer against him, and took a deep breath. "I'm glad you were holding me when I woke up."
He held her tight, stroking her hair until she pulled away. She exhaled through a smile, "I don't know where that fear came from. I haven't lost you. You're always there for me. We've barely been apart from each other long enough to use the loo . . ."
"Feeling smothered?" he inquired, turning his head and craning to look into her eyes.
"Oh, no, Jack!" She knelt on the couch next to him, capturing his face between her hands, "No, how could I?" She opened his shirt and pushed her arms around him under his clothing. "I can't get enough of you!" She leaned in to kiss him behind his ear, nipping at his earlobe, and, licking down the side of his neck, murmured "salty," and nibbled around to the front of his throat, and down across his chest . . . as he pushed her hair aside and whispered into her ear.
She let go of him only long enough to unbuckle his belt, unbutton his flies, reach into his trousers with her hand, and then it was just a maelstrom of discarded clothing, and a teasing and giddy race to the seclusion of the bedroom.
Jack was still holding her loosely afterwards. Relaxed, slightly sleepy, Gwen drawled into Jack's closest ear, "If you really loved me, you would make me a big cup of tea."
He roused himself only enough to wave a careless hand over her face and say, "Presto, you're a big cup of tea."
She giggled, which he found unreasonably charming, and he got up from the bed and went quietly into the kitchen to put the kettle on. When he returned with two mugs of tea, she had pulled the sheets on the bed taut again, and propped the pillows against the headboard so that when he climbed into the bed, she could lean back against him in her favorite (sitting-up-in-bed) position. They sipped at their tea, and he asked again.
"I need you to talk more about your dream, Gwen."
"Jack," she said. "It was a bad dream. Let it go. Don't you ever have bad dreams?"
He snorted, "Of course I do. And sometimes it's the pizza or the curry."
"We didn't have pizza or curry," she said. "It was just a bad dream. But the utter desperation of being alone, unwanted. That was the hardest thing." She snuggled tighter into his arms.
"You do know how important you are to me?" he asked.
"You brought me tea," she said languidly, sipping from her cup.
"Are you afraid I'll leave you?" He tensed and could tell that she felt the change in his body. He thought it was the thing she feared the most, that she wasn't going to be enough, that eventually he would run.
She shook her head, and a little of her tea spilled on him. She patted him dry with one corner of the sheet. "No. You promised," she said softly.
"Think I'm trustworthy?"
She turned around, putting her mug down on the table. "Yes, I do. Aren't you?"
He smiled tightly. "Trying to be." He knew that was what she needed to hear. He needed to find a way to make her understand that it was true.
She twisted around fully to look into his eyes. "Am I making it hard for you, with these dreams?"
"No. . . no, not at all," he said deliberately.
"Is it difficult? I know this shouldn't be happening."
"I'd rather be here with you," he paused, "than anywhere else without you."
When her nightmares returned the next night, and with increasing frequency over the next weeks, Jack began to worry more seriously. When he could get her to talk about it, Gwen always described a horrific descent into death. Every time the nightmare came, it was different, and each time she woke, screaming or moaning in terror, it took her longer to shake off the effects.
She dreamed of drowning, being dismembered, being immolated, and worse. Helpless to prevent any of it, unable to move, in crushing darkness, alone except for a laughing voice shouting epithets and insults. The worst thing, she insisted, was the feeling of being lost, alone, abandoned.
"Gwen," Jack said, finally, after one particularly difficult morning after, "I think we need to do something about this. I want you to talk to someone, maybe Martha?"
Gwen studied her movements carefully as she pulled on her clothes, and bowed her head. "Martha, ok, but no one else. I'm so tired," she sobbed. "And I'm scared," Gwen insisted. "We have to wait until she's at home so she can talk freely."
Huddled in her chair while Jack phoned Martha that night, Gwen was exhausted, afraid to sleep, and had drunk enough caffeine over the course of the day to make her shaky. After some initial banter, he explained the purpose of his call, and Martha asked a few questions. Jack answered her, explaining what Gwen had been able to recall. Martha teased out a few more details, and then Martha said, "Jack, do you want me to come up there this weekend?"
Jack cast a quick look at Gwen and said, "Yes." Decisively. "Soon as you can."
"What do you mean?" Gwen hissed. "I don't need a doctor."
"Not just a doctor. Martha's a friend," he said fiercely. "As soon as you can," Jack repeated. He snapped the phone closed.
Gwen moved from her chair to his welcoming arms, and settled herself against him. "I don't want to go to sleep tonight."
"Martha can't get here before week's end . . ."
"I'm not going to sleep," she said firmly.
"I can think of a number of things to do with you that will keep you awake," he suggested with a sly grin, kissing her hand, and taking her fingers into his mouth one at a time. "I'm sure I can amuse you all night long."
Soon, she pulled herself out of his arms. "I'm taking the first shower tonight. You used up all the hot water this morning." Only a few minutes later, wrapped in a towel, she came into the bedroom, hair wet, skin fragrant and dewy from the shower. Jack was lounging naked on the bed, a pillow across his hips. He handed her a glass half full of amber liquid. She sniffed it. "That's whiskey, Jack," she protested. "I don't drink whiskey."
"Tonight, my love, you drink whiskey. You drink as much as you can, and I promise you, tonight there will be no dreams."
"I'll only be drunk, Jack," she scoffed. "And oh, the hangover . . ."
He soothed her with his hands, and tipped the glass to her lips. "I'll be here with you, all night. Hell, we'll drink together." He poured liquor into a second glass, saluted her with some words in a language she'd never heard, and took a sip. He nudged her to drink again.
"What did you just say?"
"I wished you a long and happy life. Now let's drink."
"You don't even get drunk," she complained, choking after a fiery swallow.
"Oh, but I do," he said. "It just takes longer, and we have lots of time." He pulled her onto the bed, threw her towel to the floor, and pressed his naked body against hers, "lots of time." He was already aroused and their lovemaking was slow and sweet. She closed her eyes, and he distracted her for a time.
