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

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"---but actually it's a reverse subaligned multithermal system with a recalibrated subcortex, keeping everything in line!" the Doctor hadn't stopped talking, of course, because he was still verymuch pleased with his own work.

"Now, since I'm just that clever, I bet I can repair this with just the last bits of the toaster I've got in the kitchen," he grinned madly at Jack. The grin slowly faded, though.

"Everything all right?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack hadn't been listening to the Doctor.

He was aware he'd been talking, insomuch as he'd been watching his lips move. He was sure he'd think about the words later. He's probably registered them on some level. But no, he was rather thinking about his lips and the fact he could remember kissing them.

"Hmm... what?" Jack said, realising he'd been asked something. "Oh--" he cleared his throat, "fine. Fine just... remembering. Doesn't matter."

With a push against the floor he stood himself up and offered the Doctor a tight lipped smile, feeling a little like a teenager been caught doing something he shouldn't. Oh well, the Doctor seemed oblivious enough.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Anything important?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. The Doctor didn't have to know Jack well to know that his smile was hardly genuine. Something bad, then? Something the Doctor had done?

Maybe he'd hurt Jack, somehow. Maybe that was why they landed, so Jack could get away. For some reason, that felt right, like it had happened to someone he heard about somewhere.

"Might be easier in the Zero Room," he offered. "Remembering without any interference." A beat. "Do you know what the Zero Room is?" That would be a first.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"No," he said quickly with an accompanying shake of his head. "Well, yes, but it's fine. Really." It wasn't like he could tell him what he was remembering, after all. The Doctor saw him as a practical stranger, he couldn't start telling him about that sex in the shower-- oh god the sex in the shower... No. No, focus, Jack. Have to focus. Have to stop letting the mind drift. But oh was it a nice place to drif-- No. Stop it.

The Zero Room? Now there was something else he could focus on. The mention of it was like a lightbulb turning on behind his eyes.

"Yes! Yes. We went in there. You went in there. There was... something. We'd been away. You'd been away too long. It helped..." he laughed at the irony of it as he realised what he was about to say, "It helped you remember."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He looked down the hall. Been away from what too long? What could he have been parted from that made him forget? Jack? Seemed unlikely. Though a generally good bloke (despite all outward appearances), he wasn't bonded to the Doctor, as far as he could tell. Still the Zero Room would be inviting.

He didn't think it would help, not with time distortion of this magnitude, but it might help Jack. And, really, that was more important, helping someone who needed it. Helping Jack.

They were close, Jack had said. The Doctor wondered just how close. Close enough that his need to take care of him rippled back through the cosmos.

He nodded. "Right, I'll take you there. This way."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack nodded. Good, right, take him to the Zero Room. Right, something to focus on as he walked behind him, something that wasn't--- oh the Doctor really had a very nice ass, didn't he?

Jack Harkness get a grip.

But really, it was very nice and those trousers were very tight and oh could he remember what it looked like without the trousers? It was interesting to try.

Maybe when they got to the Zero Room the Doctor would remember. That's what happened last time, isn't it?

"So uh, think it might clear your head. This Zero Room?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor turned back to Jack and shook his head. "I'm sorry. It filters out interference, it doesn't reconstruct timelines. I don't---"

He took in a breath and shook his head. Time was complicated, but if they were running from this thing and had to destroy it in anti time, there was very little they could do to go back and reconstruct what had happened.

"Once the Marquis is trapped in anti-time, the altercations he made to the timeline will be permanent," he said. "I won't ever get them back."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

And there, Jack was sharply and swiftly pulled from the more sordid corners of his mind.

"What?" he said, fully aware he must look like he's just taken a punch to the gut.

"No but- but I can remember. I can see it. I can remember it all. I just have to try. It's all still there." He protested, but at the same time he knew it wasn't the same for the Doctor. Nothing was ever the same from the Doctor.

