Torchwood/Dr Who - fic and art - Tomorrow Will Be Leaflets Spare, Jack, Ten, Martha, 15
Here's the story in which Jack shows Martha his fully grown TARDIS, then :)
Title: Tomorrow Will Be Leaflets Spare
Author: laurab1
Rating: 15
Pairings/Characters: Jack/Ten, Jack/Martha, Jack/TARDISes, OCs, Nine, Jack/Rose
Length: ~5200 words
Summary: After 500 years of growth, Jack's TARDIS is ready to be shaped and trained.
Spoilers: Torchwood - 1.1 and general series, Doctor Who - 1.9 to 1.13, The Christmas Invasion, 3.10 to 3.13, Time Crash
Notes: It would help if you've read versaphile's March Twigs, my Glint Of Green, Rhythm of Life, Compatibility and my Nine/Rose/Jack/TARDIS stories before you read this.
http://www.joellessacredgrove.com/Holidays/sabbats.html - explains the chapter headings
Disclaimer: alas, none of these people are mine.
Thanks to: persiflage_1, taffimai, fandom_me, msp_hacker, jadesfire2808 and hellenebright for advice/encouragement/cheerleading.
Feedback is loved & appreciated :) Enjoy!
Click on through for full size version.
Tomorrow Will Be Leaflets Spare
by Laura
Litha
Jack remembers every single thing the Doctor's told him about how TARDISes grew, but he still thinks it's pretty amazing that a time/space ship will appear from what currently resembles a silver birch in the dead of winter; kinda white, no leaves.
"Hello again," the Doctor greets the coral, the younger TARDIS, stroking her. His brow then furrows, as she transmits a feeling to him. On the edges of his mind, Jack can sense what she's telling him. "Did you give her a name, Jack? A human name?"
Taking his gaze away from the Doctor's, he strokes her himself, explaining, "She gave herself a name about nine months ago, just after your last visit. Emma found something in my mind that I thought I'd hidden well enough." Jack chuckles, a little bitterly, before he whispers, "It's in honour of my daughter, who I lost a hell of a long time ago, when I was just a kid."
"Length of a human pregnancy..." the Doctor mutters. "Well then, hello, Emma."
He then communicates with her in Gallifreyan. In his own mind, Jack sees a collection of circular patterns that he still can't understand. That's followed by a purring sound and what feels like a nod of agreement.
The Doctor takes his hand away and confirms, "She's ready." Turning back to Jack, he pulls out his glasses and puts them on. Grinning, he explains, "Right, matter transformation, that's what we're doing here, Jack. Before we do anything else, we need to get her to the largest open space in the Hub."
"Yes, sir." Withdrawing his own hand, he flips open his Vortex manipulator and begins to enter a sequence he knows will look familiar.
"Jack?" the Doctor asks, a million accusations in his voice.
"I fixed the teleport function on 31st August 2460, at 1am," he replies, without looking up, "and then poured myself a very large whisky in celebration." Removing the manipulator from his wrist, he fastens the leather strap around one of his TARDIS's coral branches. He presses another button, and she vanishes, leaving the metal stand behind. Finally, Jack returns his gaze to the Doctor's. "And that's all I fixed, I promise. I've sent her to the base of the water tower. C'mon, let's go."
***
They walk through the Hub, back to the main area. Arriving at the water tower, they're greeted with a purr from Emma.
"Hey, sweetheart," Jack says, stroking the coral. Removing his Vortex manipulator and strapping it back on his wrist, he then looks at the Doctor. "Okay, matter transformation?"
"She needs a roof, walls and a console, Jack. We're going to help her create those from what she currently consists of. To make the roof and walls, we need the coral branches weaving with each other..."
Jack works out the rest. Cutting the Doctor off, he continues, "...and the console will be re-formed from the trunk?"
"Well, most of it will be, at least. I'm sure you've got enough bits and bobs of alien stuff in the archives to use for the controls. The time rotor, that's easy, it's just your rift manipulator reinstated to its proper use. Then we need to link her to that great big black hole, the Eye of Harmony, start her time travelling..."
Thousand miles an hour, as usual. Jack smiles to himself. He needs to stop the Doctor's train of thought, before he can't. "Okay, okay. That's all for later. What do we need to do right now, Doctor?"
"Tell me how you willingly transfer your Vortex energy, Jack," he says.
Jack grins at him. "Why don't I just show you one of the ways?" The other way is equally willingly, but he's died from that. More than once. Pulling the Doctor into a kiss, he flicks a switch inside himself and adds some of his surplus of life. When they separate, the Doctor is more than a little dazed. So much for being "wrong". Jack just grins even more.
After a few minutes, when he's capable of speaking, the Doctor pushes his glasses back on with one finger and asks, "Do you think you could re-focus that energy, so it comes from your fingertips, rather than your mouth? Then we can make a start on the roof and walls."
"I can try," Jack says. Closing his eyes, concentrating, he pictures himself placing both hands on the coral, explaining what he's doing, making sure she's OK with it. He sees the energy flowing from his fingers; golden threads running over the surface... He re-opens his eyes. "Okay, I think I can do it."
With a nod from the Doctor, Jack places his hands on the TARDIS. "You gotta change shape, now, Emma," he tells her.
Briefly closing his eyes, feeling the flow of energy inside himself, Jack focuses it, and sends it out from his heart and lungs to his hands, making them a little warm. Opening his eyes again, Jack can see golden spots under his fingertips. The spots turn into lines, and like he pictured, threads of Vortex energy run over the surface. The threads reach the ends of several branches, pulling them thin, and then like the Doctor said, they weave themselves together.
It's all incredibly cool to see, but after a while, the coral seems to be tired. The weaving stops, and she transmits a feeling to Jack of, "Enough, Captain."
"Okay, okay, sweetheart." He ceases the flow of energy and takes his hands from her. Emma now has part of a roof, and a bit of wall. For all their efforts, it's really not very much. Jack turns to the Doctor. "This is gonna take a hell of a long time, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes. About six months linear time, I reckon," the Time Lord replies.
"Bring the old girl down here, then, so they can communicate with each other whenever they like. I want to say hello to her, as well."
The Doctor goes off to the boardroom, and Jack strokes the coral. "No more today, sweetheart. I think we drained each other a little. Kinda feeling my six hundred and seventy five years, there." He soon hears the grinding of the TARDIS engines, and the ship materialises. Smiling, Jack takes his hands away from the coral and pushes the door open. "Hey, beautiful," he says. "Come to help me with my own TARDIS?"
"Stop it, you," the Doctor says, but he's half-smiling.
"She doesn't mind. She never has." Jack rubs a strut and grins; in his head he feels her joy at seeing him again. That's followed by the Gallifreyans communicating with each other in spirals, lines and circles.
'I'm gonna have him and her with me for about six months. I can deal with sometimes being out of the loop,' Jack thinks, exiting the ship.
