for quitehomoerotic: Welcome to the 27th century

[rude_not_ginger]

Follows this.

It was one thing, watching your companion be ripped apart.

One very terrible thing, mind you, but one thing. The Doctor stayed prone on the ground, the sound of Jack's death screams ringing in his ears as that thing, whatever it was, tore him into several unpleasant pieces. It reminded him of the Year That Wasn't, of Jack's screams while the Master tortured him and the Doctor's frail body keeping him from helping. That was torture, far more brutal than anything the Master's tools could produce.

Once the loud stomps of the creature faded away, the Doctor struggled to get to his feet and limped to the place where Jack had been.

It was another thing, having to find his body for it to regrow.

It took some time to find his upper torso, limp and lifeless. It didn't take too terribly long to drag said upper torso to a safe, empty cave not far from the forest's edge (after all, what Jack no longer had in height, he also lost in weight. It didn't take long for time to start snapping around him and his body to start to regrow.

That was something else all together. Muscle and bone formed out of nothing, and while Jack wasn't coherent, he was still alive, screaming and thrashing as he reformed. The Doctor pressed his fingertips to Jack's temple and tried to take away the pain, but when that failed, he pressed his mind into a quiet, comatose state.

While Jack repaired, the Doctor covered him with his coat and sat, waiting. For all that they'd fought, for all that the Doctor swore he'd never want Jack back on the TARDIS again, he did care about him. He wanted him happy, even if he wasn't certain he could handle having him so close. Jack was willing to die for the Doctor, and this was just another example of how he could.

But the Doctor wouldn't leave. Not this time.

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[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"She has your eyes," the Doctor nodded, looking over to the woman. She looked a little older than Jack, appearance-wise. He knew how difficult that could be when one of the family memebers was trying to be human.

Rassilon knew it well. Immortality was a curse, not a blessing.

Susan loved him, all the way until the end. He would never really know if she approved or understood, but he liked to think she did. He liked to think she understood.

"I would have done the same," he reminded Jack. "You did what was right." It wasn't good. It wasn't beautiful. It was right.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"And her mother's temper," Jack tried to laugh, but he couldn't. He tried to lift it and pretend it was nothing, but it wasn't.

He took a deep breath as they moved away, trying to make the air fill his lungs and stop himself from tensing as much as he was.

Alice was everything to Jack, though he doubted she ever knew it. She never really understood and neither did Lucia. She was fully within her rights to hate him for what he did, after all he hated himself for it. Whether this was a hallucination or not, she was right. Jack had blood on his hands, and that would never wash off.

"Was it?" he snapped again, turning his head to the Doctor. He shook his head and closed his eyes, exhaling. "Sorry," he said softer, "sorry." He hadn't prepared for her. Perhaps Ianto, not that that would be easy either. Not that anyone would be easy. But not her.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Him or the rest of the planet, Jack. And I know you'd have put yourself in his place if you could."

There was no doubt in the Doctor's voice. He'd seen too much with Jack, he knew him too well (or, at least, he liked to think he did.) Sometimes the hardest decisions were the ones that had to be made, and sometimes they were the only ones who could make them.

"They don't want to make it easy for you," he said. "And I know it won't be the last we'll see of them either. Just...don't let them beat you. We're stronger than that."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," Jack said with a voice that was little more than a breath. He looked at the Doctor and smiled tightly.

His presence comforted him and more than a little. He wasn't sure he could do this without him. The certainly in his voice too was a boost. It was good to know that someone believed in him that much, even if he didn't believe in himself that much. Even better for that belief to come from the Doctor.

"Together, Doctor," he nodded at him, "we'll get through it together, right?"

With a moment left for pause, Jack glanced down at the floor and back up again. "So, where to?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Together," the Doctor agreed.

They were better together. Stronger together. He didn't want to think where they'd be alone.

"This way," he said. "You can feel the magnetic flux in the air. It's a power surge from the Tomb. We need to---"

He turned a corridor, and there was Romana. His breath left him in a She was in her presidential robes, her long, blonde hair a mass of dried blood. It was how he last saw her, on the comm before---before---

"Doctor," she breathed. "Doctor, turn back. It's not safe."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Holding close to the Doctor, Jack turned the corner, but stalled at the new face in front of them. He didn't recognise the face in front of them, but he could tell from the clothing and the markings on it that she was Gallifreyan. A Time Lord (Time Lady? He wasn't sure).

