Title: Machines
Prompt: #16 - Red
Rating: PG
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Spoilers: Possibly obliquely for "The Sound of Drums" (During which it's set. Which is a hint.)
Notes: Written for the doctorwho_100 challenge (Prompts are here.)


Machines

Shutting her out is almost more than he can bear: but there is a sickening throb, a beat like her heart running backwards and forwards together and he cannot let himself hear it. He cannot even tell her trust me, ask her to wait.

Don’t, he tells them. Don’t touch it.



No, touch me, she screams out silently to him, hardly embarrassed at how easy it has become to beg. Touch me please. It tears at her, blurs her edges: the pain and power and both are too terribly welcome.

I am afraid, she screams. I am becoming like him.

Title: Seedbed
Prompt: #27 - Children
Rating: U / G
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Spoilers: None
Notes: This happened as I was idly wondering, Hey, how did the Doctor and the TARDIS actually, you know, meet? Though I did try to stick with canon there are obviously embellishments, and despite my stern fact-checking it's bound to conflict with something somewhere (likely in the novels); and if so, well, apologies.
• Thanks to Kimchi the betagoddess (even though she's no damn help with titles).
• Written for the doctorwho_100 challenge (Prompts are here.) and x-posted to dwfiction.

"It's trustworthy and watertight and she's my oldest friend in the world." - 8th Doctor, 'The Stones of Venice'


Seedbed


He has been dreaming lately: of silver-bright trees and a burnt-orange sky, of sighing red grasses and a copper moon shining over mountains of snow. Asleep and awake he travels the roads from the Citadel, sees endless in the distance the Continent of Wild Endeavour; and quietly he mourns.

You know, she tells him one day - gently: she has considered these words for so long - I didn't like it all that much.

He is roused from a recollection of spires of golden stone. He blinks. "What?"

Oh it was beautiful, of course, but - he feels her shrug gently, a soft pull in his mind - I never really liked it there.

"Are you - what, you're happy it's gone?" His sudden anger is like electricity; it warms them both and she cradles it carefully.

No. Never. She sees the silver trees as he does then, a forest of fire in the morning light. Says softly, yes ...

but.

"But?"

Shrugs again, shows him cold glass and still water. The nurseries were dark. I was lonely.

"It's your home."

It's not.

"It was."

It was never my home.

"You were born there!"

That can't be helped.

He stalks and paces, his anger prickling at her. Unbidden, it rises too in her, to meet him: anger, then sorrow and finally fear. Everything that he's lost, she could lose still and she wonders if he realises. It's a thing she's never looked for and even now thinks she doesn't want to know.

Doctor.

He is deliberately mute, shut to her. She waits. He paces. She calls him by an old, old name. He stills. Then:

"Explain it to me."

What?

"Tell me. Show me. I don't ... I don't understand."

Beneath the anger he is dark and tired and he reaches for her. She tells him, Remember when we met. It is not a question but a request. He nods, slips from his bed in the Academy and creeps to the great silent building on the edge of the Citadel:

     He could feel them in there - had been told, taught, shown what they were going to be but wanted to know what is in there now, what they are now. It was hardly difficult for the boy to slip inside, to stand quiet and wondering at the great masses of them silent like waiting, like sleeping, growing in separate caverns of cold glass and still water. As far as he could tell they were nothing, yet, and he was disappointed to find them so quiet and closed. The boy turned to go.

     And he heard, felt someone-something, small and awake among the great sleeping masses, ask him: Wait.

     "Where are you?"

     Here.

     "Who are you?"

     Who are you?

("Why were you awake?" So many years later it occurs to him to ask. Again she shrugs, a gentle pull. I was always awake.)

     He went back. Again and again the boy went back and they sat and waited together, awake, as they learned slowly enough how they would speak to each other. He showed her the burning skies and the silver-bright trees. He showed her what they had shown him, had made him see - what she had been made in order to see. It pushed at them, and it pulled against them both.

     The boy grew.

     She grew.

     Until the pull and the push and the boy came to her now a young man, a young Time Lord with a new name; and when she asked he answered: "Yes, it's time to go." And they ran.

"You were waiting for me." She nods, the barest pressure against him. He considers this. "Why?"

Could it have been different? She sighs. Doctor: tell me about Gallifrey. It comes to her at once so fast and only by ten lifetimes of this can she understand it:

     thought heart light terrible family hurt love duty home life

Now shall I tell you? He nods.

     quiet empty wait

He feels then also Thought. Heart. Light. terrible and is about to say it, "Aha, you see - " family hurt love duty "But -" home life

     doctor

The two are silent then, breathing in space, together. A warm breeze plays across the red-grass plains and falls still. He says, so quietly: "Yes."

Yes?

"Yes. It's time to go."

Title: More
Prompt: #28 - Mind
Rating: 15 / PG-13
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Spoilers: None
Notes: A little AU drabble set after "Last of the Time Lords" and written for the doctorwho_100 challenge (Prompts are here.)

MORE


There were a lot more fights.

There was more desperate begging, more shouting, more whispers that turned into screams. There was a lot more noise in general.

She didn’t mind the noise.

There was a lot more pain: pleaded-for, impossibly perfect pain that left behind exhaustion and desire and scars in flesh and metal alike.

She didn’t mind the scars, either.

There was more blood, more heat, more couplings, more triplings, more mind more thought more moments without thought -

There was a lot more.

And she didn’t mind any of it.

Two Time Lords were so much more than one.

Title: Repairs
Prompt: #72 - Fixed
Rating: G
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Spoilers: None
Notes: Written for the doctorwho_100 challenge (Prompts are here.)
Rustier than the Tin Woodsman after monsoon season, I am, but I'm determined to get back at it; so pass me the damned oil can and get the hell out of my way ...


REPAIRS


“We cannot begin to offer you thanks enough, Doctor.”

“No worries there. Happy to help."

“It is but a small service we give you in return, this minor repair to your vessel in exchange for the salvation of our people.”

“Really, don’t mention it, I – sorry?” He paused halfway across the threshold and peered at the tall orange creature rapidly dissolving into mist before him. “And ... what repair would that be?”

The creature cast its eyestalks modestly downward. "Our skills are slight," it cooed, "and our debt to you is great. Please think nothing of it. Our eternal gratitude to you, Doctor." It raised a hand in farewell and disappeared.

"Wait!" the Doctor called into the suddenly empty morning light. "What have you done to my ship?"

***

Three frantic hours later he managed to track it down.

Jacketless and dishevelled, the Doctor regarded a blue button pulsing gently on the control panel. "Now that's impressive," he murmured, glancing under the console where a single silver wire gleamed newly. "Never was able to fix it myself."

Tentatively he reached out and traced a finger around the button. He looked up into the warm darkness of the ship above him. "What do you think, then? Nice to have it working properly again ... useful, anyway." He raked a hand thoughtfully through his hair. "I mean, let's face it, a blue police box is not often terribly nonchalant, is it?"

Hand still hovering over the button, the Doctor considered.

"Well then. I suppose ... I suppose we ought to try it out."

The TARDIS hummed ruminatively about him.

"Hmm? Well, no, they aren't a particularly technologically advanced species - not compared to some, anyway. Why?"

The Doctor listened to his ship.

"Ah. Well. Now that it comes to it, I suppose we can't be entirely certain that they didn't cock something up - oh, no, never on purpose, of course." He reached down and plucked the silver wire from beneath the console. "Still and all - " the blue button flashed once and lapsed into darkness " - you're quite right. Always better to be safe than sorry."

Title: Deathbed
Prompt: #31 - Death
Rating: G
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Spoilers: None
Notes: Been away for ages, and easing back into it gradually with a rather maudlin drabble, written for the doctorwho_100 challenge (Prompts are here.)

DEATHBED

It is curious, this going away slowly and by stages. The quiet slipping off. So much to do, he thinks, but stops with them to witness the small warm single heart slow, cool and still. Almost he envies them the silence and mourning: in his so many lifetimes the pounding of the blood has never ceased, slowed but not to stopping. There is surprise, but rarely tears; rarely they are his own.

Amidst this farewell he says only goodbye, smiles, stops smiling, leaves and leaving, wonders:

At the end, if there is one, who will tell anyone that he's gone?

Title: Down
Prompt: #64 - Fall
Rating: G
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Spoilers: A bit for Impossible Planet / Satan Pit
Notes: Set during Impossible Planet / Satan Pit, and written for the doctorwho_100 challenge (Prompts are here.)

DOWN

The ground opens up and she feels herself, inert, tumbling away from him.

Down.

Direction suddenly becomes relevant, distance relative only to him, on the surface. On the surface it always has been but now, an impossible distance traps her, strands him. Separates them.

Time is relative. Direction is peculiar and never before has it been this precise, this palpable. This business of up-and-down, of falling - wasn't she, weren't they both born to fall, to tumble, to roll and slip sideways through time? to keep moving directionless in their beautiful complex mathematical web where she is vectorial and he spirals and small linear beings only interrupt from time to (time

time passes)

She wakes, is aware of having slept. It is still and dark and still dark, and something mindless waits nearby. Something is down here with her.

Down here.

Down she waits every moment feeling him pulled away from her. He will leave if he has to and she will wait down here and in the next place and if necessary the place after that - there is always another place, more space and if it's not time after it's time before because they are the same thing - but even she cannot know where that will be or when.

Up there, he cannot know either; and she suspects that even if he could, he would already have shut that part of himself down, not to see without her. It has happened before and it will happen again and again already she is rewriting the equations that will let her wait, while he redraws the present and imagines a future a house a garden that he will have to get used to in (time

time passes)

Now something wakes her: mindless rage that for a moment overwhelms her so that she thinks it is her own.

Something is down here with her. Something that doesn't fit, that has no place in the complex play of thought and numbers, shapes and spirals. Something that negates, unwrites, voids. She wishes that just for a moment again she could see with his eyes - she might know but he understands, and together they are a match for (time

nothing

the rage ebbs and flows but nothing passes

This is time, then. This is her place in it down here and waiting as the numbers corrode and she is parenthetical, inert and, finally, so very empty that there is nothing but space to be filled with something, rage, something that

blinds

destroys understanding

she waits does wait becomes waiting)

For now, she is.

Down here.

Title: Ask
Prompt: #82 - If
Rating: G
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Spoilers: None
Notes: Post-Doomsday. (Which I don't usually write, but what can I say, I was feeling maudlin.) Written for the doctorwho_100 challenge (Prompts are here.)


What if?

They all ask, eventually. What if we just? and Why can’t we? and How do you know?, and he explains it to them using small ideas and smaller words and they have to listen, don’t they, because he’s the Time Lord.

He just knows.

I listen, too: to his footsteps in empty rooms, his breath carefully measured, all the time carefully controlled, and the ache underneath that he can’t explain away with small words, not to himself.

I listen to him because I have to, but I can’t help asking, too.