After her climax, Gwen took control of Jack. She marked him with love bites high on his inner thighs, before taking him into her mouth. He arched, and she slipped her hands beneath him, cupping his scrotum in one hand and his buttocks with the other, scratching gently at him with her fingernails. He clenched his muscles, and she smiled, letting him feel her teeth. She released him, moved above him, and settled him deeply into herself again, laying against his body. With contractions, Gwen was able to bring Jack to a shivering finish. He took several deep breaths and said weakly, "Did you always know how to do that?"
She giggled and went to the bath to get washing flannels.
"I'm pouring you more whiskey," he called to her, and she was smiling when she came back and cleaned him thoroughly before climbing back into the bed.
"Do your worst, Harkness," she challenged, and tossed back a healthy slug. They played all the drinking games they could think of: kissing in between drinks; longer, deeper kisses filled with longing, bigger drinks.
She was right about him, though. The drink didn't affect him as quickly as it affected her, and soon she was giddy and couldn't really control her hands. "These aren't my hands," she complained, staring at her spread fingers. "I can't lift the glass, I have to stop."
Jack lifted the glass to her lips. "I'll help you, sweetheart."
She reached out and stayed his hand, pushing the liquor away. "How do you come to be calling me 'sweetheart,' Jack?"
"You always had pet names for the others. You used to call Tosh 'sweetie' and Ianto 'pet,' and Owen . . . well, ok, mostly I remember you calling him a wanker, but you never used a pet name for me. Why was that?"
"You were my boss," she explained patiently, as if instructing a child.
"I see," he observed, and turned his sideways look on her. "Are you not my sweetheart now?"
She blushed, "Okay, let's say I am. When did you start with pet names?"
"I'm not your boss any more. We're lovers. Don't you like being called 'sweetheart?'"
She regarded him solemnly and said slowly, "Rhys used to call me 'sweetheart'."
"I'm sorry," he apologised. "Do you want me to stop?"
"It brings back happy thoughts," she mused. "Of better times with Rhys, before he got so sick. He really loved me, beyond all reason."
Jack tilted his head. "I remember telling you that he loved you dearly."
She nodded with a soft smile. "I know . . ."
Jack looked at her with an appraising stare. "I could call you 'Pumpkin' instead."
"Don't you dare," she retorted.
"How about 'Sweetums'?"
"That's a life-sized Muppet."
" Or 'Pooky,' 'Turtle-dove,' or, no, I have it—'Puss'!"
She tried to hit him with a pillow, but was far too drunk to aim it.
"I love it when you call me your sweetheart," she announced, trying to put her arms around his neck seductively, and almost falling off the bed. He righted her and set her back against the headboard. "Call me your sweetheart again, so I can hear you say it."
Jack held the glass to her lips again, "Take another sip, my sweetheart."
She sipped, sighed, and said, "I thought that stuff was foul, but it's starting to taste really good." She cocked her head to look at him. "You don't say it right, you know. It's sweet-, with the emphasis on pronouncing the 't'; -heart, again, you have to hit the 't' just so. Sweet-heart!"
"I'm not Welsh," he said back to her, "I pronounce the vowels as well as the consonants. Sweet-heart." He handed her the glass again, and she took it and drained it.
"I'm done," she announced, and fell over sideways in the bed.
Jack leaned over Gwen, checked to see that she was breathing easily, and settled her more comfortably. He covered her with the duvet, and laid down next to her, taking her into his arms. She was completely passed out, and he hoped that meant that she would sleep peacefully.
Within an hour, Gwen woke up retching, startling Jack into action. He hurriedly pulled the wastebasket up from the floor and she obligingly vomited into it. He held her hair out of the stream, and wiped her face when she stopped vomiting. She turned wide eyes up to face him, and fell over again, asleep.
Late in the morning, she woke him by pummeling him ineffectually with her fists. "I feel like shit, Jack!"
He fended off her blows by holding her against himself. "It'll get better. Did you dream?"
"No," she admitted. "But I'm pretty sure I gakked."
Jack laid his hand against her cheek. "I cleaned it up."
She nodded, and kissed his hand. "Thank you for taking care of me."
"I always have," he whispered.
Every time you touch me, I become a hero,
I'll make you safe, no matter where you are.
And bring you everything you ask for, nothing is above me,
I'm shining like an candle in the dark,
When you tell me that you love me.
The nightmares didn't stop.
Gwen couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, and Jack was relieved on Friday afternoon when he left for Manchester to pick Martha up. After greeting Martha with a hug, walking out to the car park, Martha asked more questions, and he explained as best he could as they drove back to Wales in Gwen's car. She regarded him clinically. "You look different, too," she said, finally.
"I'm happy," he said. "No Torchwood, no responsibility for anyone but ourselves. I'm elated, over the moon. But I'm worried about Gwen. These dreams are not doing her any good."
"Have you considered asking the . . ." she started.
Jack's face paled, and he set his jaw. "He made it quite clear that my problems are beneath his notice."
Martha had never heard his voice colder. She shivered. "What does your empathic sense tell you about these dreams?"
"Not prying. Everyone's entitled to their own mind." He glanced at her. "What made you ask that?"
"Well, Gwen told me, when we talked a day or so after your call, that you two have barely been out of physical contact in weeks. How do you manage to maintain your mental distance?"
"Good training," he growled.
"Touchy," she observed. "That's one symptom."
"Of what?" he asked.
"You don't usually speak to me in that tone," she said, somewhat hurt. "I only came up here to help Gwen and you're gonna get shirty with me?"
Jack drove on in silence.
"Give, Jack," Martha urged. "You know something."
More silence from Jack's side. Martha looked out the window.
His voice was low and tight when he finally did answer her. "I'm pretty sure," he said in a controlled tone, "there's been a transference . . ."
Martha feigned disinterest, keeping her eyes on the passing landscape.
"She's remembering the year-that-never-was." Jack stated in a flat voice.
"How do you know?"
He kept his eyes on the road.
Martha snorted. "Jack, for heaven's sake, use that fifty-first century brain you keep in your head! What do you think happens when two organisms are in intimate contact for long periods of time?"