"Doctor..." Jack gripped his hand a little tighter. Whatever had happened to this woman can't have been good. Whatever the Doctor had had to go through with her if he had had to see her like this.

There was so much of the Doctor Jack didn't know. So much he doubted he ever would.

"Remember, like you said to me, she's not real. Come on, lets just keep going. They're just appearing because we're on the right track. We'll just walk around her, just like she's not there, okay?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Please, Doctor. Save yourself, even if you can't save us."

That was something she'd said to him, once. The last thing she'd said to him. He didn't want to listen, then. He didn't want to listen now.

"Romana---"

He reached out a hand, but there was nothing there. Just an illusion, a figment. Part of who he'd been. He wanted her to be real. He wanted that more than anything, but she wasn't.

He closed his eyes and nodded, stepping around her. He could hear her cries of protest, the way she spoke in perfect Gallifreyan. He just couldn't listen.

"Holiday. Cruise. Nothing but pan galactic gargleblasters and rest," he siad.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Doctor I'm here," Jack urged him to look at him instead. "Me yeah? Just us here. Nobody else, okay?"

He wondered who she was, but it wasn't the time for questions. Maybe later. Later when they were away from there, away from Gallifrey. Back safe, back on the TARDIS.

Not now.

"Sun, sea and speedo's," Jack suggested to him with a grin to try and provide comfort. "It'll be good, Doctor. I promise, okay?"

He did promise, and he meant it, though he wasn't sure what promises he really could keep. But he'd try, oh would he try.

"Now no more of these visions yeah? Not for either of us."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"If only it were that easy."

He tugged on another door. If he was right, they were only another corridor away from the Tomb. And if he was right, the Tomb would have everything they would need to fix Jack's wrist strap and get them somewhere safe.

If he wasn't right...well, that was something the Doctor would deal with then.

"These markings," he said, gesturing to the walls. "Old High Gallifreyan. Not many people could read it back in my time. I had a natural aptitude."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Well we'll make it that easy," Jack said firmly. It wasn't so simple, of course, it never was. But it could be surprising just how far stubbornness could get you. He'd ridden a good part of the 20th Century on stubbornness alone.

Glancing sideways, Jack looked at the markings. They made no sense to him, of course, but nothing here did. It felt utterly... alien, and alien in a way most things didn't and never did. It took a lot to faze Jack, but here he felt he was wading right into the deep end.

"Of course you did, you're brilliant," Jack smiled and grinned over to the Doctor, trying to bolster the both of them. "What does it say?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He reached out, tracing his hand across the symbols. He didn't have to be able to read them to know what they said. He'd seen them before. Once before.

"'This is the Tomb of Rassilon, where Rassilon lies in eternal sleep'," he read. He moved down to a second set of symbols. "'To lose is to win, and he who wins shall lose.'"

He moved past those symbols to another set, this one full of strange, unrecognizable shapes.

"This isn't a language at all," he said. "It's...I don't know. It's odd."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack knew little about Gallifrey past what he'd learned from the Doctor. But he'd heard the name Rassilon before when the Doctor told him about the time used on the planet. So he had to be important. He had to be someone very very important.

Even when Jack was out of his depth, he couldn't help but have his breath taken away by somewhere that seemed like it must be monumental.

"Not a language?" he asked with a frown. "A code maybe? More riddles?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Maybe."

He looked at the markings. Strange, blocklike indented symbols on raised, round, button-like markers. At the upper right corner, a steady stream of water trickled through the marking, before dribbling away past the next.

He touched one of the upper symbols and it turned on its own. the L-like bend creating a pathway for the water to move further before dribbling down the side of the wall. On the other end, he noticed a different connector at the bottom left. Like a lock.

"I think a puzzle is right," he said.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack looked over at the sequence of symbols and frowned.

"Huh. So we've got to get these, what? All in the right order to get that from A to B and unlock the door? Shouldn't be too hard, right?" Oh he shouldn't have said that. That was just tempting fate.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Except that a number of these symbols don't lead anywhere. And, if I know anything about Gallifreyan mind games, there's a time limit."

He turned to Jack and gave him his biggest, widest, smugest grin.

"Of course we can do it."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

The Doctor's grin just spurred Jack on, and he beamed an equally wide grin in his direction.

"Are you kidding, this is us! We can do it in our sleep!"

