Chapter Text
Rose made a beeline for the washroom off the bedroom she and Jack had been sharing of late. She'd barely taken the time to give Vahkeet some vague explanation about the TARDIS being a capsule before opening the door to the police box, and at that, she'd hardly beaten the Doctor's coming out of it with the borrowed space suit under his arm. Under normal circumstances, she tried to avoid leaving explanations or apologies in the Doctor's hands, but the rest of the universe could go hang at the moment: She had to see for herself that Jack was all right.
She stopped just past the washroom door, where she could see into the shower. Very loosely "all right," she thought. Not like I should have expected anything else, but still--it also travels in time! "He left you like this?" she exclaimed, toeing her trainers off and shucking her hoodie.
Jack sat on the floor in the shower big enough for three or four with his back against the wall, his knees pulled up to his chest, and his arms wrapped loosely about them. Trails of damp grey stuff trickled down his skin under the influence of the water. He opened his eyes. "It's okay, Rose. I made him go. I didn't want to make you worry any longer. I'm just . . . weary. Sitting down sounded good, and the water's still warm down here."
Rose had her top and her bra off. "I'll help you, be just a sec." She unbuttoned her jeans and skinned out of them and her knickers all at once. "God, I don't know if I've ever been so scared, Jack. Facing down a Dalek, maybe. Mostly, we don't have time to be scared--too busy running to keep up with the Doctor." She walked over to the shower and slid in beside him.
"Tell me about it," he said, ruefully.
He was too pale under the grey gook, and there were faint lines around his eyes. She knelt down beside him and kissed his lips. "Don't ever do that again," she breathed.
He looked at her under half-lidded eyes. "To save you and him?" Rose opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off with a kiss, barely moving his head to do it. She smoothed her fingers through his water-soaked hair, drawing out more grey, gritty stuff. "Sorry, sweetheart. No promises. I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
She sighed. "Our Jack," she breathed, and brushed the water out of her eyes. "Don't suppose you got as far as soap, yeah?" He chuckled, and she stood to grab shampoo off the shelf. "So you're not still hurt, are you? 'Cos you look like the morning after the night before." She knelt down again and he closed his eyes, letting her help with his hair.
"Weak, mostly," he muttered, and spat back some of the bubbles that trickled into his mouth. "I'll be fine. Food, sleep, and watching my favorite people come a couple of times will make everything right in the world." He leered a little, his eyes still closed.
Rose felt a tight knot in her throat as she combed through his hair with her fingers, letting the last of the suds trickle out. "I really, really hate losing you," she murmured.
"Me, too," the Doctor said, close at hand. She startled a little, and Jack slitted his eyes under the shower spray. The Doctor had made it out of his boots and jacket and was tugging his jumper off over his head. "I'll help him stand, Rose; you can do the soap."
She nodded. "There's this grey stuff all over his skin." She stood up and traded shampoo for soap while the Doctor finished undressing and helped an unprotesting Jack to his feet.
"It is skin. Dead cells," the Doctor said.
Rose said, "Ugh!" She flicked her fingers like that would get it off, then swallowed hard and rubbed soap onto a flannel. She was sure that if they hadn't been covered with more disgusting things yet, they would be eventually.
The Doctor inspected Jack's skin as he braced their lover upright. "I wonder why skin and not hair . . . ?"
Rose glared at him. "Not a science project, Doctor," she declared, scrubbing gingerly at Jack's skin with a soapy flannel. The skin itself seemed like new under the grey gook, once the flannel exposed it.
Jack chuckled. "All this attention," he murmured, "and yet somehow, I have no desire to repeat the experiment."
The Doctor kissed the back of his head. "Can't say as I blame you, lad."
Rose looked at them, thoughtfully. There was a tension missing from them both, and that awful little line that had nested between the Doctor's eyebrows since they left Satellite 5 was gone. All it took was almost losing Jack again. Blokes. "'m pretty wrecked, myself, and all I did was sit in the control room," Rose said. "I wouldn't mind crawling into bed when we're done here. Think I'm goin' to shake for awhile."
"Shaking sounds good," Jack admitted. "Better in company. I'll join you."
The Doctor said, "Make it three."
Despite everything, Rose caught her breath and smiled.
The Doctor undressed in the dim glow of the TARDIS's night-cycle. He'd stayed with his partners until they slept, he and Rose bracketing Jack between them without consulting, and then he'd gone to move the TARDIS through the Vortex, given some thought to a safe place they might rest for awhile, and done some reading on trauma in humans to see if it would tell him anything he didn't already know. Because he thought Jack was going to be shaking for a while yet to come.
