rude_not_ginger | for quitehomoerotic: Welcome to the Boeshane Peninsula

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for quitehomoerotic: Welcome to the Boeshane Peninsula

Follows this.

When the Doctor woke, he was prepared to feel stiff and uncomfortable. Usually, when reaching that point of exhaustion, he usually found himself on the floor or on the console, in some sort of an awkward position that left him sore for the next day. This morning, however, he was out of his clothes and stretched out on his bed, under the covers with a heating blanket.

A breathing heating blanket.

He raised an eyebrow and looked to where Jack had an arm around him as he slept. The previous day came rushing back. Pearl Harbor, the goodbyes, the return of Gallifrey, being captured by the Shadow Proclamation, and finally nearly killing Jack. They came so very close. Too close.

Without really thinking about it, the Doctor found himself wrapping an arm around Jack's shoulder. Jack, who was ready and willing to die the previous day. And the Doctor was willing to give him that. He had been willing to give him that. Not anmymore.

Where could they go, now?

Onwards, of course. It was the only way they could go.

The TARDIS wasn't moving anymore, and the Doctor slowly extracted himself from Jack's embrace. He grabbed his trousers and shirt and threw them on quickly, heading towards the console, hopefully before Jack woke.

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Jack was greeted with a warm smile and the returned greeting from the men and then the one at the front (the gatekeeper) reached for the Doctor's hand and placed a kiss there.

"Mr. Smith, Mr...?"

"Harkness."

"Harkness! We are only too welcome to invite you in."

Jack didn't even think to use a fake name. After all, he already was, wasn't he? He did know this men, this man in front of him, the gatekeeper who used to chide him and his friends from playing on the beaches too late. He remembered him looking taller than this.

"Dangerous waters though?" the man questioned, "nothing bad, I should hope?"

"Just routine," Jack said, stepping in. "Nothing at all to worry about."

The man opened the gates to usher them through and Jack gave him a lingering look before looking back to the Doctor and gesturing an arm out in his direction for him to join him. And when he was close, he whispered, "Okay, this is weird."

"Yes, you think they'd have noticed a lightning storm in their water. Maybe they do know, and they're chalking it up to imagination, or---" It was all just a bit too convenient. Maybe they worried they'd be considered crazy, or that there was some sort of a god in the water? He'd heard a lot of strange things in his time.

The Doctor turned to Jack. Wait, no. No, that look Jack was giving him wasn't on the same wavelength.

"You mean being back here is weird," he said. "Right, no, I knew that."

Jack smirked slightly. It was strange to have the roles this way around. He knew all about this place, the Doctor didn't. Did that make him better off or worse? He wasn't sure.

"That guy?" he said, "The one that opened the door? I know him. I mean, I knew him. And he's got no idea who I am. None at all."

Ahead of them the city opened up and where it had been quiet outside it was suddenly quite the opposite. People milled around, back and forth with their bags and their trading. It was almost primitive as well as advanced; the hints of the century in the computer panels that sat in the cream walls. Everything was clockwork. It was almost steampunk in design. And Jack loved it.

"See," Jack said, taking a step forward and gesturing to the world around them. "Places like this? Come on, Doctor, this is why it's good, isn't it? All of it, the travel?

The Doctor looked up at the clockwork mechanisms worked so elegantly into the stone walls and dirt roads, at the alien-yet-human look about everyone in the city and the whole world around them. Steam, and everything that worked with it, was a hobby of the Doctor's in his younger lives, and he even had a whole room in the TARDIS dedicated to his copies of Steam Enthusiast. This place wasn't just good. It was brilliant.

He turned to Jack and grinned madly. "Oh, yes."

No two places were ever alike, no two adventures ending exactly the same way. And the best part was that Jack understood. It wasn't hard to find an enthusiastic traveler, but it was impossible to find someone who could truly get it.

Jack's smile at the Doctor was impossibly wide. He felt as though he were alive again; funny when he'd felt anything but a mere matter of hours ago.

"I remember the first time I went to Earth," he said, "I was amazed! It was 1975 and it was nothing, just an errand I had to run in New York City. And it was amazing! I'd never seen anything like it. I mean, I had but that was Earth, and all those people, all those humans, they have no idea at all what they're starting just by living. How much of the universe out here is because of what they did there. Oh it gets the blood flowing!"

He nudged the Doctor by the shoulder and ducked his head down as he smiled. But then he was distracted yet again, a voice that made him look straight up again. Immediately he reached his hand out and grabbed the Doctor by the arm, pulling him to the side and out of the way, hiding.

He didn't explain why.

"Well, for me it was Christmas Day," he said, cheerily. He loved talking about his favorite planet, and there were never enough times he could properly talk about the first time he arrived.

"I had just landed the TARDIS on a pile of snow and---oof!" He half-fell towards Jack when the other man pulled his arm. He was never one to question Jack's instincts, of course. He peered over, trying to figure out what, exactly, sparked his fear.

