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Lost Boys	By : Turkaholic Category: 1 through F > Doctor Who Views: 3820 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, any of its characters or trademarks. I make no money from the writing of this fanfiction

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Interlude II
Jack sat with his elbows propped on his knees, watching his hands vacantly as the Doctor’s slow, quiet footsteps drifted to him from the corridor below. The wire mesh beneath him vibrated as the Timelord ascended the steps back towards the centre console and tapped a button. The Tardis made a noise like a high pitched sigh, and then fell quiet again.
                “Just synching the next set of memories now.” Called the Doctor, a little too cheerfully. Jack looked up from his hands towards him. He had his back turned, but he could see the Doctor’s reflection in one of the monitors: the vacant, distant frown was settled on his features, but Jack decided not to comment.
                “It’s funny – I don’t remember you having to synch memories the last time we did this.”
                “You were asleep.”
                Jack stared into the Doctor’s ghostly reflection thoughtfully for a moment, and then back down at his hands. He watched the muscles twitch and flex under the skin, trying his hardest to understand what he had seen so far. It was too much; too complex. Jack had had his fair share of sexual partners, but even his vast experience didn’t seem to apply in any way to the Master and the Doctor. Sex and mind games; hate and affection seemed mingled into one. He couldn’t make up his mind if he was being forced to watch porn or chess.
                “How long we got?”
                The Doctor raised a hand and pulled the screen slowly towards him. “Ten? Twenty minutes?”
                “And d’you need to stand there the whole time?”
                The Doctor seemed to pause. Jack heard a sigh, although he wasn’t sure if it was the Timelord or his Tardis. “Suppose not.” Came the ambivalent reply after a moment. Jack looked up from his hands at the sound of movement. The Doctor turned towards him and leaned back against the console, folding his arms across his chest.
                “Hangover gone?”
                “Oh yeah.” Laughed Jack, rubbing his head. “Problem is I’ve got whole new kind of headache to replace it.”
                A vague smile twitched up one side of the Timelord’s face. He raised his eyebrows slightly. “I know what you mean.”
                The Tardis hissed calmly around them. Jack took a deep breath and looked down at his hands again. He’d never liked sitting still. He’d spent his life pleasure-and-thrill seeking, running away from memories of Gray – amongst others. Ianto had been another addition to a long list of regrets and losses he didn’t know how to cope with. It had never really occurred to him how similar he and the Doctor were – until now.
                “Did you really believe he didn’t want to do it?” He found himself asking; more to distract himself than anything. The Doctor snorted and stared at the wall above Jack’s head.
                “Maybe… I hoped. There’s not that much difference between hope and belief… in the end.”
                “I think I saw it. I mean-“ Jack narrowed his eyes in thought, trying to think how he could describe it “when you were uh…”
                The Doctor glanced at him, his brow furrowing. “In the shower.” He said firmly, guessing at Jack’s hesitation. The captain laughed nervously.
                “Yeah. He seemed like a different guy.”
                There was a long pause. The Doctor watched Jack’s face seriously.
                “That’s why you decided to show me the unedited version.” He continued, suddenly understanding. “It’s not about the sex, is it?”
                The Doctor averted his eyes at the word.
                “What you saw was a shadow.” He admitted, brushing his hair back awkwardly. He let himself slide down the console and onto the floor, resting his back against it. “A flash of something I thought had died… long ago.”
                Jack ignored the avoidance of his question and nodded. “You said he slipped away. I kinda didn’t believe you until I saw that.”
                The Doctor’s chest rose in a heavy sigh. He splayed his legs across the floor of the Tardis, staring at his shoes. He shook his head absently. “He wasn’t always like that. He was a good man, once. Well… a decent man.” He pushed his bottom lip out in thought. “As decent as anybody could be… with drums pounding in their head day and night.”
                Jack felt his stomach drop a little at the matter-of-fact tone in the Doctor’s voice, as if he was commentating on something completely indifferent to him. Jack had used it before; he knew what it meant.
                “That’s something else that bugs me.” Said Jack, sitting forward, away from the railings. The Doctor raised his eyes in curiosity. “The drums. How could they stop, if – like you said – it was just in his head?”
