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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[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack continued to work away on the panel. He didn't look at the Doctor but he spoke again.

"There is one way. You know there is." Because it went after them together. It had never gone after them apart.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, right, great idea, Jack. You zap away a billion light years off, and we wait a few hundred years to face them again. No, no, it's better to depower it and face it down."

Bea, now the one on the outside, stood with her arms crossed. "What are you two talking about?

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack looked up then and over at the Doctor. He stayed that way a moment, and then looked to Bea, standing there pregnant with the Doctor's child.

"Nothing," he said to her. "We're not talking about anything."

His eyes settled briefly on the Doctor before he resumed his work.

I could leave, he thought to him. It would stop it for good.

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"No, Jack, that's not happening," the Doctor said, not even realizing Jack was speaking to him in his mind. It was so clear, it could've been whispered in his ear.

"Right, Bea, get everyone off of this ship. Jack, you and Bea take the TARDIS. I'll set this ship to autopilot, we'll send it right into the storm," he instructed.

"You're not blowing my ship up!" Bea snapped. "Do you have any idea how much work---"

"Five months," the Doctor said. "Now, don't be stupid. Just go."

"There's a problem with that," one of the men in front of them said. "The autopilot doesn't work. We couldn't configure it."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack didn't want that to happen, of course. That was what he wanted about least, and so he didn't continue. He merely looked at the Doctor a moment, as though he was trying to work him out. He nodded and stepped forward and around Bea.

"Do you have a key?" he asked. "A TARDIS key, do you have one?"

She looked at him, annoyed. Didn't answer. And so Jack pulled one from his own pocket and thrust it towards her.

"Here, take this, get to the TARDIS. You'll be safe in there."

He moved up over to the Doctor and stood over one of the control panels, glancing up and over at the guard. "Yeah, well you didn't have us here before. Doctor, can we configure this thing?"

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Bea's men looked to her for guidance. She nodded. "Get to the escape drills, not the hovercars. The winds out there'll pull you right in."

She offered the key back to Jack. "This is my ship, I'm not leaving it."

"Yes," the Doctor said, "You are."

"What?" she snapped. "Because I'm a woman, I have to run off and be safe?"

"No, because you're not as familiar with this decade's technology as you think you are, you have to run off and be safe."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack looked at her a moment but didn't make to take the key back, merely turned right back to the panel and carried on working, trying to fix the auto pilot.

He stalled though as the Doctor started arguing with her, and he turned around and took a step over to Bea. He put both hands on her shoulder and stared at her imploringly. "Beatrice, you're pregnant. Now go. Let us help. Go."

She looked at him and then briefly at the Doctor before taking an exasperated breath and turning from the room.

Jack moved back to the Doctor in the midsts of everyone else leaving the room. "Okay," he said, "What have we got?"

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"She's right," he said, pressing a few more buttons. "The subactualization core doesn't fit up with their new autopilot. In order for the ship to explode inside of the storm, someone'll have to fly it."

He scratched the back of his head. "Course, it's not that important that we blow the ship up. We could just let it go, get Bea out of here. Get breakfast somewhere else."

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Jack leaned over and took a look at what was in front of him. It was a mess. It had all been retrofit and badly done by people who were making the most of what they had.

"So I'll fly it," Jack said, without even thinking about it. It would kill him but he'd get over that. He put his hands on his hips and turned to the Doctor. "Or we go and we take us with her. Or you take her and I'll fly this thing in and get out at the last minute. Meet you somewhere."

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"We''ll just go, we'll take us with her. Who knows what the storm'll do, finding my genetic code with her. But immortal or not, Jack, I'm not leaving you here."

There were no guarantees with the storm. No guarantees with anything when it came to them.

There was a blip on the screen, and the Doctor nodded. "Looks like all of the crew here just took drills into the sand. Probably keep them safe for a while, who knows how long it'll be with that thing out there."

He squinted at the screen. "Bea didn't go down to the TARDIS. She went back up to engineering."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack looked at the screen and then back to the Doctor. "Oh you really know how to pick 'em don't you?" he said.

"So what do we do? We've got maybe ten minutes before that storm sucks the whole ship in. If we don't get her out... well you don't need me to tell you what'll happen."

He ran a hand over his face and took a long breath.

"I could... go down there, restrain her. Take her by force. It's for her own good."

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"Be careful with her, Jack," the Doctor said. "She's not as fragile as she looks, but she's a good deal more fragile than she thinks she is."

Which, to the Doctor, made a whole lot of sense. He went below the panel and began ripping out glued-together wirings. The whole thing was a mess, but it was a working mess. A sort-of working mess.

"Go on! Before she starts a fire just to say she can!"

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Jack gave the Doctor a look. He thought he quite understood that without needing to be told, thank you very much.