What if none of this ever happened?

Title: Life, the TARDIS, and Everything
Fandom(s): Doctor Who, H2G2
Pairings/Characters: Ten/Ford, the TARDIS, and Arthur Dent
Rating: 18/R
Spoilers: A bit for The End of the World
Summary: The TARDIS is picking up hitchhikers.
Notes: Written for the doctorwho_100 challenge (Prompt # 25: Strangers - Claim: Ten/Tardis - Prompt chart here)
• For scots_git, who really just wanted Ford and the Doctor to get it on a bit. Happy birthday, Daniel! (And eternal love to Kimchi the betagoddess, a cool frood who actually knows where her towel is.)
• X-posted to dw_slash


LIFE, THE TARDIS, AND EVERYTHING

The planet of Betilqaksa is generally believed to be the most enchanting in the Galaxy. Wide pink seas lap at the shores of blue-sand beaches, distant and suggestively-shaped mountains are shrouded in a pleasantly mysterious fog, and the Betilqaksans themselves are a polite and peace-loving race who communicate solely through the medium of erotic massage. Twin suns warm the planet by day and sweetly-scented breezes cool it at night, while the air is continually suffused with the intoxicating music of singing grasses and the spirit is illuminated by the wisdom of the Betilqaksan Prophesying Bush.

At this particular moment, however, Ford Prefect was three hundred and twelve thousand light-years from Betilqaksa, crouching in the damp of a squalid swamp on a nameless blot of an empty moon.

He listened for sounds of pursuit. The Villovian Royal Guard were known for their cunning, ruthlessness, and penchant for disembowelment but not, fortunately, for their stealth. Ford relaxed a bit as he heard them squelch away in the wrong direction entirely, cursing loudly in an obscure binary dialect. Beside him in the muck Arthur gibbered quietly to himself and drooled. Ford reached for his satchel.

"Well then," he muttered, "looks like another night under the stars." He cast an eye at the cloud of Arcturan Mega-Gnats buzzing overhead, obscuring the sky from view. "Right - make that under the giant hovering insects. Where's that towel got to?"

"One hedgehog, please, lightly toasted."

"Don't worry, Arthur." Ford glanced up from his satchel and regarded his companion, now frothing slightly at the mouth. "The effects of the Scrambler Ray are only temporary. It's totally harmless."

(In fact, the Wray Gunn Corporation - a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zap-Em Industries, LLC: "Purveyors of fine weaponry for the discerning despot." - has at the insistence of the Galactic Chamber of Commerce been the subject of intense scientific and legal scrutiny for the better part of a century. The long-term effects of the company's Scrambler Ray, Evisceration Beam, Retina-Detachment Pack and Skin-Inversion Land Mines are still unknown, while the legality of the Decap-o-matrix is questionable at best and copyright issues remain unresolved over the Kill-Them-Ded Three-in-One Total Nonexistence Device. Pending resolution of these and other issues, the Wray Gunn Corporation and Zap-Em Industries, LLC are required to publish the disclaimer, "For Novelty Use Only," on all adverts and publicity materials.)

Ford located his towel and gallantly wiped a bit of froth from Arthur's face. "A ha'penny for your midget," Arthur said.

"You're welcome," Ford replied. He stood to drape the filthy bath sheet across several branches and settled back under the makeshift tent, sighing as the swamp oozed up wetly around him. "I blame Zaphod for this, you know," he muttered.

Arthur nodded emphatically. "Satsuma," he added.

"Exactly. It was his idea to stroll off with the crown jewels in the first place - so how's he snug in the palace on Villos and we're camped out on this ball of muck, I'd like to know?"

It would have been no small consolation to Ford and Arthur to know that at that precise moment, Zaphod Beeblebrox was being ritually flogged with golden wire and painted with melted lard in preparation for his forced marriage to Princess Fruntfrrrox the Exasperating, fourteenth heir to the throne of Villos. In the absence of this happy knowledge, however, Ford sought comfort from the only source at hand: "Pass me the Ol' Janx Spirit, would you?" he asked. "There, in the bottom of the rucksack." Arthur rummaged through the bag, humming La Marseillaise, and came up with a depressingly empty bottle. Ford sighed again.

"Oh, Belgium," he hissed. "Well, hand it over - if we're careful we can still get reasonably drunk on the fumes. Unfortunately this situation rather calls for unreasonably drunk, but - "

"A discerning customer chooses carefully," Arthur cried suddenly. "Six out of ten hyperactive stoats agree!"

"Wait your turn, you." Ford snatched the bottle from his hand. Arthur shook his head and pointed into the battered satchel.

"Portcullis. Portmanteau! Port-au-Prince!" he blurbled. Ford frowned and squelched closer to peer into the bag, at the bottom of which a small green light pulsed erratically. Tossing the bottle aside, he reached into the bag and extracted the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic.

"I'll be a lungfish's granny - Arthur! Do you realise what this means?"

"Prostate, pantheistic pantomime?"

"It means, mate, that we're about to be rescued from this stinking swamp."

"Pangolin!"

"Yeah, well - okay, I'm excited too, but watch your language - "

"Porcelain! Peripatetic potboiler!"

Ford struggled to his feet as the Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic winked faster, casting a suddenly festive green glow over the grey dampness. "Quickly, Arthur, pass me the Thumb!"

"Passionfruit?"

"The Thumb, the Electronic Thumb! That black rod thing - yes, there! Hand it over - oh, photons, there's no time. Press the yellow button!"

"Principled Pakistanis?"

"The yellow one, Arthur, quickly!" The frenzied blinking of the Sens-O-Matic was becoming more and more hyperactive. Arthur mashed the large yellow button at the end of the Electronic Thumb and held the device aloft. "Plastic polyglot, popover!" he exclaimed as a strange wind whipped up around them. "Prison guard?"

Ford scanned the skies, waving aside clouds of fist-sized insects.

"Priesthood!" Arthur goggled as - with a noise like six hundred and ninety-two people repeatedly saying "Squah, squah!" while walking slowly into the distance - a large blue object materialised in the sludge before them. "Police box," Arthur whimpered, and flopped face-down into the mud.

***

"And just where do you think you're going?" The Doctor put aside his teacup and stalked over to the console. He peered at the monitor and tutted.

"Oh no you don't! You know the rules."

Several small orange lights blinked insistently.

"Not at all. It's just a red alert, nothing serious."

The lights continued to blink.

"I am not in a mood, I'm having a nice quiet cup of tea. The last thing I need is to make uncomfortable small talk with some - "

The TARDIS hummed around him.

"Since always! I simply don't feel like chatting with strangers just now. Besides, look at where we are: Sector LL₃ Active Q Beta. There's nothing out here but Villos and about three dozen satellite moons. And you know how utterly boring the Villosians are - all they ever want to talk about is disembowelling this and eviscerating that and stripping the skin from the other and - wait, what? A human, all the way out here? Really?" The Doctor flipped a switch and glanced again at the monitor. "And a Betelgeusian - now they certainly know how to have a good time ... hmmmm. Well, I could do with a bit of company. Be nice to have someone to talk to again ... better pull over and see if they need a lift."

With an ironic squeal and a slight squelch the TARDIS materialised. The Doctor strode to the door and stuck his head out to survey a squalid swamp full of muck, ooze and stunted trees. A man in a dressing gown lay prone, blowing bubbles in a particularly foetid puddle of goo. Nearby a second man stood consulting a hysterically flashing Sub-Etha device. He glanced up and the Doctor found himself staring into not-unpleasantly-intense-yet-disarmingly-aquamarine eyes. He blinked a few times.

The unnervingly blue eyes didn't.

"Er," the Doctor began. He tried again. "Um. Ah! I'm the Doctor. Need a ride?"

The man pocketed the device and squooshed towards the TARDIS. "Cheers!" he said genially. "I'm Ford Prefect, and this - " he indicated the fellow in the muck, "is Arthur Dent." The Doctor glanced down at Arthur.

"Connoisseur of fine swamp fluids?" he asked.

"Scrambler Ray," Ford explained. "We had a bit of a run-in with a squadron of Villovian Royal Guards." The Doctor shuddered.

"Dreadful bores. Well, we'd best get him inside, then. A nice kip, a cup of tea, he should be right as rain ... can you take his other arm? Fantastic. I've got the door, just drag him inside - and mind you don't let those gnats in." Together they hauled Arthur into the TARDIS and the Doctor shut the door behind them. Ford gazed about.

"Nice," he said appreciatively. "Type 40?" The Doctor nodded as Arthur - who had perked up somewhat at the mention of the word tea - suddenly looked about, screamed "Viva Italia!", and pitched forward onto the floor with a dull thud. Ford frowned down at him. "You'll have to excuse my friend. He's allergic to spaceships, I think."

"No worries, it happens a lot around here." The Doctor hauled Arthur to his feet and dragged his inert form towards the corridor. "I'll just find him someplace to have a lie-down. Shouldn't be a minute. If you want to, er ... freshen up ... there's a washroom just through there, second door to the left. I think. At least, there usually is. I'm sure it's still around there somewhere, just have a look about. Um." The Doctor found himself blathering under Ford's intense gaze. "I'll be back as soon as we - well, as soon as I ... get him tucked in. Arthur. Tuck him in. Somewhere. For a rest. I'll be back ... Okay then." Mercifully, he reached the doorway and hauled Arthur through.

Smooth, the Doctor thought, lumping the largely-unconscious human down the corridor. Nicely done. You'd think I'd never met a Betelgeusian with gorgeous eyes before ... well, come to think of it, I don't know that I have met one with such incredibly gorgeous eyes ... Not that I noticed, really. Just in passing, that's all. Nothing strange about that, is there - you meet someone new, you notice his eyes. If you're in the habit of being observant you notice a lot of things. Like the way his hair curls over his ears. Or that he has very nice hands. And an extremely lovely ass - you just notice these things, it doesn't mean anything ... The Doctor kicked open the door to a cosy library and pulled Arthur inside.

The walls were lined with friendly volumes and the room was full of overstuffed chairs and invitingly soft sofas. A cheery fire burned in the grate. The Doctor flopped Arthur onto a couch and plumped a pillow behind his head. "There now, quite nice. You have a bit of a lie-down, all right?"

Arthur's eyes fluttered open. "Would you like chips with that?" he mumbled.

"No, you're quite safe on my ship," the Doctor answered pleasantly.

Arthur flung out an arm, flapping a hand in the general direction of his own left ear. "Sixteen and a half? Or a mouse and a can of oil."

"Oh, no, I shouldn't worry. Those Scrambler Rays are a bit barbaric, but you'll be fine." The Doctor frowned and considered Arthur. "You've got a fish in your ear, haven't you?" Arthur nodded weakly. "Aha. That explains it. The ship has a translation circuit of her own, not to mention that I'm a bit ... well, telepathic myself. Just a bit, mind you, but what with that and the ship and the way that fish works ... I thought I was getting quite a lot of your, er, thoughts. Well. No worries, I'll bring you a glass of water later and we'll have that fish out. In the meantime, just relax and try to get some sleep, yes?"

