for quitehomoerotic: Welcome to the Sahara Desert

[rude_not_ginger]

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The Doctor woke only a few short hours later and found himself positively disappointed at his lack of dreams. He'd spent years asleep without dreams, and now, when he really wanted them, he still had nothing. No memories, no twisting nightmares, not even a good brain-dump of nonsensical mental garbage. Just nothing. He was asleep next to Jack on the bed, and then he was awake.

He sighed. His memory was still swiss-cheesed with missing parts of the last two hundred years, but there seemed to be more gaps filled in. And that was something, wasn't it? It meant maybe a few more nights of dreamless sleep and he'd be back to himself completely.

He just hoped there weren't more memories like Mars to discover.

He looked over to Jack, asleep next to him. This was what Jack loved the most, he said. Not sleeping alone. Not being alone. In that instant, the Doctor understood it.

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[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack had spent an hour or so just lying and watching him. He hadn't wanted to sleep. He was almost scared that if he did, he'd open his eyes and none of it would be real. The Doctor would have disappeared and it would have all been a dream.

But the weight of it all and the fact his body ached with tired finally pulled him under, and he fell asleep on his front, one hand out on the Doctor's chest.

He stirred as the Doctor woke. Either something in the movement or something in his mind, and he shifted up a little closer to him, his eyes shifting beneath his lids until they flickered open too and through hazy eyes he looked in the Doctor's direction.

It took him a moment to realise he was real.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"I remember that was a problem before," he said, quietly. "Me waking woke you up."

He remembered watching Jack wake that first morning, though the rest of his memories were fuzzy. Slowly filling in, like a pool of water. He'd be full up of memories eventually. It just took time, and the Doctor hated waiting.

"You can get a few more hours, if you want," he said. "I'll go take a look at the console, see what other repairs you made."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Still tired, Jack didn't speak at first, he just smiled a little in the Doctor's direction and nodded just slightly.

"Yeah," he said tiredly after a moment. "It's okay."

He shifted again and let his eyes close a moment before he forced them back open again. "Might be a good idea," he agreed.

"There's a log. Under six slash apple slash four. I've done..." he yawned, "quite a lot of work. Four years of it."

His eyes flickered again as he resettled on the bed. "Go take a look."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

That wasn't normally how the TARDIS organized logs, but he remembered the simple figure underneath the words the TARDIS gave to him. She made up her own language to talk to Jack, a way to communicate with him in a way he would understand. He remembered feeling jealous the first time he figured that out, but he couldn't figure out why, now. It made him happy, knowing they understood each other.

He slipped out of the bed and went to the adjoining bathroom. A quick shower and a fresh suit later, and he was heading into the console room to look over the repairs. Jack wasn't lying, he'd logged years and years worth of work. An almost obsessive care was taken into repairing parts of the TARDIS that were broken, even parts that the Doctor had never really thought about paying mind to.

How did he know they all needed fixing? Was it just his connection to the TARDIS, or had he just decided to fix everything?

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack had drifted back to sleep easily enough. He'd been too tired to keep himself awake. It was as though part of his mind that had been so focussed finally had a reprieve. His body knew it, and so it was taking the time he could. It was taking the opportunity, and he couldn't find he really minded that.

It was a little while later that his eyes opened again. An hour or two. He was wide awake then, eyes sharp and clear. And straight away he could feel it. He could feel him. His own breath felt easier, it felt lighter.

It made him smile.

He got himself up and took a shower, redressing with a little more care than he had in the last few years. Hands in his pockets he headed out and found his way to the console room.

"Hi," he said. "Meet your approval?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor had been scrolling the log and had his chin resting on his hand as he did.

"You refurbished the life support systems," he noted without looking up. "That requires turning them off completely first."

It was the reason the Doctor had never gone through and worked on them. Either he'd have to be completely in a space suit that didn't run on the TARDIS's energy, or he'd have to be prepared to lose at least one regeneration in the process.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"So I turned it off," Jack said flippantly, shrugging his shoulders a little. "Took eight goes to get it all done." It was a frustrating time. He'd always die just that little bit too soon.