"'Night, sweetheart," he says, stroking the coral. "Let's see if we can do a lot more tomorrow, huh?" She agrees with him, and Jack departs, leaving the three of them chattering away.
***
"I guess you'd better meet my team, if you're gonna be with us for a while," Jack says, the following morning. He's in the Doctor's TARDIS, leaning against a strut, running a hand over it.
"That's a very wise idea, Captain. Lead on, then." They leave the ship, locking the door behind them. "All humans?" the Doctor asks, as they make their way to the central area of the Hub.
"No," Jack simply says, and continues walking. It's 8am. "Anyone in yet?" he calls, when they arrive at their destination.
"Good morning, sir," a vaguely European voice says.
"Hi, Marcus," Jack replies, coming face to face with the guy. "This is Marcus Augustus, Doctor. He's a Roman soldier with the rather dubious honour of having fallen through the Rift three times. We spoke to each other in Latin until Marcus could speak English."
"Hello, Marcus," the Doctor says.
"Good morning to you as well, sir," Marcus greets.
"Marcus wields a really mean gladiolus," Jack explains.
"As well as I do?"
"Like I said, he's a Roman soldier." Jack smirks.
"Well, I'm a Time Lord."
Jack laughs a little. "Just tell him about the Sycorax, Doctor." Then he turns serious. "I was in London. I saw everything. I called Yvonne and yelled at her for shooting a retreating enemy in the back. Then I picked up your severed hand, took it back to Cardiff with me and carried on waiting." He has to let out a breath when he's finished, as he realises they haven't actually talked about all of that, ever.
And look where that hand got them, for goodness' sake.
Or rather, don't.
"You never told me that," the Doctor acknowledges. "I just picked out some new clothes, then had Christmas dinner with Rose, Jackie and Mickey. Oh, Jack. I'm sorry."
He sounds like he means it, this time. "It's okay." And it is, mostly. It was five hundred years ago, after all. "Go on, now. Tell the man about your fightin' hand." Leaving them, Jack goes to the base of the water tower, to continue growing his TARDIS.
***
An hour or so later, having helped Emma to create another section of wall, he returns to the central area of the Hub. Marcus and the Time Lord are nowhere in sight. "Louise, do you know where Marcus went?" Jack asks his doctor.
"Firing range," the female cat-humanoid from New Earth replies, without looking up from her computer, "with swords." Then she does look up. "Jack, your friend, the man with Marcus, he just glared at me, didn't speak to me at all."
She's never heard of the Sisters of Plenitude, Jack remembers. "Yeah. He does that. Don't let it get to you." Rubbing her shoulder in comfort, he lets her continue with the report she's writing on the already dead alien they recently discovered.
Checking on the rest of his people, Jack finds the blue-skinned, psychic twins of indeterminate gender, who, much to his annoyance, have yet to tell him where they're from, are performing an experiment in one of the labs. Alex Jones, Jack's sole contemporary human, is investigating the round disc, covered in bright green buttons, that they found a few weeks ago.
Satisfied that nobody's gonna kill anyone today, Jack wanders off to the firing range.
***
There, he finds his Roman soldier and his Doctor with the claymores in their hands, and the katana on the table. Out of sight, Jack leans against the wall and settles in to watch the two gorgeous men sword-fighting, and talking away in Latin, as well.
It's incredibly hot.
After a while, the Doctor declares, "Marcus, you are indeed better with a sword than me. Heavy things, these claymores. Shouldn't be beyond me, though." He looks a little confused. They both place their weapons on the table. "Another round with the katana?"
"No, sir," Marcus replies, gathering up the four swords. "I believe the Captain needs you," he says, nodding in Jack's direction.
"Damn. I was trying to be sneaky." Jack smiles and saunters over to them. "C'mon, Doctor. We need do some more of that thing we talked about."
"Right! Yes. Let's go, then." They all leave the firing range, and Jack and the Doctor descend to the base of the water tower.
***
"Those twins, Jack," the Doctor says, as they walk.
"Any idea where they're from? None of our equipment can trace their planet. They still haven't told me, and I know several planets with blue-skinned humanoids. I don't even know if they're boys or girls. It's been bugging me for the last two years."
"They're both female-female-male..."
"...which would mean they're from Gamma 12, the only planet with that gender distinction."
"Exactly."
"Thanks for that." They've arrived at their destination. Jack goes over to stroke the coral. "Hi, Emma." She pulses back at him, in his head. "Doctor?" Jack asks, looking at him.
"Yes?"
"They both told me Emma would be able to grow more quickly with the occasional burst of Time Lord energy. C'mon, give me your hands."
***
Mabon
A couple of months later, with assistance from the two of them, Jack's coral has woven herself into a small cave.
"Time to introduce the dimensional transcendency, Jack," the Doctor declares, one night, brandishing his sonic screwdriver. "This is a part I'm going to have to do."
"Okay. I figured it might be." They enter the cave. "What does this involve?"
"I'll just show you."
Jack watches as the Doctor writes some Gallifreyan script on the walls, in light from the sonic screwdriver. The cave then begins to increase in size. It's slow at first, but when the space is about half the size of the old girl's control room, the growth is faster. And then, after about an hour, and so very many years, there's another TARDIS control room.
No console and time rotor yet, though.
"You did it, you beautiful girl," Jack tells his TARDIS, as a smile starts to appear on his lips. But he then gets a feeling from her that he can only interpret as growing pains, and the smile stops. "Doctor, she's hurting," he says, running a hand over her newly created wall, and looking over to where the Time Lord has his own hand pressed flat against another wall.
In reply, he nods to Jack, before closing his eyes. "What do you need, little one? I know that was hard work, but what would help, what would make it better?"
Emma responds in a collection of circles and lines. The Doctor then opens his eyes and walks out of the new console room. Seconds later, the police box materialises inside it, and the door opens.
"The closer presence of the only other TARDIS," the Doctor says, "that's all she needs. Calmer already, isn't she, Jack?"
"Yeah." The smile comes back, and Jack gives her a rub before pulling his hand away from the wall. "Can I sleep in your TARDIS, tonight?" he asks, coming face to face with his friend.
"If you must, Captain. As long as you don't sleep with her."
Jack just grins wickedly at him and walks inside the old girl.
***
Samhain
After that, they let Jack's TARDIS have a break for a while. The Doctor helps them send a few lost aliens home and work out what a few pieces of tech that they've been having trouble with actually do.
Then they start creating the console. Over the space of a fortnight, using the same matter transformation techniques they used to produce the walls, struts and roof, they change the main trunk of the coral into materials resembling ceramic and glass.
"We need that Rift Manipulator, now, Jack," the Doctor says, one day, looking up from the section he's applying the sonic screwdriver to, "and some harmless or useful bits of tech to install as controls."
"The Manipulator's been unwired and in my safe for nearly five hundred years. Archives, for the rest. C'mon, switch off the sonic and let's go see what we can find."