"Phonetic spelling."

"Good man." The Doctor patted his arm comfortingly and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

***

Ford was having serious towel envy.

He stood in a marvellously-apportioned washroom and gaped in awe at the piles of spotless towels, pristine bath-mats, immaculate face flannels and - Zarquon's knees, could it be? - indecently fluffy bathrobes ranged on the shelves. With a trembling finger he reached out to stroke a blue-and-yellow bath sheet.

Imagine heading out with that in your satchel.

He pulled it from the shelf and unfolded it with reverence. The blue and yellow stripes fairly glowed in the washroom's discreet recessed lighting.

The things a being could do with a towel like this ... A host of interesting images popped into his mind, a surprising number of which seemed to involve the Doctor in a variety of compromising positions on, under, or wrapped in the striped terry-cloth. (Being a modern and quite with-it sort of traveller, Ford had never held particularly to the outmoded opinion that it was in strict bad form to sass one's host.)

He fondled the towel and considered the Doctor and his ship - neither of which by rights should in fact exist, unless the Guide had got it very wrong yet again.

Which was entirely possible.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of Time Lords:

The Time Lords were an ancient and stuffy race of self-righteous prigs who were insufferably smug about both their own ability to travel with ease to virtually any location in space and time, and their absolute refusal to do so on the grounds that it might muck up the space-time continuum or some such nonsense - none of which stopped them, however, from passing judgement on virtually every other race or individual who, in the Time Lords' opinion, was dangerous, evil, or the slightest bit naughty. They were generally regarded by the rest of the Galaxy as a load of obnoxious bores who were too high-minded to have even a little bit of fun with their powers - not even a quick joy-ride in their "Time And Relative Dimension in Space" machines, possibly the most inconveniently-named yet utterly remarkable form of space-craft ever created, none of which survive to this day.

Very few Time Lords ever managed to break free of their infuriatingly prudish society and have a time of it out in the Galaxy, and almost all of those who did so were evil, irritating, smarmy, or at best poorly-dressed. The Time Lords were completely and entirely wiped out along with their mortal enemies, the Daleks (see "Evil Pepperpots," p. 492,641) in the last Time War.

Except, Ford reflected, here he was in what was quite clearly a TARDIS, and the being in command of it was quite clearly - Ford had an excellent eye for species - a Time Lord. What's more, the Doctor seemed for all the Galaxy like a Time Lord who was quite content to be slouching about through space and time in search of a laugh.

A Time Lord who was neither particularly stuffy, evil, smarmy or poorly-dressed ... a Time Lord who was, in point of fact, remarkably easy on the eyes -

"Um, hello?"

Ford started and stuffed the towel guiltily back on the shelf. "Yes?" he called back, glancing quickly at his reflection in the washroom mirror and stepping out into the corridor. The Doctor smiled widely at him.

"Found it all right, then?"

"No problem at all." Ford couldn't manage to look directly into the Doctor's eyes and suddenly found himself staring instead at the quite obvious bulge in his already-tight brown trousers. He felt a blush begin to spread across his wrists (a particular peculiarity of Betelgeusian physiognomy) and tugged the sleeves of his jacket down self-consciously. "Lovely linen collection," he murmured, nodding towards the washroom.

"Thank you." The Doctor regarded him. "You don't happen to have," he said slowly, "and pardon me for asking, a fish in your ear?" Ford nodded.

"Of course. Terrifically useful things. Haven't you got one?"

"Er, no." The Doctor was grinning rather impishly all of a sudden. He turned and started down the corridor, beckoning Ford to follow. "No, I haven't. Come on, then - care for a tour?"

***

"An' what he said was - whoops, seem to have mished the glass, er, missed the glash - no matter, no matter, I can lick it up jus' as well - " Ford paused in his tale and bent to run his tongue over the table. The Doctor watched him, shivering deliciously, and righted Ford's glass.

"Let me," he said, pouring him another shot of Janx Spirit.

"Oh, lovely, cheers."

"You were saying?"

"Was I? Sorry, I've no idea. Say," Ford peered unblinkingly across at the Doctor. "Why's there still only one of you?" The Doctor sighed.

"You mean the whole Time War business? It's rather a long and very unpleasant story - " Ford cut him off with a wave.

"No, not that, forget that. What I mean is. Er. Oh - why am I not seeing double? Or, rather, no, I am seeing double, jus' not of you. Which means that you," Ford pointed across the table, knocking over his glass again, "aren't drunk enough by half."

The Doctor shrugged. "Oh, well, I just - "

"Gingerpop!"

"Pardon?"

"Got any ginger pop around here?" Ford staggered to his feet and wove unsteadily out of the room. "Seem to remember hearing," he called back through the open doorway, "that Time Lords didn't - couldn't - don't get drunk off much." A cascade of breaking glass came from the room opposite. "Whoops, sorry 'bout that, clean it up later. What was I ... right: Time Lords don't get drunk off much. Except," he returned and deposited an armload of bottles on the sticky tabletop, " 'cept for ginger pop. So. Doctor." Ford stood close behind him and reached for a bottle. He popped the top off with a fsst!, placed it carefully before the Doctor, and bent to whisper in his ear. "Don' you think it's time," he purred, "that you stop trying to read my mind and get yourself drunk too, so we can take advantage of each other?"

The Doctor kissed him rather suddenly and reached for the open bottle.

***

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is, as has been remarked many times and in many places - most often and most glowingly in the pages of the Guide itself - a wholly remarkable book. It contains entries on virtually every planet, race, species, subspecies, language, mode of transportation, beverage, and type of undergarment in the Galaxy. It discusses with equal depth and aptitude the causes of major political events and minor skin conditions, and presents useful information on preventing both. It provides perfectly reasonable (if occasionally long-winded) excuses for any missing information, and ample space in the margins for rude doodles.

What it lacks is an entry on sonic screwdrivers, and their many and varied uses in inducing some of the most indecently amazing pan-orgasmic sensations possible in humanoid organisms.

Halfway through the night, Ford Prefect resolved to make it the rest of his life's mission to research and report on just that topic.

Shortly thereafter, through the judicious application of the aforementioned device in the capable hands of an experienced and improbably extant Time Lord, he was temporarily rendered incapable of further coherent thought.

***

The Doctor stood and kicked off the trousers tangled around his ankles. "Hmmm. These aren't mine." He held them out to Ford. "Rather nice, though - are they yours?"

"Uh-hunnnnnngh."

"Where are mine, then?"

"Mrnggh - " Ford paused, collected himself, and tried again. "I think - I think they're what you used to tie me to the ... table, is it?"

"Sort of workbench, actually."

Ford pulled at his trouser-trussed wrists and twisted his head to get a look about. They were in a large, well-apportioned workroom of sorts. Various bits of wires and circuitry - most of which would have made the most jaded electrical engineer spontaneously compose soaring epic verse in tribute - were strewn carelessly about. "What do you know. When did we get in here?"

"After the power ran out on the sonic screwdriver. I needed to plug it in for a bit - "

"So to speak."

"... Indeed. You said something about looking for the linen closet in the meantime, and stumbled in a while later with an arm-load of towels. It gets a little fuzzy after that, I'm afraid." The Doctor loosened the knots around Ford's wrists. "You did keep mentioning something about Smada XV and a mature yak. Sadly," he said as Ford pulled himself free and sat up, "the TARDIS is rather short on yaks at the moment. Mature or otherwise."

Ford stretched contentedly and ran a hand across the Doctor's chest. "Pity, that. The Smadans - have you been to Smada XV? No? Lovely place. Very friendly people - the Smadans have some terribly interesting customs. Largely yak-based, as it happens."

The Doctor caught Ford's hand in his own and pulled him closer to run his tongue slowly along his neck. The Betelgeusian tasted almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a human: salt and sweat and a musk pleasantly redolent of the wide warm plains of Betelgeuse Five. I need to get out of the TARDIS more, he mused, closing his eyes as Ford slipped his tongue between the Doctor's lips and kissed him hard. He was momentarily overcome with visions of vast interstellar distances, majestic starfields sweeping away into the inky blackness at the edges of space, and opened his eyes to find Ford grinning at him.

"Long way from home," Ford said, swinging about to sit on the edge of the workbench, legs wrapped around the Doctor - who realised suddenly that he was speaking for both of them. Ford nodded sagely. "I find that the contemplation of mind-bogglingly huge distances in relation to one's own place in the Universe - such as it is - tends to bring up feelings of ... " He trailed off as the Doctor caught up a handful of his tangled brown curls.

"Horniness?" he purred into Ford's ear.

"Exactly that!" Ford agreed happily. He glanced about the cluttered workroom. "Pass me that jar, would you?"

"What, the Algolian axle grease? What for?" Ford raised an eyebrow suggestively. "Really? You can use Algolian axle grease for that?" Ford nodded, his eyebrow making the nonverbal leap from merely suggestive to outright explicit. "Well! I never knew. And how'd you figure that out?"

"Read it somewhere," Ford said, unscrewing the jar and sniffing at its vaguely luminous green contents.

"Where'd you read it?"

He ran a slick hand over the Doctor's cock. "Oh, a book." The Doctor growled and pulled Ford to the very edge of the workbench.

"Which book?" he breathed.

"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," Ford managed as the Doctor slid inside him.

"Oh, that thing."

***

The workbench was, mercifully, not terribly far from the floor: not so far, at least, as to cause lasting damage to any part of Ford's anatomy when he accidentally rolled off of it the following morning. He looked about experimentally, happy to find that the vast quantities of Ol' Janx Spirit that he had consumed had not, as tended frequently to happen, rendered him either blind or paralytic. By the time he had located and struggled into suitable amounts of clothing he was reasonably certain that his motor skills had not been unacceptably compromised by either the alcohol or the astonishingly athletic activities of the past night.

There were a few choice revisions to be made to a certain entry in the Guide, he thought, prowling the corridors of the TARDIS.

Ford followed the clinking of teaspoons and the murmur of voices to a small kitchenette. Two figures in dressing gowns sat, their backs to the door, sipping tea. Between them on the table a small yellow fish swam lazily about in a glass of water.

"... remarkable what a nice cup can do, no one seems to understand," Arthur said, feeding bits of biscuit to the fish.

"It's the single greatest contribution of humanity to the Galaxy," the Doctor agreed. "Nothing like it anywhere else. Don't give the fish biscuits. Another cup?"

"Oh - yes, please." Ford stepped into the room. Arthur turned and beamed at him. "Ford! We're just having - "

"Tea, yes, I can see that."

Arthur glanced at the Doctor and shook his head. "You see? They don't understand." He sipped and breathed a sigh of utter contentment. The Doctor grinned at Ford.

"Sleep well?" he murmured.