He shrugged.
"She doesn't know anything about that year. Or did you tell her?" Martha asked him directly.
"I didn't tell her anything. But she's reliving the ways that the Master killed me, and she's going through them as me, in my place," he admitted. "I thought I was under control, and I'm not even aware that I'm still thinking about it on a conscious level, but somehow she's getting it from me. She's so scared, the same way I was scared . . ." Jack turned his eyes from the road for a second to see if she was looking at him. She was.
"What are you afraid of now, Jack?"
"Me?"
"Something is bringing these fears of yours out. It's been a long time since the year-that-never-was. You say you're happy and content, but you're projecting fears at her, and she's interpreting them as her own dreams. What are you afraid of?"
He drove on, breathing deeply, trying to formulate an answer. "I don't want to lose her now. If I'm projecting, I have to find a way to stop it. She's already had to bear too much."
"So how do we get you to stop?"
In a rare expression of anger, Jack pounded his hands on the steering wheel, "I don't goddamn know!"
"We could try calling . . ." she began.
He silenced her with a look. "I can't."
"I can," she said.
"You can try," he challenged. "But don't be surprised if he refuses."
Martha rolled her eyes.
Jack turned the car into the driveway beside the house. Gwen came out the garden door, ran to Martha and hugged her. "It has been far too long since I've seen you!" she cried.
Martha hugged Gwen back. "You're looking well, honey," Martha said. She turned to raise an eyebrow at Jack, who was getting her case out of the boot. He carried it into the house, leaving the women to come in together, holding hands. Martha lifted Gwen's hand and examined it closely. "Gwen, you're skin and bones."
Gwen snatched her hand back, "Well . . . it's been hard, Martha, until Jack . . ."
Jack came up to stand next to Gwen, and she slipped a proprietary arm around his waist, lifting her other hand to touch his cheek. She rested her head against him.
Martha observed them together, and a smile curved her lips. "I've never seen two people happier," she said. "It sure took you long enough to get there."
Over a simple dinner that Jack set out in the dining room, Gwen regaled Martha with some stories from the drunken night that had, in fact, produced no dreams, but a noteworthy, world-class hangover. Jack chimed in, adding the little details that Gwen had omitted, and they laughed a lot.
The clinical observer in Martha observed that Gwen and Jack were in constantly touching each other; fingertips to cheek, a random kiss, a hand on a leg under the table. He lifted Gwen's hair to sweep it away from her face when she leaned across the table to make a point. She touched the corner of his mouth to flick away a crumb.
While Gwen cleared the table and washed the few dishes, Martha took Jack's arm and pulled him into the lounge. "There is never more than a minute when you aren't touching each other. I'm thinking about your transference idea. Tell me a bit more about how your empathic sense works."
"I can control it."
She shook her head. "I don't think so. You may be trying the best you know how, but it isn't working," she said. "I don't know that much about it, but in my opinion, you're definitely transjoined."
Gwen came into the room and settled into her chair, smiling at them. "What are you two whispering about?"
"We're talking about your nightmares," Martha said, "and what's causing them."
Gwen's smile faded, and a pinched look came over her face. "You've figured it out already?" She stood up and moved toward Jack.
"Don't sit with Jack right now," Martha said quickly. "Jack, you go over there. Gwen, come sit here."
Gwen touched Jack's hand as they changed seats, and he gave her a reassuring smile. She sat down next to Martha, and Martha said, "Gwen, you're looking so much better than you did when you left Cardiff. Is it just time that's helped you?"
Gwen shook her head, "No, Martha. I was still miserably sad and sorry when I came up here. I really thought I was going mad. I looked like hell, I felt like death. I was trying to follow my therapist's advice to write about how I felt, and it was a complete and utter failure." She took a deep breath. "I was almost at the end of my rope. I couldn't see any future. Then, one rainy day—Jack appeared at the end of my sidewalk." She flashed him a grateful smile.
"I couldn't believe it at first. I was sure I was dreaming, that he wasn't real," Gwen blushed, remembering her meticulous examination of Jack's naked body. "I thought I had finally crossed the line, all my 'repressed' dreams come true. But it was really him, he had come looking for me."
Jack started to make a comment, but Martha shushed him. "And it's been perfect since then?"
"Not exactly," Gwen admitted. She remembered the hours of intense discussions that had gone on into the night, ending in long hours of lovemaking. She remembered the moment when he had said he loved her, and she knew it wasn't said to prove anything, wasn't said in anger. It was tender, and real, and she remembered feeling that he had spoken the truth to her with no intention to mislead or lie. It was just a small moment, but she had opened her mind, her self, to him. The past was behind her, finally. She could breathe again. "There was one wonderful moment," she mused aloud.
"What moment?" Martha said.
Gwen sniffed away a tear. "Sorry, private thought." She looked at Jack, and saw his eyes shining. He understood, she was sure. He nodded to her.
"I think I can explain it," Jack said, holding a hand up to forestall Martha's comments. Her look told him to stay where he was, and talk. He took a deep breath, and Gwen thought that he looked frightened. For himself, but more for her. "About your nightmares," he began. "It seems that I'm causing them . . ."
Gwen sniffed her disbelief. "No," she said, "It's me."
From across the room, he made himself look directly at her, "I'm afraid it will kill you if we don't fix this. Sweetheart, Gwen," he implored. "you have to believe me. Your horrible dreams, they are my deaths. There are many more. And worse. I don't want you to have to live through all of them." He took another deep breath. "I'm so sorry."
"Why?" she asked, "Where did you die like that? I mean I've seen you . . . die, but not like this!"
He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "Can't explain it," he said. "I just can't. Remember the time I was gone? You thought it had been only a few months, but for me it was much longer."
"You said you had died five hundred times—this, this is what you meant?"
Jack nodded, and put his hand over his eyes, rubbing hard. "I tried to bury those memories, put them where I couldn't feel them any more. Somehow you've found the place in me where I hid them . . . and they're going to hurt you, love."
