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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The Doctor caught the ivy and began to scale down like a professional rock climber. He had done similar many, many times in the past. He didn't call down to Jack as he went, he just dropped.

Once his feet were firmly on the ground, he gave Jack a wide grin.

"See? Wasn't that easy?"

Which was the point where the platform before the door started to crumble. He darted towards the Tower door and tugged it open.

"In, in!"

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"Hmmmn, seems so," Jack said back to him, seeming ever so slightly affronted at the grace and ease with which the Doctor made the descent. "Is there anything you can't do?"

The ground under Jack's feet started to shake, and he looked down at it before dashing behind the Doctor. He ran in through the open door and stopped inside, pausing to catch his breath.

"Whew! That was a close one! So what do we do now? And can I start to look forward to those mind games?"

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The Doctor leapt in after him, only just catching the side of the door with his hands as the ground gave out under his feet. "I wasn't aware we'd moved on from mind games to platform gaming. I'm out of practice."

He shut the door and grinned over at Jack. "I can't knit," he said. "Or sit through the whole of Titanic. Something about that soundtrack that bothers me..."

The flip attitude was entirely false, of course. He knew the moment the mind games started, things would be entirely too serious for their own good.

"Look forward to them and look out for them," the Doctor said. "Let's go."

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"Oh don't worry, Mario, you might be rusty but a bit of jumping around never hurt anybody. Or are you more of a Sonic?"

Jack squinted ahead along the corridor and took a deep breath, just like the Doctor he was joking and using flippancy as a way to act calmer than he really felt. "You can't? Damn, now that jumper I was gonna ask you to make me for Christmas is right out the window."

He pulled the sides of his coat up over his chest, covering the bloodstain on the scrubs underneath, and stuffed his hands down into his pockets.

"Oh don't worry, my eyes are peeled, Doctor, I'm looking all right." With a nod, he fell into step behind the Doctor and followed him along the corridor.

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The Doctor walked ahead, tracing each new panel of floor with the edge of his foot before walking on. It was less for amusement and more for security in the Tower, though mind games were a specialty of Rassilon's, too.

He heard the click of high heels somewhere up ahead. They were very distinctive, a low, flat heel, probably from some sort of boot. He used to hear that click behind himself as he ran around corridors and down hallways and just prior to being slapped in the face.

He shouldn't have been too surprised to see her there, standing in a shaft of light.

"Donna."

"Doctor! Doctor help me!"

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Jack stared out at the corridor around him, at panels in shadow and shades in the floor, looking out for anything that might trip them up. He had the distinct feeling they were being watched; the hairs standing up on the back of his neck and a cool chill running down his spine.

The voice turned his head. He spun his gaze quickly away from the surroundings and looked ahead. She looked so real, Donna in the light, Donna standing in front of them. But it couldn't be.

"Doctor..." Jack said his name like a warning and stepped forward, a hand out in front of the Doctor, protective.

"It's not her, Doctor, it can't be."

But it still looked so real.

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He reached out his hand, and he could almost swear he felt the warmth of Donna's body heat in the cold Tower's air.

"Doctor, you have to turn back. It's too late for me, turn back!"

Even her eyes. The way they looked equally terrified and determined, that was so very, very Donna. A part of his mind wanted to believe. He wanted to believe that somehow they'd pulled Donna from a period before she forgot, that she was there and real. But Jack was right. It wasn't her.

"Donna forgot me," he said. "She forgot everything. So she couldn't be standing there, no. You're right."

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Jack couldn't help but stare. It might not be Donna but it was... something. She looked like Donna, she sounded like Donna. Jack hardly knew her but this... The only reason he was sure it was an illusion is that he told himself it was.

"Exactly," he said, stepping in front of the Doctor, a hand on his shoulder. He tried to apply more confidence than he felt. "Mind games, right? Just a mirage, that's all. Donna's at home, probably having an argument with someone over the latest episode of Eastenders, right?"

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"Right."

Without Jack, he wondered if he'd have come to the same conclusion. He liked to think that he would. He liked to think he'd have continued on without hesitation, but he didn't think he could. He missed her. He missed late nights discussing running trips and weekend-long marathons of the West Wing.

But that was the past. He had to move on from the past.

He turned away from her and walked on. He could hear her screaming behind him, a shrill, painful shriek of a memory being erased due to inefficiency.

"Thanks," he said to Jack.

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Jack pressed his fingers into the Doctor's shoulder and gripped, nodding to him as they stepped away. He blocked out the noise, shut it away. It was false, and they couldn't let it take hold.

"Anytime," Jack said back with a tight lipped smile. "Just need to keep focus, yeah? It'll be fine. Long as we got each other here, right?"

But as they turned a corner, Jack was overwhelmed with a smell, a strong smell that filled the area and flooded his senses. "Do you smell that?" he asked, faltering a little.

It was such a normal smell, but such a specific one. Coffee. A strong coffee, freshly brewed, a special blend. Ianto's blend.

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Donna. Of course they would show him Donna. He couldn't feel guilty for Martha or Rose, not really. They got lives they wanted, but Donna. Oh, Donna lost everything. Everything because he had no choice but to decide for her.

No time to dwell. He pulled out the sonic and fiddled with a door lock. It popped open easily, revealing another corridor.