***
As Jack and the Doctor search through an archive that's been kept for over six hundred years, potentially useful pieces of tech are placed in a large box. They reminisce about parts markets and shops on other planets - many that they went to before they met each other, and some that they visited together.
There was one time that none of their usual tricks worked. Much to his annoyance (and the Doctor's amusement), Jack failed to charm the store keeper into a lower price for a rather fantastic lever. The Doctor's haggling didn't work, either. In the end, Jack had kissed Rose rather deeply, distracting the store keeper and allowing the Doctor to just steal it. There'd been glares, later. About what, Jack hadn't been able to work out.
"It worked, didn't it?" he'd said.
"Yeah," the Doctor had admitted, all gruff Manchester accent.
"Well, just fit it, and stop worrying, then. I'm sure the old girl doesn't mind how we got it, just that we did," Jack had replied.
"Aha! I've been after one of these!" the Doctor exclaims, beaming, as he discovers a particularly sophisticated dimensional stabiliser.
Jack knows exactly where his train of thought is heading. Sighing, he says, "We're looking for controls for my TARDIS, remember? Put it in the box, please." Face falling, the Time Lord does as asked. Sighing, Jack makes a mental note to just let him have the thing.
***
Taking the Rift Manipulator from Jack's safe, Jack and the Doctor then begin the installation of it as the time rotor. The Doctor has the sonic screwdriver, of course, but Jack has something himself.
"What's that?" the Doctor asks, as Jack pulls the green device from his trouser pocket. They're stood by the console in Jack's TARDIS.
"My own sonic screwdriver."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Wanna see?" Jack passes him the instrument, and the Doctor whistles.
"Oh, that's nice. Very nice." He hands the device back to Jack.
"Thanks. Made it myself, y'know."
"I think you're responsible enough to handle her now, Captain. Come on, installing to do."
They grin at each other, and carefully pick up the time rotor.
***
With the time rotor and the controls they found in the archives installed, Emma's almost ready.
Some more communication in Gallifreyan, then the Doctor declares, "I've linked her to the Eye of Harmony, Jack. Now, to make her fully functional, so she can travel in time and space, she would normally have needed priming with the biological imprint of a Time Lord, just by having one operate her for the first time..."
"...You told me all of that, years ago," Jack interrupts. "And I told you that I thought she'd already imprinted on me, and was just waiting to be fully grown. I've felt Emma in my head for five hundred years, Doctor. I know when she's happy, when she's in pain. Surely that's an imprint, a symbiotic link?"
A manic grin. "Oh, yes, Jack," the Doctor says. "Why don't we try and get her over to the invisible lift? A functioning chameleon circuit might possibly be a good idea, before she goes anywhere outside the Hub."
A combination of telepathy, buttons and levers sends Emma to the invisible lift, where she can absorb the energy left there by the Doctor's TARDIS, all the way back in 2006. Jack feels her do this; there's a change in her energies.
"Right, Captain, where are we going then? And when?" the Doctor asks, half an hour later.
"I think we oughta start small, Doctor. Just up top, on the Plas, and right now?"
***
They spend the next couple of months making increasingly more complicated trips, travelling in time and space, Jack as chief pilot.
More than once, the sheer joy at what they have and what they're doing becomes sensual. The Doctor's TARDIS surrounds Jack's. In Jack's TARDIS, pressing him against a white strut, the Doctor leads, kissing him. The old girl and the young one join in, and all four of them fall over the edge.
Later, Jack asks Emma to make a very large bed.
***
Yule
With his own TARDIS fully functional in all respects, Jack gives himself a present. And he gives someone else a present, as well.
"Five hundred years ago, I promised Martha Jones I would show you, my fully grown TARDIS, to her. We're still not gonna tell her whose TARDIS you used to be part of, though."
Setting co-ordinates, Jack dematerialises his ship.
***
15th September 2014, Martha's 30th birthday
Some birthday this was. Martha did have a day's holiday, but she'd run out of milk, so a trip down to the newsagents had been required. As she passes the BT wi-fi phoneboxes, Martha stops.
"Hang on, there's two of them. That's not right." Going back to look, a promise Jack had made to her six years ago suddenly comes to mind. Unless the Doctor had fixed the old girl's chameleon circuit, it could only be Jack.
With his own, fully grown TARDIS, complete with functioning chameleon circuit.
Anticipation growing, Martha reaches into her t-shirt. Pulling out her TARDIS key, she finds it glowing faintly. There's a noise which could be a door opening, and a person coming out. Looking back at the phonebox, sure enough, someone's there.
"Are you coming into my TARDIS, then, Doctor Jones?" Jack Harkness from five hundred years in the future says, grinning down at her, holding out a hand.
"I am, Captain Harkness," Martha instantly replies, smiling. She takes his hand and walks inside.
***
A very long time ago, Martha had very subtly given him this date.
He and Tosh had been in London, justifying Torchwood's continued existence to a load of civil servants. By lunch time, Jack had known that the meetings were going to run long, and they weren't going to make Martha's birthday dinner that evening. He'd asked for one of the government cars to take him to Harrods. There, in Van Cleef and Arpels, he'd bought her a beautiful gold chain. From elsewhere in the store, he got a birthday card. Finally, Jack left a message on Martha's mobile's voice mail, asking her to come to the Dorchester after the meal.
"Thank you for my presents, Jack," she'd said, in his suite, as the three of them had sipped champagne. Moët and Chandon's Dom Perignon, of course.
"Presents?" he'd asked, emphasising the plural.
"Yes, presents," Martha had confirmed. "This morning, you sent me that coral chip necklace I'd been asking for."
'You clever girl, Doctor Jones,' he'd thought, impressed. "Did you like it, Martha?"
She'd just smiled in reply.
Now, having piloted his TARDIS all the way back to 2014, and welcomed Martha inside, Jack waits for her reaction to the ship, the adult version of the baby she both sang and listened to. As far as he's concerned, his Emma is gorgeous.
***
"Meet Emma, Martha."
"Emma?" she asks, looking around.
"Yeah. Five hundred years of being sentient, then about nine months ago, she decided to give herself a name," Jack tells her.
Nine months? If he thinks she's leaving that alone, he's sadly mistaken. "Jack?" she says, trying to draw him out.
He sighs, then says, "Okay, I had a daughter called Emma, Martha. She was still-born and half-human, but she was beautiful, and she was mine."
Oh. From his tone of voice, Martha makes an assumption. "You carried her, didn't you?" He is the guy from the future, after all. "You were pregnant."
Jack nods, placing a hand on his belly. "Yeah. I was just a kid at the time. I thought I'd locked it all away, but she found that memory in my mind and named herself." He swipes at his eyes. "Come here," Martha says sympathetically, pulling him into a hug, letting him rest his head on hers.
A few minutes later, Jack moves out of the embrace. "Hey, c'mon, let me show her to you."
"Okay."
