Work Text:
“No, no, I’m telling you, it was double that size, at least!” I spread my arms, trying to show as accurately as I could remember.
The Doctor laughed, loud and long. “You’re so dramatic, Jack!” He snapped at me. “It was not that huge, you were just panicking.”
I exaggerated my shrug a bit for our friends around the table. “Well can you blame me? Huge fucking worm thing slithers right at me! I kept my composure as well as I could!”
“I seem to recall you screaming like a little girl!”
I scoffed and resisted reaching over to swat at him, instead stealing the pitcher of punch from his hand. “I’m sure I could make you scream like a little girl, Doctor.”
A collective “ooohh” went around the table, and I smirked in my victory as the Doctor trying to brush it off, tried to play off his fluster.
I took up the story again. “But I mean it! Huge, I’m telling you. The size of my arm at least, and twice as thick! I mean, tell me you’d see that thing coming at you, and you wouldn’t…”
I trailed off when my eyes turned back to the Doctor, and he was staring out the window.
It was a haunted stare. As if he’d seen something already gone.
“Doctor?” I said, reaching over to tap his hand.
He startled, blinked at me, and smiled. It was the one he put on, though, not the one he usually wore. Like an uncomfortable tie. “Ah- Excuse me. Continue on with your story, Jack. I’ll be right back.” With that, he stood up and went out the door, leaving me with the crowd.
For a second, I considered giving him his moment. That’s what I knew I should do. Entertain the others until he returned. But it felt like my head went hazy, and the concern brewing under my skin made my heart race too much to ignore.
I flashed a smile at the others. “I’ll just make sure he’s alright. I’ll be back.”
Their faces seemed blurry to me, but when somebody touched my wrist, I looked over and Rose’s face was clear as day. I felt this sudden heaviness in my chest, like I hadn’t seen her in forever. Like I missed her. Which was weird, because… because we were together.
“Jack, be careful,” She said gently, then pulled her hand away.
I met her eyes, nodded a little, then stood and went out the door, leaving the pitcher of punch.
He wasn’t on the sidewalk, so for a moment I floundered, blinking and looking around for him. It took a moment, but I heard it; a small sobbing.
I took the few steps to the alley, and felt a sense of deep dread as I saw the Doctor kneeling down in the darkness. His back was to me. He held a body in his arms.
Panic struck me from all angles, the sudden feeling that something, everything was very wrong. I should’ve stayed where I was. I should’ve stayed where it was safe. And now… no, no.
He turned to look at me, the Doctor. Although it wasn’t who he had been. His hair was longer. It wasn’t the one of the past anymore. All at once, he had changed, yet was still the same. I knew him, in both ways. And I also knew who was in his arms, even before I saw the Master’s head loll over his arm.
“Jack,” The Doctor breathed.
The darkness bore down on me from all angles. Putting pressure on my neck, my stomach, my chest. I covered my mouth with both hands. The body of the Master disintegrated in his arms, leaving him holding nothing, staring at nothing.
“Jack,” The Doctor said again. “We… We were the only two left. He left me, Jack. I don’t want this.” As he looked over at me, his eyes were sadder than I’d ever seen them, devastated and broken, painful as broken glass. “Why does he get to refuse,” he asked, then, “Could I refuse?”
“No.” A word finally came out of my strangled throat, and I leapt forward to grab his shoulders. “No, you idiot! What are you thinking?!”
Somehow, though, I felt it. I felt that he’d made the choice, that he wanted to die with the Master. It didn’t make sense, but his weight suddenly pitched forwards into my arms. I caught him.
“Doctor?!” I yelled, trying to make him look at me. When I looked around, there was nobody. Nothing. Just darkness. Nothing to help. “Doctor, don’t you dare!”
It was too late. He had simply decided to die, same as the Master had.
“Doctor, you can’t refuse! You can’t!” I screamed. “You can’t leave us all! You can’t leave me! Don’t do this! Not for him!”
I pulled him towards me, forcing his arms around me, pressing my face into his chest. I cried, sobbed into it, trying to hear any semblance of a heartbeat. The terrifying thought came that there might be nothing.
I jolted upwards and screamed for a long time.
My arms were empty. The darkness was around me. For a long, terrifying moment, I thought he’d disintegrated, and I’d been too wrapped up in my grief to notice.
Then the door to my room was thrown open, and a voice startled me. “Jack!”
My breath caught, and I raised my head from desperate hands.
The Doctor stood with his hand on the lightswitch, looking at me, frazzled. His hair was all messy, and he was in his pajamas, but he was there.
“Jack,” He said, a bit gentler, and rubbed his eyes, then crossed the room to the bed and sat by my side. “Jack.”
I must have looked a mess. Stared at him like I didn’t know if he was real. I kept blinking, spots swimming to and fro in front of my eyes like bugs across a pond. I didn’t consider that there might be tears until he reached out, slowly, so as not to startle me, and rubbed his hand against my cheek with one hand, wiping them away. I held his hand there, pressed it against my own cheek to keep it captive.