                The Doctor sat silently for a moment, watching him, then rested his head back against the console and looked up, absently staring at the underside of it
                “I should have realised then that something wasn’t right.” He said, an undertone of regret in his otherwise flat voice. His eyes flickered doubtfully across the blank space above him. “But I didn’t listen. I was too busy. Too wrapped up in my own problems to think about it.” His voice dropped to a mutter. “If I’d just taken the time to work it out…”
                The Doctor closed his eyes heavily. His throat seemed to constrict just slightly. Jack frowned, watching the moment of pain slide over the Timelord’s face. Just as quickly, it was gone again.
                “That wasn’t a drumbeat in his head, it was a signal.” The Doctor continued, his voice strong again, as though the moment hadn’t happened. “Planted there when he was a child; a link created between him and the Timelords so that they could escape.”
                Jack was becoming even more confused. “You’re talking about the Time War.” The Doctor looked at him strangely, as if he was surprised that Jack was even there. “Doctor, they all died.”
                The Doctor’s face twisted into a look of intense confusion. He opened his mouth but no sound came out, as if unsure what to say.
                “Christmas Day?” He asked, nonplussed. “Everyone’s face changed? Planet in the sky?”
                Jack raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “I was… gone by then.”
                For some reason the comment brought a grin to his face. He laughed silently. “Oh Donna would have liked you.”
                The grin faded painfully, almost as fast as it had arrived.
                “The Timelords,” he continued, “used an innocent child as a weapon. I was so blind. I thought that the madness caused the drums, but maybe it was the other way around.”
                “Then how come it was you that stopped it?”
                The Doctor’s face darkened. His eyebrows pressed low over his eyes as they widened. “The Archangel Network.” He growled, then looked away. “That psychic connection; whenever we were – close it amplified to an almost physical presence by the network until it just… drowned everything else out.” His lip twitched just slightly; bitterly. “The signal couldn’t even compete.”
                Jack felt himself shiver, though he wasn’t sure why. “Well that explains a lot. I mean… that’s why you gave in so easily, right?”
                The Timelord’s eyes settled tiredly on Jack. He smiled sadly and shook his head. “I’d blame everything on that if I could, but I’d be lying. The psychic network didn’t change the connection, it just made it –“ He struggled to find the word, his mouth working silently as he considered his options. “…realer.”
                Jack struggled to understand, but he was fast becoming used to that. Ever since he’d staggered on board the Tardis with the help of the Doctor, everything had moved so fast he could barely process it.
                The Tardis made an innocuous sigh, but apparently it was what the Doctor had been waiting for. He jumped to his feet with a sudden burst of energy and bent close into one of the monitors. A grin spread wide across his face.
                “Oh she’s good.” He said proudly. “Getting old but still going strong. Just look at that: five minutes and she’s got the whole thing synched already.”
                The Doctor stroked the edge of the monitor for a moment. “Right then, off we go.”
                Jack frowned furiously, still struggling to his feet. “Wait a second!”
                “Sorry. Can’t.” Came the frustratingly upbeat reply. The captain tugged at his coat, straightening it out after the sudden movement, and glared as the Doctor strode towards the white doors.
“Look, do we have to rush this? You said you wanted me to understand…” he spread his palms out appeasingly. “I still have so many questions!”
                The Doctor stopped in his tracks at the words. After a moment he turned to look at the other man, as though seeing him for the first time. “Makes a change for you to ask questions.” He said, a tone of quiet surprise in his voice. The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “You were always more… ‘point-and-shoot, ask-questions-later’.”
                Jack paused, suddenly nonplussed by the change of topic. He looked down at the mesh of the Tardis, and watched the dim lights flickering beneath as he thought. The Doctor was right: he’d changed. When had it happened? He knew almost as soon as he asked himself the question.
                “The last time I jumped in head first, someone died.” He said slowly, the words hurting almost physically as they escaped his lips. He took a deep breath and stood up straight, looking seriously into the Doctor’s face. “I owe it to Ianto’s memory to change that.”
                The Timelord surveyed him silently, his expression unmoving as he weighed up the words; the expression on Jack’s face. Eventually his face softened. A ghost of a smile pressed itself against his lips. He placed his hand on the door.
                “Then it wasn’t me who made you a better person.” He said quietly; warmly. “It was him.”
                With that he opened the lock, and stepped out into the blackness.
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Lost Boys