"Not a bit of it," Ford answered happily. He pulled a chair up to the table. "I was just thinking, by the way - where exactly are you headed?"

"Funny you should ask." The Doctor glanced at Arthur, cooing over his teacup, and back at Ford. "We were just having a chat - over a nice cup of tea, you know - when the subject of domesticated bovines came up. And we thought that it might be ... zoologically stimulating to do a little first-hand research - for the Guide, of course - on some of the more interesting species of bovine that the Galaxy has to offer."

"And it seems to me," Arthur put in hopefully, "that a yak might be less likely than - well, than almost everyone else I've met so far - to want to blow me up, or throw me out of spaceships, or cut open my brain, or insult me."

"Not necessarily."

"Oh? Well then ... "

Ford's eloquent eyebrow delivered a short but pithy monologue to the Doctor. "Why not," he said. "Smada XV, then? And it occurs to me that I might want to take this fish out of my ear as well."

"Oh, no." The Doctor regarded Ford with a grin that would have been classified as illegal by at least six planets, two star systems, and one entire dimension. "I rather think that you should leave it in."

Fic Name: Stories
Rating: G
Prompt: #65 - Passing
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Summary: Time continues on for Jamie - as it must.
Spoilers: Obliquely for the end of "The War Games" (S6)
Notes: Written for the doctorwho_100 challenge (prompt chart is here) and x-posted to dwfiction. Let's say it takes place in something of an A/U where "The Two Doctors" never happened, because I don't care to get into Season 6B and all that just now. Indecent amounts of thanks to Kimchi the betagoddess, and to scots_git, my reluctant dialect consultant
(... Been watching quite a bit of classic Who of late, as a sort of comfort food I suppose.)



STORIES

"High as the side of a house it was, and covered all in hair, th' great shaggy thing, wi' eyes like scoops o' red coals! It weren't no beast as they had ever seen before - and inside it weren't beast at all but a great mass of metal an' fire - no thoughts and no soul, just like a clock striking the hours wi'out knowing why it ticks 'em away. The thing hirpled toward 'em till they were stood, backs against the stone walls o' the cave, an' nowhere to run to but into th' arms o' the great beastie itsel'! Wi' a horrible cry like the end o' days, it raised a claw long as a sword - " At this the children set up a sudden chorus of screams, and Victoria came charging into the room.

"Father!" she chided, gathering a few of the smallest to her, where they sniffled into her skirts and peeped at him with wide eyes. "There, now! You see? You've gone to scaring the bairns again wi' your tales!"

"Now, lass, they're only stories. Children like a story of an evening - "

"Aye, stories!" Victoria snapped at him. "Children's stories, proper stories, not this unco nonsense about mechanical men and furred beasties and great monsters frae th' stars! Hush, now, dears, there's nae to fret o'er," she crooned, patting heads and wiping noses. She glanced over her shoulder at the tall, lean boy in the shadows of the corner. "And you, Ben, you're more to blame than your grandfather - lettin' him scare the weans and get himsel' into a state wi' the telling of such tales!"

Ben stepped into the firelight beside his grandfather's chair and put a protective hand on the old man's shoulder. "They're good stories, mother. Grandfather Jamie tells the best tales - much better than the fairy stories we hear of a Sunday!"

"Hush, lad," Jamie murmured under his breath.

"Benjamin James McCrimmon!" Victoria exploded. "I ne'er had a mind tae hear such talk from my ain children! Help your grandfather to bed and take ye off yoursel' - and expect a fair bit o' work on the morrow as punishment for your cheek, as well! And mind you, Father, if that leg pains you again, drink a draught before you lay yoursel' down. You'll wake the house again wi' calling for a doctor all night."

Jamie got stiffly to his feet and regarded his daughter. "And what d'ye mean by that, Victoria?"

"Aye, I hear you as well as any other, all night calling out doctor! doctor! like to wake the hounds in the yard." Jamie caught Ben's glance and smiled as his grandson rolled his eyes behind her back and offered him an arm. He shuffled from the room with Ben, leaving Victoria to sort the children and herd them to bed.

Away from the fireside the passageway was dim and cold, and Jamie leaned heavily on the boy as they made slow progress to his bedchamber. "I'm sorry, lad," he murmured, eyes on the treacherous shadows at his feet. Ben glanced at him curiously. Jamie shook his head. "Your aul' grandfather is slow, boy. Slower and slower, I'm afeared ... "

"Does your leg pain you all that much?"

"Nae, 'tis but stiff wi' the cold." He regarded the boy from the corner of his eye. "And why d'ye ask, lad?"

Ben frowned at the carpet. "'Tis only that ... Mother speaks true: you do call for a doctor, of a night." Jamie grunted.

"Dreams, then, boy. I've no mem'ry of it and no need of a physician, mind. Slow doesn't mean unsound."

"Nae, o' course not." They reached the bedchamber and Ben helped the old man climb stiffly into bed. "I'll raise the fire for ye, Grandfather."

"Good lad. And then you'll sit by me and have a tale o' your own. What'll it be, then?"

Without hesitation Ben answered eagerly, "The blue box."

"Aye, ever your favourite, weren't it? Weel, then, a tale o' the blue box it is!" The fire stoked, Ben came to sit by the bedside, boy and old man alike settling into the story like a familiar chair. "And it's nae just a box, ye ken," Jamie began, "but a doorway to worlds, this wonder is, for when you step through - "

when you step through you see shifting sands, towers of glass, birds and monsters and whirling stars. You see the hand of a friend, a wise man whose face you don't quite remember. You hear music and you run - away from or towards, it doesn't matter, either or neither or both. There is danger and wonder and always the hands of friends and that is the blue box: step through the doors and there you are. Somewhere.

When Jamie nodded finally to sleep Ben slipped from the room and crept to his own cot, his mind alight with his grandfather's words. Monsters and men, they coloured his life; he longed to travel, to see and hear and run, to step through the doorway of the blue box like the people in the tales. He huddled under the blankets in the dark, thinking wistfully, If only they weren't just stories.

If only they were real.

***

But to Jamie the stories are real: more real than this cold house, his daughter's sharp tongue, the shrugs of pity for an old man from the village lads. Even his beloved moors, the fields and fens and hills of his land, are becoming just so much dry grass and bare earth, dull and pale in the glow of the tales in his head.

The stories have always been there: ever since the Battle of Culloden, when he woke lame and bloodied but a hero of the field - one of few heroes, of the few left alive - the stories have come, tales of journeys and battles, of sights and thoughts and ideas far beyond the ken of a simple piper. Folk listened, frowning, shook their heads and whispered about the poor lad battle-shocked and touched in the wits and Jamie learned to hold his tongue, to close his eyes and swallow the stories and keep them inside. He married, worked, surrounded himself with children and grandchildren, worked and listened and watched the world change. And it was enough.

Until the world stopped changing. Until it straitened and became dull, until the world shrank to his bedchamber, the hearth and the kitchen garden, the narrow dark hallways and the hoarfrost on the windowpanes. The edges of things have become blurred and the centres have become boring, and the stories rise up in him - insistent, violent, demanding, and so very beautiful. They fill his dreams every night - the blue doors open, a friend beckons - and in the day they whisper to him - monsters and men - and sometimes he thinks if it weren't for his grandson, if it weren't for Ben - so eager to take the stories from him, to carry them with him - he would suffocate, would be crushed under the weight of his own untold tales.

Every morning, as the blue doors close and the world settles dully around him, he hears it again: Now don't go blundering into too much trouble, will you?

And wakes thinking, inexplicably, You're a fine one to talk.

***
The world shrinks again and Jamie can't leave his bed, and the stories come unbidden now and he lives in them. When his grandson comes he holds out a hand, cold and trembling, and draws the boy into the stories with him.

But the winter is cold and too long and there is work to be done just to keep the fires lit and the animals in the barn from freezing in their sleep. Ben walks the hill road in the dark to lessons every morning, slips and skids home on hobnailed boots in the afternoon, hauls and carries and breaks the ice on the troughs, and listens to talk of an apprenticeship in the spring: A counting-house, maybe. A shipwright. A bootmaker.

He bites his tongue and thinks desperately of the blue box. Grandfather falls ill and Ben works hard and late and there is less time for stories. He goes to Jamie's bedchamber when he can to raise the fire and settle into the tales with the old man; and though Jamie sees him, knows him, takes him by the hand, Ben understands that the stories are more real to him now than the dark and cold chamber is; and when Jamie tells him, "The blue doors opened, and the boy and the girl saw an ocean of light beyond," to his grandfather the blue box, the boy and the girl and the ocean of light all happened, and to him the stories are true.

If only they were, Ben thinks.

***

"Hermit about," Cormick muttered over supper by the hearth. Victoria cast a quick eye at Ben, bent over a book at the other end of the table.

"Aye, Husband?" she asked quietly.

"O' sorts."

"Where, then?"

"Th' moor."

A man o' few words is blessing enough, Victoria thought, but getting a tale frae him can be like drawing a tooth frae a cat. She sighed. "Just a' seated there on the moor, lookin' out o'er God's creation?" she said archly. Over his book, Ben suppressed a giggle.

"Nae, woman, he's builded himself a hovel in the hauch. Said he'd come to see how the battle ended. Seemed surprised t' hear it were sixty year an' more past."

"Another bampot," Victoria snorted. "And it sounds as though you had a good enough tove wi' him, Husband."

"That I did. Good man. He come into the village tae ask after things. Englishman, he is, and young to be so daft as weel ... looked about and talked wi' one and all, and went back tae his box - "

"Box?" Ben raised his head.

"Aye, boy. Livin' in a box wi'out room e'en to lie down in. Must be some sort o' holy man."

"Doitit, if ye ask me ... "

"Did you see this box?" Ben asked urgently. Cormick fixed a curious gaze on his son and nodded slowly.

"That I did, lad."

"What - what did it look like?"

"And why do you need tae know?"

"Now, woman, hush." Cormick turned back to Ben. "Tall, like, and thin, wi' windae up high. Writing upon it as weel, though it stood too far away to read of it."

Ben swallowed, his heart beating fast. "And what colour was it?"

"Colour?"

"Aye."

"Why, t'were blue, lad."

***

Ben wakes his grandfather before dawn, helps him to dress; tells him they must go to the moor, that there is something to see. It is barely spring, still cold and dark, and Ben isn't certain that the old man understands him. He takes Jamie's hand and they slip from the house. The walk is long and slow and Jamie is quiet but not silent, whispering stories to the shadows as they pass. It has been so long since he has walked this road that it doesn't recognise him any longer.

The sun is rising as they reach the moor. They stop and watch as the light picks out first hills and hollows, then shapes and outlines, and finally colours; and Ben can only stand and stare as he sees his grandfather's tales illuminated slowly before him.