Gwen could only stare at him. "How long have you known?"
He exhaled heavily. "After the third or fourth time. I really tried to stop myself from thinking about it, hide the memories deeper. You still found them."
"You could have told me." Gwen turned to Martha. "How can this happen?" She put her hands to her cheeks, which were burning. "I'm not a telepath."
Martha looked at Jack for his permission, and he nodded at her. "Jack has had training, channeling his natural talents; and you told me something once about an ancestor of yours in Cardiff in Victorian times who closed the Rift . . ."
Gwen scoffed. "That's a family legend."
Martha took Gwen's hands. "Maybe not. Just because you've never had testing doesn't mean you aren't sensitive. One of the things that makes Jack such a compelling leader is that he's an exceptionally strong broadcaster. You've been in such close physical contact with him for a long time, and he loves you so much, I think you've penetrated his barriers."
"How could I do such a thing?"
Martha tried to explain. "Didn't you just say a few moments ago, that there was a moment? What was that about?"
Jack spoke. "It was when she decided to let me know her, right after I told her I loved her," his face coloured, "and she trusted me, really believed me. I felt it in my head, I heard her. I just didn't put it together."
"We've always had a special rapport," Gwen admitted, "but I don't understand why this 'transference' didn't happen with Ianto. You were utterly smitten with him, Jack."
"I don't know—I was torn between you and Ianto, confused . . ." He paused, and took refuge in his usual excuse. "You had a life with Rhys, I didn't want to destroy that."
"I couldn't have you, Jack, but I did hope you could be happy. You loved Ianto. I know he wasn't a second choice," Gwen said.
"No, not a second choice; an alternate, perhaps," he insisted. Gwen heard the pain in Jack's voice. "I did love him. But I've loved a lot of people," he shot a cautionary look at Martha, "I was determined not to interfere with your life. After Ianto died, I couldn't stand to watch, so I left."
Martha made a quiet addition. "But whenever Jack came back to Cardiff, he asked about you, Gwen. I told him what I knew, but then it was a few years before he returned again, and in that time . . . so much happened."
He stood up and paced the room, his hands fisted at his sides. "What I found out, though, was that no matter how far I went, no matter who or what I took up with," he drew a deep breath, "I wasn't ever going to find happiness without you." He gritted his teeth, "Now, my memories are destroying you." He sank into the chair again, averting his eyes from Martha's shocked face.
Gwen made wild gestures for Jack to stop talking. "But how are you destroying me? Jack, they're my dreams!"
"They're my memories, Gwen," he said. "When you told me about them, I knew that they were mine." Jack straightened in the chair. "It's my fear that you're feeling. I've died, so many ways," he gestured, "dismembered, impaled, burned." Martha shook her head sadly as he continued. "At the time, I tried to endure because of the Master's threats to the Torchwood team, and the Doctor, and the whole world. What kept me sane was the hope of returning to you. Now I'm afraid I'll lose you." He leaned his head against the chair back, blinked back tears.
In a world without you, I will always hunger,
What I need is your love to make me stronger.
"What do we do?" Gwen asked, as Martha held her back from going to Jack's side.
"I told Jack earlier, this isn't my field," Martha said. "I think Jack needs to review his barriers, and Gwen, I think you have to find some ways to erect stronger boundaries. I think that these weeks and months of constant exposure to each other has worn down your natural defenses. You both need help. Serious help. Right away."
Gwen swallowed hard. She felt very small and insubstantial. She longed to . . . what? She didn't have any idea of what to do. She just wanted it to stop. She wanted Jack's arms around her. She needed to touch him. She felt her mouth go dry, and began to shake.
Jack took two strides across the room and swept her into his arms. She curled her arms around his waist, pulled him close, and started crying. Martha gave up the sofa to them and soothed Gwen. "It'll be okay, darling. The dreams will stop. You'll get back to normal. You just need to get some distance on this, and Jack needs to regain his control."
Gwen sniffed and swallowed hard. "Jack made me live again. I can't . . ."
"You know what a dependency is, Gwen," Martha said quietly. "And you know you can't afford to be like that. We've talked about this before." Gwen nodded. "When I get home, I'm going to find someone for you to talk to."
Gwen slept through the night after Martha left, but she was pretty sure that Jack didn't.
"I have an idea," Jack told Gwen, lolling in bed the next morning. "Martha thinks we should try to spend a little time physically apart, and we have to do that," he held up a hand to stop Gwen's protests, "until I can make some arrangements. It's only a little while, and . . ."
"I don't want to be apart from you!" she shouted, striking at him with fisted hands. "I'm not going to shut you out of my life!"
"Nothing will ever separate us for long," he said through his teeth, holding her wrists. "But I have to get hold of myself, enough to stop you from hearing me."
She wept in his arms, "I'd rather have the dreams. I need you."
He buried his face in her hair. "We'll find a way," he promised. His mobile rang, and he groped for it, checking the display, "Martha?"
Jack listened intently, shaking his head and wearing a foolish grin. When he finished the call, he turned to Gwen with an odd expression. "We're taking a trip."
"Where are we going?"
He grinned at her confusion, "You'll see. Come to the window."
"What did you do?"
"Martha spoke with the right kind of Doctor, my Doctor," he said happily. "He's coming.
Listen . . ."
Gwen had heard that wheezing sound only once before, long ago, just moments before Jack had disappeared years ago. She clutched at his arm in panic. "Where are you going? You said you wouldn't leave me!"
Jack wrapped his arms around her as she saw an old-fashioned police box appear in the back garden. "I'm not going anywhere without you," he whispered into her ear, holding her close.
She shook free of him, and saw the door of the police box swing inward (that's wrong, she thought, those doors open out). A very long-limbed young man bounded up to the garden door, his brownish blond hair falling into his eyes. "Jack?" he called, rapping smartly on the doorframe. "Are you in there?"
The young man strolled through the open door, drifted past Jack, and looked Gwen up and down, smiling widely. "You must be the Gwen Cooper I've been hearing so much about from Martha. Pleased to meet you," he said, kissing her hand.