"Still, got there in the end."

He reached forward and pressed a button. "Cleared out the subfarric ractors. Makes dermal transitioning much clearer. Fixed... well, you can see."

He looked towards him a little and leaned up against the console.

"Left the chameleon circuit though. Thought that was better left the way it is."

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The Doctor glanced up to him and smiled. "I don't think she'd be happy in any other form." And Jack knew that, too.

His smile faded, and he looked back to the list of the things Jack had done. Most of them were hard, tedious jobs, ones that would take him deep into the TARDIS engines for days or weeks worth of work.

"Did you leave the TARDIS at all in four years?" he asked.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

The question was blunt, and Jack didn't know an easy way around it. Not without lying, and he didn't really want to do that either.

So he just looked away and squinted a little. "I was busy," he said, shrugging it off.

"Once or twice," he went on, still not looking. But that was a lie too, wasn't it. And so he corrected himself. "Once. Yesterday, I suppose. Once."

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"Jack."

The Doctor closed his eyes. There was nothing harder than losing someone so utterly connected to you, he supposed. And if he hadn't made the deal with Jack to move on, he might've stayed locked away for a long, long time later, too. But Jack, Jack didn't deserve that. Jack shouldn't have had to live that.

"If I ever die, Jack, don't you dare lock yourself away for that long again," he said, firmly. "And, considering the life I live, I might undo all your work to bring me back in a matter of moments. But don't undo the work we did by staying hidden from the universe."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack didn't glance over. He just took a long breath out. He'd expected this. He knew that the Doctor wouldn't have been pleased. Of course there was a lot more he didn't know, but he wouldn't be revealing that unless he had to. Not about the way he so utterly focussed and the only time he didn't he spent holding a bottle.

"Before you died," he said, "you connected us so that the TARDIS wouldn't die if you did. You told me to look after her, so that's what I did. I wasn't hiding, I was doing my job. If I couldn't save you then maybe..." he trailed and sighed, shaking his head. "Maybe I could save her."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"And what about you, Jack?" the Doctor asked. "Who was supposed to save you?"

No one. Not while the Doctor had kept him here, traveling forever in the TARDIS with no friends and no allies to support him. Jack had no one on Earth and the Doctor had never encouraged him to move on, never encouraged him to find someone else. Rose had her mother, Martha had her family, Donna had her granddad. Who did Jack have?

"I can't believe you found a replacement for the subordinate fluid link, though," he said. "I always thought I had a spare in the attic, but I never found it."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack's head lifted a little and he tilted it towards the Doctor, just watching him through lidded eyes.

"I don't need saving," he said bluntly. Perhaps so blunt, because even he knew that wasn't true. The Doctor had saved him, and then the Doctor had gone, but that was nobody's fault. Nobody's but Jack's for not being there to stop it.

He looked to his side over at the Doctor and the screen.

"Oh that? Found it in the debris outside a star going supernova. So I guess you could say that's twice I left."

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"I think we all do, a bit," the Doctor said. Even him. It was part of his memory at Mars. He needed saving but he was alone. It was Jack that pulled him back after he'd gone too far. After he'd drifted the wrong way, Jack tugged him back. The memories of after that were very, very slowly coming back.

"Probably why the energy generation is so high," he said, noting the small circle next to the log. He wanted to ask if Jack had died out there while the star went supernova. He decided it was better if he didn't know.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack ignored the first comment at first in favour of talking about the TARDIS. That was much easier in a way. Talk about mechanics and replaced couplings. So much easier than emotions and life and pulling those walls down again, even if it was for him.

"Yeah worked out quite well. There was a shockwave and the engines soaked up half the energy. Should be enough power in her for a good fifty years or more. Helped support the shielding systems. I pulled them from the extrapolator and wired them centrally through the whole ship. Improves the efficiency by eighty, maybe ninety percent, if we're lucky."