Jamie is silent for long moments, the stories stilled on his lips as suddenly, finally, he remembers. He remembers, and on legs that are barely shaking at all he stumbles across the field, Ben running after him, both crying out at the top of their voices, "Creag an tuire!", laughing and running together until they come to the box and stop, clutching each other, breathing hard, still laughing, and waiting for the blue doors to open.

Title: After and Between
Author: reina_isabella
Gift for: scap3goat
Rating: 15 / pg-13
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ten, Tardis
Word count: 1621
Summary: The Doctor and Jack find each other again.
Spoilers: Odds & sods up to "Doomsday" and "End of Days".
Author's Notes: Written for the twdw_ficathon as a gift for scap3goat, who requested: a secret Jack Harkness harbours (bonus for Jack's pregnancy), some kind of voyeurism, and the clicking noise of a keyboard. One of 3 totally unconnected fics that came from that - this one is sort of the satsuma in the stocking, gift-wise.
• Also a part of the doctorwho_100 challenge (prompt #71: "Broken", and my table is here).
• Well. It's a bit odd and very stream-of-consciousness-y and not too too off-putting, I hope.
• And endless thanks and Mexican takeaway to Kimchi the betagoddess, who diligently sorted through nameless pronouns, confusing pov shifts, and piles of angst.



AFTER AND BETWEEN


What is there to say?

(Too much.)

The two men regard each other silently.

There is too much to say.

*

Her room is empty. No help there.

A room full of things that haven't been touched. Of course he thinks, of course he just left them here, why wouldn't he? There must be dozens of rooms like this.

A museum of lives.

He leaves. He doesn't open his own door. He finds a new room and moves in.

*

Tea. Vodka. Silence. They talk to the ship but not to each other. Coffee, gestures. There must have been words but they don't mean enough yet and they're forgotten, barely spoken: just "Fix me," and no more.

*

He's the one with the same face: why don't I recognise him?

*

He has to tell Jack about Rose. He's shy suddenly about the tears and knows he sounds heartless instead, dead or cold, but somehow this man he might have said anything to, done anything to, for, with, is different and suddenly he's shy about tears in front of him.

"Alive?"

He nods. "Gone. Protected. Happy." (He doesn't know that, how can he know that, but it's all he could hope for and he gives it to her. To all of them.) "She knew - "

But the room is empty.

*

The body is different. The man is different. They're both different, he knows that, he's different too. He's re-learned distrust.

Without meaning to.

So he watches him. The ship knows him, remembers him, lets him in where he wants to go, and he watches. So much of his life lately has been spent watching on monitors and screens, fingers tapping over the keys; it's a way of living without living, which is what he's good at now. It's absurd, childish almost, but he wants to catch him off-guard, alone, figure out just who and what he's become. So Jack watches him.

The man is taller. Thinner. Older and younger. The eyes are different, the hair, the voice. He can't help thinking in comparisons.

He works and Jack watches. Sleeps and he watches. Sits and Jack sees him on the screen.

*

Of course it goes both ways. Stupid of him not to realise that, he thinks, that I don't know, that my ship doesn't tell me. He works hard to keep the knowledge of Jack watching him off of his face. Wonders what he could do, what he could say - Stupid bloody ape, don't you recognise me? all it would take, maybe, just put his arms around him and force Jack to know him, you humans, you have eight senses, why don't you use them - but here they are, circling each other, Jack watching him and he sits, being watched.

*

Tea. Coffee. Fix me. He finally has to ask:

How are you broken?

*

"Doctor."

Is it a question? he thinks, almost before he's registered the word. But how good to hear Jack finally say it. He turns.

"Yes."

He wants to know how he got here, where the Doctor has been. Which means a lot of stories and the Doctor is glad to tell them: words are easy for him and as he talks he can watch Jack watching him.

"... actually met Queen Victoria, she was quite pleased at that until ... against the Cybermen but they were ... planet on the edge which ... "

Jack isn't listening to the words but looking behind them, and when the Doctor - the Doctor - gets to the end of the story and says, quietly, "Dårlig Ulv Stranden," stops suddenly and just looks at him, Jack reaches out.

The hand he touches is not the same.

But.

*

Jack smells of time. It is something the Doctor knows well and the scent has grown on him. He tastes human.

But.

The Doctor has to slow himself: wants to know, now, every inch of this body but contents himself with the taste of the skin at the base of his throat, the swift pulse under his tongue, the taste of him warm and here, and real and human but -

something else.

When Jack steps away, kisses him quietly, leaves the room, the Doctor doesn't follow, doesn't ask.

How are you broken.

*

Rose's empty room.

Was it hard? Jack asks her. Did you know? Did he put his hand out and say Rose, it's me? Did you believe him?

Were you scared?

Yeah. Me too.

These fucking aliens. He sighs. Doesn't mean that, not really. He wants to tell her: After you left. He wants to say it to her, to him: After you left me. He's in an empty room and she's a universe away, the Doctor is hardly closer, he can't say it, after you left he wants to tell them, something happened to me. Wants them to answer, explain, one of them, wants to let the Doctor hold him and tell him.

Why.

Doesn't say any of it, really. He falls asleep in Rose's empty room.

*

But they can talk more. They can touch more. They can dance - finally, again.

And it's good.

*

And the Doctor is slow and gentle and Jack thinks he should be grateful, is grateful, that the Doctor is giving him (he laughs) time and space.

The Doctor regards him from a distance because, human though Jack is, what is that something else? and he only knows to slow down as he gets closer: time and space are relative.

The Doctor is cautious and gentle and Jack is grateful but one night.

It starts late, gets later. Slow gentle kisses and his tongue hot on Jack's sweet skin and Jack puts his hands against the twin heartbeats and kisses harder. Wants, "I want," he says, want he thinks, and the Doctor kisses harder. Their hands are in each other's hair, Jack's tongue is in his mouth, tasting his air, his words. He kisses harder. Their hands are on each other's skin, their tongues, the Doctor tastes him everywhere and barely has time to think but "I want" Jack breathes again and "I know" he answers. Wants, too. It is later and Jack pulls him closer, no space between them but pushes against him even as he does because time and space he thinks are not what I want. You fucking alien, but he doesn't really mean that (really? does he?) what he wants is the Doctor inside him, no room for anything else, what he wants is to know why, what he wants Jack reeks of time the Doctor thinks suddenly, so much time too much "Kiss me," Jack tells him, kill me fix me How? Are you broken?

Jack walks away.

*

It gets later.

*

It becomes quiet.

*

He knows. He knows I'm watching.

Jack sits and barely moves and the knowledge of it is clear on his face. The Doctor thinks, He knows I'm watching him. Let him do what he wants. Doesn't know what to do but watch. Nine hundred years, more than that - all this time and I don't know what to -

All this time.

Jack, he thinks, watching him on the screen, smells of too much time. He shudders for a moment, wants to lean closer, taste the heat of him again - can't, on the screen, just watching: watch him - and thinks instead of the smell of him. Like time. Like light and distance and time and like, he thinks suddenly, my ship.

Jack smells of time and my ship; my ship, which is time.

Jack knows I'm watching him.

He knows.

Which is why when he stands suddenly with the gun antique revolver pistol and looks at me but he knows I'm watching pulls the trigger, the Doctor sees him fall see him fall and watches stopped stunned for long moments before he can turn and run out of the room to him.

*

The blood is wet but he's standing again. For long moments before he pulled the trigger he wondered if this time it wouldn't hurt; if this time it would be the last time; if the Doctor would come to him, before, or after.

It does. It isn't. He does, running after.

The two men regard each other. There is so much to say.

*

The Doctor touches the blood on him to taste its heat and salt and time. Wipes it away. Holds him and explains.

Rose. The TARDIS.
The heart of the TARDIS, open; the power in her - through her - it changed all of them. Little bad wolf, she saved them all and he had to save her, she was (is) only human. She saved them, even him, even Jack.
And the Doctor died. Again.
And so did Jack. The first time.

*

"Can you fix me?"

"I don't know." Do I want to? But: "I can try. If you want."

Want, Jack thinks, what do I want? "I want there to be something after, something between. Something else. I want it not to hurt."

"It does hurt, Jack. Every time."

Time. Yes. And I want this Jack thinks. Reaches, finds him. Closer. "I want - " kisses him, eyes open, and the Doctor thinks yes, for now and doesn't look any further, not this time. Jack kisses him and "You are not broken," the Doctor tells him, and there is nothing after or between. The Doctor kisses him back, they breathe each other in, reach further and closer and there is all that was and there is all that ever could be but there is also this and what is there to say?

Fic Name: Lesson
Rating: PG-13 for some implied smut. And one weensy little curse word.
Prompt: #88 - Control
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Summary: Everyone has squicks - even the TARDIS.
Spoilers: Not a one.
Notes: A truly silly little fic written for the doctorwho_100 challenge. (Prompt chart is here.) Also partly inspired by the latest o_b_b challenge (though it didn't turn out to quite follow directions there, as it happened ... ) and x-posted to dwfiction.

LESSON

The more she thought about it, the more it pissed her off. I have sensors, she brooded crossly. I have screens and readouts - I'm telepathic, for fuck's sake. If he wants to know how I'm feeling, all he has to do is ask me.

But the licking has got to stop.

It wasn't that she didn't appreciate the Doctor's ... eccentricities. Some could be quite fun indeed, and after ten regenerations she'd experienced enough of them to fill a ledger. (Ooh, now that's a thought, she mused, a tell-all book! Serve him right if everyone in the universe knew what a tosser he can be sometimes. 'My Life With the Time Lord' - no, that'd never sell - 'Time Lord of My Heart,' then. Something nice and smutty. )

And is it really so unreasonable, she thought, one bloody request? It's not like I'm the only one. Turlough had that thing about feet, Sarah Jane always wanted the lights on, you couldn't get near Adric with a tub of clotted cream, Ace got very peculiar about that jacket ... just about the only one who had never raised a single objection to anything was Jack. (A flush crept up her wall panels as she remembered one time in particular: Jack working late to repair a fault in her heating system, stripped to the waist and buried under her console - now there was a human who really appreciated technology. So few of them could.)

The problem, she reflected, was that every time she asked the Doctor to stop, he thought she was being coy; and flat-out telling him to knock it off just turned him on more. Obsessed, he is - which, she did have to admit, was rather flattering. After nine hundred years together the spark was still there - hells, this regeneration is so frisky, it's practically a full-on conflagration. She shivered pleasantly. It'd be perfect, if only he could keep his tongue in his mouth for ten minutes.

She'd tried everything.

Recalling his eighth regeneration's fastidiousness about clothing she'd contrived to hide the wardrobe from the Doctor for a week, leaving him with nothing but one of Romana's frillier leftover dresses - which backfired so spectacularly that even after she'd given up and let him back into the wardrobe he'd kept on wearing it for a full fortnight, even adding a smart hat and handbag for a state dinner on Golobus.