Now he'd returned to discover Jack awake in the middle of the bed, his body wound so tight he was shivering in spite of the temperature and the duvet. The Doctor slid beneath the bedclothes, slipped right through the strange frisson that was Jack's existence, and pressed his skin against the human's. Jack made a small, pained noise, and then began to relax. "I thought maybe you weren't coming back," he whispered.
The Doctor had been so long absent from this bed. Hadn't been able to sleep through the strangeness that was Jack, hadn't felt right making love to Rose while Jack was left out . . . been making all three of them right unhappy, he had, in spite of himself. He ought to tell Jack he'd always come back, but it was a promise he wasn't sure he could keep. He could only account for now. "Doesn't seem to bother me anymore," he said.
Jack was still tense, but he sighed a little with relief. "Good," he murmured. The Doctor propped himself up in the bed and caressed the other man's face, leaning close to kiss him. He touched shoulders and arms and chest, meaning to help ease tight muscles, but he found himself marveling at the sensation of passing through Jack's radiating aura of stillness instead. He stroked and caressed his way down the body he remembered, finding Jack's cock half-hard by the time he touched it, and continued feeling every centimeter of new skin, all the way down to his feet.
Jack looked bemused when the Doctor tugged at his hip, but he rolled over. "Making sure everything's still there, Doc?" he murmured, dryly.
The Doctor stroked his way through Jack's hair and then dug his thumbs into the taut muscles of the human's neck. Jack murmured wordlessly, shuddering once and then letting his head loll under the touch. "Making sure it's still mine," the Doctor said softly. He swallowed, immediately wishing he could recall the words.
Jack relaxed infinitesimally, though, and sighed. "But you're not possessive, no. Wouldn't be Time Lord-like." He managed to chuckle.
"Shut it," the Doctor grumbled, working his way slowly down Jack's back.
He'd made it as far as the other man's thighs, collecting small groans and other soft noises along the way, when Jack said, "Much as I'm enjoying this, it's going to be awfully hard to get back to sleep after this kind of attention."
The Doctor paused with his hand in the hollow of Jack's knee. "Not planning to leave you this way, Jack," he soothed, finding his way down Jack's calves and along the soles of his feet. "Not going anywhere," hung in the air, quite, quite audible without any touch to a telepathic contact point.
He couldn't always keep his companions safe. It was no different with these two who were lovers and partners, even now that one of them would never--never--stay dead. But just for now, one day--one night--at a time, he could be here. He could soothe the shaking in the middle of the night, and not the whole sodding Time Vortex could hold him apart from them.
The Doctor stretched out on the bed and caught Jack around the waist, pulling him up on his side and holding him so the entire length of their bodies was pressed together, spoon-fashion. The Doctor let his head fall forward, forehead pressed against Jack's hair, and curved his arm over the hollow of Jack's hip, stroking the other man's erection.
Jack shivered under the Doctor's ministrations and didn't move, only biting his lip against the sounds it drew from him. Without a great deal of success, as it happened, but it wasn't the first time they'd woken Rose in the middle of the night and it wouldn't be the last. She mostly had a habit of opening one eye before rolling over, or sometimes joining in, depending on where she was in her sleep pattern. Now, though, she watched, a gentle smile on her face. It had hurt her, the Doctor knew, to watch him and Jack hurting each other. It healed something in all of them, to be able to touch again.
Jack came with a strangled cry, hips pressing into the Doctor's hand and back in a taut arch before he went limp in his lover's arms. A few moments later, Rose scooted over to snuggle against him, damp spots and all. Jack startled--the ability of human sexual response to completely block one's awareness of one's surroundings never failed to amuse the Doctor--and drew her close. "Welcome home," she said.
Jack sighed, contently. The Doctor stroked his partners' hips with his hand and arm.
"Doctor," Rose asked after awhile, "you talked to Vahkeet when you returned that space suit, yeah? Did she say what will happen to Culabree, now?"
"They'll rebuild," the Doctor said. "Pr'tansi and People of Song, together."
"Second station, actually," Jack put in, sleepily. "They don't try to salvage the first."
Rose said, "Oxygen and chlorine in the same station, again? Even after what happened?"
Jack reached up to stroke her hair. The Doctor said, "Of course. Grand interspecies collaboration." He held them close to him. "Some things are worth doing. Even though they're hard."