Title: TARDIS Sunday
Author: bigtitch
Rating: AO
Pairing: Jack/10
Series: 1) Cardiff Sunday
Disclaimer: I don't own these guys. And anyway, it's all RTD's fault. If he hadn't created Captain Jack I wouldn't be writing this.
Note: Much thanks to Sonia and Chris the best betas around. You're the top! You're Mahatma Gandhi.
Summary: Jack and the Doctor have met, but can the Doctor persuade Jack to come travelling with him again?

***

Jack picked up a pint in each hand and negotiated his way past customers back to where the Doctor was sitting. The official opening time for the pub had arrived and it was filling up with the lunchtime crowd. He and the Doctor hadn't been that far ahead of it ... this was only their second round.

He placed a glass in front of the Doctor and sat down beside him.

"Thanks," the Doctor said, picking it up and taking a swallow.

Jack nodded in reply. Talk had been sporadic between them. The first toast had been to Rose and they had shared a few memories of her, with the Doctor filling him in on a few of his newer escapades. The adventure at Torchwood Tower was not discussed. Too raw for the Doctor, Jack guessed. There was a silence between them, though, and not an easy one. It was awkward, angry, prickly like an unwelcome stranger sitting at the table.

Jack took a drink and breached the silence.

"So, Doctor," he said. "What's the price for my resurrection, then?"

"Price?" The Doctor's face creased in puzzlement.

"Price," Jack repeated. "You know, what's gone wrong because I'm alive? What have I unbalanced by living?"

"I don't know," the Doctor replied.

"Oh, come off it," Jack said scornfully. "I am an ex-Time Agent. I know about temporal equilibrium. I'm alive when I should be dead, there have to be consequences. So what is it? A supernova? A black hole? A plague? This meteor that's heading for Earth? What?"

"I don't know," the Doctor repeated. He fiddled with a drinks mat on the table. "I never went looking to see if there were any. I didn't want to know." He looked up and held Jack's gaze. "I didn't want to have to deal with the implications if I found any."

Jack dropped his eyes from the sadness in his companion's. "Oh."

"I preferred to think that, as Rose was channelling the Time Vortex when she did it, she knew what she was doing and repaired any immediate damage as she went along."

Jack grinned. "I can cope with that theory," he said. "Well, better than the alternative," he added.

"What's that?"

Jack looked at the Doctor over the rim of his glass as he took a drink. "That I'm such a nobody that there's no effect either way."

The Doctor snorted and raised his glass in tribute.

Jack drank, letting the humour cover his relief at the Doctor's words. He had worried about the consequences of his resurrection. Not that he had lost a huge amount of sleep over it, and he certainly had no intention of jumping in front of any cars. But he might have felt obliged to do some disaster recovery and that could have proved inconvenient.

+++

The Doctor put down his glass. "Is there really a meteor headed for Earth?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah," Jack said nonchalantly. It's about six and a half miles wide, should hit Florida in a couple of years. Should take out most of North America when it hits and the rest of the world a few hours later."

"That sounds like the confidence of a man with an escape plan."

"Don’t need one," Jack said smugly. "The weapon that took care of the Sycorax will handle it."

"That's a better use for it," the Doctor said. "Good plan."

"You don't know the half," he said with an evil grin. "NASA haven't spotted it yet and we haven't told them. Yvonne was going to wait for them to notice, realise that there's nothing they can do and for the US President to make a 'we're all doomed' speech to the world. We zap the meteor, and ten minutes later the Prime Minister makes a 'don't panic, we sorted it' speech. Yvonne could be really childish sometimes." Jack's grin remained, showing that he wasn't too bothered about that personality trait of the erstwhile head of Torchwood.

The Doctor groaned. "Politics and pettiness. I wonder why I bother with the human race sometimes."

Jack's grin faded and the fragile rapport building between them dropped.

The Doctor silently cursed this regeneration's skill at putting his foot in his mouth. He needed Rose to remind him when he was being rude. And now silence had fallen between them again. It didn't used to be so difficult to talk to Jack!

He drained his beer. "Are you going to come back travelling with me?" he said finally, asking the question that had been between them since they had met by the bay.

"Do you want me to?" Jack asked back.

"Yes, if you want to," the Doctor replied, risking a direct approach.

"I don't know," Jack said, shaking his head. I have responsibilities here. A team I like working with. I've built a life here."

"That sounds like a 'No'."

"Yes. I mean it's a 'No'. I think."

The Doctor stood up, disappointed, but not entirely surprised at Jack's response.

"Well, in that case," he said. "Do you want to pick up your stuff from the TARDIS? It's still in your room."

Jack looked a little surprised. "Sure," he said. "Why not?" He finished his pint and stood up too.

The Doctor was careful to hide any pleasure he felt at Jack's obvious lack of enthusiasm for the plan.

+++

If Jack had not known what to think or feel when he had first seen the TARDIS on the cctv image, he had no such luxury when he stepped inside again. The sense of homecoming was so overwhelming it nearly brought him to his knees. Luckily the Doctor had gone in ahead of him and didn't see his reaction. Jack couldn't resist trailing his fingers over the console as they walked past it. The ever-present hum of the TARDIS thrummed through him like the touch of an old lover.

Then he was in his room and it was like he had never left. He went around picking up trifles, souvenirs he'd acquired and then putting them back down as though he couldn't believe they were real. The uniform cap he'd worn when he'd first met the Doctor was hanging on the corner of the upright mirror. He put it on and stared at his reflection, then he caught sight of the Doctor lounging against the door frame. It was a posture that belonged entirely to his previous regeneration and the familiarity struck Jack like a blow.

He turned round and saw that he was being regarded by eyes that held all the wisdom and experience of the Time Lord's nine hundred years.

