for quitehomoerotic: Welcome to the Sahara Desert

[rude_not_ginger]

follows this.

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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[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He sat, awkwardly, on the bench, feeling almost like he was a student about to be chastised. No cuffs, no checking for weapons. Beatrice must've known him well enough, at least.

Don't you dare. The way the Doctor spoke internally was surprisingly aggressive, his voice inside translating the anger he didn't normally show to Jack. But Jack was his responsibility. Jack was the person he needed to protect from himself.

Maybe, in that way, he could also save himself. Was that the sort of man the Doctor was, now? Saving people in order to save himself?

You could try walking past them. If they're androids, they may not be programmed to recognize you.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

They're not androids. They're just idiots. And don't worry, I'll keep my hands to myself. Just a suggestion.

The men backed away from the door, and Jack stepped in, just long enough to let them pass by. They moved out and the door, heavy and thick, was closed behind them. No visible lock from the inside, so some sort of holding area.

Back on the wall, a video screen flashed into life. There was a camera above it, pointed towards the Doctor, and as the screen flickered a couple more times an image settled on it. The head and shoulders of a woman, young, blonde, pretty with almost delicate features. She wasn't smiling.

"There you are," she said. "Knew I'd find you."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor looked at the woman and felt absolutely nothing. She was pretty enough, he supposed, though he couldn't recognize her at all. She scowled.

"Oh, don't look so surprised," she said.

"It's not surprise," the Doctor assured her. "It's more confusion."

She snorted at that. "As in why would I ever want to see you again?"

"That, too."

The Doctor shot a look over at Jack. Who was this woman?

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack looked over at the Doctor and shot him a stare.

Don't look at me. She doesn't know I'm in here.

He shifted to the side and a little out the way, definitely out of view of the camera.

She doesn't know you don't remember her. Just play along. Ask her leading questions.

"I'm sure you want to know why I called you here," she said. "Especially considering how I left."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

Right, leading questions.

"Exactly," he said, nodding a little too emphatically. "And, um, the things you said to me."

If this were an obvious villain, someone he knew was Up To No Good, he'd be able to pick her apart without question, he was sure. But this was someone he obviously cared for at some point in his life, though he couldn't, for the life of him, remember how.

He took a breath and tried to affect a look of calm relaxation. "You could've just called."

"You had the TARDIS reroute my number to an operator."

"Did I?" the question was, unfortunately, genuine.

"Don't act all smug about it."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack couldn't help but roll his eyes a little.

Another stray dog, Doctor.

But there was obviously some reason for all this. It didn't make sense to go to all this effort to get hold of him if it wasn't for something important, but what?

You could try telling her the truth. Novel idea, I know.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Listen," the Doctor said. "I don't want to cause more trouble than there already is, but I don't actually remember you. It's a very long, very complicated story and I only know bits of it. But I know I know you, and I don't know how."

He nodded, watching Bea's face on the monitor carefully.

I don't think she liked that.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack shifted a little so he could see the screen a little more. The woman didn't look pleased. She shook her head and then looked down and Jack thought she looked almost sad.

Yeah maybe not.

"Typical excuse, Doctor. I've impounded the TARDIS. It's being taken to storage. You're not running away this time."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"I'm not---" The Doctor's expression started out calm, almost apologetic. She thought he always ran away. Most of his companions believed that, they believed that he ran because he wanted to, because he wanted to leave them. He knew he wouldn't have kept her necklace if he thought that. Well, he hoped, at least.

Then what she said fully struck him and he went from apologetic to infuriated.

"You've impounded the TARDIS?!"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack reached one hand out as if to try and calm the Doctor.

She'll be okay, he urged. The TARDIS will be fine.

Still, that didn't mean he wasn't completely in a panic about her himself. She was all he'd had the last few years, she was more important to him than ever.

"What else was I supposed to do? If you knew it was me I knew you'd run. That's what you do, isn't it, run. You didn't leave me much choice."

She took a heavy breath. "Anyway. Doctor. We need to talk. It's important."

