fic post!
him in the clouds
by Branwyn
*
fandom: Doctor Who
rating: R (I really mean that)
summary: Jenny is looking for her father.
pairing: Master/Jenny, Master/Doctor
warning: there's no actual sex in the story, but there are incest themes.
notes: bit_of_muslin and angevin2 kindly did not disown me when I made them read pieces of this, and, as usual, lizbee validated my id.
lizbee: [upon reading the final draft] Okay, that works. It totally works.
cesario: But I'm totally going to hell, right?
lizbee: Yes. You really are.
*
She was never a child. She was born knowing too much. Her progenitor (father) would say that knowledge isn't wisdom, but when you're able to extrapolate from data the way she can, it's near enough. And of course her father (progenitor) is a brilliant man. Not just brilliant, different, and she can't judge which is cause and which is effect because even he isn't sure. He was always different, even when he took the perpetuation of the Gallifreyan genome quite for granted; she knows that because she's the same, deviancy is encoded in their DNA.
She dies; she comes back. She leaves Messaline to go looking for him. She has questions that only he can answer. What was their family like, why does she have the nagging feeling that her name ought to be several syllables longer than the one Donna gave her? What happened to me when I died? The universe is a big place, and he has all of time as well, but she'll find him. She's just as brilliant as he is. The time vortex (not its proper name, that's another thing she knows) sings to her in her sleep; she'll find her way there too, one day.
*
"I heard you were looking for me," he says while she's still climbing the ladder into the cockpit of the shuttle. He's sitting in the pilot's chair, legs crossed at the knee, fingers steepled. He's familiar, the way so many unknown things are familiar to her.
"Who are you?" she says, curious, excited. New people, new knowledge, there's nothing she loves more.
"Don't you know me, Jenny?" he says, and there's a faint note of injury in his voice.
She climbs up and in and takes a few steps toward him. "Here," he says. He uncrosses his legs, leans forward, closes a hand around her wrist-gently, the grip is loose, he's not a challenge, not a threat-and presses her palm to his heart.
And then to his other heart.
"Of course," he says softly, when her eyes widen, when she takes a step back. "There was no time to explain before. You don't know why I've changed."
There is compelling evidence in his favor. If she concentrates, she can hear the onetwothree-four beat of his hearts, throbbing in the air between them.
"Dad?" says Jenny.
His new eyes are dark, glittering, like razor blades in chocolate, and his wide, slow smile is full of teeth.
*
He takes her away to places she knows from dreams, places with ropes of syllables for names that glide easily from her tongue. He begins to teach her the language of their people. He is an excellent tutor, patient, logical, ready with praise. He gives her a new name, one she has genetic rights to. He only uses it in private and she does not share it with anyone.
When she asks, he tells her about Gallifrey. If she asked, she thinks he would tell her about the war. She doesn't ask. She wonders about the circumstances of his latest regeneration. He explains why hers was different. She wonders what happened to Donna and Martha. She doesn't ask immediately if they're okay. There's too much else she wants to know; she doesn't want him to leave again.
"We're so much alike, you and I," he tells her. "We belong together." But love is fragile; that's another thing she was born knowing.
*
The TARDIS is fond of Jenny; she can tell. The TARDIS is worried. She can tell that too.
The TARDIS is trying to tell her something, but Jenny is happy, and she isn't sure she wants to listen.
*
The first time they kiss, he hesitates.
They've outrun an exploding sun. The TARDIS carries them away to safety, and they lean against the console, panting and exhilarated, grinning at each other. He takes a step toward and cups her chin. There's a cut over her eye; he bends close, examining it. Then he presses his lips to her forehead. It's a pleasant sensation, new to her.
So she tilts her head back and wraps her arms around his neck, and for just a second he resists, holds her at a distance.
"This isn't what I..." he says. Then the uncertainty in his eyes gives way to something else, something bright and cold, like the sheen of ice over water, and he says, "but why not?"
