(no subject)
Finished the ****er.
In a clear and steady voice, the Doctor says, 'Now.'
#
Rose goes to the TARDIS to get the Doctor and Jack some fresh clothes. She irons a shirt for the Doctor, trying to get the collar just right. She's only done this a couple of times before, once for Mickey when he had a job interview. In Captain Jack's room she finds jeans and a T-shirt and some rather startling heeled leather boots. She stuffs a duffle bag with her various finds and heads back out onto the Venatic Fleet flagship.
You'd think the Venators would just freak out and party, now their thousand-year mission is complete. Instead they quietly go about their day to day whatever. Everyone salutes her as they pass, which is still weird. She gives them all a smile in return. They look weary to the bone, all of them.
The medics say the Doctor is sleeping deeply, but naturally, as far as they can tell. His gangly form looks loose and comfortable in the cocoon bed thing, like a napping cat. He wasn't fibbing about the wounds: the bruises have almost vanished.
She realises she forgot to bring him a tie; never mind, he can always choose a new one from the wardrobe room. She leaves the shirt neatly folded on a chair and tip-toes out.
Jack's awake, sitting up in the cocoon, drinking something through a straw. He gives her a brilliant smile - 'Rose!' - and holds out his arms.
She hesitates. 'You look back to normal.'
He wiggles his arms. 'Where's my hug?' Delighted, Rose grabs him and holds him. He smells of hospital, but she doesn't mind.
'God, it's good to see you smiling,' she says, when they disentangle themselves.
'I don't remember much of the last couple of days,' he admits. 'I guess that means the medicine's doing its job.'
'You were really ill,' she says carefully.
He gives her hand a squeeze. 'I know for a while there, everything reminded me of getting that shock. Everything took me back there, to Lyt's ship. Even you,' he says, regretfully. 'It's like my brain was stuck in those couple of minutes. I guess without the Venators' drug, I could've been stuck there forever.'
She gives him a shy smile. 'I brought you some clothes from the TARDIS.' It's not much. But it's something.
He kisses her wrist. 'Bless you. I'm getting tired of wearing these space longjohns.'
'So are you all right? I mean... really all right?'
'Mostly I'm just kind of embarrassed,' says Jack, already starting to unpeel the white undersuit down to his waist. 'I go in all gung ho, ready to blow away the bad guy, and I end up with an electric octopus sticking a wire up my nose.' Rose tries to avoid ogling his dark nipples. 'I'd much rather be the white knight than the damsel in distress, if you get my meaning.'
The medic comes in, raises an eyebrow, claps her hands. 'Rest period. All visitors to leave.'
'C'mon, doc, I'm fighting fit.' Jack bounces out of the bed and throws a few punches at the air.
'Rest period,' says the medic firmly, with a smile. There's something weary and peaceful about her voice: for these people, there will never be anything urgent again.
#
Jack sleeps.
He can go over every detail of it in his mind, now, without the fear catching him up and smashing him down, like a killer wave.
He remembers the science machines dragging him out into vacuum, then slamming a needle through the thickness of his spacesuit and into the muscle of his leg.
He remembers floating in zero G, curled around himself instinctively in foetal position. From time to time he surfaces from the anaesthetic, fighting hard to get his eyes open. Sometimes Lyt is there, grinning at him, running hands over his flesh as though assessing a racehorse.
Good clean rage rises in Jack now, instead of the drowning terror. He gets it now - the monster was waiting, waiting for the Doctor to get close before he began interrogating his prisoner. He never expected to learn the Doctor's whereabouts using the probe. Jack was just his floorshow.
In his sleep, Jack's heart is racing. There's something else, something he forgot to remember, climbing back to the surface.
Lying on the metal floor under a science machine, twitching, tasting the blood from his bitten tongue -
The Doctor's agonised scream, cut off as Lyt clamps his own mouth down over the Time Lord's -
A swirl of light in Lyt's grip as the Doctor vanishes, grabbed by a teleport -
A second swirl of light as Lyt vanishes a moment later -
Jack jumps out of sleep so violently he falls out of the bed.
#
The Doctor sleeps, in the alien way that he sleeps.
He dreams of the conversation he had with Rose, when this all started, when he explained why he had to leave her behind.
'You can't help me,' he told her. 'Not this time. It'd just be dangerous for both of us if you were there.'
'I could bring a gun,' she offered. He gave her a sceptical look. 'The Venators have got lots of weapons, there must be one I could use.'
'Just shooting a Vampire isn't enough,' he said. 'They heal in milliseconds. The only way to kill one is to totally disrupt its circulatory system.'
