Work Text:
"Yes!" The Doctor pumped her fist, grinning at the well-engineered, well-contained rockslide. Its rising dust plume was brilliantly illuminated by deflagrating hypersaturated Eryllium gas. The hidden lab was no longer, and the Eryllium-contained life forms imprisoned there were transitioning back into their own dimension.
When the dust had mostly settled, she jogged back along the path for a closer look at the remains, pulling out her screwdriver for a final scan. Ahead, a large rock had fallen in front of what used to be the hidden entrance to the lab, and -
A pair of legs, half a torso and one arm protruded from under a heap of rocks and dirt.
No. No one was supposed to have been there! The Doctor felt her entire body screech to a halt, every movement stalled as if in mid-air, and her grin froze into a distorted grimace.
She forced herself back into motion, rushed in to grab the wrist that lay free and checked for a pulse. None. A sonic scan: still nothing. "Damn it ..."
The Doctor shovelled rocks and dirt off the body with her bare hands until she reached the head. Her eyes widened. A breath left her lungs, abruptly, and she sat down on her arse. "Oh."
Oh, thank god.
And that was how Yaz found the Doctor, several minutes later: sitting cross-legged on the ground beside a corpse, tenderly wiping dirt from his face.
"You have the worst luck," she was telling him, though he couldn't hear.
"Doctor?" Yaz asked, tentatively. "Is he ... all right? I thought we got everyone to evacuate." She seemed to take in the body's stillness, the lack of breath moving his chest. "He's not dead, is he?"
"Oh, yes, he is," the Doctor said brightly, "but never mind about that. And yes, we did! He came later. Must have transmatted in just a moment before it blew. Didn't you?" This last addressed to the corpse, of course. "My bad. Should have thought."
She'd spent too much time on pre-space age planets, the Doctor thought to herself, scrunching up her nose in annoyance. And even there, something like this was hardly impossible, just unlikely. Didn't she specialise in the very, very unlikely? Wasn't that the kind of event she'd always liked best?
She should have set up a block, damn it. Why hadn't she thought?
"What do you mean, never mind? He's dead!"
"Won't be long." The Doctor leaned over the body, patted his cheeks. "Come on now, don't waste my time. Bit of in a hurry, sorry to say." After all, Ryan and Graham were waiting to be picked up. They'd done their part. They'd worry if Yaz and the Doctor didn't turn up soon.
The corpse, of course, didn't answer, and Yaz looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. The Doctor bent further down, pulled up one eyelid to peer into an eye. "Upsadaisy." Then she grimaced. "No. Not a 'me' word, is it? Or, hm, maybe it is. How do I tell?"
She was still leaning over the corpse pondering that thought when the body beneath her drew a deep breath and jerked upright, headbutting her and throwing her back on her arse again.
"Ow!" said Jack Harkness, lifting a hand to his forehead. "What the hell did I just hit?"
The Doctor ignored Yaz's yelp of shock. She fell back onto her elbows, threw her head back and laughed, her body shaking with it, until her cheeks and stomach started to hurt.
The blonde woman's laugh was infectious. Laugh lines curved on her face, bracketing nose, mouth and chin. Jack couldn't help grinning along, despite the nasty surprise of a death by explosion-slash-rockslide and everything that came with it.
The dark-haired woman standing over them was wearing a puzzled expression. Jack took in the contrast: laughter; confusion. One dressed in what looked like early twenty-first century Earth clothes; the other with attire that could only be called idiosyncratic. Jack let out a surprised laugh of his own. "Doctor?"
"Oh," said the other woman. "You know each other. Hi, I'm Yasmin Khan. Were you dead just now?"
He grinned up at her. "Captain Jack Harkness, at your service. Yes, and yes."
"Oh, not again," muttered the Doctor, though she didn't stop grinning. Huh. That was new - new and interesting. "He does that. Ignore him."
She looked good. Great. Of course, to Jack's eyes the Doctor always did, no matter what body they wore.
"What, dying?" Rather incredulous. Yasmin Khan's eyes were wide.
"Yeah, that too." The Doctor shrugged, then turned to Jack again. She leaned forward, her expression turning serious. He missed the smile immediately. "Sorry. I killed you."
"Did you?" The explosion, right. Jack had been tracing contraband Eryllium, which definitely shouldn't have existed in this place and time. The Doctor had likely dealt with its misuse, in her own definitive way. Killed him, had she? "I think I'd like to lodge a complaint. Couldn't you have done that in a more exciting way?" He winked at her, extravagantly.
The Doctor pursed her lips. "Careful; I might take that as a challenge."
Oh, good, she was in a joking mood. Jack wiggled his eyebrows. "Careful," he echoed her; "I might believe you."
He didn't say, You can 'kill me' any day. It didn't exactly need saying, did it?
Yasmin Khan agreed, apparently. "Get a room!" Jack decided he liked her.
The Doctor snorted, turning to look up at Yasmin from where she was sitting next to Jack. "I have a room," she informed her friend. "A whole TARDIS full of rooms. She can make new ones, too!"