Martha then listens to how Jack and the Doctor created Emma, from the five hundred years of growth, to the matter transformation with the Vortex energy, to creation of the console. Jack's put his own spin on the old girl. Maybe she hadn't wanted to be too closely copied. The coral's more white than gold, the hexagons aren't exactly the same and there's Gallifreyan on the walls. As for the time rotor...
"That's the Rift Manipulator, Jack."
"Yeah," he says. "But it was a time rotor before that. Well, kinda."
"As long as she's okay."
"She's fine, Martha."
And now there's a presence nudging against her mind, soft and gentle. The feeling's familiar. Like she did with the Doctor's TARDIS, Martha places her hand on a strut. "Hello, sweetheart," she says. "Aren't you beautiful, all grown up?"
Emma pulses at her.
Martha then whispers, "I hope the Captain here flies you better than the Doctor does the old girl."
The response she gets can only be interpreted a sigh of complete and utter pleasure.
Martha looks at Jack. He's grinning very wickedly. "Have you had telepathic sex with this one as well, Jack Harkness?" she asks.
"Oh, yeah, Doctor Jones. Now come here and let me kiss you."
Martha goes straight into his arms.
***
She's there and she's beautiful and she understands, and now, she's nowhere near as far away as she used to be. And like most of the beings he's ever met, in his spectacularly long life, he still loves her. So he cups Martha's face in his hands and kisses her on the lips, then a little deeper.
"Run that bit about the Vortex energy by me again," she says, when he lets her up for air. They embrace, instead.
"I can transfer it from my fingers, now, as well, Doctor Jones." He grins down at her.
"Is there a bed in here, yet, Captain?" she asks, a slightly wicked smile on her lips.
She wants to play, does she? "Oh, yeah," he says, his hands slipping under her t-shirt, and tracing patterns over her back. "Second thing I asked her to make, after all this."
"Why don't we go and test it out, then?"
"That's a wonderful idea." He releases his hold on Martha, takes her hand in his, and they leave the control room.
***
The bedroom is the only other room in Jack's TARDIS, and mere minutes later, they're naked, on the bed and kissing. Jack knows how the energy feels to his own body, and Martha's eager to discover that same feeling for herself. Well, she knows about nerve endings, sensation, stimulus, sexual response, so she should be OK, and be aware of what she can handle. Still, he might need some assistance, if she can't deal with the sensations, and she needs to know how to tell him so. He transmits a feeling and request to his TARDIS, asking Emma to caress Martha's mind without her knowledge, so she can help him calm her, if necessary.
Taking his mouth from hers, Jack rubs Martha's stomach, takes a deep breath and asks, "Do you know what a safe word is, sweetheart?"
"No, Jack," she admits. "Should I?"
He keeps stroking her, as he explains, "I know you understand all the biological stuff about nerves inside out, but I really don't know how the Vortex energy is gonna feel to you, on that score. If your body's responses all get too much for you to cope with..."
"...If I become more aroused than I'd really like to be, you mean, Captain," she interrupts, smiling a little.
Jack chuckles. "Yeah, okay. If that happens, you clearly say your safe word, and we stop right there with the Vortex energy, and just make love the old-fashioned way. Understand?"
"Scrabble," she says, both confirmation and safe word.
"Atta girl," Jack replies, with a smile, and goes back to kissing her.
He strokes and caresses Martha's body, inside and out, transferring Vortex energy to all the places that will do something intensely pleasurable with it. Each time, she arches her back and shudders in his hands. It's so beautiful.
She doesn't say the safe word. Jack asks his TARDIS to gently let go of Martha's mind. He lets her catch her breath, before pulling her to him. "Sleep, for a while," he instructs, watching her close her eyes.
***
A few hours later, Jack smiles down at her. They're both still naked, and damn, she's gorgeous. "Happy Birthday, Martha."
"Thank you," she replies, smiling back. "When do you need to go, Jack?" she then asks.
"Soon. But you'll see the me that's still here, later today."
He then hears her mobile beep, and knows the call's from that version of himself. "Let it go to voice mail," he says. "A message from my past, so I know to come and see you on this day."
"Wibbley-wobbly timey-wimey...stuff," Martha says, almost laughing.
"What?" he asks, also laughing.
"Weeping Angels, Jack," she explains.
Oh. "Those creepy..." He winces in understanding.
"Yeah. We got stuck in 1969, without the TARDIS, had to live in linear time for while. When the technology came around, we made these DVD Easter Eggs from the transcription of what we said that someone gave us before we got sent to 1969. Wibbley-wobbly timey-wimey...stuff, he kept insisting on saying, like that explained, well, everything."
She's giving him a headache, and he's meant to know about all of this. "Yeah," he says. "When you travel in time, it ends up being circular, not linear, Martha. You get that, don't you?"
She nods at him, then seems to be considering something.
"When did you last see him, Martha?" he asks, trying to help.
"A year ago, I think. Tell him I miss him, Jack."
He knows that feeling all too well. "Of course, honey."
They then share a sweet and rather chaste kiss, before reluctantly leaving the bed and getting dressed.
***
"Go get some lunch," Jack tells her, as they stand at the door of his TARDIS. "You must need something to eat after all that exertion."
"Yes, sir," she replies, mock saluting. Turning serious, Martha then asks, "Will you bring Emma back again, Jack, when she's created some more rooms?"
"Oh, yeah. I promise. All my love to long ago, Martha Jones."
"To days to come," she says, as expected. "He told you about meeting his fifth incarnation then?"
"Yes. Now go!"
"Okay, I'm going, I'm going!" Martha grins, kisses him on the cheek and walks out.
Jack stares at the doors for several minutes, before shaking himself, re-grouping. "Back to the future, then, Emma," he says, walking to the console and setting the co-ordinates, followed by the dematerialisation sequence.
***
Yule
Jack materialises Emma in the Hub, next to the Doctor's TARDIS. He's still for a few moments, thinking. He half-hears the Doctor come in.
"Crossing time-lines, Jack."
Jack can hear the disapproval, and looks up. "I made a promise, Doctor," he replies. "I told Martha that when she was fully grown, I'd bring my TARDIS back to show her. I just wish there were more people I could show."
The Time Lord works out what he's implying. "Jack, Jack, Jack. You can't go and see everyone who's died on your watch. Believe me on this, please. Promise me?"
Jack nods, because, yes, he knows this. Trying to bring the conversation to happier things, he continues, "As long as you promise me that you'll visit Martha. She misses you."
"Alright, I promise."
"And then you can bring her here, and we can have a telepathic fivesome; you, the old girl, me, Martha and Emma..."
The Doctor's eyes and mouth go comically wide.
"We could have a foursome in the meantime, though."
The Time Lord leaves Jack's ship, and seconds later, Jack hears the old girl's dematerialisation sequence. He laughs.
"Emma? Wanna get some practice in, while we're waiting?"
Jack's TARDIS purrs at him in reply, and he smiles.