Later, she will remember that he hesitated. It will help.
*
She has one troubling dream too many. Jenny rises from her bed and pads quietly into the console room. She engages the randomizer. If the TARDIS is trying to tell her something, then let it speak.
Seconds later he runs into the room and lunges for the console. The last time she saw that look on his face, someone had died. "No, no, no, no you don't," he snarls. Jenny flinches, but he isn't talking to her.
The TARDIS makes a noise like a contented sigh, and lands. The doors fly open.
"Jenny," he says, and she looks at him. The regret in his eyes is, for a second, infinite. She begins to feel afraid of what she has done.
Then she hears footsteps, someone running toward the TARDIS. She looks toward the door.
Jenny has been dead. The face staring back at her is whiter than that, and the look in its eyes says that life is the source of all pain.
*
The man she calls father lifts his chin. A flare of the nostrils follows, a twitch of the lip.
"Well, Doctor," he says, "aren't you going to say hello?"
He's speaking Gallifreyan. The Doctor's eyes fall on Jenny, shocked and wild. For the first time in her life, she's afraid she doesn't know enough.
"Where did you come from?" she says. "How is this possible? Any intersection of your past and future selves ought to destroy the balance of causality." She turns to the man behind her. "Why would the TARDIS bring us here? Wasn't it programmed with paradox failsafes?"
"Oh, yes," breathes the Doctor from the doorway. "But the overrides were engaged, about a year ago, and I never got around to rewriting them."
Jenny doesn't look back at him. He wears the face of a man she thought dead. "Dad?" she says, looking up at the man before her.
"Jenny, he is not your father!" The voice from behind her is almost a scream.
The man who is not her father ducks his head a little, the way he sometimes does to be nearer her ear. "Thing is, Jenny," he says, "I told you lots of things, didn't I? Well, only one of them was a lie."
He takes a step back, eyes on her almost to the last, and disappears in a flash of blinding light. Jenny blinks, trying to rid herself of the after-image. She has never seen the teleport device before. She wonders how he kept it hidden.
She doesn't turn to look, but she knows the Doctor is standing behind her. He came running because he thought, for a moment, that the other man would attack her. She had thought the same thing.
"Jenny." She can feel the Doctor's breath against her hair. "Jenny, I'm so sorry, I had no idea. I never would have let him hurt you."
She turns. She looks up at him. He reaches for her, then stops, as though afraid.
"Who was he, then?" she says.
The Doctor doesn't want to reply. She can tell by the way he draws back, draws into himself. A passing bitterness crosses his features.
"Friend of the family," he says, a twist to his mouth.
*
"Jenny."
The Doctor stands at the door of the bedroom she's claimed for her own. She hasn't looked round to see him, but she knows he's there. She can sense him from a distance. She had been able to sense the Master in the same way.
"Can I come in?" says the Doctor.
They have talked very little since meeting again. This is not his fault.
Uninvited, the Doctor sits on the corner of her bed. She can feel his eyes on her face. Her knees are pulled tight under her chin. She doesn't look at him.
"I know what you're feeling," he says, in an earnest, pleading voice. "I mean...I know it makes me a walking parental cliche, saying this, but honestly, I know-what he's like."
Jenny looks up.
"You can't help loving him, if he wants you to," says the Doctor. "You don't have to be ashamed."
Jenny flinches.
"When he stole the TARDIS, he told me exactly what he was going to do." The Doctor folded his knees and propped his elbows up on them. "He told me you were alive. He told me he was going to find you." A strained pause. "He didn't tell me what he meant to do when he found you, but then, he didn't have to. I know him, you see. Nothing he could threaten me with could be half as horrible as what I could imagine. He knew that."
Jenny closes her eyes.
"I won't ask," said the Doctor. "It's your business. But you could tell me, if you wanted."
Jenny shakes her head.
"Whatever you need, Jenny," says the Doctor. "I want to help."