Rose thought about this. 'Stake it through the heart. I could bring a stake!'
He looked her right in the eyes. 'Are you strong enough to shove a bit of wood right through a man's body?'
'I could bring some garlic,' she mutters.
He put his hands on her shoulders. 'Rose,' he said. 'Stay here. Please. Trust me.'
'Always,' she said, in a small voice.
And she had stayed behind, and she had stayed untouched. He knew that he and Jack couldn't come through this one unscathed; one of the three of them had to stay clear of the damage, had to be the anchor for the other two.
It had cost them. Oh, it had cost them. Not their lives, not their souls, though he'd been grimly ready to meet and kill an infected Jack. It cost cost just a couple of moments of death, moments like death.
But they'd won, and it had been worth it. Even Lyt couldn't survive being stripped to his component particles by the Venatic Fleet's plasma cannon. What he'd done to Bellatrix Four he'd done to a thousand other planets. They've paid for the lives of thousands more, thousands of worlds which will live and breathe because of their little moments of dying.
He wishes... Jack will be all right. He'll be fine, so close to healing now that he only notices where the bites were when he deliberately shrugs to find them. He only wishes...
... wishes there hadn't been that moment when the poison had washed the strength from him, and he had known that this time, like all those worlds tumbling down into darkness, this time, he was going to die.
He's surprised, when he wakes, to find he's been weeping.
He's not surprised at all to see Lyt standing at the foot of the bed.
#
Rose can't sleep at all.
#
Jack explodes into the hospital room, holding a Venator plasma rifle.
Lyt is there. He's standing behind the Doctor, gripping both of the Time Lord's arms behind his back. There's something wrapped around the Doctor's eyes; Jack realises he's blindfolded with his own torn and bloody tie.
'Doctor!' Rose is in the doorway. Shit.
The Doctor's blind head comes up. 'Rose! Stay away, stay back.'
Jack takes a bead on the Vampire's blond head, just a narrow cutting beam, but of course the Doctor's in the way. 'Let him go!'
'Back on your feet, beautiful?' says Lyt. His glance makes Jack feel sick. 'Back off, boy. You're not going to drill your general.'
Jack holds his ground. But what's he going to do? 'There's no point to this,' he says. 'The Venators will never let you get away. You think they'll let a hostage get between them and you?'
'I have time. I don't have to think about them. Not for just... long... enough.' Lyt's grin shines like a star. 'I get two bites of the cherry. Two bites!'
He grips the back of the Doctor's neck in his teeth. The Doctor's head is dragged back. He grunts with pain through gritted teeth.
A moment later he goes limp in Lyt's grip, knees buckling. The Vampire holds him up without effort. He releases his toxic bite and the Doctor's head and shoulders drop down.
In a clear and steady voice, the Doctor says, 'Now.'
Lyt's head snaps up, to look right down the barrel of Jack's gun.
Jack drills a five-millimetre hole through the Vampire's face.
Lyt falls backwards. His cry is just a wordless expulsion of air.
The Doctor hits the floor and rolls away, snatching the bloodied tie from his face. Jack strides forward, kicking away the Vampire's corpse, reaching down for the Doctor.
'No!' Rose is shouting. 'He'll just heal! You have to destroy his heart!'
She grabs a plastic chair and smashes it down with all her little strength across Lyt's face and raised arm - he's already snaking up from the floor, despite the killing wound in his skull. He's shocked enough that it stops him for a second, long enough for Jack to reset his gun.
Rose leaps back. Lyt snarls, hands curling into claws, eyes ten million years mad.
Jack pumps a flare of pure plasma into the Vampire. Lyt's spacesuit erupts into flames. The Vampire is even harder to burn than the radiation-resistant stuff. Jack just holds the trigger down until every last part of the monster has been burned away to gas, charring the walls, the bed, melting the medical equipment to slag.
He's panting like he's run a marathon. 'Will that do?' he gasps.
Rose and the Doctor are half-sitting, half-lying on the floor. 'He bit you!'
'Once bitten, twice immune,' says the Doctor.
'If you hadn't been-'
'If you hadn't been here-'
'If you hadn't come to the rescue-'
Jack drops the gun and reaches down to pull them both to their feet. Which means they're all suddenly holding hands. Venator soldiers and medics are running into the room now, shouting, but they pay no attention.
Rose laughs out loud. 'We are the champions!'
'Welcome back, Captain,' says the Doctor.
Not really happy with that ending. Suggestions very welcome. (Thanks heaps to everyone for previous comments and encourgement!)