"What is it?" he hissed.

Jack leaned his back against the wall and kept his hand out to his side to keep the Doctor by him too. But just like the Doctor, he couldn't help but look, and so he leaned himself over a little to look.

What he saw made his heart swell.

There was a woman, so very well known to Jack. She was milling around a few stalls away, talking to the owner, collecting items to purchase. And in front, a young boy of about 10 years old, his arm in a cast and a small ball in his other, which he bounced back and forth against the floor.

"Remember that kid I was telling you about?" he said quietly, looking only briefly at the Doctor. "Well, see him for yourself."

Because that little boy, was Jack.

The Doctor's eyebrows hit his hairline, and a huge grin broke out on his face. Oh, the sheer number of laws of time and space they were breaking was astronomical, but it was absolutely brilliant. Little Jack Harkness, arm in a cast, walking about on his home world. How different he looked to the adult next to him, the one who was so close to death the night before.

He wondered what the little boy had planned for his future, how he expected his life to turn out.

"Ah, little Skye," the Doctor cooed to Jack. "Little ball and all. One day, the fact that'll alter the universe." Though, even now, he could see the future moving and rippling around the boy as he moved, Jack's fixed state drifting back along his own timeline.

He raised his eyebrow at the woman. "That your mum?"

"Handsome little devil, isn't he?" Jack said with a grin. So strange to look over and see himself. "Oh he'll steal some hearts."

He spoke about the child that was himself in an almost idealistic way, as though it were someone else, not him, not referring to himself, even when he was.

It wasn't a day he could remember, in the market with his mother, it was so standard. And now to know, just a few feet away once stood himself and the Doctor, it was dizzying.

At the same time, though, he'd made a conscious effort not to look at his mother. It had been a long time since he'd seen her. He missed her.

But he looked again.

"Yeah," he said softly, a fond and private smile on his face. "Yeah that's her. Beautiful, isn't she? Oh she was brilliant, Doctor."

And just ahead, almost on cue, she called ahead.

"Skye get back here, stop running off. What have I told you about running off? Plenty of time for that. And where did you get that ball?"

The Doctor chuckled at her admonishment. His own mother had been like that, too. Stop running off, stop making your family worry. And in the end, she died, too. Everyone did, no matter what side they were on.

"What do you think she'd have said to you last night?" he asked.

No matter how Jack apologized, the Doctor couldn't forget it. Couldn't forget how close they were to mutually letting him go. It was as much the Doctor's fault as anyone's. After all, he was the only one who could've done it.

Jack was watching his younger self and his mother with a fond sort of smile. His mother looked exactly as he remembered her, right to every detail. The sound of her voice was like music to his ears, and he felt as though if he let himself, he could get lost in it.

But he couldn't get lost. The Doctor spoke and it took a moment for Jack to realise the words, but as soon as he did he turned his head sharply, looked at him, shocked.

For a moment, he was utterly speechless.

Just a moment though.

"Don't you dare bring her into that."

He looked again back to his mother, more sadly this time. "She wouldn't even recognise me."

"Course she would," the Doctor said, keeping his eyes on young Jack and his mother. "You're her son. I've regenerated ten times, and my mother still recognized me. It's part of who they are, Jack."

It was cruel, bringing her into it. Maybe part of the Doctor resented Jack's decision the night before, resented him for putting the Doctor in the place he was, for making him have to choose what was right and what he wanted.

He shook his head. "Next time that thought comes into your mind, just think about what she might've wanted, even if you don't think about what I might want."

Jack repeated the Doctor's words in his head and gave himself a moment to believe he'd actually said them. When he'd satisfied himself of that fact, he grabbed him by the arm and pulled him a little out the way.

"Don't you dare say something like that to me," he said, stepping forward, well and truly invading the Doctor's personal space. "Who the hell do you think you are? Mr high and mighty. Don't think about what you want? Sometimes I think that's all I think about. Don't you dare even act like you know a thing about her. You don't, and you will not use her as a tool to guilt trip me! You know sometimes if you told me what it was you wanted instead of pushing and pushing at me things wouldn't have to get that way in the first place!"

The Doctor didn't back down.

"Oh, so it's my fault, now?"

Jack flared with anger under the surface, and moved forward further still, though there was barely space between them as it was.

"Oh sure put words in my mouth now. Make it all about you, because everything is, right? So you can feel just that little more sorry for yourself. Well no, Doctor, not everything is about you. You think you're so superior, don't you? Still think you're above everyone, but you're not. You want to know if you played a part in last night? Then fine, you did. Make you feel better to know that, does it? But it wasn't just you that got me there, Doctor, it was me. So I'm sorry if you can't have that glory all to yourself!"

So much for a quiet, happy afternoon.