And it sunk in then. Jack realised it wasn't just so superficial. He and the Doctor. It had been more than what he'd let his mind focus on. It had been much more. It had been, from both sides, love.

"Doctor... you've gotta remember. We've both got to remember."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"It's not just a matter of memories, Jack, the timeline has been altered," he said, his voice calm and resigned. "You only remember because you're a fixed point in time, and whatever temporal distortion affected me washed over you. For me, it might as well have happened in another universe. I get vague feelings of it, but it's not the same."

It was cruel, he figured, telling Jack this. He could've just let him believe that it would be all right, that they'd remember eventually and be happy companions again. But somewhere in him, the Doctor believed that would be wrong. Like it would be breaking a promise he never made.

"I'm sorry."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

The memories that Jack had only just been realising were real should have been easy to dismiss. But now Jack knew they were there, now Jack could see them, they were hard to ignore. And the more he thought about them, the less the false memories seem to settle at all.

He nodded, but it was hollow, and he felt hollow too.

It shouldn't matter so much, he thought. It shouldn't... but of course it did. Of course when they'd been-- But no, the timelines had been altered. It never happened.

But that was more than just them now. More than what they'd become. That was his whole life. His whole life where the Doctor had been so important.

"All of it," he said, mostly to himself, "everything that ever... it's all gone. Just like that."

He looked back up at the Doctor, addressing him again. "No, don't be. It's not your fault. It's not."

But he paused again and thought a little more. Remembered a little more.

"Do you want to see?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Just like that." The Doctor's voice was cold, but he could feel Jack's pain, understand how deeply it hurt. There wasn't a way short of a psychic army that could reconstruct that part of the timeline, and he didn't think he had a psychic army that owed him any favors. Well, he might've, but he didn't remember them if he did.

To remember, even just a little bit. To see what could've been, if he'd just stopped the timelines from altering. If he'd just been the Time Lord he was supposed to be. It would hurt, a lot. A lot more than the Doctor was probably ready for.

"How?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Right."

Jack breathed in deeply and looked down. It wouldn't be fair to show the Doctor what he knew, would it? Not if it'd make him feel like this, knowing it was there but not now. Knowing it was possible but out of reach.

But rather naively, he thought he could show him other things. Compartmentalise his shifting memories enough to just show him the times the Doctor should know about. How they met, them and Martha. Towing the Earth home. Important things.

Tentatively, he reached his hand out and took hold of the Doctor's, lifting it slightly towards his own face, but not entirely. More to make the gesture to help him understand than anything else.

"You can look."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"No."

The Doctor said the words before he even thought them. It was generous, what Jack was offering. More than just offering, he was practically giving it to him. There was no doubt in the Doctor's mind, now, that Jack told the truth when he said he thought they were close. It took a lot of trust to open one's mind to another.

And Jack wouldn't have known the Doctor could if he hadn't told him. Or shown him. The second thought was infinitely more terrifying than the first.

"I can't," he said. "I just can't."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

As soon as the Doctor spoke, Jack dropped his hand.

"No. 'Course not. Silly idea. And anyway, not much worth it. I'd want my money back if I were you."

He smiled, or... tried to smile. It was false but, well the Doctor didn't know him well enough to know his smiles. Not like he did.

"That Zero Room," he said, waving his hand slightly. "Can we give it a miss? Think I'm good as I am."

He wanted to fall back into the false memories. He wanted to step back from the truth... his personal truth. Because if the universe had changed, then it wasn't the truth at all. He just remembered an echo of something that was in another reality.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor nodded. "Should probably get some sleep, then. We'll need to be ready for the next place we land. Just in case we need to run."

He extended a hand. "I'll fix that chip for you."

It was all very cordial, but inside the Doctor was aching. Man was the sum of his memories, and here he was, not entirely himself. A hole in his hearts. That's what it felt like. A hole.

But he couldn't let it keep them down. They'd be fine, the two of them. They'd...find a way.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack didn't give his vortex manipulator up easily. He didn't give it up at all. The only people who'd ever worked on it had been him and the Doctor. He knew that, the Doctor didn't.