-end-
crosspost:
dwfiction
galactic_conman
jackmartha
lifeonmartha
new_who
tenmarthajack
tenxjack
torch_wood
torchwood_fic
Teaspoon (to do)
Title: Tomorrow Will Be Leaflets Spare
Author: laurab1
Rating: 15
Pairings/Characters: Jack/Ten, Jack/Martha, Jack/TARDISes, OCs, Nine, Jack/Rose
Length: ~5200 words
Summary: After 500 years of growth, Jack's TARDIS is ready to be shaped and trained.
Spoilers: Torchwood - 1.1 and general series, Doctor Who - 1.9 to 1.13, The Christmas Invasion, 3.10 to 3.13, Time Crash
Notes: It would help if you've read versaphile's March Twigs, my Glint Of Green, Rhythm of Life, Compatibility and my Nine/Rose/Jack/TARDIS stories before you read this.
http://www.joellessacredgrove.com/Holidays/sabbats.html - explains the chapter headings
Disclaimer: alas, none of these people are mine.
Thanks to: persiflage_1, taffimai, fandom_me, msp_hacker, jadesfire2808 and hellenebright for advice/encouragement/cheerleading.
Feedback is loved & appreciated :) Enjoy!
Click on through for full size version.
Tomorrow Will Be Leaflets Spare
by Laura
Litha
Jack remembers every single thing the Doctor's told him about how TARDISes grew, but he still thinks it's pretty amazing that a time/space ship will appear from what currently resembles a silver birch in the dead of winter; kinda white, no leaves.
"Hello again," the Doctor greets the coral, the younger TARDIS, stroking her. His brow then furrows, as she transmits a feeling to him. On the edges of his mind, Jack can sense what she's telling him. "Did you give her a name, Jack? A human name?"
Taking his gaze away from the Doctor's, he strokes her himself, explaining, "She gave herself a name about nine months ago, just after your last visit. Emma found something in my mind that I thought I'd hidden well enough." Jack chuckles, a little bitterly, before he whispers, "It's in honour of my daughter, who I lost a hell of a long time ago, when I was just a kid."
"Length of a human pregnancy..." the Doctor mutters. "Well then, hello, Emma."
He then communicates with her in Gallifreyan. In his own mind, Jack sees a collection of circular patterns that he still can't understand. That's followed by a purring sound and what feels like a nod of agreement.
The Doctor takes his hand away and confirms, "She's ready." Turning back to Jack, he pulls out his glasses and puts them on. Grinning, he explains, "Right, matter transformation, that's what we're doing here, Jack. Before we do anything else, we need to get her to the largest open space in the Hub."
"Yes, sir." Withdrawing his own hand, he flips open his Vortex manipulator and begins to enter a sequence he knows will look familiar.
"Jack?" the Doctor asks, a million accusations in his voice.
"I fixed the teleport function on 31st August 2460, at 1am," he replies, without looking up, "and then poured myself a very large whisky in celebration." Removing the manipulator from his wrist, he fastens the leather strap around one of his TARDIS's coral branches. He presses another button, and she vanishes, leaving the metal stand behind. Finally, Jack returns his gaze to the Doctor's. "And that's all I fixed, I promise. I've sent her to the base of the water tower. C'mon, let's go."
***
They walk through the Hub, back to the main area. Arriving at the water tower, they're greeted with a purr from Emma.
"Hey, sweetheart," Jack says, stroking the coral. Removing his Vortex manipulator and strapping it back on his wrist, he then looks at the Doctor. "Okay, matter transformation?"
"She needs a roof, walls and a console, Jack. We're going to help her create those from what she currently consists of. To make the roof and walls, we need the coral branches weaving with each other..."
Jack works out the rest. Cutting the Doctor off, he continues, "...and the console will be re-formed from the trunk?"
"Well, most of it will be, at least. I'm sure you've got enough bits and bobs of alien stuff in the archives to use for the controls. The time rotor, that's easy, it's just your rift manipulator reinstated to its proper use. Then we need to link her to that great big black hole, the Eye of Harmony, start her time travelling..."
Thousand miles an hour, as usual. Jack smiles to himself. He needs to stop the Doctor's train of thought, before he can't. "Okay, okay. That's all for later. What do we need to do right now, Doctor?"
"Tell me how you willingly transfer your Vortex energy, Jack," he says.
Jack grins at him. "Why don't I just show you one of the ways?" The other way is equally willingly, but he's died from that. More than once. Pulling the Doctor into a kiss, he flicks a switch inside himself and adds some of his surplus of life. When they separate, the Doctor is more than a little dazed. So much for being "wrong". Jack just grins even more.
After a few minutes, when he's capable of speaking, the Doctor pushes his glasses back on with one finger and asks, "Do you think you could re-focus that energy, so it comes from your fingertips, rather than your mouth? Then we can make a start on the roof and walls."
"I can try," Jack says. Closing his eyes, concentrating, he pictures himself placing both hands on the coral, explaining what he's doing, making sure she's OK with it. He sees the energy flowing from his fingers; golden threads running over the surface... He re-opens his eyes. "Okay, I think I can do it."
With a nod from the Doctor, Jack places his hands on the TARDIS. "You gotta change shape, now, Emma," he tells her.
Briefly closing his eyes, feeling the flow of energy inside himself, Jack focuses it, and sends it out from his heart and lungs to his hands, making them a little warm. Opening his eyes again, Jack can see golden spots under his fingertips. The spots turn into lines, and like he pictured, threads of Vortex energy run over the surface. The threads reach the ends of several branches, pulling them thin, and then like the Doctor said, they weave themselves together.
It's all incredibly cool to see, but after a while, the coral seems to be tired. The weaving stops, and she transmits a feeling to Jack of, "Enough, Captain."
"Okay, okay, sweetheart." He ceases the flow of energy and takes his hands from her. Emma now has part of a roof, and a bit of wall. For all their efforts, it's really not very much. Jack turns to the Doctor. "This is gonna take a hell of a long time, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes. About six months linear time, I reckon," the Time Lord replies.
"Bring the old girl down here, then, so they can communicate with each other whenever they like. I want to say hello to her, as well."
The Doctor goes off to the boardroom, and Jack strokes the coral. "No more today, sweetheart. I think we drained each other a little. Kinda feeling my six hundred and seventy five years, there." He soon hears the grinding of the TARDIS engines, and the ship materialises. Smiling, Jack takes his hands away from the coral and pushes the door open. "Hey, beautiful," he says. "Come to help me with my own TARDIS?"
"Stop it, you," the Doctor says, but he's half-smiling.
"She doesn't mind. She never has." Jack rubs a strut and grins; in his head he feels her joy at seeing him again. That's followed by the Gallifreyans communicating with each other in spirals, lines and circles.
'I'm gonna have him and her with me for about six months. I can deal with sometimes being out of the loop,' Jack thinks, exiting the ship.
"'Night, sweetheart," he says, stroking the coral. "Let's see if we can do a lot more tomorrow, huh?" She agrees with him, and Jack departs, leaving the three of them chattering away.