Jack gave an unamused snort of laughter and his lips twisted into a mockery of a smile. "You bastard."

The Doctor smiled as Jack closed the distance between them. He kept on smiling when Jack grabbed hold of his suit lapels and shoved him hard against the wall.

"You manipulative bastard!" Jack repeated, furious at falling so easily under the spell of this man and his machine.

The Doctor's smile never faded as he stared at Jack from a few inches' distance. He reached up round Jack's pinioning arms and removed the cap. Then he pulled Jack to him and kissed him.

Sheer surprise held Jack still for a moment, then he gave a groan and pressed into the kiss. This was the taste he'd missed and wanted, waking hard and angry in the darkness of his room night after night. He let go of his grip on the lapels and started to move his hands over the Doctor's body, mapping the differences. Then the conflict between the familiar and the new of this Doctor got to him and he pushed himself away.

His confusion must have shown on his face because the Doctor smiled reassuringly. "It's still me, Jack," he said and reached up a hand to stroke the nape of Jack's neck. "I still remember."

The nape was one of Jack's hot-spots and he had to bite his lip to suppress the moan that built in him at the Doctor's cool touch. Did the Doctor know what he was starting here?

He stared into the Doctor's dark eyes. "Do you want this?" he asked.

"Yes," the Doctor said. "I want it."

Jack took hold of the Doctor's face in both hands and kissed him hard, plundering his mouth with his tongue, letting the passion build between them. Keeping the kiss going, he started stripping the Doctor out of his many layers of clothing, barely aware that the same was being done to him. When they were both naked, he broke off the kiss long enough only to glance down the Doctor's new body and to turn and push the Doctor down on to the bed.

He kissed the Doctor again, rubbing his hand down a hairy chest and slim body until he grasped the Doctor's erection. He stroked it in a firm grasp as the man beneath him gasped into his mouth and thrust into his hand.

The lube was under the pillow, where he'd left it. He flicked open the top with a practised thumb and squeezed the cool gel on to his fingers. He reached down to the Doctor's arse and started to prepare it, thoroughly but roughly. He pressed a finger into the entrance and the Doctor writhed against him.

"Yes! Oh, Jack!" he gasped, pushing down, pressing Jack's finger further in.

Jack moved and knelt between the Doctor's legs, spreading lube over his own erection. The thought came to him that *his* Doctor would never have done this. It would have been Jack on his back, waiting to be penetrated. He shut his eyes against the thought and the sight of the changed man in front of him. He put the head of his cock against the Doctor's entrance and slowly pushed until he was fully in.

He let out a low groan of satisfaction. Oh, this was what he had been waiting for. The lower body temperatures of Time Lords made this a unique experience. He drew back and then dove in immediately. Moans from the Doctor encouraged him and he began to thrust in earnest. His eyes still closed, he surrendered to his need and fucked the Doctor hard. This is what he had dreamt of alone for a long time. If he kept his eyes closed he was still fucking *his* Doctor. He did just that, not caring what his partner thought. His release was there before him and he pursued it with a single-minded determination, heedless of the man who writhed beneath him.

He felt the pleasure build, and he let the wave break through him as he came with a cry that was half groan, half shout.

He pulled out and took his original place beside the Doctor. He kissed him again and reached down to stroke his cock. The Doctor's hand was on his, showing him the rhythm, the grasp that he needed. It didn't take long. The Doctor arched his back, thrust once more into Jack's hand and came, gasping out a wordless cry of completion. They collapsed together on to the bed, stroking each other as their three hearts slowed to a normal rhythm.

The Doctor reached up his hand and brushed his fingers along Jack's cheekbone, his eyes wide and wondering. It would be too easy to do this. To fall under this charismatic alien's spell once more. And what then? Jack wrenched his face away and turned abruptly, put his back to the Doctor and buried his face in the pillow, denying the tears he refused to shed. A hand stroked his upper arm.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said. "I'm so sorry, Jack."

Jack kept himself rigid, breathing heavily, trying to hold on to his anger and hurt, armour against the risk of more pain.

+++

Eventually Jack relaxed, the threat of tears gone. All he felt was an empty calm. He had dreamed of this, of lying in the Doctor's arms again, but the reality had a bitter taste to it. If that dream was gone did he want to go on without it?

He sat up and started pulling on his clothes.

A hand stroked down his back and turned to see the Doctor looking up at him.

"Stay," the Doctor said.

Jack shook his head. "It was *fun*," he said, twisting the word. "But I've got work to get back to."

"I didn't mean stay in bed," the Doctor said.

"I know," Jack said. "I didn't mean that either."

The Doctor sat up and pulled his knees up under his chin in a defensive posture. "You don't look very happy about it."

"I'm not," Jack said. "A big part of me wants to stay and God knows I've longed to get off this rock sometimes. But I'm doing good work here, work I'm proud of. I make a difference. I don't know if I want to give that up."

The Doctor shook his head. "It's not the work, Jack, is it?"

Jack gave the Doctor a measuring look, then turned back to putting his shoes on. "I said I'd never doubt you," he said, with a bitter ghost of a laugh. "Well, you made a liar out of me." He stood up and looked down at the figure hunched on the bed. "You fooled me once, Doctor. I'm not sure I want to give you a chance to do it twice."

The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair. "I don't know what to say."

"There isn't anything you *can* say." Jack reached down and picked up his greatcoat. "It's what you do that counts."

The Doctor looked up quickly at that. "You'll let me prove it?"

Jack shrugged. "If you can." He hooked the greatcoat over his shoulder. "Stick around if you want, I'm not going anywhere."

The Doctor nodded. "OK. *I'll* stay."

Jack gave him a faint smile in return and then turned and left.

+++ The End+++

***