She threw a sideways glare at Jack. "This is the Doctor?" she mouthed. She took in the silly bow-tie, the rather loud, checked jacket, and was he really wearing a red fez, with a tassel?
"I'm the Doctor. I've come to get you, and . . . are you ready to go?" He walked around the little bungalow. "This is a lovely place; location, location, location, yeah? I think we have time for a cup of tea before we leave. Oh, good," he said, plugging in the kettle. "Tea is a wonderful remedy for whatever ails you," he observed, setting three of the Cornishware mugs out on the counter and measuring tea into the teapot.
Behind his back, Gwen rolled her eyes at Jack. Surely this hyperactive boy couldn't be the Doctor that Jack spoke so reverently about? Jack grinned back at her, his eyes sparkling.
"I heard that," the Doctor said over his shoulder. "Tea's made, though, so let's have some, and get going." He poured tea into the mugs, and handed it round, holding his, and sprawling in one of the kitchen chairs. "Been a while, Jack."
Jack took his mug and leaned back against the kitchen counter. "Yes," he answered coolly. There were many things unsaid between them, Gwen could tell. Neither of them seemed willing to talk in front of Gwen.
Gwen sipped from her mug and found the tea had been made precisely to her liking, and she hadn't even seen him add sugar or milk. "Thank you . . . Doctor," she said.
He waved a careless hand at her teapot. "No trouble at all," he said.
Gwen couldn't not ask. "You don't really seem . . . old enough to be the Doctor that Jack has talked about . . . I'm sorry if it's rude of me to say . . ."
"Appearances can be deceiving," he observed. He looked closely into her eyes. "You don't really seem old enough to be sharing," he gestured with his pointing finger at Jack, "this one's fears and bad memories."
Jack set his cup down on the counter with a bang. Gwen was startled, and the Doctor simply drained his mug, took Gwen's cup from her hands, put both of them onto the counter, and walked quickly to the door. "Shall we get on our way?"
Gwen let Jack lead her from the house and follow the Doctor to the door of the police box. She stepped inside, and wonder bloomed on her face as she took in the organic forms of the control room, the transparent floor, the sweeping staircases. "It's bigger . . ." she said, and then closed her mouth.
Jack put his arm around her shoulders as the Doctor started to run around what appeared to be the control console of a huge vessel. He pushed levers, pumped handles, and the wheezing noise started again. Gwen closed her eyes and shook her head, and felt Jack pull her close. It doesn't matter, she thought. I have finally gone stark raving mad, and I don't care.
Gwen woke up alone. Her mind was foggy about what had happened after they entered the box that was so large on the inside. She vaguely noticed that she was cocooned in the softest of white sheets in a wide bed, and so comfortable that she could barely stir herself even to move, so she went back to sleep. When she opened her eyes again a while later, she was able to look around with interest. She sat up, climbed out of the huge bed, and found slippers (with feathers!) and a silky robe at the foot of the bed. It was like a very luxurious hotel room, all bells and whistles, but no windows. There were nightstands, soft lighting, and across the room, bookcases, and a Victorian fainting couch upholstered in pale horsehair behind a low table. The room itself was various shades of soothing blues and pale cream.
A large painting was hung on one wall, of fluttering white curtains that only half concealed the blue oceans beyond. She stared at it and moved closer to examine it. It looked more like a photograph, but was definitely a painting, she could see the brush strokes. She was completely transfixed by it for several minutes, but finally moved away. She blinked several times, reorienting herself, and moved slowly around the room, as if in a trance, touching the walls, the furniture. She found a door and rested her hand on the lever, hesitating to leave this . . . what? . . . calmness. She felt rested, refreshed, and suddenly wondered where the hell she was.
"Jack," she whispered. "Where are you? Where am I?"
Jack swept in out from somewhere behind her, and led her back to the bed. She burrowed into the covers again, moving away from him. She could hear . . . no, feel . . . soft musical tones and she pulled the sheets over her head, humming along with the song she could almost hear.
Jack pulled the covers away from her, smoothing her hair back from her face, and putting his hand to her cheek. "Time you woke up, sleepy," he said, kissing her forehead.
"Why? How long have I been asleep?" She felt around her on the bed. "Were you here?"
"I was in my room," he said, pointing to the partly open connecting door on the side wall. "It's been two days, more or less." He brushed her hair back again. "The Doctor said I had to wait until you woke up by yourself. You were very tired."
Jack was coatless, without his red braces, both sleeves of his shirt rolled to the elbow. It was a white shirt. He was wearing jeans. And trainers. None of this was making any sense to Gwen. "The Doctor?" she said muzzily, "the kid in the blue box?"
He laughed out loud. "Yes, the Doctor."
"Where is this?" she gestured around the room. "Where are we?"
Taking her hand, he said, "It's home, for now. We're in the TARDIS, in the intergalactic vortex. I think we're just, ah, loitering here."
Gwen struggled to clear her head. "A . . . TARDIS?"
There was a knock on the door, and the young Doctor stepped briskly into the room. "That would be Time and Relative Dimension in Space, TARDIS, yeah? She's a time-traveling vessel, and Jack's right, we're just 'loitering' here until you woke up. Now that you're awake, where would you like to go?"
Gwen sat in the bed, blinking like an owl, looking back and forth between the two men. "How the hell should I know?"
"Right, then," the Doctor said. "Jack said something about wanting to show you the moonrise on Woman Wept. Let's go there . . . I'll have to figure out exactly when we should be there, but the TARDIS will get us there." He touched Gwen's hand. "I think she likes you as much as she likes Jack, but there you are . . ."
He left the room, still muttering to himself. Gwen looked at Jack, shaking her head. "Is he always like this?"
"In this incarnation he is," Jack sighed. "The first Doctor I knew had a different gravitas from this one; and the one between was different from this one, too . . ."
"Shut it," she said abruptly. "You're starting to do the same kind of double-speak he's doing. There are three of them?"
"No, it's the same him, but he has had three different forms since I first met him." He handed her a cup from the tray he had carried into her room. "I can't begin to explain this until you've had some coffee at least. Come on, get dressed. I'll try to make this as clear as I can."