***
"I guess you'd better meet my team, if you're gonna be with us for a while," Jack says, the following morning. He's in the Doctor's TARDIS, leaning against a strut, running a hand over it.
"That's a very wise idea, Captain. Lead on, then." They leave the ship, locking the door behind them. "All humans?" the Doctor asks, as they make their way to the central area of the Hub.
"No," Jack simply says, and continues walking. It's 8am. "Anyone in yet?" he calls, when they arrive at their destination.
"Good morning, sir," a vaguely European voice says.
"Hi, Marcus," Jack replies, coming face to face with the guy. "This is Marcus Augustus, Doctor. He's a Roman soldier with the rather dubious honour of having fallen through the Rift three times. We spoke to each other in Latin until Marcus could speak English."
"Hello, Marcus," the Doctor says.
"Good morning to you as well, sir," Marcus greets.
"Marcus wields a really mean gladiolus," Jack explains.
"As well as I do?"
"Like I said, he's a Roman soldier." Jack smirks.
"Well, I'm a Time Lord."
Jack laughs a little. "Just tell him about the Sycorax, Doctor." Then he turns serious. "I was in London. I saw everything. I called Yvonne and yelled at her for shooting a retreating enemy in the back. Then I picked up your severed hand, took it back to Cardiff with me and carried on waiting." He has to let out a breath when he's finished, as he realises they haven't actually talked about all of that, ever.
And look where that hand got them, for goodness' sake.
Or rather, don't.
"You never told me that," the Doctor acknowledges. "I just picked out some new clothes, then had Christmas dinner with Rose, Jackie and Mickey. Oh, Jack. I'm sorry."
He sounds like he means it, this time. "It's okay." And it is, mostly. It was five hundred years ago, after all. "Go on, now. Tell the man about your fightin' hand." Leaving them, Jack goes to the base of the water tower, to continue growing his TARDIS.
***
An hour or so later, having helped Emma to create another section of wall, he returns to the central area of the Hub. Marcus and the Time Lord are nowhere in sight. "Louise, do you know where Marcus went?" Jack asks his doctor.
"Firing range," the female cat-humanoid from New Earth replies, without looking up from her computer, "with swords." Then she does look up. "Jack, your friend, the man with Marcus, he just glared at me, didn't speak to me at all."
She's never heard of the Sisters of Plenitude, Jack remembers. "Yeah. He does that. Don't let it get to you." Rubbing her shoulder in comfort, he lets her continue with the report she's writing on the already dead alien they recently discovered.
Checking on the rest of his people, Jack finds the blue-skinned, psychic twins of indeterminate gender, who, much to his annoyance, have yet to tell him where they're from, are performing an experiment in one of the labs. Alex Jones, Jack's sole contemporary human, is investigating the round disc, covered in bright green buttons, that they found a few weeks ago.
Satisfied that nobody's gonna kill anyone today, Jack wanders off to the firing range.
***
There, he finds his Roman soldier and his Doctor with the claymores in their hands, and the katana on the table. Out of sight, Jack leans against the wall and settles in to watch the two gorgeous men sword-fighting, and talking away in Latin, as well.
It's incredibly hot.
After a while, the Doctor declares, "Marcus, you are indeed better with a sword than me. Heavy things, these claymores. Shouldn't be beyond me, though." He looks a little confused. They both place their weapons on the table. "Another round with the katana?"
"No, sir," Marcus replies, gathering up the four swords. "I believe the Captain needs you," he says, nodding in Jack's direction.
"Damn. I was trying to be sneaky." Jack smiles and saunters over to them. "C'mon, Doctor. We need do some more of that thing we talked about."
"Right! Yes. Let's go, then." They all leave the firing range, and Jack and the Doctor descend to the base of the water tower.
***
"Those twins, Jack," the Doctor says, as they walk.
"Any idea where they're from? None of our equipment can trace their planet. They still haven't told me, and I know several planets with blue-skinned humanoids. I don't even know if they're boys or girls. It's been bugging me for the last two years."
"They're both female-female-male..."
"...which would mean they're from Gamma 12, the only planet with that gender distinction."
"Exactly."
"Thanks for that." They've arrived at their destination. Jack goes over to stroke the coral. "Hi, Emma." She pulses back at him, in his head. "Doctor?" Jack asks, looking at him.
"Yes?"
"They both told me Emma would be able to grow more quickly with the occasional burst of Time Lord energy. C'mon, give me your hands."
***
Mabon
A couple of months later, with assistance from the two of them, Jack's coral has woven herself into a small cave.
"Time to introduce the dimensional transcendency, Jack," the Doctor declares, one night, brandishing his sonic screwdriver. "This is a part I'm going to have to do."
"Okay. I figured it might be." They enter the cave. "What does this involve?"
"I'll just show you."
Jack watches as the Doctor writes some Gallifreyan script on the walls, in light from the sonic screwdriver. The cave then begins to increase in size. It's slow at first, but when the space is about half the size of the old girl's control room, the growth is faster. And then, after about an hour, and so very many years, there's another TARDIS control room.
No console and time rotor yet, though.
"You did it, you beautiful girl," Jack tells his TARDIS, as a smile starts to appear on his lips. But he then gets a feeling from her that he can only interpret as growing pains, and the smile stops. "Doctor, she's hurting," he says, running a hand over her newly created wall, and looking over to where the Time Lord has his own hand pressed flat against another wall.
In reply, he nods to Jack, before closing his eyes. "What do you need, little one? I know that was hard work, but what would help, what would make it better?"
Emma responds in a collection of circles and lines. The Doctor then opens his eyes and walks out of the new console room. Seconds later, the police box materialises inside it, and the door opens.
"The closer presence of the only other TARDIS," the Doctor says, "that's all she needs. Calmer already, isn't she, Jack?"
"Yeah." The smile comes back, and Jack gives her a rub before pulling his hand away from the wall. "Can I sleep in your TARDIS, tonight?" he asks, coming face to face with his friend.
"If you must, Captain. As long as you don't sleep with her."
Jack just grins wickedly at him and walks inside the old girl.
***
Samhain
After that, they let Jack's TARDIS have a break for a while. The Doctor helps them send a few lost aliens home and work out what a few pieces of tech that they've been having trouble with actually do.
Then they start creating the console. Over the space of a fortnight, using the same matter transformation techniques they used to produce the walls, struts and roof, they change the main trunk of the coral into materials resembling ceramic and glass.
"We need that Rift Manipulator, now, Jack," the Doctor says, one day, looking up from the section he's applying the sonic screwdriver to, "and some harmless or useful bits of tech to install as controls."
"The Manipulator's been unwired and in my safe for nearly five hundred years. Archives, for the rest. C'mon, switch off the sonic and let's go see what we can find."
***
As Jack and the Doctor search through an archive that's been kept for over six hundred years, potentially useful pieces of tech are placed in a large box. They reminisce about parts markets and shops on other planets - many that they went to before they met each other, and some that they visited together.
