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for 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.

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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."

"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.

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!"

"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."

"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."

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?"

Edited 2009-11-17 20:14 (UTC)

"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?"

"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."

"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?"

"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."

Jack stepped towards the Doctor but his face seemed less than convinced. "Really? We just... wait? Just stand here while the walls get smaller?"

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."

So did the Doctor. The tighter the walls got, the more worried he became that he was wrong. But he couldn't be wrong, could he? There wasn't another explanation that would fit Rassilon's devious mind, was there?

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?

Confined spaces were unpleasant for Jack at the best of times. Confined spaces that get even more confined? Well that was just taking the cake.

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.

He grinned at Jack. "And you."

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.

Jack closed his eyes tight. This was it. The end, he thought. Not how he expected to go. Quite far from it. But then he never really did know, and at least he wouldn't go alone. At least neither of them would be alone at the end.

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.

"Yep!" he snatched the strap from Jack and darted over to the machinery. He could use the technology to power the manipulator, couldn't he? Of course he could. It would need an extra burst of power to send them back through the rift and around the whole of the Time War, but he could do it.

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.

"Be careful with that," Jack said and stroked his hand over his now vacant wrist with a bit of a pout, feeling naked without it.

"Oh don't worry," he raised his hands defensively, "I don't intend to. Corpses don't tend to make for the best conversation. Though if he can talk then kudos to him, that's pretty impressive for a dead guy."

He spared a quick glance to the sarcophagus and looked away again. It wasn't pleasant, and it made him feel uncomfortable in a way he couldn't quite pin down.

Trying to distract his brain he watched the Doctor instead; watched him work with curiosity, but his mind still wandered.

"So you expect it to start getting chatty then?"

Edited 2009-11-17 21:48 (UTC)

"He," the Doctor corrected him. "Careful what you say, he's one of the most influential Time Lords in all of history. Also, immortal. Though only really through psychic influences at this point."

He paused from where he'd taken apart a panel, and looked over to the sarcophagus. "I wonder why he hasn't asked us if we want immortality. Must be because we haven't got the coronet or intent."

His eyes went over to Jack, then back to the sarcophagus. He had a better idea why Rassilon wasn't talking to them, and that might be for the best.

He peeled away another panel and grinned madly. "Ah ha! Now we're getting somewhere!"

"You said it first!" Jack said defensively and shifted on his feet, pouting a little. He glanced back at the sarcophagus and stepped a couple of feet towards it.

"So this is the big cheese, huh? Well he's doing a pretty good impression of being dead for an immortal guy."

He shrugged his shoulders back and pulled a slight face at the body. "Immortality?" he laughed, "Yeah, well, already got a fair dose of that, thanks."

Just standing where he was for a moment Jack continued to stare at the body, ignoring the chill down his spine before it was too much. He turned back and shook it off, deciding instead to focus on the Doctor.

"Now that's what I like to hear!" he grinned, "You need a hand with anything?"

"Actually, I just need a wrist," the Doctor said. "Your wrist. I think I've got everything fixed here..."

He slammed shut the panel he extracted the chip from, and one of the holographic projectors sprang up a view of the Citadel. There was no dome surrounding the city, not this early in Gallifrey's history, but the mountains, they looked the same. The sloping hills of red grass, the light dusting of snow falling from an orange sky. So much of the natural history stayed frozen, never touched by time.

He never thought he'd miss it.

"Come on," he said, gesturing to Jack. "We've got to go."

"Well that I can do!" Jack grinned and stepped forward, arm outstretched for the Doctor to reattach it in its rightful place.

His gaze though, shifted as it caught sight of the projection. Ahhh now that was more like it. That was much more like what he'd expected. He stared at it with his mouth slightly agape.

"Oh now that..." he said in an almost whisper... "oh that is something..." he grinned wide, impressed.

He glanced back to the Doctor with a wide grin, but it quickly faded and he nodded, clearing his throat. "Yeah, yeah time to go." He took the strap from the Doctor's hand and fastened it himself.

"You want to make a wish or something?"

"Was," the Doctor corrected, his voice firmly in the finite tense. He took a step forward.

He couldn't regret. He couldn't be nostalgic. He couldn't...think about the things that were lost. He had to just accept them. Accept them and move on.

"No time for wishes, we need to get out of here before something new springs up. I've got it programmed for your flat, about five minutes after we both left. Ready?"

"Right, yeah, of course," Jack ducked his head apologetically. He'd let his enthusiasm get away from him, and usually that wouldn't matter or more accurately he wouldn't care. But this was the Doctor and the things that were dear to him. That did matter. It mattered a lot.

He spared the hologram one quick glance and tried to burn the image into his memory. Maybe just seeing it would help him be able to understand.

"Sounds perfect!" Jack said, much more chirpy. "We can even finish that pizza off!" He held his wrist out for the Doctor to place his hand over the vortex manipulator. "On three?"

"Food without poison? Sounds like a plan to me."

He grinned and placed his hand over Jack's.

"One. Two. Three."

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