Jumping on his heel he all but bounced around to the Doctor's side and looked at the puzzle in front of them. He tried to be analytical and reached out to touch one of the spots, watching it turn a little and change the flow.

"You know, Doctor, we really are brilliant."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"We really are."

And, as apparently a counter to his point, when he reached out to touch a button, it suddenly shot back into the wall, along with half a dozen others. Fewer choices, now. Still, couldn't be that hard, could it?

"I think that's a sign that we haven't got much time." He turned another few buttons and the water took a complicated route before dribbling away.

"That one?" he asked, gesturing to one near Jack's hand.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack scowled at the wall as it took away a good deal of their options, as though it was the wall itself that was to blame. Well he wasn't going to blame the Doctor, was he?!

"Oh we've got nothing but time!" Jack grinned back over to the Doctor before focusing again on the puzzle. He nodded and reached out for the button, pressing it together with the one next to it. The water shifted location again and Jack grinned triumphantly.

"Okay okay! We're getting there!"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Brilliant!"

He turned another few buttons and reached for the last one. It was a simple, straight line that would take the water the very last leg of the journey to the lock. He reached over to turn it and----it recessed into the wall, along with half a dozen other buttons, all of those not yet used.

"No!" the Doctor cried. "No, no, no! That's the last one! It's the one we need!"

Not good. "Fine. We improvise. We're good at that, right?" He fumbled in his pockets, eventually producing the psychic paper again. He held the end of it to the running water, and the other to the lock.

"I hope this works."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Doctor, improvise is my middle name! Well no actually, it isn't, but I think you get my point."

Jack watched as the water trickled along the paper and towards the lock. A little made it across but most of it fell to the side. "It's not enough."

He put his hands to his hips and paced a little, trying to think. "This isn't going to work," he said spinning back on a heel, as though it was a revelation.

"No, I mean, really this isn't going to work. I don't think it was ever supposed to. It's a distraction. I mean, no real door would be opened by something like this, would it? I don't think this is the way in at all."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor cupped his hand around the side of the paper, but there wasn't enough pressure to move it over. He tried curling the sides, but nothing changed.

"Hydroanalytical pressure tubing, maybe?" the Doctor called over to him. "It's primitive, not as primitive as, say, stitching closed a wound, but it's fairly ancient technology---"

Not too primitive for the Time Lords, but this Tomb wasn't built by just any Time Lord. He took a few steps back from the wall. "That's far too unsophisticated for Rassilon. I think you're right, Jack, this is a distraction. A very good distraction, the right level of frustrating and challenging."

He looked over to Jack. "But what are they distracting us from?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Well that's the million dollar question, isn't it?" He looked to the side at the Doctor with a slightly wary expression, and glanced upwards and to the side.

Something had changed, but what it was, he wasn't sure. Not sure until...

"Doctor... is it just me or is this room getting smaller?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Reversed hyperspacial subtension. Rassilon invented the quantum theory of TARDISes being bigger on the inside, guess he's just reversing that! We need to find the door!"

He pulled out his sonic and waved it along the walls. Each stayed the same, smooth or with the Old High Gallifreyan text, but no percievable entrance. No, of course Rassilon wouldn't make it easy, why would he want it to be easy?

His eyes went back to the sayings on the wall. The loser shall win and he who wins shall lose. The riddle of the immortality within the Tomb, wasn't it? But why would it be out here, in the hallway?

"I've got it."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Really?", Jack said, surprised and intrigued, "He did that?"

But no, there was hardly time for history lessons of quantum mechanics. They'd be plenty for that later. Or at least there would if they got out of this room without being crushed.

His own gaze scanned the room. He looked for ideas or clues but nothing really made sense to him here, nothing but the Doctor. Everything that had seemed obvious so far had been a trap, so perhaps it was logical to look for the things that didn't seem obvious... but that didn't really he--

His train of thought was stopped and he spun his head over to the Doctor with a grin. "Well brilliant! What is it?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"We wait," the Doctor said with a firm nod.

He scratched the back of his head and nodded to the inscription. "We struggle and fight here, we're only going to end up being crushed. We wait, ride out the wave..."

Which he didn't imagine would be easy, considering the tightness of the room already. He gestured for Jack to come closer.

"That would be very like Rassilon. Make you think you're fighting your way out of something, but instead you're just working harder to your own death."