Gwen was still shaking her head at the stories that Jack had told her when she strolled down the hall to the kitchen where he was supposed to be making breakfast for her. Breakfast was on the table, but Jack wasn't in evidence. The Doctor was.
"Morning," he said, saluting her with his cup of tea. "Brekkies await." He directed her to a complete English breakfast set out on the table with a full place setting, including a glass of orange juice.
She picked up the fork and took the cover off the plate. "Good morning, Doctor. Do you happen to know where Jack has disappeared to?"
The Doctor waved a piece of toast in the air. "I asked a favor of him. He'll be a few hours. Gives us some time to get to know each other. How did you sleep?" he asked.
"Oh, it was glorious," she smiled. "I can't believe I slept the clock around, twice! What a comfortable bed and a lovely room. Thank you for having us."
He put the crusts of his toast into a dish. "Martha was quite insistent that I try to help you out, and I must tell you she was right: the dreams are Jack's memories of a very bad time. Have you ever been tested for psi potential?"
She shook her head no, "Jack says that he can sense that I have some abilities, but I've never noticed it. He said it's probably a family trait."
"You see, that's where all this trouble is coming from. Jack was trained, some time ago, of course, but you, Gwen Cooper, got through to him." He leaned toward her and tilted his head. "Tell me about your daughter," he asked abruptly.
Gwen dropped her fork at his sudden change of subject. "Excuse me?" She blinked.
"I've had some time to talk with Jack, and to learn a bit about you. He said you talk about your husband, but you never talk about Anwen."
She stood up, and her bottom lip quivered. She didn't seem to be able to form words. She teared up, and sat down as suddenly as she had stood up. "I don't."
"Will you tell me about her?" he asked. "Please."
"She was," Gwen began after a long silence, "my heart. She was a perfect baby, she wasn't fussy, she was always smiling. She was perfect in every way. She grew into a lovely child, smart, funny. We were so proud of her. She looked so much like Rhys; Rhys, turned into a beautiful princess. She loved her dad, and she was the apple of his eye." She paused to sniff back a tear.
"He used to dandle her on his knee, and tell her she could be anything she wanted to be, that her future was unlimited, thanks to her mommy, who kept the whole world safe." She grimaced. "The whole world, except for the people nearest to me. I couldn't do anything for Rhys. And it turns out, I couldn't even keep her safe." She shook her head.
"Why don't you talk about her, or even say her name?"
"I think about her," Gwen said, "but she'll never be anything other than ten years old, going off to school, in her little plaid skirt and red jumper. Her future is over, snuffed out. She was like a lovely vision of what might have been. Is that enough?" she asked, "Does that satisfy your curiosity?"
The Doctor looked at her from under his fringe with great compassion in his deep-set eyes. "Thank you for telling me about her."
"I loved her, and my life became so much less without her." She touched her heart. "And I thought I would surely die, but I didn't." She put both hands on the tabletop. "And because I didn't die, I was there when Jack finally came for me." She looked up at the Doctor defiantly. "And not you, not Martha, no one is going to separate me from him."
He held his hands up defensively, "I wouldn't dream of trying to separate you, I assure you. Jack said very much the same thing."
"Why did you keep him away from me while I slept?"
"So you could sleep," he said. "You did sleep. No dreams?" She nodded. "While you were sleeping, Jack was snug in the arms of the TARDIS." He went to the doorway. "The TARDIS is alive. For reasons I don't understand, she took a liking to Jack the first time they met, and it seems she has extended that liking to you."
"How do you know the TARDIS is a she?"
"Once upon a time," he mused, "I met a woman named Idris." He pulled himself together, "we've been together a long time, the old girl and me."
"How do you know she likes me?" she asked.
"She's been singing to you since you got here, don't you hear her?"
Gwen cocked her head and closed her eyes. "I have been hearing a sort of humming. It's almost subliminal." She looked at him closely, this good-looking young man in the narrow pants and bow-tie. "She's singing to me? What will that do?"
"Most people find it soothing. But she only does it if she thinks it will help you. Come with me to the control room," he invited her, "I'll show you a bit of how she works."
Gwen followed him down the twisting corridors, coming out at the top of the sweeping staircase. "I came into the kitchen from this direction," she said. "This staircase wasn't here then."
The Doctor waved his hand in the air. "She knew where you wanted to go and so she took you there. That's all you need to know, where you want to go." She watched him go to the controls, pushing some levers up, pumping others. The engines, or whatever they were, started up, and the wheezing noise began. His long fingers started poking at an old-fashioned typewriter keyboard. "I'm setting course for the planet of Woman Wept. I've been there before. I think I have. Jack wants you to see the moons rise," he poked another couple of buttons, "this should get us there in time."
"How did it get such an unusual name?"
"It's not that unusual, lots of places that have odder names. But there, the largest of the continental land masses is shaped like a weeping woman," he said. "I haven't been there since I put it back in place after the Medusa Cascade . . ."
"Is that when Jack was there?" she asked.
"I don't think he was ever there, but Rose Tyler told him about it. You know about Rose?"
Gwen thought for a moment. "She was your companion once, wasn't she?"
He nodded.
"Who is your companion now?"
The Doctor pushed more buttons, and didn't look up from his controls. "Most recently, a lovely lady named Amelia Pond, and her husband Rory." He glanced at Gwen. "She's very different from you, red-haired, actually."
Gwen looked around pointedly. "Will we meet them?"
"No," he said abruptly.
Gwen wandered away from the Doctor, and walked around the console, peering at it, but not touching anything. The way it looked, almost anything could be a control for something in this very unusual vessel. When she made her way around to the Doctor, she hesitated before touching his sleeve. "I'd really like to see Jack," she said. "Where is he?"
"He's working on that project I set for him," the Doctor said impatiently. "He'll be through in a few hours. You can sit around here, or go find something to do . . ." Suddenly, he stopped what he was doing. "I could show you the closet! You can find something to wear for when you get to Woman Wept. It will be warm there, you won't want leathers." He took her by the hand, and led her through a doorway to another set of doors leading to another corridor.