Yasmin rolled her eyes. "Then get in one of those rooms, why don't you?" She huffed. "Since we're done with the fun and games here. That lab's gone but good, right? Those life forms got away?"
"They did." The Doctor smiled, then rubbed her forehead, smearing dirt onto herself. Her hands were dark with it. She must have dug him out from the rubble. That was nice of her; she hadn't had to. "Not fun and games, though. Well, fun, yeah, can't lie. But not a game. Really not."
Too serious. Jack wanted the smile back. "Nitpicking semantics now?" he asked, opting for teasing, and pointed at Yasmin. "I'm with your friend."
"No, you're not," said Yasmin, pointing at the Doctor instead. "You're with her."
Jack grinned and turned towards the Doctor. "Good pick, this one."
"You'd think so." The Doctor shook her head, though not in denial. Her lips twitched, then straightened. Unfortunately. "I did kill you, though. Shouldn't have. Should have been more careful. You know."
Sure. But what point dwelling on it now? "You couldn't have expected me here. Can't blame you. I just transmatted in."
"Still. Don't absolve me."
Dammit. This again. "Shouldn't I?" The words came out too quickly, and Jack tried in vain to suppress a grimace.
The Doctor scowled. "If I was trying to get you in that room Yaz keeps going on about -"
"Hey!" Yasmin protested.
"- there wouldn't be space in there for you, me and that pedestal you've been putting me on," the Doctor continued, undeterred. "Not unless the TARDIS did some serious reconfiguring."
Jack winced. The Doctor had always had a capacity for hitting right where it hurt. But Jack's remark had hardly merited it. Jack furrowed his brow, took a breath, and opened his mouth to apologise anyway.
"Sorry. Sorry, that wasn't kind, was it?" The Doctor beat him to it. Her eyes were wide and earnest. He wanted to kiss her.
Instead, Jack considered her for a long moment. "Not really," he finally said. Truth, better than denial, better than a joke, when she was in this kind of mood. But where to go from there? Ah, yes. "Are you done insulting me for liking you, now? Because your self-loathing isn't that charming, Doctor." It could have been vicious, in a different tone. On other days, in other fights, it had been. This time, Jack kept his tone warm, too mild to hurt, and smiled at the Doctor as he spoke. Not taking a stab at a weakness, but responding to what she'd said: offering unkindness in return, evening the score.
Her friend Yasmin, of course, didn't know him. Going only go by the words - harsh, intimate, revealing - she tensed, looked warily between them. The Doctor's eyes flickered towards her, then to Jack, not best pleased. That had been the risk, yes. But better that Yasmin knew, if she hadn't figured it out yet. None of the Doctor's companions would turn away for finding her having actual flaws. Only the Doctor herself thought so.
Old baggage: too much of it accumulated when you lived too long. The Doctor knew that better than anyone. Knew, too, though, how to consciously set it aside.
Whether she'd take that option now - well, Jack could hope for the best.
With the Doctor, Jack was never going to stop hoping. She - he, they, any incarnation - was worth it, and worth the times it didn't go that way, too.
The Doctor blinked, rapidly, several times. She looked at Yasmin again, then up at Jack, took in his smile. Her expression brightened: recognising the offer he'd made. Accepting it. She threw him a grin. It was brilliant - radiant, hypnotic, enthralling. "Right! That's done with, then. No more of that; it gets old. Right?"
Jack couldn't help it; he returned the grin. "Right," he agreed. Yasmin let out a sigh of relief.
For a moment Jack cast about for the next thing to say or do. Grinning at her like a fool wasn't going to cut it for long. Well, he could start by getting up from the ground.
"Okay?" Yasmin murmured towards the Doctor, even as Jack brushed a hand through his hair, wincing at the amount of dirt that came loose.
"Hm? Oh, yeah, all fine," the Doctor said breezily. "Old stuff. Forget about it."
Jack pushed himself to his feet, then looked down at himself. Damn, that had been a nice outfit once. "I don't suppose I could borrow one of those rooms? Preferably one with a shower." With an apologetic smile, he held a hand out to the Doctor.
The Doctor had watched him, her lips curved upward in a small smile of her own. Now she tilted her head to the side, even as she grabbed his hand and pulled herself up.
She bounced a little on her feet, eyeing him critically. "A shower? You do need one. Can't have all that dirt getting in interesting places, hm?"
He snorted. "More interesting places, you mean. You wouldn't believe where it already got. Or maybe you would?" Jack winked at her again.
She grinned at him, somehow warm and disgruntled and happy all at the same time. What had he done to earn that look? He wanted to do it again.
As if she could read his mind, the Doctor laughed at him. "A room with a shower, hm? And other things." She winked at him in return, still grinning, then turned away, striding down the hill, waving for him to come with. Yasmin offered an eloquent shrug, then followed.
Helplessly grinning himself, Jack went along. It was probably a joke. It usually was. But not always. There had been occasions when ...
Well, if she meant it this time, he wasn't going to say no to that room.