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?"

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[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..."

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"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.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"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."

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"You didn't need that responsibility," the Doctor said. He felt time flow around him with his movements, the universe set back to where it needed to be.

He fell back onto the ground, looking up at the beautiful pink sky. Like candy floss, the Doctor very nearly imagined he could reach up and snatch some. Just the sort of place he would've liked to have been, if he hadn't just fled a huge, pink Nightmare. One he very nearly didn't escape. One he very nearly dragged Jack into.

They should've stayed away. The Doctor should've made sure they did.

"Four times," the Doctor breathed.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Yeah well maybe I wanted to take it!" he snapped before sighing and rubbing a hand over his face. "Maybe I wanted to take it from you, Doctor. It shouldn't be you. It shouldn't have to be you."

He shook his head and looked down at his wrist strap. Oh they were far away now. Very far away. It was as if the manipulator knew just what they had to get away from.

"It's still better," he said, looking at the floor, almost as a different sentiment, and almost as though he was justifying himself, or justify emotion. "Better than being alone. Better than pretending."

Shifting on the ground, he pulled his knees up a little, and rested his forearms out against them. "What did that mean?" he asked quietly, turning his head to look down at him and squinting a little in the pink light.

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"It's my responsibility."

Before he spoke, the Doctor pulled out the TARDIS key and pointed it to the sky.

"I think the Shadow Proclamation has more to deal with than us right now," he said. And part of him wanted her there, for the security. For the last three years, she was all he had. Well, for really many years before that, actually. His oldest companion, always waiting.

He took a breath, and laid back against the ground again. "It's part of a prophecy."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"No it isn't," Jack said with a resigned huff. He didn't expect the Doctor to listen to him, or agree with him, of course, but he had to say it.

"One day," he sighed, "you'll learn that everything you do is already more than enough. The universe owes you, Doctor, not the other way round."

He looked out at the field. It seemed to go on as far as he could see. It was beautiful, really, and the pink of the sky seemed to fade and twist into a purple in the distance.

"You know we could have sex in this field," Jack said, aiming for nothing other than humour. An odd sort of way of lifting a mood, while still testing waters. "It's a good field. Warm. It'd look like something out of a cheesy movie. Well, a top shelf movie."

He smiled, though it was tight, and it didn't really match his words.

Dropping one arm from his knee, he shifted a hand over until it touched the Doctor's sleeve.

"What's the prophecy?" he asked softly.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Not your most subtle," the Doctor said, raising an eyebrow to Jack. "Though, I suppose there's something to be said for the direct approach. Still! Too much to do, not enough time."

He took in a breath, feeling the weight of the prophecy, of his impending death, sitting heavily on his chest. He wanted to find a way out of it. He needed to live, just a little while longer. There was so much he could do if just could just hold on.

"I'm going to die," he said. "He will knock four times, and then I die. I don't know how. Not yet. But it's going to happen."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"No, not my best, I'll admit," Jack nodded, agreeing. "But don't hold it against me. I'm out of practise. I'll have to try harder in future."

Carefully, he slid himself down on the grass so that he was lying on his side facing the Doctor, his head propped up on one elbow.

Jack didn't like the sound of prophecies. He liked to think they were a load of rubbish. But then he knew truth was a little more complicated than that. He'd been given his own once. The turn of a century before he met the Doctor again, and that had proved true.

"No," Jack said with a firm certainty in his voice. "No you're not." As well as caring for the Doctor for the Doctor's sake, a very selfish part of Jack's mind cared for him for his sake. And he needed the Doctor. He needed this Doctor.

"Not as long as I'm around, and I'm not going anywhere," he continued, still as firm, threading his fingers between the Doctor's as if to cement his words.

"Everybody dies, eventually, but that's a long way off." His voice very nearly broke, showing the effect of the words, though he didn't meant to.

"I'm not losing anyone else, Doctor. And I'm not losing you, not again. I'm not letting anything happen to you. Just you remember that."

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"That's why I ran, Jack," the Doctor said. "You don't need to have to watch it, when it happens. I'd rather you were off in some cantina, not worrying about me."

The Doctor held a lot of belief in prophecies. His planet believed in them, his people had their own future-telling abilities, but he'd never had one so utterly directed at him. So completely knowing.

And who knew what could be knocking for him. Anything. Anyone. And Jack's life was too fragile right now. A small death would kill him if they couldn't outrun the Marquis. Another loved one, dead because of the Doctor.

He curled his fingers around Jack's, before bringing his hand up to his lips and pressing a small kiss to his knuckles.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"What, and you think if I was somewhere else I wouldn't be worrying about you? You can't really believe that I wouldn't, you're not that stupid. The last few months I've done nothing but worry about you. No, I want you where I can see you."

The kiss made him smile, and he leaned over and pressed his own kiss gently against the Doctor's forehead.

"Lots of time for running," he said, "but wherever you run, just you make sure there's room for me right behind you."

He smiled down at him and slinked down a little lower, reaching his other hand out to brush against a few strands of the Doctor's hair.

"I know what you probably think," he whispered, so quietly, "I bet there's so much of you that thinks you should have never let me get close to you, or let you get close to me. Because it's hard. I know it's hard. Oh do I know. But you want to know something? I don't care, Doctor. I'm glad. I'm so glad of it."

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"I don't think I could stop," the Doctor admitted, his own voice quiet and vulnerable. "Whether I like it or not, Jack Harkness, you've embedded yourself fairly deeply in my hearts. And I don't say something like that very often, so feel honored."

He felt another embedded soul move closer to him as the TARDIS appeared not far off, a few blast scorches across her side, but generally in a better mood now that she wasn't being chased. The Doctor gave her a small smile, and then turned back to Jack.

"Guess we're stuck with each other. You, me, and the TARDIS."