He threw open the door to a large high-ceilinged room filled with spiraling racks of clothing of all kinds, from all eras. "Here we are!" He led her up and down aisles between the racks, pulling things off the hangers and tossing them to her. "Try these," he said, "and these. Here . . ."
She laughed as she caught a lightweight flowery dress. "Thanks, I'll browse, Doctor." She stopped moving. "I have another question. Do you happen to know why Jack's dressed the way he is today? I've never seen him . . ."
He turned on her with a wide grin, "I think the TARDIS felt he needed a change of pace, don't you agree?"
She demurred. "She's got more power over him than anyone else, then. He just doesn't look like himself in jeans and trainers."
"I'll just leave you to this, Gwen. Take anything you like back to your room. The TARDIS will see that they fit you."
"But," she sputtered, "how will I find my room again?"
He paused in the doorway, "Just want to go find it," he said, "she'll get you there."
Gwen spent an hour or so browsing the racks, finding some loose linen trousers, some sandals, a little of everything that she thought she might need in a warm climate. She and Jack had come into the TARDIS with only the clothes on their backs, and this closet was definitely useful. She gathered her choices into her arms and opened the door. The corridor looked completely different from when she had entered, and she stepped out and closed the door behind her.
"My room," she said aloud. "I want to find my room." She took a hesitant step to the left, but turned to the right instead, and walked a short distance before she thought she 'knew' a door. She tapped on it, listened, and then opened it.
It was her room. She walked in, then stuck her head out into the corridor again. "How does that happen?" she wondered. She threw the clothes down onto the bed, now neatly made up, and went across the room to the door Jack had pointed out to her earlier that day. She tapped, and opened the door.
Jack's room was neat, very masculine, and much larger than her room. A few pieces of art, mostly black and white photography of vintage airships, hung on the dark copper walls. The couch against the wall was brown leather, and there was a worn leather club chair with a reading lamp in one corner of the room. His bookshelves were stuffed with books of all sizes, and he had a small dressing room in an alcove. He wasn't here, but this was definitely his place. She wondered why he would have traded this for a tiny bunker in the Hub with no real comforts.
Gwen went back to her room, closing the door softly. She would have to wait until he came for her. She browsed her own bookshelf, discovered a music device, chose music she liked, lay down on the pale couch, pulled up a knitted coverlet. She closed her eyes, and sighed. She let herself drift back to sleep.
Jack knelt by her side and stroked her silky hair back from her forehead, waking her gently. "I leave you alone for a few hours and you go back to sleep," he whispered into her ear. "I'm devastated."
Gwen stretched her arms out, and closed her fingers at the back of his neck. "Well, if you didn't keep disappearing, I might have more reason to stay awake." She pulled him close and kissed him firmly. "Where've you been?"
He sidestepped her question. "We're there," he said. "Want to come with me and watch the moons come up?" He offered her a hand to help her rise.
She decided to stop questioning the how-and-why of this odd traveling box. "The Doctor said it would be warm there," she gestured at the pile of clothes on the bed. "I need to get changed."
He led her to the bed, and lounged on it, toeing off his trainers and stretching his legs. "I'll watch," he said. "I like to watch you take off your clothes."
She slipped out of the clothes she was wearing, and he opened his arms. She went into his embrace willingly, and he shed his own clothes so quickly that she couldn't imagine how he had done it. Then they were making love hungrily, quickly. No art, just lust and need. The room hummed happily around them, almost loud enough to hear.
The Doctor waved them out the door, declining to accompany them, busying himself with some tools, doing something mechanical beneath the transparent floor. Jack opened the door and they stepped onto a pale blue sandy beach, still coloured by a setting red sun. They walked out under lavender skies to find a place to watch from. They found a knoll facing the purple ocean, covered in dusty teal sea grass, and Jack tramped down a clearing for them, making a seat for Gwen and lying on his back, with his head in her lap. "It'll be some time," he gauged, staring at the sky.
"What did the Doctor have you doing all day?" She asked, running her hands through his hair, still slightly damp from the shower they had shared.
"This and that," he murmured. Her hands rubbed circles on his temples, and he almost purred.
"Not going to tell me, huh?" she said. "Neither would he." She stroked his neck, "You know it only makes me want to know."
"I was resting," he admitted.
" 'Snug in the arms of the TARDIS,' he said. What does that mean?"
He wrinkled his nose, "I can't really tell you, Gwen. The TARDIS put me into a deep sleep, and I think—no, it's not thinking, I feel—that she helped reinforce my . . . mental barriers. I don't know how much time passed, or what actually happened, but I feel different."
She stroked his cheek and, with a smile, said, "You seemed to be completely up to par," which made him smile in return.
"The idea was to fix my mind," he chuckled. "and not fix what wasn't broken. It's working."
The light changed subtly, and the sky above them turned a darker shade of lavender, the clouds shot through with colours that changed so quickly that Gwen found she couldn't name them fast enough. Night fell abruptly, and the skies were darkening from behind them down to the ocean's horizon. It grew brighter as the moons began to show. She clasped hands with Jack, and he sat up to put his arms around her, pulling her hair back to nuzzle at her neck.
"First, the larger blue one will come up," he whispered into her ear. "Its name is Mercy. They say it has a face." The bluish moon rose above the horizon much faster than Earth's moon, and the second moon showed a sliver of light a few degrees to the right.
"The second moon to rise is the white one, Pride. It throws the brightest light," he held a hand up and its shadow was crisp on the blue sand. Pride was a larger moon, and it took a while to reveal itself fully. The third moon lagged behind by a few minutes. When it showed, Gwen drew a sharp breath. It was a deep periwinkle blue, almost invisible except for the darkness of the deep lavender sky.
"The third moon is called Perdition. You can hardly see it unless Pride rises slightly behind it and gives it a halo," he gestured, drawing a circle in the air around the small moon. "If it is too close behind it, Perdition just appears as a dark space in the starry night. But tonight, Perdition is almost next to Pride, and the surface is illuminated ever so subtly."