There was one time that none of their usual tricks worked. Much to his annoyance (and the Doctor's amusement), Jack failed to charm the store keeper into a lower price for a rather fantastic lever. The Doctor's haggling didn't work, either. In the end, Jack had kissed Rose rather deeply, distracting the store keeper and allowing the Doctor to just steal it. There'd been glares, later. About what, Jack hadn't been able to work out.
"It worked, didn't it?" he'd said.
"Yeah," the Doctor had admitted, all gruff Manchester accent.
"Well, just fit it, and stop worrying, then. I'm sure the old girl doesn't mind how we got it, just that we did," Jack had replied.
"Aha! I've been after one of these!" the Doctor exclaims, beaming, as he discovers a particularly sophisticated dimensional stabiliser.
Jack knows exactly where his train of thought is heading. Sighing, he says, "We're looking for controls for my TARDIS, remember? Put it in the box, please." Face falling, the Time Lord does as asked. Sighing, Jack makes a mental note to just let him have the thing.
***
Taking the Rift Manipulator from Jack's safe, Jack and the Doctor then begin the installation of it as the time rotor. The Doctor has the sonic screwdriver, of course, but Jack has something himself.
"What's that?" the Doctor asks, as Jack pulls the green device from his trouser pocket. They're stood by the console in Jack's TARDIS.
"My own sonic screwdriver."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Wanna see?" Jack passes him the instrument, and the Doctor whistles.
"Oh, that's nice. Very nice." He hands the device back to Jack.
"Thanks. Made it myself, y'know."
"I think you're responsible enough to handle her now, Captain. Come on, installing to do."
They grin at each other, and carefully pick up the time rotor.
***
With the time rotor and the controls they found in the archives installed, Emma's almost ready.
Some more communication in Gallifreyan, then the Doctor declares, "I've linked her to the Eye of Harmony, Jack. Now, to make her fully functional, so she can travel in time and space, she would normally have needed priming with the biological imprint of a Time Lord, just by having one operate her for the first time..."
"...You told me all of that, years ago," Jack interrupts. "And I told you that I thought she'd already imprinted on me, and was just waiting to be fully grown. I've felt Emma in my head for five hundred years, Doctor. I know when she's happy, when she's in pain. Surely that's an imprint, a symbiotic link?"
A manic grin. "Oh, yes, Jack," the Doctor says. "Why don't we try and get her over to the invisible lift? A functioning chameleon circuit might possibly be a good idea, before she goes anywhere outside the Hub."
A combination of telepathy, buttons and levers sends Emma to the invisible lift, where she can absorb the energy left there by the Doctor's TARDIS, all the way back in 2006. Jack feels her do this; there's a change in her energies.
"Right, Captain, where are we going then? And when?" the Doctor asks, half an hour later.
"I think we oughta start small, Doctor. Just up top, on the Plas, and right now?"
***
They spend the next couple of months making increasingly more complicated trips, travelling in time and space, Jack as chief pilot.
More than once, the sheer joy at what they have and what they're doing becomes sensual. The Doctor's TARDIS surrounds Jack's. In Jack's TARDIS, pressing him against a white strut, the Doctor leads, kissing him. The old girl and the young one join in, and all four of them fall over the edge.
Later, Jack asks Emma to make a very large bed.
***
Yule
With his own TARDIS fully functional in all respects, Jack gives himself a present. And he gives someone else a present, as well.
"Five hundred years ago, I promised Martha Jones I would show you, my fully grown TARDIS, to her. We're still not gonna tell her whose TARDIS you used to be part of, though."
Setting co-ordinates, Jack dematerialises his ship.
***
15th September 2014, Martha's 30th birthday
Some birthday this was. Martha did have a day's holiday, but she'd run out of milk, so a trip down to the newsagents had been required. As she passes the BT wi-fi phoneboxes, Martha stops.
"Hang on, there's two of them. That's not right." Going back to look, a promise Jack had made to her six years ago suddenly comes to mind. Unless the Doctor had fixed the old girl's chameleon circuit, it could only be Jack.
With his own, fully grown TARDIS, complete with functioning chameleon circuit.
Anticipation growing, Martha reaches into her t-shirt. Pulling out her TARDIS key, she finds it glowing faintly. There's a noise which could be a door opening, and a person coming out. Looking back at the phonebox, sure enough, someone's there.
"Are you coming into my TARDIS, then, Doctor Jones?" Jack Harkness from five hundred years in the future says, grinning down at her, holding out a hand.
"I am, Captain Harkness," Martha instantly replies, smiling. She takes his hand and walks inside.
***
A very long time ago, Martha had very subtly given him this date.
He and Tosh had been in London, justifying Torchwood's continued existence to a load of civil servants. By lunch time, Jack had known that the meetings were going to run long, and they weren't going to make Martha's birthday dinner that evening. He'd asked for one of the government cars to take him to Harrods. There, in Van Cleef and Arpels, he'd bought her a beautiful gold chain. From elsewhere in the store, he got a birthday card. Finally, Jack left a message on Martha's mobile's voice mail, asking her to come to the Dorchester after the meal.
"Thank you for my presents, Jack," she'd said, in his suite, as the three of them had sipped champagne. Moët and Chandon's Dom Perignon, of course.
"Presents?" he'd asked, emphasising the plural.
"Yes, presents," Martha had confirmed. "This morning, you sent me that coral chip necklace I'd been asking for."
'You clever girl, Doctor Jones,' he'd thought, impressed. "Did you like it, Martha?"
She'd just smiled in reply.
Now, having piloted his TARDIS all the way back to 2014, and welcomed Martha inside, Jack waits for her reaction to the ship, the adult version of the baby she both sang and listened to. As far as he's concerned, his Emma is gorgeous.
***
"Meet Emma, Martha."
"Emma?" she asks, looking around.
"Yeah. Five hundred years of being sentient, then about nine months ago, she decided to give herself a name," Jack tells her.
Nine months? If he thinks she's leaving that alone, he's sadly mistaken. "Jack?" she says, trying to draw him out.
He sighs, then says, "Okay, I had a daughter called Emma, Martha. She was still-born and half-human, but she was beautiful, and she was mine."
Oh. From his tone of voice, Martha makes an assumption. "You carried her, didn't you?" He is the guy from the future, after all. "You were pregnant."
Jack nods, placing a hand on his belly. "Yeah. I was just a kid at the time. I thought I'd locked it all away, but she found that memory in my mind and named herself." He swipes at his eyes. "Come here," Martha says sympathetically, pulling him into a hug, letting him rest his head on hers.
A few minutes later, Jack moves out of the embrace. "Hey, c'mon, let me show her to you."
"Okay."
Martha then listens to how Jack and the Doctor created Emma, from the five hundred years of growth, to the matter transformation with the Vortex energy, to creation of the console. Jack's put his own spin on the old girl. Maybe she hadn't wanted to be too closely copied. The coral's more white than gold, the hexagons aren't exactly the same and there's Gallifreyan on the walls. As for the time rotor...