Jenny gazes at the floor until he goes away.
*
She finds him later, and stands silently across the console from him until he looks up at her.
"I want to look for him," she says.
The Doctor straightens. Peers at her over the top of his glasses. There's a resignation in his eyes, like he's been waiting for this.
"That's what he wants," he tells her.
Jenny narrows her eyes.
"I know him," says the Doctor. "Why do you think he spent all that time with you, pretending to be me? I'll tell you. So that every time we look at each other, we see him."
She shuts her eyes. The look on his face is more than she wants to see. "I know that," she says. "It doesn't matter."
When she opens her eyes again, the Doctor is looking at her still.
"No," he says at last. "It doesn't, does it?"
*
The Master steps forward. He never betrays caution, but that doesn't mean he isn't on guard.
Jenny watches through a crack in the TARDIS doors as the Doctor comes out to meet him.
"Come to get me, Dad?" says the Master, sneering.
The Doctor says nothing.
"How is Jenny?" says the Master, with a tight smile that somehow betrays more for being so expressionless. "Give her a goodnight kiss for me?"
Jenny gives the door a nudge. It opens slowly. She steps out. The Master's face grows blank, but she sees the widening of his eyes.
The Doctor speaks.
"It's just us, now," he says, and Jenny thinks those words must mean more to the two men than is apparent to her. "No more games."
The Master looks from the Doctor, to Jenny, to the Doctor again. For a moment, immeasurably brief, she glimpses the depth of the longing that has driven them both to the brink of this across the ages, and she shudders.
"You don't mean this," the Master says at last. "I know you." His mouth twists. "You can't make anything last that's good."
Jenny takes a step forward. The Master looks at her, as though he has resisted doing so until now.
"Do you know me?" she says.
She reaches for his hand. The Doctor tenses, like he's waiting for lightning.
The Master looks down at her hand like he's not sure what it means. His grip is strong, just the same. Almost painful.
She doesn't mind.
*
by Branwyn
*
fandom: Doctor Who
rating: R (I really mean that)
summary: Jenny is looking for her father.
pairing: Master/Jenny, Master/Doctor
warning: there's no actual sex in the story, but there are incest themes.
notes: bit_of_muslin and angevin2 kindly did not disown me when I made them read pieces of this, and, as usual, lizbee validated my id.
lizbee: [upon reading the final draft] Okay, that works. It totally works.
cesario: But I'm totally going to hell, right?
lizbee: Yes. You really are.
*
She was never a child. She was born knowing too much. Her progenitor (father) would say that knowledge isn't wisdom, but when you're able to extrapolate from data the way she can, it's near enough. And of course her father (progenitor) is a brilliant man. Not just brilliant, different, and she can't judge which is cause and which is effect because even he isn't sure. He was always different, even when he took the perpetuation of the Gallifreyan genome quite for granted; she knows that because she's the same, deviancy is encoded in their DNA.
She dies; she comes back. She leaves Messaline to go looking for him. She has questions that only he can answer. What was their family like, why does she have the nagging feeling that her name ought to be several syllables longer than the one Donna gave her? What happened to me when I died? The universe is a big place, and he has all of time as well, but she'll find him. She's just as brilliant as he is. The time vortex (not its proper name, that's another thing she knows) sings to her in her sleep; she'll find her way there too, one day.
*
"I heard you were looking for me," he says while she's still climbing the ladder into the cockpit of the shuttle. He's sitting in the pilot's chair, legs crossed at the knee, fingers steepled. He's familiar, the way so many unknown things are familiar to her.
"Who are you?" she says, curious, excited. New people, new knowledge, there's nothing she loves more.
"Don't you know me, Jenny?" he says, and there's a faint note of injury in his voice.
She climbs up and in and takes a few steps toward him. "Here," he says. He uncrosses his legs, leans forward, closes a hand around her wrist-gently, the grip is loose, he's not a challenge, not a threat-and presses her palm to his heart.