His fifth regeneration might not have liked seeing himself on vid screens, but once she'd turned them on, she'd not been able to pry this one away from the monitors. Eventually she'd had to disable the feeds in his quarters, the control room, the galley, the pool, thirteen corridors, the library, all of the showers, and both machine gantries.

And she'd learned the hard (though fun) way that he didn't share his fourth regeneration's aversion to forceful restraint, or his seventh's to raspberries, or his ninth's to pain.

Nothing seemed to work.

But she'd be damned if she was going to go though the rest of time with patches of damp on her walls and constant slobber all over her console. She hummed angrily and checked the external sensors. Had enough? she thought smugly. Outside, ankle-deep in slush, the Doctor nodded miserably, freezing rain sluicing over him and dripping off the end of his nose.

Learned your lesson, then?

"Y-y-yessss," he muttered through chattering teeth.

Right, then, she though, and unlocked the doors. The Doctor squelched damply inside. Sorry it had to come to this, she thought at him, but you just wouldn't listen to me. Are we square now?

"Yes."

And no more drooling all over my dials or lapping the walls?

He nodded contritely and shivered. She knocked the temperature up a few degrees and thought Okay. Go take a nice hot bath, then, right? He nodded again and, shoulders slumped, shuffled defeatedly towards the corridor. He stopped at the doorway.

And looked up, a wicked gleam in his eye. Oh no you don't, she thought. He grinned.

Slowly, deliberately, and with infinite pleasure, the Doctor ran his tongue along the doorframe and, whistling, strode out of the room.

Fic Name: Here
Rating: Oh, well, let's call it R. For the Doctardist smut.
Prompt: #78 - Where?
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Spoilers: Not a one.
Notes: Written for the doctorwho_100 challenge, and sort of a sequel to (or the logical extension of) Keys.
Prompt chart is here.
(And oh, I should so be doing other things right now.)

***

There is one spot in particular.

Where the two plates meet.

He runs a finger down the seam, finds the gap. Slips a hand inside.

Wires brush against his fingers, sending shivers up his arm and making his hearts beat faster. He smells electricity, time. The metal hums; he runs his tongue across it, purring at its exquisite heat. The humming grows louder. He reaches further inside, up to his shoulder now, his fingers searching gently, deliberately.

He finds it.

It takes only the slightest touch of his fingers against the metal.

And the ship shivers and rocks with him.

Fic Name: Forms
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: G
Prompt: #6 - Hours
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Spoilers: Not a one.
Notes: Written for the doctorwho_100 challenge. (Prompt chart is here.) Also X-posted to 10thdoctor
• Fic happens when you and a friend spend 4 hours trying to get her car out of a NYC impound lot ... (And it's slightly off-topic, but it still appalls me: $20 for the taxi to the impound lot; $250 to get the car out of impound; $50 extra for the 'one-day storage fee'- because we passed midnight while waiting in line - and $150 for the parking ticket that they put on the car apparently while it was being towed. It's one hell of a racket.)



FORMS

"Next."

"Ah, yes, hello. Can you tell me - "

"Forms, please."

"I'm sorry?"

"I need your forms."

"My what?"

The woman in the cubbyhole sighed and tapped on the glass between them. "See this sign?" she asked.

"Yes, but - "

"What's it say?"

The Doctor leaned back to read the hand-written sign taped to the partition. "It says 'Have forms ready before coming to window' - coming should only have one 'm,' by the way - 'or you will be asked to step behind the line.'"

"Well?"

The Doctor blinked at her. "I ... have no idea what that means." The woman rolled her eyes and slumped in her seat.

"It means," she huffed, "that if you don't got the forms filled out and hand them to me, then you're gonna have to go and get them. And you gotta wait in line again."

"Oh! I see. So it should really say 'You will be asked to step to the back of the line,' then, shouldn't it? You see, it's a bit confusing - 'behind' seems to imply that there's some sort of actual line, you know, drawn on the floor or something, not a line of people, which is - "

"Sir?"

"Yes."

"You got your forms?"

"Er, no."

"Then get out of the line."

***

"Next."

"Hullo, me again! I'm sorry, but can you just tell me - "

"Forms please."

"Yes, well, I have a question about that, you see - "

"Are your forms filled out?"

"That's what I need to ask you about. I don't think this is what I'm meant to bring you."

"Is it yellow?"

The Doctor regarded the paper in his hand.

"Rather mustardy, I'd say, yes."

Expressionless, the woman stared at him through the glass. "Is it yellow?" she repeated.

Three dozen possible replies went through his mind before the Doctor settled on a diplomatic "Yes."

"Then that's the form. You got to get out of the line to fill it out."

"I have a question about the form," he said tersely.

The woman jerked a thumb towards the wall to the left of her cubbyhole. "See that sign?"

The Doctor's eyes flicked briefly to the side and back. "Yes," he hissed.

"What's it say?"

"It says," he said through clenched teeth, "'Si vez algo, di algo.' I'm not sure how that's meant to help me."

"Not that one, the other sign."

"There is no other sign."

"Yes there is."

"No, there isn't, that's the only one. Look - "

"Lorraine!" The Doctor jumped as the woman bellowed suddenly over her shoulder. A voice came from somewhere in the depths behind the cubbyhole.

"What?"

"They take the sign down?"

"What sign?"

"The one says you got questions, go to the window on the end!"

"Fell down."

"What?"

"The sign fell down."

"Oh, right." She turned back to him. "The sign - "

"Fell down, yes, I heard. Look, all I need to know - "

"Sir?"

"Yes."

"You got a question about the forms?"

"Yes, I have."

"Then you got to go to the window on the end."

***

"Next."

The Doctor stepped calmly to the window. "Hello," he said.

The woman opened her mouth to speak.

"Before you ask," he interrupted, "I haven't got any forms. And before you tell me to get out of the line, or to go to the window on the end - I have already been to the window on the end. Twice. The gentleman there - Derek, I believe his name was - seems to have worked it all out: There are no forms for what I need." The woman stared at him, speechless. "I know, it's astonishing, isn't it?" The Doctor nodded amiably. "Nowhere in the entire city of New York does there exist a form for what I am attempting to do!" He leaned casually on the tiny lip protruding from the cubbyhole and peered at her through the circular hole cut into the glass. "What's your name, then?"

She gestured weakly towards a small sign propped on the countertop of her cubby and continued to stare at him, slack-jawed.

"Margaret. Lovely to meet you, Margaret. Do you know Derek, over on the end? Look," he said, standing straight and regarding her through the glass once more, "the problem is this. All the forms are concerned with retrieving one's car from the impound lot, yes?" Margaret nodded. "Yes. But I am not trying to retrieve a car from the impound lot, am I?"

She shrugged feebly. The Doctor continued.

"No, Margaret, I am not. What I am trying to retrieve from the impound lot is not at all a car. So when the form calls, for example, for a license number - I haven't got that. When it calls for 'make' and 'model' and the like, I haven't got that. All I've got is the colour: blue. Even the space for 'address' presents some significant problems. Now, Margaret, I've spent seven and a half hours here. Seven and a half hours. That's a very long time - I'm a Time Lord, and it's still a long time, right? So - "

"What?" The voice called from the depths of the cubbyhole again. Margaret, staring forward catatonically, gave no response. The Doctor peered through the glass into the darkness behind her.

"Lorraine?" he called.

"What'd you say?"

"Er - I said I'm not looking for a car. It's more a sort of a blue box - "

"After that!"

"I've been here for seven and a half hours?"

"After! You say you're a Time Lord?"

"Oh, ha - no, that's just a bit of a joke, never mind that, but if you could - "

"Sir?"

"Yes."

"Are you a Time Lord?"

"Oh. Well, yes."

"Step out of the line."

***

The creature that opened the door was squat, blue, and covered in a thick, scaly skin. It wore black trainers on its tiny feet and an I heart NY cap on its bulbous head. It ushered the Doctor in and offered him a rubbery flipper to shake.

"Pleased to meet you! Never had a Time Lord through here before - be honest with you, I thought you was all gone. Call me Lorraine."

"Hello, I'm the Doctor. You're a ... Traylax, aren't you?"

"Yep. We been on this planet - oh, about three-four hundred years now. That right, Jake?" A second creature, squatter even than Lorraine and sporting a dark double-breasted suit, had entered the room.

"Don't remind me," it said. "I was just a pod when we got here!"

"You're still a kid, Jake." Lorraine turned to the Doctor. "Don't let the expensive suit fool you - Jake's got a meeting with the mayor this afternoon, he don't usually look this nice. Come on through to my office, we'll get you outta here in no time." The Doctor followed her into a florescent-lit space crisscrossed with a labyrinth of cubicles. Lorraine gestured to the other Traylax at desks and counters around the room. "We're pretty casual around here, as you can see. We don't make the humans dress up out front, don't make much sense we gotta dress up back here, huh? Here we are." She led the Doctor into an office decorated with crayon drawings and macaroni sculptures, waved him into a chair and pointed a flipper towards a photo on the desk. "My kids. Buncha artists, all of 'em."

The Doctor inspected the photo of a smiling Lorraine and two other adults, surrounded by thirty-odd pale, egg-shaped lumps, each with rudimentary arms and faces in various stages of development. "That's me and my wife Jennifer, in the middle there, and our husband Albert."

"Handsome family," the Doctor said, replacing the photo on the desk.

"Thanks. Allrighty, lemmie get the computer fired up and see what we can do here."

"Cheers. So ... what exactly are you doing here on Earth?"

"Oh, well, unemployment on Traxis was getting pretty bad a while back, so a bunch of us headed off to look for work. Turns out there's a big demand for our skills in most major American cities - has been for centuries."

"Really? Now you see, I'd have thought they could do with rather less paperwork and bureaucracy, not more ... no offence, of course."

"None taken. Nah, what we do, we keep things running slow, otherwise these places, they just get out of control. Imagine the amount of trouble eight million people could get into, they didn't have to wait in line at the DMV for five hours." She squinted at the computer screen. "Allright. Size of vehicle?"

"Outside or inside?"

Lorraine glanced at him over the machine. "Please, I know how you fellas travel - outside is fine."

"About twelve foot high, six foot wide, six deep. Do you run the whole city, then?"

"Nope. Only place needs that kinda slowing down is Detroit. We took over everything there - oh, about a hundred years ago, now. Here we mostly handle Motor Vehicles, Public Works, bits of the school system - admin, mostly ... okay, that should do it. Lot 51, where we usually stick the out-of-towners. I'll take you there now."

***

The lift opened on an underground parking garage. The Doctor and Lorraine walked past rows of spacecraft, many covered in a thick layer of dust. "Some of these things been here for years. It's amazing what people'll junk in this city ... here we are. That yours?" The TARDIS stood in a yellow-lined space marked K-10. Stencilled onto the wall behind it were the words "Compact Vehicles Only".