"That's the Rift Manipulator, Jack."
"Yeah," he says. "But it was a time rotor before that. Well, kinda."
"As long as she's okay."
"She's fine, Martha."
And now there's a presence nudging against her mind, soft and gentle. The feeling's familiar. Like she did with the Doctor's TARDIS, Martha places her hand on a strut. "Hello, sweetheart," she says. "Aren't you beautiful, all grown up?"
Emma pulses at her.
Martha then whispers, "I hope the Captain here flies you better than the Doctor does the old girl."
The response she gets can only be interpreted a sigh of complete and utter pleasure.
Martha looks at Jack. He's grinning very wickedly. "Have you had telepathic sex with this one as well, Jack Harkness?" she asks.
"Oh, yeah, Doctor Jones. Now come here and let me kiss you."
Martha goes straight into his arms.
***
She's there and she's beautiful and she understands, and now, she's nowhere near as far away as she used to be. And like most of the beings he's ever met, in his spectacularly long life, he still loves her. So he cups Martha's face in his hands and kisses her on the lips, then a little deeper.
"Run that bit about the Vortex energy by me again," she says, when he lets her up for air. They embrace, instead.
"I can transfer it from my fingers, now, as well, Doctor Jones." He grins down at her.
"Is there a bed in here, yet, Captain?" she asks, a slightly wicked smile on her lips.
She wants to play, does she? "Oh, yeah," he says, his hands slipping under her t-shirt, and tracing patterns over her back. "Second thing I asked her to make, after all this."
"Why don't we go and test it out, then?"
"That's a wonderful idea." He releases his hold on Martha, takes her hand in his, and they leave the control room.
***
The bedroom is the only other room in Jack's TARDIS, and mere minutes later, they're naked, on the bed and kissing. Jack knows how the energy feels to his own body, and Martha's eager to discover that same feeling for herself. Well, she knows about nerve endings, sensation, stimulus, sexual response, so she should be OK, and be aware of what she can handle. Still, he might need some assistance, if she can't deal with the sensations, and she needs to know how to tell him so. He transmits a feeling and request to his TARDIS, asking Emma to caress Martha's mind without her knowledge, so she can help him calm her, if necessary.
Taking his mouth from hers, Jack rubs Martha's stomach, takes a deep breath and asks, "Do you know what a safe word is, sweetheart?"
"No, Jack," she admits. "Should I?"
He keeps stroking her, as he explains, "I know you understand all the biological stuff about nerves inside out, but I really don't know how the Vortex energy is gonna feel to you, on that score. If your body's responses all get too much for you to cope with..."
"...If I become more aroused than I'd really like to be, you mean, Captain," she interrupts, smiling a little.
Jack chuckles. "Yeah, okay. If that happens, you clearly say your safe word, and we stop right there with the Vortex energy, and just make love the old-fashioned way. Understand?"
"Scrabble," she says, both confirmation and safe word.
"Atta girl," Jack replies, with a smile, and goes back to kissing her.
He strokes and caresses Martha's body, inside and out, transferring Vortex energy to all the places that will do something intensely pleasurable with it. Each time, she arches her back and shudders in his hands. It's so beautiful.
She doesn't say the safe word. Jack asks his TARDIS to gently let go of Martha's mind. He lets her catch her breath, before pulling her to him. "Sleep, for a while," he instructs, watching her close her eyes.
***
A few hours later, Jack smiles down at her. They're both still naked, and damn, she's gorgeous. "Happy Birthday, Martha."
"Thank you," she replies, smiling back. "When do you need to go, Jack?" she then asks.
"Soon. But you'll see the me that's still here, later today."
He then hears her mobile beep, and knows the call's from that version of himself. "Let it go to voice mail," he says. "A message from my past, so I know to come and see you on this day."
"Wibbley-wobbly timey-wimey...stuff," Martha says, almost laughing.
"What?" he asks, also laughing.
"Weeping Angels, Jack," she explains.
Oh. "Those creepy..." He winces in understanding.
"Yeah. We got stuck in 1969, without the TARDIS, had to live in linear time for while. When the technology came around, we made these DVD Easter Eggs from the transcription of what we said that someone gave us before we got sent to 1969. Wibbley-wobbly timey-wimey...stuff, he kept insisting on saying, like that explained, well, everything."
She's giving him a headache, and he's meant to know about all of this. "Yeah," he says. "When you travel in time, it ends up being circular, not linear, Martha. You get that, don't you?"
She nods at him, then seems to be considering something.
"When did you last see him, Martha?" he asks, trying to help.
"A year ago, I think. Tell him I miss him, Jack."
He knows that feeling all too well. "Of course, honey."
They then share a sweet and rather chaste kiss, before reluctantly leaving the bed and getting dressed.
***
"Go get some lunch," Jack tells her, as they stand at the door of his TARDIS. "You must need something to eat after all that exertion."
"Yes, sir," she replies, mock saluting. Turning serious, Martha then asks, "Will you bring Emma back again, Jack, when she's created some more rooms?"
"Oh, yeah. I promise. All my love to long ago, Martha Jones."
"To days to come," she says, as expected. "He told you about meeting his fifth incarnation then?"
"Yes. Now go!"
"Okay, I'm going, I'm going!" Martha grins, kisses him on the cheek and walks out.
Jack stares at the doors for several minutes, before shaking himself, re-grouping. "Back to the future, then, Emma," he says, walking to the console and setting the co-ordinates, followed by the dematerialisation sequence.
***
Yule
Jack materialises Emma in the Hub, next to the Doctor's TARDIS. He's still for a few moments, thinking. He half-hears the Doctor come in.
"Crossing time-lines, Jack."
Jack can hear the disapproval, and looks up. "I made a promise, Doctor," he replies. "I told Martha that when she was fully grown, I'd bring my TARDIS back to show her. I just wish there were more people I could show."
The Time Lord works out what he's implying. "Jack, Jack, Jack. You can't go and see everyone who's died on your watch. Believe me on this, please. Promise me?"
Jack nods, because, yes, he knows this. Trying to bring the conversation to happier things, he continues, "As long as you promise me that you'll visit Martha. She misses you."
"Alright, I promise."
"And then you can bring her here, and we can have a telepathic fivesome; you, the old girl, me, Martha and Emma..."
The Doctor's eyes and mouth go comically wide.
"We could have a foursome in the meantime, though."
The Time Lord leaves Jack's ship, and seconds later, Jack hears the old girl's dematerialisation sequence. He laughs.
"Emma? Wanna get some practice in, while we're waiting?"
Jack's TARDIS purrs at him in reply, and he smiles.
-end-
crosspost:
dwfiction
galactic_conman
jackmartha
lifeonmartha
new_who
tenmarthajack
tenxjack
torch_wood
torchwood_fic
Teaspoon (to do)