We both knew what it was, but he asked anyway. “Nightmare?”
I swallowed down tears. “Of course.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He always asked. I usually said the same thing, or just shook my head. I continued the trend, at least this time.
“Alright,” He said gently, and squeezed my cheek lightly. “Can I get you something, then? Tea?”
“No,” I sighed, and opened my arms. “Just…?”
He obliged, letting me pull him into my arms. I felt the need to have him there, for me to be the one holding him, have him solid and warm. His scent reminded me of old books, leather chairs, the Box, and the remaining dust of lost planets. As I grew calm with the feeling of a heavy, live body in my arms, I slid a little, my head coming to rest on his shoulder. He pulled me closer, so we were embracing more mutually, our chests pressed together. I had too many layers on to feel his heartbeats through it. To compensate, I slid one hand down his arm, to take his hand, trying to be subtle about feeling for his pulse. Would it be like a human’s, I wondered? Or more intense? Or less so?
“Jack?” He broke the silence softly.
I intertwined my fingers with his. “Hm?”
“Do you have your binder on?”
My eyes flew open, although I stayed pressed against him. I sucked my lip in. “Mm, I might…”
“Jack!” His voice raised in a lecture, and he tried to take my shoulders and gently push me off him.
I chuckled and held tight. “Oh, come on, Doctor!”
“Jack! You know it’s not good for you!”
I couldn’t help but love the way he said my name. Always with such a sharpness at the end. So clearly. I groaned into his shoulder. “But I hate it.”
“I know,” He replied, patting me on the back. “But you need to be able to breathe.”
“Breathing is for those who don’t have Time Lords to watch their backs.”
His hand rested on the small of my back, then shifted up, pushing the end of the binder up slightly. “Take it off.”
I whistled low, next to his ear.
“Oh, don't start.” Despite his trying to be serious and stern with me, I could hear him smiling. “You’re incorrigible, Jack.”
We were quiet, for just a moment. Now that he mentioned it, I could feel the strain against my chest, just a little. I sighed. “Alright, fine.”
When I pulled away, he kept his hands on my shoulders, and leaned in to kiss my cheek. “Thank you.”
“Oh, please.” I scoffed, but he just kissed my cheek again, making me smile.
He let go, and very visibly turned his back to me, although he stayed seated on the bed. I appreciated that. I pulled my shirt over my head, and only after taking my binder off did I realize how much it had been hurting my lungs. I took a deep breath before pulling my shirt back over my head, and tossing the binder to the corner of the room. I’d put it back on in the morning, but for the moment, I collapsed back onto the blankets. “You’re good, Doc.”
He turned back to me, eyes flicking across me. “Thank you,” He said again, and patted my knee. “Are you okay?”
I considered. Honestly, the idea of him being gone again made me nervous. Even with the extra space in my lungs, I felt shorter of breath. “Not yet,” I admitted. “What time is it?”
“Late,” He murmured, leaning over to kiss my forehead, making my brows scrunch together. “You should at least try to get some more sleep. We start moving again tomorrow, remember?”
Ah, right. We had never stopped for long, at least not intentionally. Maybe we would, someday. For the moment, though, we were both perfectly willing to throw ourselves into constant excitement and new stories to tell. I smiled at him. “Right, yeah.”
We rested in comfortable silence for a second, his hand still rubbing my leg slightly, simply existing in the same space as each other. I expected to feel better, more assured, but the thought of him going back to his own room and leaving me alone only made my heart beat faster.
“Stay with me,” I asked him.
He looked at me, his hand pausing on my knee. His eyebrows raised in that way I recognized.
“Not like that,” I assured him. “I know you don’t want… that. Now. Just until I fall asleep?”
I could see him considering, the wheels in his mind turning insistently. His eyes flicked over me again, before resting on my face. His expression melted into a smile. “Well, how could I say no to that?”
I cheered and whistled as he got on the bed, inciting bursts of laughter as he collapsed next to me. I turned on my side to face him, and he mirrored me. Our hands met in the middle, between our chests. Squeezing just so.
He reached over and ruffled my hair, also using it as a convenient way to push my head into the pillow. “Sleeping time for Jack.”
“You’re awful,” I told him with a smile. He winked and kissed my hand.I closed my eyes, comforted entirely by the feeling of warm fingers interlaced in my own. I hadn’t meant for it to happen, but my thumb rested on his pulse point. A strong beat pressed back against my finger, and such a wonderful feeling was one I figured I would never take for granted.
In the morning, he’d probably be gone from my bed, but I’d be able to hear him making tea or coffee for us before we went. He’d have his hair combed and coat on by the time I reached the kitchen. Yet, for now, he laid with me, with messy hair and in his pajamas.
That was something I had, and if I had to, I would wait forever for it. Can you blame me? He was everything, to me.
Positively everything.