for rude_not_ginger Terra Novus: Outpost 7

[quitehomoerotic]

Follows this.

Smack.

Jack landed on the marbled floor with an unceremonious fall.

"Yeah, but you missed it," he said finishing the sentiment the Doctor started before he activated the manipulator.

He pulled himself up from the floor and stretched himself out, looking over to the Doctor to make sure he was okay and all in one piece.

"We're about 800 years to the left," he said as he checked his wrist strap. "Set it on random, thought it'd be more fun that way."

He grinned over at him, and stretched his neck out a little more as he looked around.

What he saw, was nothing short of spectacular.

The walls looked to be made of stone and were decorated with gargoyles and elaborate gold filigree flourishes. Ahead of them, up on the wall, was a vast round glass stain window. Small lights illuminated it around the circle, but just about visible through the other side was the vague starlight in the distance. They were still in space, not on a planet surface.

"Well this is new... what is this, some sort of space monastery?"

Comments

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack caught hold of the computer and grinned at the Doctor.

"Oh yeah? You think Martha's got time to help us with a pub quiz? Call her and I might owe her an apology before anything else."

He smiled though, and as true as the sentiment was, he was light with it. Martha would forgive him, of course she would, and he was with the Doctor again and that was good. Very good.

Jack headed out through the first open door behind the Doctor and ahead towards the first door seal.

"So!", he asked him, "Theories yet?"

They reached the first locked door and he nodded to it, lifting the computer. The question was both amusing and surprising. He read it aloud.

"Name the Earth organisation set up by Queen Victoria of Britain in order to monitor alien activity."

He looked over at the Doctor, incredulously. "Hard one."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor snorted. "That how difficult they get? Really? Preferred the ones that were recreational mathematics, myself."

He slammed the end of the clamp to the center of the door and turned back to Jack.

"And as for theories, I've got a few. Nothing that could explain all of the damage, though. It was such a wide-spread disaster..."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack keyed 'Torchwood' into the hand held device and laughed to himself.

"Recreational mathematics? Seriously? Oh Doctor what do I see in you?" he teased him as the door unlocked ready for them to head through the corridor and along to the next.

"I always thought it was the magnets," he offered. "Central magnetic core these things have, these outposts. And that's all well and good until something comes and knocks off the polarisation and them bam. But even that wouldn't be enough to rip a hole like that. No that's something specific. Some sort of time technology."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He gave Jack a grin. What did they see in each other? They had so much in common, but yet so very little, as well.

"Rumors were," the Doctor spoke as he headed to the next door. "That the Eternals wanted to undo this section of space for their own amusement. But, they weren't really the sort to admit their mistakes."

He shrugged. "Or a multicausality link overload with those magnetic cores. Another very solid theory."

He slammed the clamp into the section of wall. "But! If you ask me, I'd say this was definitely no accident."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Going a bit far for a game, isn't it?" Jack said pulling a none to amused face. "They all seem to fall short. I think that's why people were so interested it. Because they never could work it out. That and the fact so many died. All that morbid curiosity. Humanity, gotta love it. Death always draws them. They'd have a field day with me."

Jack held the device out again and waited for the next question to pop up, doing his best to ignore that voice in his head that told him that maybe it wasn't an accident, but maybe someone was trying to make it look like one. And maybe that someone was them.

The computer pinged as the next question arrived, and Jack looked down to read it, but when he did... he couldn't. He frowned. In front of him was something that looked more like art than writing. It looked familiar too, like he'd seen it somewhere but he wasn't sure where.

"Doctor..." he called, "I think it's another language or something. I can't read it. Think you can work this one out?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"If it's in another language, the TARDIS should translate it," the Doctor snapped irritably. They had too much to do, and not enough time to sit around and discuss what might've been. Not really enough time to do what they were doing right now.

All the same, he pulled away from the clamp and raced to Jack's side. The words didn't need to translate in the Doctor's mind, not like every piece of English he'd read did. The swirls and loops made perfect sense to him.

"But that's impossible," the Doctor said. He shook his head. "It's Gallifreyan, a very simple number sequence. Hit that third button, sixth from the right."