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"Why would I run?" the Doctor demanded. "Because I don't block the numbers of just anyone. I even left Bjork's number open even when she started leaving all those weird little messages."

What an awkward time that was.

"In Norwegian."

This woman, whoever she was, wanted to talk to the Doctor, and she was willing to use the TARDIS in order to get to him. And if she knew him, she knew that wouldn't make him happy.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack tried not to laugh. It really wouldn't be appropriate to laugh, and so he covered his hand over his mouth and tried not to smirk too much over at the Doctor.

"Because you always run," she said. "That's exactly what you do. First sign of trouble. First sign anyone touches you past that shell of yours. I know how it is, don't think you fooled me."

On that, Jack stopped laughing. He grew more curious, and turned his head towards the screen.

"They said on the phone you had someone with you. Where is she?"

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"Shell? What shell? I haven't got any shell. If anything, I'm more candy-coated, I'll have you know," the Doctor said, trying desperately to deflect away from this topic of conversation.

Right, fine, maybe she knows me a little bit. he admitted to Jack.

"He," the Doctor said. He sighed, then turned to Jack and nodded to him, then to the screen. "Go on, say 'hello' to our captor, Jack. But not hello."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Oh y'think?

He gave the Doctor a slight glare as he was pointed out, and he stepped up a little closer, in sight of the camera, and perched himself down on the bench next to the Doctor.

"Hey," he said, lifting a hand in a half hearted wave at the camera. "Beatrice, I take it. Good to meet you. Hey, don't have any breakfast there, do you?" he spoke flippantly.

But the woman's face looking back was one of shock.

"Did you say Jack? Not the Jack? Jack Harkness?"

"That'd be me."

Her expression was almost unreadable. She looked pleased for him, almost, and then even more angry than before. Like her emotions wouldn't settle.

"You found him then."

Jack turned his head and looked at the Doctor.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor tried to figure out what that expression meant. What was she feeling? Why did every emotion seem to sit on her face so sharply, like it either hurt more than anything or felt good, more than anything? And, most importantly, how did she know about Jack Harkness?

"How do you know about Jack?" the Doctor asked. "Cause...I wasn't actually aware I'd lost him."

There was a sudden boom outside the ship, and the Doctor jumped at the sound.

"What was that?" the woman snapped into an intercom like phone. Whatever the response was didn't settle her expression. "We're in the middle of the desert. That's not possible."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack was just about to remind the Doctor he 'lost' him for quite a considerable amount of time, actually. But instead he was distracted by the noise, and he immediately stepped to his feet and moved to the door.

He pulled his sonic from his pocket and tried it on the door but it was deadlocked, no surprise there.

"Look, whoever you are and whatever your deal is with the Doctor, you've picked a bad time. This is gonna have to wait. And you better open this damn door!"

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She all but growled at the screen. The Doctor imagined she had a rather short temper, though he couldn't for the life of him remember if she did. He didn't even remember knowing her.

"You determined my every move for two years," she snapped. "To the point where I was asking myself what Jack would've done, because that was always better than whatever Bea would've done."

The Doctor opened his mouth to ask who would've compared her to Jack like that, then he realized it must've been him. He did that to Martha, he remembered. Compared her constantly to Rose, considered her by her not-Roseness rather than her Marthaness. And by the time he realized he didn't want her to be Rose, she was gone. Was it the same way with Bea?

"Listen, Bea, it's been lovely catching up, but you should really call me when I've got my whole memory back, eh?" he said.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack absorbed those words and tried not to allow himself to overthink them too much. He easily could spend too much time thinking of the fact the Doctor thought of him like that. It was important, though. Important to him. Too much was important to him.

He pushed a little more at the door, trying to ease on the hinge and get around the lock that way.

"Don't think he's going to keep you around," Bea said, and Jack realised she was talking to him. "He never does. He gets what he wants and then ditches you. You'd know all about that, wouldn't you, Jack. Sure you sit there while he listens and he takes whatever you'll give him."

He tried not to listen. He tried to ignore her as he worked on the door.

"Is that what it was, Doctor? Did you take enough and realise there was nothing left? Or was I just your drawn out version of a one night stand."