He reached over and pressed a button or two, bringing up the information on screen for him to see.

He paused.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Maybe we do."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"You keep this up, she'll want you to be her main mechanic," the Doctor said, raising an eyebrow. Inwardly, he told himself that if he really wanted to, he could improve the TARDIS's power efficiency by eighty maybe ninety percent, but he'd just been too busy.

Without preamble, he said: "I'm starving. We should grab some breakfast, I think."

Famous last words, for them.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack let out an echo of a laugh and shook his head. "No," he said, amused by the very though, "she won't. She was just making do." They both were.

He nodded at the suggestion and gestured his arm back towards the doorway. "Should be some bacon and eggs in the kitchen. I could knock us something up."

There was a reluctance in him to leave, but he didn't want to let that show if he could at all help it.

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"Nah, I'll land us somewhere," he said, tugging on a few levers. "You've practically rebuilt the TARDIS's trajectory systems, it's about time we put some of them to use, don't you think?"

He twisted a dial. "What do you think about something exotic?" he asked. "Morafia 8? Best spiced Domozian eggs in the quadrant."

He tapped a few things into the keyboard and watched, pleasantly surprised as the TARDIS immediately found their destination and started them in that direction.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Sure," Jack said, his voice lacking any sort of enthusiasm. It wasn't even that he didn't want to. In a way he craved their old adventures more than anything. But that was the whole point, wasn't it? They got swept away; breakfast was never just breakfast. Jack wanted the Doctor to be the Doctor again>. Himself, complete.

He looked at him, but he still missed him.

Attempting to at least pretend, he nodded and put on a smile. "Could do with a change anyway," he said. "Morafia 8 it is."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Good," the Doctor said, giving him. "Because the best part of Morafia 8, well, the part that I think is the best part, is how utterly different the world is there from what you know. Subjective gravity wells, conversational toasters, and they take their tea in the morning."

He pulled on the hand brake and half-hopped over towards the door, pausing only long enough to grab his coat. He liked pretending that nothing was wrong, that they hadn't just lost four years, the Doctor to death and Jack to his grief. He liked pretending that they were going to be all right as they were.

And maybe, if he pretended hard enough, they would be.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack very nearly laughed. Nearly, but not quite. He decided he'd play along. He'd try, because he had to. This was what he wanted, wasn't it? Well no, not this, but it was very near. It was almost. It could be, couldn't it?

"Once had a talking fridge," he said, sharing an anecdote. "Didn't last long. Passed comment on everything I ate. So I shot it."

He stepped over to the door and shot him a grin. "After you."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Did something go sour in there?" the Doctor asked with a little smirk.

He pulled open the door and was greeted with a blast of heat and a breeze full of sand. He squinted at the bright light and took a step out into the sandy plain in front of them.

The TARDIS was planted right in the middle of what appeared to be a huge, empty desert. He looked around, trying to figure out what, exactly, had gone wrong.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack's response was a simple small smirk. He shot a wink at the Doctor and looked towards the door.

But to his surprise his words were eaten up by the blazing heat outside.

"Well this is... what's this?"

There was no way the trajectory systems should have taken them the wrong way. Jack was utterly meticulous with his work.

He stepped around the Doctor and stepped out onto the sand. He was glad not to be wearing his coat.

Turning his head back to the Doctor he squinted at him. "Well it was never going to be simple, was it?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"No, I suppose not," the Doctor replied. He took a few steps away from the TARDIS and his feet sank into the hot sand. There was nothing out there, nothing he could see, except---

"Wait, do you see that?" he asked, pointing out into the distance. "Sort of a cloud of dust."

A memory hit him, then. Standing on a sandy dune, looking out into the vast nothingness of a world of sand. If only he could remember why.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack looked to the Doctor and then out into the distance where he pointed. He squinted to see but there was nothing but a haze. He didn't have his glasses with him, and he really ought to.

"Nope," he admitted. "Just the sky. And something tells me that's not what you mean. What should I be looking for?"