He slammed the clamp back to the door. "Causality loops and the time referberation recortorators probably linked the avaliable minds to the machine, creating questions only you and I could answer because only you and I are outside of the time center."

That had to be it. That could be the only reason.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Yeah well the TARDIS is taking a holiday!" he snapped back, "Just you and me now."

He held the device out towards the Doctor for him to take a look at and watched his face as he regarded the screen. His brow furrowed again at seeing the Doctor's expression change, and he felt the urge to reach out and just rest a hand on his side. He held back, but the intent was there in his eyes.

Gallifrey. Oh that's where he'd seen it before. On the walls in that tower, etched into the side of that tomb. But that seemed so long ago now.

Jack hit the button as he was told and smiled, and in an attempt to lighten the mood or lift things a little he tried to tease, "oh you know I love it when you talk dirty like that."

Right on cue, the door opened and he nodded as he advanced forward. "Only things we'll know. Well, this should be fun." he didn't even attempt to sound as though he meant it.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Yes, so we should start seeing Beatles trivia and drink mixes soon," the Doctor said, clinging to Jack's light tone as he threw the clamp into the next door.

This would be easy to pass through. Too easy. The Doctor counted the number of doors left.

So many dead, they stopped counting bodies before they hit the center of the blast. The Doctor and Jack could've easily been atomized, and Jack wouldn't have time to pull himself back together before the Marquis arrived.

"Hurry."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"You know I mix a really mean Manhattan now you mention it! Remind me to show you some time." Jack said, attempting to continue the thread.

What were they doing this for? He wondered. Habit? Some incessant need for adventure? It was like an addiction. Instead of getting out they always jumped right into danger. But then he supposed he wouldn't have it any other way.

"I'm going as fast as I can!" he protested with a huff as he waited for the next question to come through.

"Come on come on!" It popped up and he recited it as the words appeared, "Give the name of--" but he stopped. He repeated the question in his head the name of Captain Jack Harkness as given on his birth record.

He input the answer, stone faced, and waited for the door. "It's fine," he said, "I've got it."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor looked back over his shoulder to Jack. He opened his mouth to question him, but the clamp in his hands undid the lock.

Something private, maybe? Very personal? The Doctor felt a surge of panic as he worried what information the link might pull from him, or force him to call the answer to Jack for.

After all, the Doctor didn't always think in Gallifreyan.

He raced through the next door and threw the clamp. He took in a deep breath and then let out a cough. "Can you smell that?" he asked. "Like...mildew, decay."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack headed through the next door without looking to the Doctor. "Almost there, right? Can't be long to go now." He hoped not. What else could be asked? He'd rather not have to find out.

As soon as he crossed the threshold though the smell hit him.

"Oh yeah," he said, scrunching his face up and lifting a hand to cover it, "Smells like a trench. Like disease. Doctor, you know you really take me on the nicest dates."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Well, I can't precisely top something of the level of Christmas Planet on one go," the Doctor said, his voice a mock pout. "Give me time, Jack! Give me time!"

He threw the clamp into the next door, which splintered under the clamp's strength. Everything seemed to be rotting, including the deadlock seals and the floor beneath the Doctor's feet.

"Not enough time energy in the smell to be time waste," he commented. "Space waste, maybe? Something collecting below the Outpost?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"When we get out of this? And we've dealt with our little friend over in anti-time? We're going somewhere nice. Like a restaurant. With tables, and chairs. And food. And nobody trying to kill anybody. I want the biggest disaster to be a burned crème brûlée! And time? he laughed, "oh I'm giving that away." Jack made his voice as forceful and authoritative as possible, mainly in a vain attempt to cover the fact that on some level he was asking the Doctor out on something that could very well be described as a date.

Not that he'd admit that, of course.

He looked around as the room seemed to creak and shift. It felt as though the floor might disappear from under them, and he got the distinct impression that these rooms had been vacant for a lot longer than three hours.

"Ooh, time waste!" he said with mock sarcasm, "my favourite!" He shook his head as he waited for the next question. "What energy systems do these bases use? Could be some sort of leaking by product?"