And on that, Jack stopped. He stopped and looked up, over at the Doctor, frowning a little, wondering if she just said what he thought she said.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

There were many things the Doctor wanted to say in that moment. The first being that no, no, he didn't engage in one-night-stands, it simply wasn't who he was. Sex wasn't an important thing. Sex wasn't something he thought about regularly, unlike most humans. So it was really, highly unlikely that she would be anything of the sort. Yes, she was pretty and blonde and obviously clever and when it came to women that was his type to a T, but that didn't mean he would. Certainly not while he was worried about or thinking about Jack.

He also wanted to say that confronting him about that sort of thing in front of Jack was terribly inappropriate. This was better said in the privacy of a room with just the two of them, so the Doctor could hash out exactly what happened and how they could've possibly ended up in a sexual situation.

He also wanted to inquire if that was exactly what she meant. Maybe one-night-stand was just a metaphor for her time on the TARDIS. That would make a lot of sense. If so, he would tell her that she needed to choose her metaphors more carefully to avoid awkwardness between them.

Instead, of course, all he said was: "What?!"

He realized that his voice came in stereo, the woman on the screen saying the word the exact same time he did, with an irritated look on her face.

"Yeah, thought you'd say something like that."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack felt jealous. It was utterly ridiculous, and the mere presence of the emotion annoyed him, but it was there, jealousy for the Doctor apparently sleeping with someone, even though he had no idea who she was.

He turned his head back to the screen and watched as she looked out at the Doctor.

"You know I half thought you weren't even real, Jack," she said to him. "Thought maybe he'd made you up. Finally got him to talk about you once and this is what I get from it."

He ducked his head slightly, and looked back to the Doctor, but said, nor thought, a thing.

"I told you," she said to the Doctor. "We need to talk."

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The Doctor let himself process this. He shook his head and tried to laugh it off. "You're not saying that we---"

The look on her face said that yes, very much, they did.

"When!?" he demanded.

"About five months ago," she said, sounding oddly flat in her irritation.

"I was dead five months ago," he snapped. Then, he relented. "Well, time travel. The TARDIS hasn't done much leaving the vortex in a number of years."

And even if it had, maybe she couldn't track him. Maybe it took her five months and the Doctor all these years to mesh up in timelines. He scratched the back of his head. Awkward didn't begin to cover it.

"So we were...what, exactly?" he asked.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack felt a slight pang at the mention of him being dead. He blinked tightly and took a slow breath, looking over half lidded eyes back at the screen.

That jealously was still there too. He wasn't a jealous man, or at least he never thought he was, and really what was the point. He noticed the ring on his finger, the Doctor was wearing his still. Biodampers, Jack reminded himself. He also reminded himself of the man who used to say he loved him and that the Doctor remembered that only peripherally.

He felt, suddenly, like he was very much in the way.

She shook her head. "What, like you're ever anything with anyone?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Sometimes I can be," the Doctor said, feeling verymuch like a deer in headlights. He could be, and he was, with Jack. Very sort of nearly almost. He almost sort of very nearly was with Rose. He was nearly almost very sort of with Romana, too. He could be.

He looked over to Jack and wanted to tell him that everything she was saying wasn't true at all. Well, apart from him missing Jack, which he remembered. It felt like they were taking those steps back.

She sighed. "And I thought, that night, that you saw, but you didn't. And I know that, now."

"I'm seeing you," the Doctor snapped, gesturing at the screen. "I'm looking at you. You're right there. What do you want from me? We what? Got lonely together, did something we regretted? Left on bad terms? I couldn't give you what you needed? What could I possibly give you now?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Maybe you should," Jack spoke up. "Talk. I could give you some space."

He looked at the Doctor, his head ducked just a little, and he shrugged. "Maybe she needs to. Maybe you owe her that much."

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"Let him go," he said to her. "I'm not going to run, you've got the TARDIS."

To Jack, he passed the mental note. This could all be a lie, Jack. You just have to trust me.

The woman on the screen looked hesitant, then reached down and opened one of the interior doors.

"Don't try anything."