In a clear and steady voice, the Doctor says, 'Now.'
#
Rose goes to the TARDIS to get the Doctor and Jack some fresh clothes. She irons a shirt for the Doctor, trying to get the collar just right. She's only done this a couple of times before, once for Mickey when he had a job interview. In Captain Jack's room she finds jeans and a T-shirt and some rather startling heeled leather boots. She stuffs a duffle bag with her various finds and heads back out onto the Venatic Fleet flagship.
You'd think the Venators would just freak out and party, now their thousand-year mission is complete. Instead they quietly go about their day to day whatever. Everyone salutes her as they pass, which is still weird. She gives them all a smile in return. They look weary to the bone, all of them.
The medics say the Doctor is sleeping deeply, but naturally, as far as they can tell. His gangly form looks loose and comfortable in the cocoon bed thing, like a napping cat. He wasn't fibbing about the wounds: the bruises have almost vanished.
She realises she forgot to bring him a tie; never mind, he can always choose a new one from the wardrobe room. She leaves the shirt neatly folded on a chair and tip-toes out.
Jack's awake, sitting up in the cocoon, drinking something through a straw. He gives her a brilliant smile - 'Rose!' - and holds out his arms.
She hesitates. 'You look back to normal.'
He wiggles his arms. 'Where's my hug?' Delighted, Rose grabs him and holds him. He smells of hospital, but she doesn't mind.
'God, it's good to see you smiling,' she says, when they disentangle themselves.
'I don't remember much of the last couple of days,' he admits. 'I guess that means the medicine's doing its job.'
'You were really ill,' she says carefully.
He gives her hand a squeeze. 'I know for a while there, everything reminded me of getting that shock. Everything took me back there, to Lyt's ship. Even you,' he says, regretfully. 'It's like my brain was stuck in those couple of minutes. I guess without the Venators' drug, I could've been stuck there forever.'
She gives him a shy smile. 'I brought you some clothes from the TARDIS.' It's not much. But it's something.
He kisses her wrist. 'Bless you. I'm getting tired of wearing these space longjohns.'
'So are you all right? I mean... really all right?'
'Mostly I'm just kind of embarrassed,' says Jack, already starting to unpeel the white undersuit down to his waist. 'I go in all gung ho, ready to blow away the bad guy, and I end up with an electric octopus sticking a wire up my nose.' Rose tries to avoid ogling his dark nipples. 'I'd much rather be the white knight than the damsel in distress, if you get my meaning.'
The medic comes in, raises an eyebrow, claps her hands. 'Rest period. All visitors to leave.'
'C'mon, doc, I'm fighting fit.' Jack bounces out of the bed and throws a few punches at the air.
'Rest period,' says the medic firmly, with a smile. There's something weary and peaceful about her voice: for these people, there will never be anything urgent again.
#
Jack sleeps.
He can go over every detail of it in his mind, now, without the fear catching him up and smashing him down, like a killer wave.
He remembers the science machines dragging him out into vacuum, then slamming a needle through the thickness of his spacesuit and into the muscle of his leg.
He remembers floating in zero G, curled around himself instinctively in foetal position. From time to time he surfaces from the anaesthetic, fighting hard to get his eyes open. Sometimes Lyt is there, grinning at him, running hands over his flesh as though assessing a racehorse.
Good clean rage rises in Jack now, instead of the drowning terror. He gets it now - the monster was waiting, waiting for the Doctor to get close before he began interrogating his prisoner. He never expected to learn the Doctor's whereabouts using the probe. Jack was just his floorshow.
In his sleep, Jack's heart is racing. There's something else, something he forgot to remember, climbing back to the surface.
Lying on the metal floor under a science machine, twitching, tasting the blood from his bitten tongue -
The Doctor's agonised scream, cut off as Lyt clamps his own mouth down over the Time Lord's -
A swirl of light in Lyt's grip as the Doctor vanishes, grabbed by a teleport -
A second swirl of light as Lyt vanishes a moment later -
Jack jumps out of sleep so violently he falls out of the bed.
#
The Doctor sleeps, in the alien way that he sleeps.
He dreams of the conversation he had with Rose, when this all started, when he explained why he had to leave her behind.
'You can't help me,' he told her. 'Not this time. It'd just be dangerous for both of us if you were there.'
'I could bring a gun,' she offered. He gave her a sceptical look. 'The Venators have got lots of weapons, there must be one I could use.'
'Just shooting a Vampire isn't enough,' he said. 'They heal in milliseconds. The only way to kill one is to totally disrupt its circulatory system.'