The screen bleeped and he looked back to it. "It is said he will knock, but how many times?"

He frowned at the screen.

"Well what the hell does that mean?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Four."

The Doctor's response was immediate and hard. Four times. He would knock four times, and then that would be the end. He'd spent so long running, so long absorbed in fixing things with Jack, he'd almost forgot about the knocking, about how close to his own death he was.

So close, he could almost feel it in his bones.

"Go on, press that in. We need to keep moving."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Four knocks? Four knocks for what? Who would knock four times, and what did that have to do with the Doctor?

He looked at him, as if waiting for explanation, and stalled for only a moment before nodding and inputting the answer.

"Yes, Sir," he said, and waited for the door to respond. He wanted to ask. He wanted to know. But that could wait.

The door unlocked and he took a step forward, touching his hand out to touch the Doctor's arm. The movement could appear unconscious, but it wasn't. It was precise.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The clamp loosened the door and he gave it a tug open, letting in another waft of diseased air. Fouled by what, the Doctor had no idea. Right now, his mind was on the box, on the prophecy it promised him.

Jack's touch was light, but it jarred the Doctor by how real and gentle it was, in that moment. All he'd worked for, struggling to keep himself safe, and then he just leapt from adventure to adventure with Jack, not even thinking about the things he meant to protect himself from.

He blinked wet, frightened tears from his eyes and put on a brave face. "I suppose I'll have to pay for this dinner, then?" he said, his voice as precisely nonchalant as Jack's unconscious touch. "Well, I suppose I owe you at least a good meal. We'll take in a show or something after, make it a proper date. No tuxedos, though, I'm rubbish in tuxedos."

He pulled away from Jack's touch and raced down the corridor, towards the banks of the main computers. They were packed together to help warm the station, but there was something wrong about them. Something organic, peering through the crevices between the monitors.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

The waft of air that made its way towards them was putrid. Jack's hand temporarily lifted to cover his mouth as he acclimatised himself to the difference. It smelled like death. Pure and rotten.

It was unpleasant, but it wasn't his focus. No. That was the Doctor.

He could tell something was wrong, but not something he could put his finger on. Nor did he feel that at this time it was his place to ask. Maybe another time, in another place away from here. But not now.

"Oh I'm a modern man," he said, returning to the sentiment, "we can go halves. And a show too? Really pushing the boat out now, Doctor. Lucky old me." A proper date? Jack wasn't sure how good he was at those. It was a little nerve racking to thinking about.

Luckily there was imminent death and destruction to provide distraction.

He ran after the Doctor and stopped beside him at the computers, hand over his mouth again to block the smell.

"There's something here," he said, stating the obvious. "God, that smell..."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Oh, it's something all right," the Doctor said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He nodded to a set of very complicated looking explosives, stuffed within the computers. Blood smeared across the controls, dripping in between, to where the creature rested.

The pink creature seemed to be stuffed in all the walls, but as the Doctor looked up, he could see the flabby pink body was also strewed across the ceiling. Tiny white eyes with thick black eyelashes blinked down at them, each a different shape and color and species.

"It's a Nightmare Child." He took a careful step back, gesturing for Jack to do the same. "Very rare creature from the Void. I saw one once that spanned four galaxies. The eyes are from their victims, that's why they never look the same. They only take one. A souvenir."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack looked up slowly to take in the scope of the creature that inhabited the space around them. It was hideous, the stolen eyes staring back down at them. Following them as they moved.

He nodded and stepped back slowly.

"I've never seen anything like it," Jack said, with his voice a disgusted echo. "It's..." he shook his head. It was putrid, like the smell, and one thing was for certain; it wasn't good.

He glanced back to the computers and the carefully placed explosives, and he spoke quietly, realising what the people on the Outpost had been attempting.

"They were trying to stop it," he said. "Trying to contain it. That's why they didn't send out a distress beacon. They shut off the external connections to isolate it. Sever the Outpost from the others."

But oh... they'd called back a pod, hadn't they? If the connection was severed before, it wasn't now.

"These explosives..." he said quietly. "They look like anti-atomising electromagnetics to you?" If these went off, they'd blow everything, and everything it was connected.