"That's it." The Doctor reached into his pocket for the key, unlocked the door, and turned back to Lorraine. "Thanks for all your help. You're doing a fantastic job, by the way - seven and a half hours, and I had barely gotten anywhere!" he said admiringly. Lorraine smiled modestly and waved a flipper.

"Just doing our job."

The Doctor paused on his way into the TARDIS. "Oh, and Margaret - I'm afraid I may have, you know, melted her brain just a bit ... "

"No worries. Humans are pretty resilient. We'll take care of her; that's why they invented overtime," she laughed.

"Ha. Well, okay. Thanks again."

"No problem. Hey, Doctor - " He stuck his head out of the door and regarded the squat blue creature. "Next time you're in New York, and the sign says 'No Parking' ... it means no parking."

Title: Heartless
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ten, TARDIS, Ianto
Rating: NC-17 (Part 1); PG-13 (Parts 2-4)
Spoilers: Maybe a bit for "Doomsday," obliquely.
Summary: Finding and losing.
Notes: Finally finished, and I'm scandalised at how long the final chapter took me to write (well, re-write, about 15 times). Still not entirely convinced that rewrite #16 was right, ultimately, so please let me know how it feels.

*Also part of my doctorwho_100 challenge ... because how could it not be? Prompt # 17: Blue (Prompt chart is here.)

(Part One)
(Part Two)
(Part Three)

Part Four

He knew he shouldn't have been there. It was entirely his own fault, Ianto reflected, leaning against Jack's desk in the sudden quiet after they left. I should have excused myself, he thought. I should have said, 'Always nice to meet an old friend of the Captain, we've certainly enjoyed baby-sitting your - ship, is it? How very odd. Well, do drop in again, and Jack, I'll be downstairs if you need me.' I should have gone for coffee. I should have walked out.

Ianto sighed.

I should have walked away. The minute he walked in. I meant to - I would have done but ...

"Coming home, then?" the man had asked, and the Captain had frozen. It was the look in Jack's eyes, Ianto had to admit it, that had made him linger discreetly next to the filing cabinet and watch and listen and try to understand. The woman had stepped into the stranger's embrace, and over her head the man met Jack's gaze.

"You're alive," he said to Jack, and Ianto wondered briefly at the shock and the joy in the man's voice.

Jack looked at him silently, distrust, anger, desire glittering in his eyes. "You're ... different," he said finally. The man had smiled, held Jack's gaze a moment longer, and looked down at the woman in his arms.

"And you're ... hmmm," he trailed off and regarded her. "Is this really what I thought you'd look like?"

"A bit," she answered. "I did have some say in it."

He ran his hand lightly across her cheek, coiled a tendril of hair around his finger. "And you decided to be ginger all on your own, then?" he asked.

She laughed. "Doctor! You're not jealous of your own ship?" He grinned at her, tilted her face up to his own, and kissed her hungrily. Ianto had watched Jack watch them, hovering protectively - though whether Jack was being protective of the woman or of this Doctor, Ianto couldn't have said.

They parted and the Doctor smiled down at her. "Let's get you home." He looked to Jack and reached to him. "Coming?"

Jack said nothing, his eyes veiled, and the Doctor withdrew the hand, covering his - was it embarrassment? The man had been so difficult to read, he seemed to be doing three different things at once even while just standing there, and Ianto hadn't been able to tell exactly what he was thinking - but he had stepped away, arms crossed, rocking back on his heels, and nodded towards the woman.

"Let's get her back to the TARDIS," he said. "After that, we'll sort all the rest of this out, all right?"

"The rest? The rest of what, exactly?"

"Well, for instance - your not being dead."

"And your apparently being the Doctor, somehow? Can we talk about that, too?"

"It's him, Jack," the woman said. "You know it is. He regenerated. It's what - "

"It's what Time Lords do, yeah," Jack interrupted. Ianto pressed further back against the wall as Jack turned and grabbed his greatcoat off the back of a chair. "You might have said something before now, though. About how he's an entirely different person and all."

"I'm not," the Doctor insisted. "It's still me. Well, mostly. Same memories, same man ... different teeth, though. And more hair," he added thoughtfully, as Jack shrugged into his coat.

"That's kind of the point, that whole different-teeth-more-hair thing. She could have at least told me!"

"It didn't occur to me," the woman said. "Physical appearance never mattered, Jack, I'm a ship, how would I possibly - " Jack glared at her in frustration. "He's still the same Doctor you fell in love with!" she said, exasperated. Eyes widening in embarrassment, Jack strode out of the office without a backward glance, the woman hurrying after him.

Ianto had waited, heart pounding miserably, as the Doctor turned and met his eyes with an even, quiet gaze. Ianto opened his mouth to say - something, anything, he had no idea what, exactly, he had been going to say - when suddenly the woman's voice had echoed in from the Hub:

"Well what does it matter anyway? He's still in love with you!"

The Doctor grinned briefly at Ianto and broke into a run after them.

Alone in the office, Ianto leaned against Jack's desk and sighed. It's my own fault, he thought. I should have walked away.

***

The TARDIS was the same, at least: a ridiculous, beautiful blue box parked incongruously in the shadow of the Millennium Centre. Jack traced the letters of the sign tacked to its battered door. 'Advice and assistance obtainable immediately,' he read ironically. Except it wasn't quite 'immediately,' was it? More like a couple lifetimes ... He glanced back at the Doctor, standing nearby with his arm around Blue, both of them watching Jack with identically unreadable expressions. Wordlessly, Blue glanced at the pocket of Jack's coat as he reached automatically for the key that was still - was always - inside. The small bit of metal was warm to his touch. Jack turned back to the ship, slipped the key in the lock, and pushed open the door.

His heart pounded as he stood for a moment, simply staring. Then with a whoop of joy he bounded inside and up the ramp, feeling the ship surround him like an embrace. Yes, he thought, it's right - this is right, turning back to the door as Blue stepped inside.

"Oh," she whispered, gazing about unblinkingly.

The Doctor ambled up behind her, slipping his arms around her waist, and leaned his chin on her shoulder. "How's it look from this side?" he asked softly, looking up with her to the vast ceiling of the control room. She considered.

"Small," she said finally.

"Small! What do you mean, small?"

"Well ... It's bigger from the inside."

He gaped at her, speechless, as Jack burst out laughing. "And I'll thank you to keep quiet, Captain!" the Doctor grinned across at him. Jack felt the breath catch in his throat at the too-familiar look in the strange brown eyes, and turned away to run a hand over the ship's console.

"You found us," Blue murmured to the Doctor, reaching up to pull him close, whispering to him with her lips against his. I found you. They spoke wordlessly, soundlessly, kissed desperately, still reaching for one another and the Doctor felt his hearts pounding as he held her impossibly closer and looked into the wide grey unblinking eyes. Don't leave me alone again, he told her. Ever.

Don't lose me again.

Never, he promised. I can't do this without you. Don't want to. You're all I have - he felt her smile and maybe, she told him, maybe we'll always be alone and maybe we're all we'll ever have and maybe that's the way but maybe -

Maybe.

From across the room Jack felt their gaze and turned to them; from across the room she looked into his eyes and stretched her hand to him. Almost unconsciously he stepped towards her.

A moment later she was gone.

***

"There you are."

Startled, Ianto looked up suddenly, the cups he'd been holding clattering into the sink. Jack grimaced guiltily and stepped into the narrow galley kitchen. "Sorry, didn't mean to sneak up on you," he said. "Let me get those."

"No, you - you don't have to, it's fine."

"Really. I don't mind," he insisted, turning on the tap. "Hand me the soap?" Wordlessly Ianto passed him the bottle. Jack squirted pink liquid into the sink and watched the suds rise. "Hey," he chuckled suddenly, "remember that night we hosed out the cells and accidentally filled one with bubbles? I don't think I've ever been that clean and that dirty at the same time in my life ... " He caught Ianto's eye and trailed off, turned back to the sink and busied himself with the washing up.

"So," Ianto asked carefully, rolling down his sleeves, "is everything ... cleared up?"

Jack flicked a glance at him and nodded. "All settled."

"Good." He took his suit jacket from a hook on the wall and brushed off an invisible bit of fluff. "That's good. Oh, while you were gone yesterday Owen finally finished dissecting that Chelonian we've had in the freezer for the last six months. I'm sure he'll get the report done sometime in the next six months, just as soon as he's finished the three dozen or so other ones he's yet to get to. And the security updates went through; everything seems to be working so far, although there's apparently a concern that the cameras on level five could short out if we get a power surge - "

"Ianto. Look at me."

"Captain?"

Jack sighed and shook the suds off his hands. "I need to talk to you. I have to explain something."

He stared back levelly, thinking, Don't explain. I know. Don't talk, don't tell me, I don't want to hear it. "Of course, Captain."

"Stop with the captain bullshit, Ianto, it's me. I have to explain - " Jack stopped, raked a wet hand through his hair, and looked up into his eyes. "I'm going," he said simply. "I'm going away. I've already told the others. I'll be gone for a while, maybe for good, I don't know. But ... I'm leaving." His blue eyes were so very clear and bright - Ianto reached to brush a stray soap sud from Jack's hair, nodded slowly, ran his fingers gently along Jack's cheek. Sighed.

"With him," he said quietly. "With that - Doctor." Jack nodded. "He's it, he's what you've been looking for all this time. Isn't he?" Jack nodded again. "Then there's nothing to explain. It's right." Lightly, he traced Jack's lips with his fingertips. "You haven't seemed this calm in .... well, ever. It's right, Jack. Most people don't find what they're looking for. When you do - "

"You have to go with it."

"Yes."

Jack reached for him, drew him close. "You'll find it too," he whispered. "Whatever it is."

"I already did. More than once, in fact."

"Then it can happen again."

"Jack." Ianto smiled. "Kiss me goodbye."

***

The Doctor was waiting for him alone in the control room.

Not alone. Jack could feel her everywhere: the heart of the ship beat around them, the TARDIS throbbed with life, and as the Doctor glanced up at him he read fullness and contentment in his warm brown eyes. Jack crossed to stand beside him, resting his fingers lightly on the ship's console.

"You came back," the Doctor said.

"So did you."

His hand closed over Jack's and for a moment they stood, bathed in the liquid green glow of the time rotor. Jack closed his eyes, feeling the deep mechanical thrum beneath his palms and the Doctor's hand, cool and strong, on his. He breathed in slowly and opened his eyes to find the Doctor beaming at him. Jack grinned and reached to him, pulling him close, feeling the new body in his arms, unfamiliar and comforting, the two hearts beating against his chest.

"Doctor," he whispered.

"Captain."

"I guess ... we have some catching up to do."

"We do," the Doctor murmured, finding Jack's lips with his own, "and plenty of time to do it in, too."

Soundlessly, gently, the heart of the TARDIS beat around them.