He started off towards the door but stopped to turn around and point a finger towards the Doctor. "Don't do anything ridiculous. And don't go getting yourself killed."

On that, he left the room and headed down towards the engineering section of the ship. It was a little way from the bridge, and darkly lit. That didn't help. Jack hated it. Small thin corridors with flickering lights.

He stepped down to the engineering bay and headed through a small air lock door. There was a strange smell in there, some sort of leak?

"Beatrice?" he called gently as he stepped around. And there she was, on the floor with a bundle of something in her hands, pulled from a unit in the wall.

"Beatrice I know you might not be the person I want to see right now, but I need to get you out of here."

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She reached up and slammed a lever, and the door to the engineering room deadlock sealed. She struggled to her feet, not quite at the size where she was waddling to walk, but starting to feel the awkwardness of her condition.

"Did he send you down here?" she snapped. "Cause I don't need it. I already know what I'm doing. He just never believed I did."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack pushed his hands into his pockets and walked up to her, crouching down next to her.

"He does mean best," he said. "He just has a pretty terrible way of showing it sometimes. And he does believe you. He just... usually thinks he knows better."

He reached his hand out and touched it against her arm. "You can't stay down here. I need to get you to the TARDIS, Beatrice."

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She jerked back away from him.

"Yeah," she said, letting out a sad sound that wasn't really a sob but most certainly not a laugh. "Two years I spent. Two years with him. Always wanted someone to talk to, acted like he hadn't opened up in a lifetime, and I'm guessin' he hadn't. I thought he...we..."

She looked back over her shoulder at Jack.

"But he never got over you. You could tell, just how he talked."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack let out a long sigh and reached a hand up to rub his face. He pulled his glasses off and held them between his fingers as he looked at her, settling himself back against the wall.

"He's lonely," he said with a shrug. "He's always lonely. And he doesn't know how to change that. So he runs. You know, you might not believe me, but I do know how you feel. What it's like. I get it."

He gave her arm a light squeeze and pulled back, just watching her.

"What did he used to say about me?" he asked her, quietly.

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"I'm not feeding your ego," Bea said, pulling on a few levers on the engines. "This isn't a chat time, this is me, trying to save this ship, and us in the process."

Her jaw was set, as though she was trying, very hard, not to cry over this.

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"I wasn't trying to get you to---" he sighed and glanced down. He supposed in a way he was. His curiosity, and that wasn't fair on her, was it? Not at all.

"The ship is going to get pulled into that storm, Beatrice. So we need to go. Unlock that door and lets go to the TARDIS. Just come with me. You can have your argument with the Doctor. You can do whatever you need to do, but staying around here isn't going to help anything."

He took a long breath.

"Beatrice. You don't need to prove yourself to him. Trust me, he already thinks you're brilliant."

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"I know I don't need to," she snapped. "All I ever did was prove myself to him. And he, he couldn't do anything. He couldn't even fix the necklace I broke on my first trip. Figure he must've lost it. And that was mine. I mean, how many of my things did I leave with him?"

She put a hand to her chest, as if afraid her heart would suddenly realized it belonged with the Doctor, too.

"I can save this ship."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Ahh," he said, nodding and smiling to himself. "That'd be the necklace in his pocket then. Do you think he's forgotten you? Because he doesn't. He doesn't forget anyone. He just pretends to."

He looked over at what she was doing. A mass of wires that surely couldn't be fixed.

"What are you trying to fix?" he asked. "Can I help?"

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"No, I've got it," she snapped. But she looked almost contemplative at Jack's statement about the necklace. She shook her head. "You're lying. He's lost it. I know him. He wouldn't have even known about me if I hadn't dragged him back."

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"If I was gonna lie I think I'd be a bit more creative about it than that," Jack pointed out, both eyebrows raised.

"And trust me, you're not alone there, he barely knew who I was yesterday morning. Beatrice, what do you want from him? What do you hope to achieve? Because those wires? You think fixing that will fix everything else? You probably don't like me very much, don't worry, a lot of people don't. But let me help."

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She looked at the mess of wires and her face switched from one of anger to one of utter defeat. There was no repairing them. She pointed to a box near them. "That unit needs repairing. We can refit the gravity wells, keep the storm from lifting us away."

It was a very primitive solution by a 51st century technician's standards, but in her 23rd century mind, it would work.

"Why you?" she asked. "Why you and not me?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack looked over and at her explanation. Oh it wouldn't work, he knew that. It was a clever idea, no doubt, but it would buy them a minute or so, if that. Time they were wasting by being stuck there at all.

He wasn't about to tell her that though. Not in so many words, at least.

His eyes flicked to her face, and he let out a sigh. "Why anyone? Because I was there. Because... we understood. Because I'm about the only person out there that has longer than he does. I don't know, Beatrice."

Again, he looked at the wires. "I know how hard it is to love him," he told her, quiet. So quiet.