He hesitated at first though. As much as he knew he was comfortable to share like that before, he couldn't allow himself to treat that as normality now. And it wasn't. After all he still had that whole other set of memories.

"I--" he unbuckled it and handed it over, "look after it. It's all I've got." And that was far too honest too. But it was. Everyone was dead or gone, and something that in his mind seemed like it could be beautiful... that wasn't real.

"Well," he said, attempting to sound light. "Never said, did I... good to meet you, Doctor. Thanks for having me on--" but that was something. "Wait-- does the TARDIS remember me?"

That would be something.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," the Doctor said, taking the strap gingerly. "She's been oddly quiet since we left the planet. Well, since before we landed. But I imagine she would. Probably better than you remember me."

He pulled out the sonic and got to work on the chip as they talked. It was a fairly simple device, should've been pretty easy to put back together. If only he'd known, when he destroyed it, just how invaluable it was.

"Temporal distortions really cause havoc in the TARDIS's internal memory, but she'll recover. Just like having a really bad hangover."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Absently, Jack curled his hand around his bare wrist. It was as though he were protecting himself. A measure he had to take.

"Oh well that's something then," he said, and tried to sound pleased by it. And he was, in a way. If she knew then he wasn't completely alone. He felt the TARDIS was important. Couldn't quite pinpoint the memories that told him why, but she was. He knew she was.

A hangover? He seemed to recall a time when she'd got one of those before, but he couldn't pin it down. Part of him was glad of that.

"If..." he breathed and stopped, he wasn't actually entirely sure he wanted what he was about to suggest, but at the same time, he wanted to know if he could. "If you cant get your memory back, how about you wiping mine? Or, well, wiping the other memories."

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"Is that what you want?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack laughed, hollow. "If you could see what I can see you wouldn't ask me that. I don't know. Maybe I do. Maybe it'd be easier. But then maybe someone should remember. What would you do, Doctor?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

What would he do? He didn't know what Jack saw in their past. He didn't know how much they really meant to each other. He also didn't know why Jack was asking him for advice. Wouldn't it be "What would you want me to do?" No, no, it was "What would you do", and in a way that felt right. As though Jack could handle that sort of a burden. As if he had.

"I'd never forget," he said. "If I could have my memories now, I would. But I can't. There's no way."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Thought you might say that," he said quietly, smiling at him tightly. He couldn't forget, not really. How could he? As hard as it was to look at those memories. To watch them in his mind almost like a movie, he couldn't deny them. He could see himself happy. How could he possibly dismiss that, even if it was only an echo.

"Oh never say never, Doctor," Jack said, attempting optimism. "Never know what's around the corner. Lets just hope we get on this time around, right?" He laughed slightly, but it was one of those laughs that if you listened past the surface it could easily be a sob.

He glanced back at the manipulator and nodded, "How's that coming?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Good as new," he said, handing it over. "Well, good as repaired, anyway."

He looked down the hall, feeling a wave of sickness as he tried to remember which room was Jack's. No. No, if he remembered, then it might cease to be Jack's room, because the timeline would compensate. He shook his head and turned back.

"Which one's yours? I'll wake you when we land."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Good," Jack nodded and took the strap back, reattaching it eagerly to his wrist. He felt better as soon as it was back. He felt a little more protected. A little more himself.

He followed the Doctor's gaze and concentrated to remember. His room, where was that? It tired him to remember.

"It moved," he said with a frown, "recently, I think. It's... just up the stairs. Three along. Yeah, pretty sure that's right. Guess I'll find out soon enough."

He stepped along the corridor and paused, turning back to the Doctor, "If anything happens, if you need a hand, just knock."

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor gave him a nod, and then a little salute.

He would need to sleep soon, but not just yet. Not until he was certain they were away and safe.

He turned back to the console room. The TARDIS's silence worried him even more, now. She was never this quiet for so long.