And then to his other heart.
"Of course," he says softly, when her eyes widen, when she takes a step back. "There was no time to explain before. You don't know why I've changed."
There is compelling evidence in his favor. If she concentrates, she can hear the onetwothree-four beat of his hearts, throbbing in the air between them.
"Dad?" says Jenny.
His new eyes are dark, glittering, like razor blades in chocolate, and his wide, slow smile is full of teeth.
*
He takes her away to places she knows from dreams, places with ropes of syllables for names that glide easily from her tongue. He begins to teach her the language of their people. He is an excellent tutor, patient, logical, ready with praise. He gives her a new name, one she has genetic rights to. He only uses it in private and she does not share it with anyone.
When she asks, he tells her about Gallifrey. If she asked, she thinks he would tell her about the war. She doesn't ask. She wonders about the circumstances of his latest regeneration. He explains why hers was different. She wonders what happened to Donna and Martha. She doesn't ask immediately if they're okay. There's too much else she wants to know; she doesn't want him to leave again.
"We're so much alike, you and I," he tells her. "We belong together." But love is fragile; that's another thing she was born knowing.
*
The TARDIS is fond of Jenny; she can tell. The TARDIS is worried. She can tell that too.
The TARDIS is trying to tell her something, but Jenny is happy, and she isn't sure she wants to listen.
*
The first time they kiss, he hesitates.
They've outrun an exploding sun. The TARDIS carries them away to safety, and they lean against the console, panting and exhilarated, grinning at each other. He takes a step toward and cups her chin. There's a cut over her eye; he bends close, examining it. Then he presses his lips to her forehead. It's a pleasant sensation, new to her.
So she tilts her head back and wraps her arms around his neck, and for just a second he resists, holds her at a distance.
"This isn't what I..." he says. Then the uncertainty in his eyes gives way to something else, something bright and cold, like the sheen of ice over water, and he says, "but why not?"
Later, she will remember that he hesitated. It will help.
*
She has one troubling dream too many. Jenny rises from her bed and pads quietly into the console room. She engages the randomizer. If the TARDIS is trying to tell her something, then let it speak.
Seconds later he runs into the room and lunges for the console. The last time she saw that look on his face, someone had died. "No, no, no, no you don't," he snarls. Jenny flinches, but he isn't talking to her.
The TARDIS makes a noise like a contented sigh, and lands. The doors fly open.
"Jenny," he says, and she looks at him. The regret in his eyes is, for a second, infinite. She begins to feel afraid of what she has done.
Then she hears footsteps, someone running toward the TARDIS. She looks toward the door.
Jenny has been dead. The face staring back at her is whiter than that, and the look in its eyes says that life is the source of all pain.
*
The man she calls father lifts his chin. A flare of the nostrils follows, a twitch of the lip.
"Well, Doctor," he says, "aren't you going to say hello?"
He's speaking Gallifreyan. The Doctor's eyes fall on Jenny, shocked and wild. For the first time in her life, she's afraid she doesn't know enough.
"Where did you come from?" she says. "How is this possible? Any intersection of your past and future selves ought to destroy the balance of causality." She turns to the man behind her. "Why would the TARDIS bring us here? Wasn't it programmed with paradox failsafes?"
"Oh, yes," breathes the Doctor from the doorway. "But the overrides were engaged, about a year ago, and I never got around to rewriting them."
Jenny doesn't look back at him. He wears the face of a man she thought dead. "Dad?" she says, looking up at the man before her.
"Jenny, he is not your father!" The voice from behind her is almost a scream.
The man who is not her father ducks his head a little, the way he sometimes does to be nearer her ear. "Thing is, Jenny," he says, "I told you lots of things, didn't I? Well, only one of them was a lie."
He takes a step back, eyes on her almost to the last, and disappears in a flash of blinding light. Jenny blinks, trying to rid herself of the after-image. She has never seen the teleport device before. She wonders how he kept it hidden.
