The Doctor (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rude_not_ginger) wrote2009-11-11 01:41 am
rude_not_ginger) wrote2009-11-11 01:41 am
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quitehomoerotic: Welcome to the 27th century
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.
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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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.
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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."
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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."
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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?"
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"'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."
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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?"
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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.
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"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.
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He turned to Jack and gave him his biggest, widest, smugest grin.
"Of course we can do it."
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"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."
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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.
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"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!"
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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."
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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."
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"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?"
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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?"
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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."
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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?"
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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."
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With a look to his side he stepped away from a wall that seemed to be moving closer towards him, and stepped even closer to the Doctor.
"Hello," he smirked at him when he turned his head back, realising he was very much in his personal space. "You know Doctor, I hope you're right."
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Jack didn't like small places, and the Doctor was finding them less and less attractive as well. A wall pressed against his back and he stepped even further into Jack's space. There wasn't a lot of Jack-or-the-Doctor space, there was just limited space and them, crammed into it.
"I'm right," he said, firmly. "But on the very, very, very off chance that I'm not---" What? What would he say?
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His heart started to race and he did his very best to ignore it and be as flippant as he could. But if anything his flippancy only highlighted his discomfort he felt underneath it. Sometimes his falseness could appear as exactly that, despite how well practised he was.
His breathing quickened as a wall pressed against his back and he was moved flush against the Doctor. He tried not to panic because maybe they could sense that; maybe it would only make it worse.
"Good," Jack nodded quickly and looked up to meet his eyes, "yes, Doctor, if you're not? Been nice knowing you."
Well, this wasn't how he'd expected everything to end.
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The words were right there on the tip of his tongue. The words that he didn't say to anyone, didn't know how to say to anyone. Not an emotion he often felt, certainly not like this. But they needed to be said, and right now, right now seemed like the right time to say it.
As though he were back on that drug from before, they stuck in his throat. If this were going to be the last few seconds of their very long lives, he was, apparently, in charge of making sure they were silent.
And then, without any warning, the pressure against his back was gone. He turned from Jack and looked around. The Tomb. A sarcophagus in the center with one Time Lord embossed on the side, antiquated machinery on one section of wall, and engravings to the legend all across the wall. The transmat the Doctor remembered from his last time in the Tomb had apparently not yet been built.
"I was right," he grinned madly.
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But then...
He felt the strain on his body release and he dared to crack his eyes open and look at the room around them. It had changed. Jack beamed a wide smile and smacked the Doctor on the back.
"Doctor you're a genius, I could kiss you!" he said, "So what do we do now? I guess you want this, huh?" He offered out his wrist with the strap.
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He spun around and pointed at the sarcophagus and the very dead Time Lord lying atop it. "Whatever you do, don't touch it, and if it talks to you, say you're not interested in anything it as to offer!"
Though, immortality already was Jack's curse. This was nothing new to him.
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