Including every Outpost.

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"And they've added a time lock break system on there," the Doctor said, gesturing to the small red light at the end. "Because a Nightmare Child isn't just a monster, it isn't just something that consumes life and terrifies, it eats whole timelines. It erases life from ever having existed, locking the souls of those people within it. Forever."

He turned to Jack. "They were using antiquated time technology to try to unwrite whatever had happened here. Isolate everything in a time bubble and then propel it back along the timeline. They were trying to save the people involved that torment."

The Doctor took in a slow, comprehending breath. "And the moment the TARDIS breaks that barrier, it'll set off a chain reaction, breaking that barrier, and destroying a chunk of the universe."

It was never just history, was it? Never just something happening for the sake of it happening. No, when it came to time, it was always the Doctor. The Doctor, and now Jack.

He reached down and caught Jack's hand. "We need to get out of here, now."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Oh and there it was. What happened that night, always had to happen, they knew that. And they'd tried to persuade themselves not to investigate. But if they hadn't, if they hadn't let their curiosity get the better of them, it would have never happened at all. Not the way it did, not the way it should, and not the way it would now that they were here.

"What if it's not the TARDIS?" Jack said quietly, gripping the Doctor's hand.

"A time fluctuation from something like the TARDIS might rip a hole in the universe, sure. But what about a time fluctuation from a Vortex Manipulator? Hole in the galaxy, maybe?"

Because that's the way it was, and that's the way it had to be. And this once, just this once, he wanted the Doctor to not have to feel it was his fault. He wanted to be able to take that blame.

"Besides," he said, continuing quietly. "Can't call her back anyway. Too dangerous, and not just for this lot." He took a deep breath and looked down, then back to the Doctor. "It went off. Just after we got through that second doorway. He's already on his way."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor thought he'd seen all of the destruction that would ever be caused by a Nightmare Child, but he was wrong. Even this, this little piece of the universe, was plagued by their destruction. Plagued by the cruel things they could do.

Their stench fouled history and the Doctor could never be rid of them.

The Doctor's head snapped to the side. "Already? Why didn't you say anything?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"I didn't want to worry you," Jack said with an almost laugh. It sounded stupid now, but at the time he'd thought it was the right thing to do.

"I thought we'd have time," he said. "Thought we could get out of it before we had to worry."

He paused again and looked over at him.

"This is my fault," he said, "isn't it." But it wasn't a question, it was a statement. And in many ways it was about so much more than one moment.

"I'm sorry."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"It's not you," the Doctor snapped. It wasn't Jack. Never Jack. "It's me. It's always me, even when I don't want it to be, no matter what comes in time and history, whenever there's bad, I'm there, somewhere. I'm always there! It's like the universe bends its evils towards me, and I can't stop it! Jack, I've tried, but I can't!"

There was a low growl, and the Doctor ran forward, pushing Jack to the ground as a many-eyed tentacle swiped down from the ceiling. The Nightmare Child was waking up. Waking up, and hungry for Jack's neverending life.

He wasn't the only one.

The Doctor reached out his arm and caught the manipulator. Jack wouldn't let the Doctor fire a gun, the Doctor wouldn't let Jack destroy a galaxy. Only one of them needed genocide on their shoulders. He pressed the button, sending them somewhere new.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"No, Doctor, it's not. I've seen you save the universe so many times. Don't forget that. Don't you dare forget that."

He shook his head and glanced upwards as he heard the noise, everything seeming to go in a flash as the Nightmare Child swooped down towards him.

The Doctor saved him, just another time to add to the list.

"Doctor no!" he called, but even as he was calling, the Doctor had pressed the button, and his words got swallowed up as the vortex emerged around them. It shook and tugged as it activated the knock on effect on the Outpost. Lit the fuse that would set off a chain reaction that would be remembered throughout time.

When they emerged it was to land on a rich green grassy field in a place with a sky a rich pink. They fell in an ungainly ball on the floor, and Jack pulled back, only to push at the Doctor immediately.

"What the hell did you do that for?" he shouted. "You should have let me do it! You should have let me, Doctor."