Rose thought about this. 'Stake it through the heart. I could bring a stake!'
He looked her right in the eyes. 'Are you strong enough to shove a bit of wood right through a man's body?'
'I could bring some garlic,' she mutters.
He put his hands on her shoulders. 'Rose,' he said. 'Stay here. Please. Trust me.'
'Always,' she said, in a small voice.
And she had stayed behind, and she had stayed untouched. He knew that he and Jack couldn't come through this one unscathed; one of the three of them had to stay clear of the damage, had to be the anchor for the other two.
It had cost them. Oh, it had cost them. Not their lives, not their souls, though he'd been grimly ready to meet and kill an infected Jack. It cost cost just a couple of moments of death, moments like death.
But they'd won, and it had been worth it. Even Lyt couldn't survive being stripped to his component particles by the Venatic Fleet's plasma cannon. What he'd done to Bellatrix Four he'd done to a thousand other planets. They've paid for the lives of thousands more, thousands of worlds which will live and breathe because of their little moments of dying.
He wishes... Jack will be all right. He'll be fine, so close to healing now that he only notices where the bites were when he deliberately shrugs to find them. He only wishes...
... wishes there hadn't been that moment when the poison had washed the strength from him, and he had known that this time, like all those worlds tumbling down into darkness, this time, he was going to die.
He's surprised, when he wakes, to find he's been weeping.
He's not surprised at all to see Lyt standing at the foot of the bed.
#
Rose can't sleep at all.
#
Jack explodes into the hospital room, holding a Venator plasma rifle.
Lyt is there. He's standing behind the Doctor, gripping both of the Time Lord's arms behind his back. There's something wrapped around the Doctor's eyes; Jack realises he's blindfolded with his own torn and bloody tie.
'Doctor!' Rose is in the doorway. Shit.
The Doctor's blind head comes up. 'Rose! Stay away, stay back.'
Jack takes a bead on the Vampire's blond head, just a narrow cutting beam, but of course the Doctor's in the way. 'Let him go!'
'Back on your feet, beautiful?' says Lyt. His glance makes Jack feel sick. 'Back off, boy. You're not going to drill your general.'
Jack holds his ground. But what's he going to do? 'There's no point to this,' he says. 'The Venators will never let you get away. You think they'll let a hostage get between them and you?'
'I have time. I don't have to think about them. Not for just... long... enough.' Lyt's grin shines like a star. 'I get two bites of the cherry. Two bites!'
He grips the back of the Doctor's neck in his teeth. The Doctor's head is dragged back. He grunts with pain through gritted teeth.
A moment later he goes limp in Lyt's grip, knees buckling. The Vampire holds him up without effort. He releases his toxic bite and the Doctor's head and shoulders drop down.
In a clear and steady voice, the Doctor says, 'Now.'
Lyt's head snaps up, to look right down the barrel of Jack's gun.
Jack drills a five-millimetre hole through the Vampire's face.
Lyt falls backwards. His cry is just a wordless expulsion of air.
The Doctor hits the floor and rolls away, snatching the bloodied tie from his face. Jack strides forward, kicking away the Vampire's corpse, reaching down for the Doctor.
'No!' Rose is shouting. 'He'll just heal! You have to destroy his heart!'
She grabs a plastic chair and smashes it down with all her little strength across Lyt's face and raised arm - he's already snaking up from the floor, despite the killing wound in his skull. He's shocked enough that it stops him for a second, long enough for Jack to reset his gun.
Rose leaps back. Lyt snarls, hands curling into claws, eyes ten million years mad.
Jack pumps a flare of pure plasma into the Vampire. Lyt's spacesuit erupts into flames. The Vampire is even harder to burn than the radiation-resistant stuff. Jack just holds the trigger down until every last part of the monster has been burned away to gas, charring the walls, the bed, melting the medical equipment to slag.
He's panting like he's run a marathon. 'Will that do?' he gasps.
Rose and the Doctor are half-sitting, half-lying on the floor. 'He bit you!'
'Once bitten, twice immune,' says the Doctor.
'If you hadn't been-'
'If you hadn't been here-'
'If you hadn't come to the rescue-'
Jack drops the gun and reaches down to pull them both to their feet. Which means they're all suddenly holding hands. Venator soldiers and medics are running into the room now, shouting, but they pay no attention.
Rose laughs out loud. 'We are the champions!'
'Welcome back, Captain,' says the Doctor.
Not really happy with that ending. Suggestions very welcome. (Thanks heaps to everyone for previous comments and encourgement!)