She doesn't turn to look, but she knows the Doctor is standing behind her. He came running because he thought, for a moment, that the other man would attack her. She had thought the same thing.
"Jenny." She can feel the Doctor's breath against her hair. "Jenny, I'm so sorry, I had no idea. I never would have let him hurt you."
She turns. She looks up at him. He reaches for her, then stops, as though afraid.
"Who was he, then?" she says.
The Doctor doesn't want to reply. She can tell by the way he draws back, draws into himself. A passing bitterness crosses his features.
"Friend of the family," he says, a twist to his mouth.
*
"Jenny."
The Doctor stands at the door of the bedroom she's claimed for her own. She hasn't looked round to see him, but she knows he's there. She can sense him from a distance. She had been able to sense the Master in the same way.
"Can I come in?" says the Doctor.
They have talked very little since meeting again. This is not his fault.
Uninvited, the Doctor sits on the corner of her bed. She can feel his eyes on her face. Her knees are pulled tight under her chin. She doesn't look at him.
"I know what you're feeling," he says, in an earnest, pleading voice. "I mean...I know it makes me a walking parental cliche, saying this, but honestly, I know-what he's like."
Jenny looks up.
"You can't help loving him, if he wants you to," says the Doctor. "You don't have to be ashamed."
Jenny flinches.
"When he stole the TARDIS, he told me exactly what he was going to do." The Doctor folded his knees and propped his elbows up on them. "He told me you were alive. He told me he was going to find you." A strained pause. "He didn't tell me what he meant to do when he found you, but then, he didn't have to. I know him, you see. Nothing he could threaten me with could be half as horrible as what I could imagine. He knew that."
Jenny closes her eyes.
"I won't ask," said the Doctor. "It's your business. But you could tell me, if you wanted."
Jenny shakes her head.
"Whatever you need, Jenny," says the Doctor. "I want to help."
Jenny gazes at the floor until he goes away.
*
She finds him later, and stands silently across the console from him until he looks up at her.
"I want to look for him," she says.
The Doctor straightens. Peers at her over the top of his glasses. There's a resignation in his eyes, like he's been waiting for this.
"That's what he wants," he tells her.
Jenny narrows her eyes.
"I know him," says the Doctor. "Why do you think he spent all that time with you, pretending to be me? I'll tell you. So that every time we look at each other, we see him."
She shuts her eyes. The look on his face is more than she wants to see. "I know that," she says. "It doesn't matter."
When she opens her eyes again, the Doctor is looking at her still.
"No," he says at last. "It doesn't, does it?"
*
The Master steps forward. He never betrays caution, but that doesn't mean he isn't on guard.
Jenny watches through a crack in the TARDIS doors as the Doctor comes out to meet him.
"Come to get me, Dad?" says the Master, sneering.
The Doctor says nothing.
"How is Jenny?" says the Master, with a tight smile that somehow betrays more for being so expressionless. "Give her a goodnight kiss for me?"
Jenny gives the door a nudge. It opens slowly. She steps out. The Master's face grows blank, but she sees the widening of his eyes.
The Doctor speaks.
"It's just us, now," he says, and Jenny thinks those words must mean more to the two men than is apparent to her. "No more games."
The Master looks from the Doctor, to Jenny, to the Doctor again. For a moment, immeasurably brief, she glimpses the depth of the longing that has driven them both to the brink of this across the ages, and she shudders.
"You don't mean this," the Master says at last. "I know you." His mouth twists. "You can't make anything last that's good."
Jenny takes a step forward. The Master looks at her, as though he has resisted doing so until now.
"Do you know me?" she says.
She reaches for his hand. The Doctor tenses, like he's waiting for lightning.
The Master looks down at her hand like he's not sure what it means. His grip is strong, just the same. Almost painful.
She doesn't mind.
*