They watched the moons move across the sky, and as they rose higher, their colors shifted, untainted by the atmosphere. When they were high in the sky, the colours changed again, purer this time, and Pride gleamed like an enormous pearl. The blue moons grew paler; Perdition took on a purplish-gray cast, while Mercy showed its clear pale blue colour.
"It's lovely," Gwen said, laying her head against Jack's shoulder. The light of the white moon silvered her hair, and he had to touch it, smooth it, play with it. She turned her face to him, kissed him gently. "Thank you for bringing me here."
He enveloped her hands with his own. "Are you getting cold?"
She turned her face up to the sky again. "No, not really, I want to watch for a while longer. It's stunning."
When the moons were at their highest point, Jack pulled Gwen to her feet and they walked along the sandy shore at the edge of the waves. The curling edges of the water were phosphorescing as they broke against the blue land, the white moon's light highlighting the sparkles. Gwen took off her sandals, and walked into the warm water, lifting her skirts high to keep them dry, letting the twinkling warm water pool around her ankles.
Jack watched for a while before he lost his shoes and socks, rolled up his pants, and waded into the water to join her. It was almost dawn when they wandered back to the TARDIS.
"I'm feeling a bit jealous," Gwen told Jack the next morning when he kissed her before leaving to go spend the day with the TARDIS. They had slept separately again, and she was feeling neglected. "She gets a lot of time with you, and I have to amuse myself in the library."
"You could go to the pool," he said.
"There's a pool?"
"Sometimes," he said. "If you want one." He saluted her from the doorway and blew her a last kiss, shutting the door behind himself.
Gwen dressed quickly, found the kitchen, although she was certain that it hadn't been in that precise space the day before. She made toast and tea, and set off to find the pool. A few hours later, she joined the Doctor in the control room. She flopped down on one of the chairs behind the console.
The Doctor regarded her with some amusement. "Give up?"
"I've counted sixty-three rooms, and none of them the same. One of them had bunk beds!"
The Doctor smiled. "She's just fooling with you. I got rid of the room with bunk beds years ago."
She was careful not to touch him when she went to stand by him. "Doctor, how much longer will it take? I mean for Jack? Or is it me?"
"Both of you have 'adjusted' in these last few days, I think. She's pretty pleased with herself."
"The TARDIS is changing us?"
"Not really changing you, Gwen, just strengthening your mental barriers so you're not so sensitive to Jack. Jack just needed a tuneup. It's been a good thing, believe me. There is such a thing as too close."
She shook her head. "Everything you say to me makes me more certain that I'm hallucinating. The time we've spent in—on?—the TARDIS has been such a fantasy." She turned away from the console and moved toward the wall. "None of this can be real."
"I would've thought that it would be easier for you to accept the fantastic after your years with Torchwood."
Gwen sighed. "That was so long ago. It might well have been another lifetime." Her fingers trailed along the wall's textured surface. "I'm only experiencing life through my senses these days," she said in wonder. "Everything else pales." She turned to face him. "That piece of coral Jack kept on his desk felt just like this."
"Because it's a piece of a TARDIS," he said idly. "A few thousand years or so, it may grow into one." He tossed her a piece of dark stone, and she caught it. "This is for you; a keepsake to remind you of your time here."
She hefted the stone. It was dark and shiny, reflecting gleams from inclusions deep inside. "Thank you. What is it?"
"Pretty, isn't it?" He shot his cuffs, and hummed a little tune. "You should probably keep it near you for a few years, see if it changes."
Gwen set it on a ledge of the console. "It changes?"
He smiled at her. "Maybe."
"Nothing is straightforward with you, is it, Doctor?" Gwen asked. "Is this the lesson I am supposed to be learning here? That no questions will be completely answered? That there's no truth in anything?"
"There is truth, Gwen. You have to see it and recognise it to use it." He gestured to the staircase. "Jack is waiting for you, you may go to him, and all will be well. Take the stone."
Gwen could feel her face colour to blush rose. She shoved the stone into the pocket of her jeans. With one foot on the lowest step of the staircase, she turned to speak with him. "Doctor, thank you. He . . . trusts you. I don't know what went on between you so long ago, but he doesn't trust easily. I have to believe that you have his best interests at heart."
The Doctor nodded. "And yours."
Gwen found Jack lying on his own bed, eyes closed, and she approached him quietly. He smiled without opening his eyes as he sensed her approach. "Hello," he greeted her. "Are you trying to sneak up on me?"
She giggled. "I've spent the morning with the Doctor. He doesn't even seem so strange to me any more," she said, "and I think I might just love him a little bit." She sat on the bed next to him.
"Don't." He pulled her close. "That way lies madness," he said, kissing her. "You're better off with me," he ran his hands down her body, and found the stone in her pocket. "What's that?"
She pulled the irregular stone from her pocket and held it out for his inspection. "The Doctor gave it to me and told me to keep it close. It's just a pretty stone."
Jack whistled softly. "It's not just a stone, Gwen, it's a porphyritic talisman. See the little crystals embedded in it? It's formed from molten rock, and these crystals are different from the groundmass of the rock. But look at the carving, can you make out the runes?" He turned it so the light caught the faint scratches. "That's ancient Gallifreyan. This is a very special stone, Gwen. He's given you a piece of his home planet." She raised an eyebrow. He continued, "It no longer exists. This is a precious relic."
She turned it over in her hands, paying closer attention to the reflected light deep within the stone. The runes stood out, now that she knew they were there. "Why would he give me something this important?"
"I don't know."
She sat up and reached over to put it on the nightstand by his bed. "I'll take good care of it, but right now . . ." and she turned back into his arms. "I've missed you, Jack," she murmured.
"I'm right here," he said.
Every time you touch me, I become a hero,
I'll make you safe no matter where you are.
And bring you everything you ask for, nothing is above me,
I'm shining like an candle in the dark, when you tell me that you love me.
When you love me,
When you tell me that you love me.
xxx