Fic Name: always
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: Oh, well, let's say PG? PG-13?
Prompt: #4 - Insides
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Spoilers: Not a one.
Notes: Written for the doctorwho_100 challenge. (Prompt chart is here.)
I make no apologies for the stream-of-consciousness and lack of punctuation, but stand by my pretentiousness - beret in hand and artflag flying.
I am, however, sorry for the rather obvious title.

***

is this what it's like to carry a child? two heartbeats inside and sometimes more but always those, always his, always. mother father which would i be and is it possible to be all at once parent and child and lover to each other as well?

he was there when i was born no memory but for him, there, always.

inside me he has been reborn so many times.

hands mind tongue heartbeats eyes on me inside me and always I can feel his blood his hearts and though he’s different to them he will always be to me

always

Fic Name: Keys
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: Depends on your imagination. But let's say, G.
Prompt: #38 - Touch
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Spoilers: Not a one.
Written for the doctorwho_100 challenge. (Prompt chart is here.)

***

He doesn't need a key.

He has one, of course; he carries it with him, slips his hand into his pocket from time to time to run his thumb along its edge, to feel its grooves and ridges, the metal warming between his fingers as he strokes it. The smell of it lingers on his fingertips. Like her, it tastes of iron and electricity, of heat and salt and time. The key is always there, in his pocket, in his hand – a small sweet bit of her, always close.

But he doesn't need a key. She'll always open for him.

Fic Name: The Comedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: G
Prompt: #49 - History
Claim: Ten/Tardis
Spoilers: Act 1 of Hamlet. No, really.
Written for the doctorwho_100 challenge. (My chart is here.) Total lunacy, I'm afraid; but as I'm (almost) as much of a fangirl for the Bard as I am for the Doctor, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened ...

***

Barbara -

Would you or some of the other folks at the Shakes. Centre have a look at this and let us know what you think? It's a copy of something we just found in the vaults. The paper & ink have been positively dated to 1598, and the handwriting matches that of the established manuscripts in the collection. It was found with an attached note - also positively dated to 1599, but apparently written in what appears to be blue biro - reading: "Dear Will - Love the new play (and am terribly flattered to have had some small hand in it); but I feel it lacks a certain gravitas. Maybe it's not meant to be a comedy after all? Just a thought ... Oh, and remind me to tell you a fantastic ghost story I heard next time I stop by. Ta! - D. "

It's got the entire staff here in a bit of a state.

See you at the conference in September.
Best,
Dennis

THE COMEDIE OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK

Act 1, Scene I. Elsinore. A platform before the castle.
Francisco at his post. Enter to him Bernado

BERNARDO
'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO
For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.

BERNARDO
Have you had quiet guard?

FRANCISCO
Not a mouse stirring.

BERNARDO
Well, good night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

FRANCISCO
I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?

Enter Horatio and Marcellus

HORATIO
Friends to this ground.

FRANCISCO
Give you good night.

MARCELLUS
O, farewell, honest soldier.

Exit Francisco

BERNARDO
Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.

MARCELLUS
What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?

BERNARDO
I have seen nothing.

MARCELLUS
Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
And will not let belief take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us:
Therefore I have entreated him along
With us to watch the minutes of this night;
That if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

HORATIO
Well, sit we down,
And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

BERNARDO
Last night of all,
When yond same star that's westward from the pole
Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one,--

Enter TARDIS

MARCELLUS
Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

BERNARDO
In the same figure, like an azure cabinet.

MARCELLUS
Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

BERNARDO
Looks it not like a casket? mark it, Horatio.

HORATIO
Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.

BERNARDO
It would be spoke to.

MARCELLUS
Question it, Horatio.

HORATIO
What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
Together with that blue and wooden form
Which hovers there twixt sky and earth
Held up by unseen hand? by heaven I charge thee, speak!

MARCELLUS
It is offended.

BERNARDO
See, it stalks away!

HORATIO
Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

Exit TARDIS

MARCELLUS
'Tis gone, and will not answer.

BERNARDO
How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale:
Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on't?

HORATIO
Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.

MARCELLUS
Is it not like a credenza made of wood?

HORATIO
As thou art to thyself:
And yet it is not in my ken
That such appointments of furnishing
Should, wailing music ne'er heard by ears of men,
Be poiséd thus upon the icy air.
'Tis strange.

MARCELLUS
Thus twice before, and just at this dead hour,
With shriekings strange hath it flown by our watch.

HORATIO
In what particular thought to work I know not;
But in the gross and scope of my opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

BERNARDO
I think it be no other but e'en so:
Well may it sort that this portentous figure
Hovers through our watch; so unlike any thing
That is and has been seen beneath these skies.

HORATIO
A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!

Re-enter TARDIS

I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me:
If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
Speak to me:

Cock crows

If thou art privy to any ill fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.

MARCELLUS
Shall I strike at it with my sword?

HORATIO
Do, if it will not stand.

BERNARDO
'Tis here!

HORATIO
'Tis here!

MARCELLUS
'Tis gone!

Exit TARDIS

We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence;
For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.

BERNARDO
It was about to land to ground, when the cock crew.

HORATIO
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill:
Break we our watch up; and by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen to-night
Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

MARCELLUS
Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most conveniently.

Exeunt

***

Act 1, SCENE IV. The platform.
Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus

HAMLET
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

HORATIO
It is a nipping and an eager air.

HAMLET
What hour now?

HORATIO
I think it lacks of twelve.

HAMLET
No, it is struck.

HORATIO
Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season
Wherein the apparition was wont to appear.
Look, my lord, it comes!

Enter TARDIS

HAMLET
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee: I'll bid thee land,
Casket, cabinet, box: O, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance; but see
Where this cerulean spectre touches to the ground!
Its portals burst open; and the receptacle
Disgorges a figure upon the night. What may this mean,
That thou, illusion, clad in mantle brown
Step thus forth upon these battlements
And fixing me with steady gaze, with cockéd brow,
Seems't to find amusement in this scene.
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?

Doctor beckons Hamlet

HORATIO
He beckons you to go away with him,
As if he some impartment did desire
To you alone.

MARCELLUS
Look, with what courteous action
He waves you to a more removed ground:
But do not go with him.

HAMLET
He will not speak; then I will follow him.

HORATIO
Do not, my lord.

HAMLET
Why, what should be the fear?
He waves me forth again: I'll follow him.

HORATIO
What if he tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness?

DOCTOR
What do you takes't me for? Hamlet, gets't thou cracking.

HAMLET
He waves me still.
Go on; I'll follow thee.

MARCELLUS
You shall not go, my lord.

HAMLET
Hold off your hands.

HORATIO
Be ruled; you shall not go.

HAMLET
My fate cries out; still am I call'd.
Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee.

Exeunt Doctor and Hamlet

HORATIO
He waxes desperate with imagination.

MARCELLUS
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

HORATIO
Heaven will direct it.

MARCELLUS
Nay, let's follow him.

Exeunt

***

Act 1, SCENE V. Another part of the platform.
Enter Doctor and Hamlet

HAMLET
Where wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll go no further
Until I know how you be called.

DOCTOR
Call me the Doctor.

HAMLET
Gladly, O Physician.

DOCTOR
Nay, just the Doctor will be fine.
I must speak quickly and may not linger here.

HAMLET
Alas, poor spectre! Is the time so short
Wherein you may walk upon the earth?

DOCTOR
Not a bit of it. I'm freezing my tits off
And within yon ship, my tea is getting cold.
Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.

HAMLET
Speak; I am bound to hear.

DOCTOR
So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

HAMLET
What?

DOCTOR
O look, sorry, that was a bit dramatic,
Was it not?
And all this hovering and disappearing
Night after endless night, was not in my intent;
But that the TARDIS did refuse again to shew
The date exact, that I might know correct -
Well, 'tis a long story. Mind you,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would gobsmack thee, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine:
Do you even have porpentines in Denmark?
Never mind. List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love--

HAMLET
O God!

DOCTOR
What? O yes, if you like. But of thy father:
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

HAMLET
Murder!

DOCTOR
That is what I said.
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange and unnatural.
You're not going to believe this one.

HAMLET
Haste me to know't, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love,
May sweep to my revenge.

DOCTOR
Good lad;
But first, know that I advocate not revenge
In general sense. It can make a right mess of things -
Hast thou ever been to Sicily? Well then, that's my point.
But this is such a bloody mess - or anyway, 'tis going to be;
And someone must get the ball rolling, so to speak. Hence:
Here I am. Beside which, thy father was a friend of mine.
Now, Hamlet, hear:
'Tis given out that, sleeping in his orchard,
A serpent stung thy father; but know, thou clever boy,
The serpent that did sting thy father's life
Now wears his crown.

HAMLET
O my prophetic soul! My uncle!

DOCTOR
Got it in one. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
Had for some time past
Been having it off with your mum.
It was killing thy father - at least that's what he said
When from time to time I did pop round
For a cup of tea. Ironic, really, shoulds't thou think of it;
When to say it later, he really did kill him ...
But, soft! it's not half freezing out here;
Brief let me be. Sleeping within his orchard one afternoon -
The which must I confess was part my fault,
As we had carouséd rather late the night before,
And had raised a few too many goblets of wine;
But as I was saying to thee,
Upon that secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial -
Which is a sort of poisonous ferment of leaves of yew,
Called Taxus baccata of the conifers.
Quite clever, really, for it was near to hand;
Not to mention poetic, oft uséd as it is
To decorate the graves of the dead.
Thine uncle might be a right bastard, but he does do it up right
You must admit.
Where was I? Ah, yes.
In the porches of thy father's ears thine uncle did pour
The foul poison; whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courséd through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And drop't him like a stone.
Thus was thy father the king, sleeping, by a brother's hand
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd.
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
Really, truly just absolutely horribly horrible.
If I were thee, I would put up with it not;
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest,
As it really does make the whole country look bad.
Now fare thee well at once!
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And I can't feel my fingers, it's so bloody cold out here.
Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.

Exit

HAMLET
O all you host of heaven! O earth! what else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, hold, my heart;
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee!
Ay, thou Doctor, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records;
See with the eye of my mind
Naught but thy hovering indigo crate -
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix'd with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman! -

Re-enter Doctor

DOCTOR
Right, sorry, one more thing.
I know you're mad at your mum
For shagging your uncle -
And who wouldn't be, really?
But don't you go killing her over this or anything.
She had nothing to do with murdering your da,
And you know how these things go:
She's got to be feeling pretty rotten about all of it,
Now that he's dead.
Best to leave her alone, then, and just stick to getting back at your uncle,
As he's the real villain in the case.
All right, that's all, I'll be off. Best of luck to you -
Er, to thee. Adieu. And all that.
'Bye!

Exit

HAMLET
O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
Meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I'm sure it may be so in Denmark.
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
It is 'Adieu, adieu! remember me.'
I have sworn 't.

Prompt table for my doctorwho_100 fics.
My claim: Ten/TARDIS

( Caution: prompts lurking behind cut. )