The Doctor's temper rose, but he glanced back to where people where shopping and chatting. If they caught too much attention, Jack could see himself, and that would cause far too many disruptions in the fabric of time. Far too many things could go far too wrong.

Wanting the glory to himself, though. The Doctor was so insulted, he felt ill.

Without a word, the Doctor spun on heel and started back towards the entrance of the city.

Oh but Jack wasn't about to leave it there.

He glanced back to his younger self one last time. His mother was still there, but she hadn't noticed the slight commotion, nor had the boy. They would be there and gone and nobody would be any the wiser. A little like so much of his life.

But there was little time for reflection as he stormed after the Doctor, waiting until they were far enough away to confront him by grabbing hold of his arm and tugging him.

"You know one day you might just storm off and I won't be there when you turn back around."

The Doctor pulled his arm roughly away from Jack. Not here, not in Jack's home city. This wasn't fair, starting this here. Why did the Doctor have to start it here? Things were going so well.

"At least then, I won't have to worry about you wanting to die," the Doctor snapped. "Because no matter how sorry you were this morning or how badly I want to move on from it, you still wanted to die. And only I could do it. And---Jack, I can't. I just can't."

He couldn't handle the thought of losing Jack. Of having to give him up, not like that. Maybe it was why he brought up Jack's mother, of what she might feel. Because, really, he wanted Jack to feel guilty. He wanted Jack to hurt, the way the Doctor was hurting.

Jack continued to follow. He wasn't going to let this lie, to let this fall. He had said to the Doctor to tell him if something was wrong, hadn't he? And in a way he supposed he preferred this outburst than his keeping it in entirely, but then that didn't stop it being utterly and completely frustrating.

"Yeah I did," he said, not going to hide it or shy from it. "I did and I know I put you in that position, I know that. And trust me, oh just trust me on how bad I feel for doing that. You're all that's left that matters to-- Doctor you're all and there--" he took a heavy breath.

"You don't think I understand? I do. But you agreed to it, Doctor. You agreed when all I wanted you to say was don't!"

And on that, he stopped. He hadn't meant to give that away, and the fact he had embarrassed him and he glanced down and sighed.

"It's a good job you feel bad," the Doctor snapped, taking another few steps back. "We wouldn't want anything less, Jack. Anything less."

He felt like he was a ball of carbonation that had been shaken up and hard. He'd held it in since the previous evening, even held it in as he opened the door, ready to let Jack out. And now, after all this relaxing, he couldn't hold onto it anymore.

"And do what, Jack? Let you suffer?"

"Yeah I doubt you would," Jack snapped back, "after all, anything I do you pretty much always just throw it back in my face. Or hey, why don't we sit down and have a chat about your favourite topic: The Master. I'll get the snacks and we can settle in for the evening!"

And Jack never meant to address that, something that grated away. And he'd been willing to listen, he always had. He'd been willing to do anything for the Doctor and to him it felt as though it were constantly thrown back at him.

"Oh it's all suffering!" he said, throwing his hand. "You know that as well as I do. We just punctuate it with things that aren't because that's life. What's the point otherwise. You have to feel pleasure to feel pain. You just try and shut it out, all of it, and don't tell me you don't."

"Are you jealous of the Master?" the Doctor asked with an incredulous laugh. Of all the people in the universe, the Doctor thought Jack might understand. But why would he? How could he? The Doctor wasn't even sure he understood his relationship with the Master.

The Doctor reached the gates and offered a salute to the men as he zipped by them. He couldn't stop moving. Couldn't stop. Couldn't stop.

"You don't see me standing on the edge of oblivion," he said to Jack. "I don't want to go."

Jack, at heart, wasn't a violent man, and there were very few times he wanted to honestly lash out. But here, faced with that question? He had an incredibly strong urge to smack the Doctor around the jaw.

"Oh sure, because I'd just love to be in his shoes, wouldn't I?" he said sarcastically. "Not everything I think or do revolves around you, Doctor," he added, not entirely truthfully.

He followed him out though, barely sparing a look to the men.

"Well hallelujah!" he said, "Finally you've noticed it, because seems to me you've been suicidal since I met you! You know what I think? I think you resented me for stopping you getting in that box. I think you wanted to die!"

The Doctor spun around. "It was my time to go!"

The words came out before he had the chance to stop himself, and he stood there, dumbfounded by his own confession.

Jack was just as shocked. Just as surprised. He had suspected it was how the Doctor felt, suspected it entirely, yes, but he had no confirmation, and to say it he'd been going out on a limb.

But here in stark truth was his confession.

The anger left Jack now and he merely felt sad.

"No," he said with a sad shake of his head. "No, it wasn't. Is that what you would have preferred? If I had just let you? Like you were going to let me? Guess maybe that makes you a stronger man than me, Doctor. Because I'm sorry but I couldn't do that. I can't. I never could."

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