The Doctor inhaled, but smelled nothing.

"Probably some sort of mineral deposits in the walls," he theorized. "Might be mucking about with your senses, try not to think about it.

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"Right, yeah, no, it's nothing," he said, trying to brush it off. But in his mind the smell was taking him right back, making him awake buried memories. They could be hard to ignore.

He shook his head and followed through the door behind the Doctor. He wished he had something in his hand, he felt naked without it. It didn't need to be a gun, just a torch would do; something to keep his hands occupied.

"So we're seeing things now," Jack said, stating the obvious. "You know a couple of years ago my team started seeing things. This guy, he wanted them to open the rift, was trying to persuade them using people they cared about. Everyone saw someone. Everyone. Well, everyone except me."

He turned his head back over his shoulder, certain he could hear something behind him. He ignored it.

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"Localized targeted imagery?" the Doctor asked, raising an eyebrow. "That's very advanced, even for something of the rift, did you find out who he was?"

He couldn't understand why Jack wouldn't have been targeted. Was it his brain wave patterns? His cleverness? Maybe the fear that if he knew something was wrong, that he'd stop his team?

He inhaled again, this time a strong, bitter scent that was most certainly not there a moment ago. That coffee, from Torchwood. Definitely. He wondered why he hadn't smelled it before.

"Sensory triggers," he theorized. "Prodding at the receptacles in the brain that pick up stress, pain, memory..."

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"No," Jack admitted with a shake of his head, "we never did. But after him there was Abaddon, and then well I was a bit busy being dead for a week. And after that -and I mean literally right after- there was you. I'd been awake maybe three hours when I heard the TARDIS engines up above. Guess I just let things get away from me. Bilis Manger, his name was, and whoever he was you're right he was advanced; he could step across time, show people visions. He knew just what he was doing."

Jack hadn't thought much about Bilis, but really he was another thing he ought to feel guilty of. The team had been through a lot then, and he'd abandoned them without a thought.

"You know," he said with irony in his voice, "Gwen asked me what would have swayed me. What vision. And you know what I said? I said you. The right kind of Doctor."

He shook his head. Little did he know then how things would change.

The smell was still there, stronger than before and even harder to ignore. "Oh great," he sighed sarcastically. "So you're saying it can pick up on anything in the mind that might trigger?" He spun again, quickly.

"Doctor there's someone here."

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"I don't know about right," the Doctor said with a small smile, "But I try to be."

Bilis Manger. The Doctor had never heard that name before, but the idea of him sounded very...Eternal. But that was impossible, the Eternals were gone, kaput, finito, left for the Void during the Time War. There was no way they could be back.

And if they were, why would they want Jack's team to open the rift? Chaos. The Eternals did thrive on chaos.

The Doctor didn't hear what alerted Jack, but he spun as well, looking around. "Nobody's here except Rassilon, and he won't bother us."

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Jack laughed to himself, "That's what I used to call you," he told him. "Guess I was being enigmatic. When Torchwood Three became mine, well, I cut off the whole search for the Doctor thing. My team never knew who you were. They didn't even know the name 'Doctor', I made sure of that. So that's what you were, the right kind of Doctor. The one I was looking for."

He shifted again on his heel. It was as though there was something just out of his line of sight. Just out of the corner of his eye. He knew it was his mind playing tricks on him, but he had to keep reminding himself of the fact.

Hearing something yet again, he turned, looking sideways down the corridor. But this time, this time, the corridor wasn't empty. There was a woman, and a woman Jack knew only too well. Alice. She stood there staring at him and shook her head.

"So you're going to do it again, are you? Let someone die. He'll die if you're with him. Everyone does around you. You're toxic."

Jack couldn't speak. He couldn't say anything at all. He just shook his head, stricken.

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The Doctor, being the Doctor, said the first thing that came to mind: "Blimey, she looks a lot like Susan. Did I tell you about Susan, Jack? My granddaughter? Lovely girl. And this one, she looks uncannily like her. Down to the hair and the coat---"

Ah, probably not the thing to say, considering the cruel words coming out of the woman's mouth.

"She's not real," he said, firmly. He wanted to tell Jack that what she was saying was wrong, and he could outlive anything, even Time, even the Face of Boe. But telling him that would be insulting his emotions.

He reached over and took Jack's hand, lacing their fingers.

"Leave her."

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"She's my daughter," Jack snaps back at the Doctor, struggling with himself. "Alice, Doctor, she's my daughter."

The figure of Alice sneered at him, "Oh you might have fathered me but I'm not your daughter. You're nothing to me, you hear me? Nothing. I should have never trusted you. I should have never let you near me and my son."

Jack started to shake inside and he hoped it didn't show outside.

He felt glued to the spot and he wasn't sure if he could move at all until the Doctor's hand in his own snapped him free of it, and he managed to turn his head to the Doctor, looking at him as though he's surprised he's there.

"Yeah," he agree, swallowing to cover his hoarse voice. "Yeah."

With one more glance up to her, and one shake of the head, he gripped tight onto the Doctor's hand and turned back away, closing his eyes to the shouts behind him.

"He died because of you, Dad. You killed him. It's his blood on your hands."

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"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.

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"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.

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"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."

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"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?"

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"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."

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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?"

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"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.