Relics & Memory

AUTHOR: Boji
CATEGORY: Dr Who
RATING: PG-13 Nine/Jack
DISCLAIMER: They belong to Auntie BBC, who would be horrified and litigious no doubt. They also belong to RTD who might be amused. Let's hope neither ever find out. Not mine, never will be. No infringement of any copyright is intended.
SUMMARY: Memory is the foundation upon which we build. Three travellers. Three Monologues. Three beginnings?
SPOILERS: Everything up to "Boom Town." Nothing after.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: These three monologues have been sitting on my hard drive for over two months. Why? They're linked with three other pieces I'm working on that just won't gel. Originally I wanted to post all six (or so) pieces together once complete. But there's a chance that space will have collapsed in on itself first- hence I'm posting these. Beware WIP lurks within.

aminspace beta'd wonderfully, despite my appearing and disappearing acts all summer. I thank her dearly and deeply, firstly for her continuing interest in this story thread I'm trying to untangle, and for her patience dealing with the DES (dreaded extra space) that pops up between words as I type. I hope she'll want to stay 'aboard' for the rest of the ride!

 
THE DOCTOR

In the days between, she gave me shelter. Her walls muffled the sounds that ripped from my soul, by way of my throat, as I sat and let failure and sorrow carve me to pieces. Better that, than the numbness of shock freezing my heart into a block of space debris. Sleep has always been a luxury for my species, something to be enjoyed, but not something needed in such quantity as to make one glut oneself upon a pillow and beneath a sheet. Yet I couldn't grant myself even the scant hours that my physiology needed. Sleep taunted and evaded me as I chased her through endless winding corridors, those aboard ship and those in my memory. Time ceased to have meaning as did exhaustion, hunger and thirst. The sting of my cracked dry lips was soothing. The emptiness in my stomach echoed that in my soul.

I am the last of my kind. My hands are stained with the dust and bone fragments of a thousand million lives and no matter how tightly I clench my fists those shards do not cut away into my flesh. Pressure marks lie side by side with life and palm lines, but the longed for blood doesn't well up in rivulets to prove to me that I am here that I still exist, no matter how much I wish otherwise. Oblivion was denied me in the war. Denied me later, when I slid down against a cradling wall and lay on the floor, my hearts beating in time with the whirr of the TARDIS' engines. There, for endless non moments, that rhythmic sound filled my mind, muffling the sound of screaming. It took me a long, indeterminate time to realise that the screams were not those of the dying but wrenched instead from the throat of a lone survivor. Took me even longer to be able to begin the slow descent out of shock putrefying into sorrow and back into the now. The ship remained as she has always been - steadfast. She gave me what she could, shelter, safety, security, succor. Her incandescence warmed my mind and her engines lulled me, their rhythm finally my lullaby.

And when I was ready, when I no longer washed and ate by rote, then the TARDIS started to inform me of the places I still had to go and the people I still had to meet. Yet beneath the bustle and adventure of the coming days, in my mind she held me close, my hearts beating in time to the rhythmic hum of her engines. That beatific sound was the embrace which held me together as I faced worlds and space. That sound welcomed me home after the Nestene Consciousness had come close to dipping me in molten death.

I didn't notice when she began to loosen her hold, when my being - my current self - stopped needing constant succor. Human parents instill independence in their offspring in small doses, a baby is weaned from the breast, a toddler learns to balance on a bicycle complete with stabilisers. A ravaged, regenerated, renegade Time Lord relearns to celebrate survival and life and when the consciousness that cares, nay, mothers him, decides that he's dragging his feet, she intervenes.

The TARDIS' kick up my arse didn't come till another displaced soul slipped and fell. Sound waves were replaced by warm water and the loving embrace of the non-corporeal by muscular arms. Ironic that a man forged in a fraction of my endless years, tested by a fraction of the horrors my changing eyes have seen, should be the one that makes me feel safe. Ironic that one as lost as I, should be the one who can offer succor. And if asked he'd say it was nothing, or all about sex.

Humans have long stated that opposites attract. I prefer their other idiom: like attracts like. And Jack is very like me. Maybe that's why the TARDIS was so quick to recognise that, like her primary child, he too needed shelter, he too was stretched beyond endurance his self having retreated beneath a protective coat of sarcasm and semantics.

It's easier to let Rose believe that we intercepted his final journey because he redeemed himself intercepting the path of a german bomb. Easier to let her believe that I granted him passage on my ship than have her know that I'm inviting him home. Easier for her to think that his safety is a boon she asked of me, rather than a gift freely given to a beautiful scarred survivor. Rose sees what I project, thinks that I'm... just a bloke jeans and leather jacket, with a time-ship. Honorable and brave, reckless, impulsive and funny. It's a facet that she can understand, a fragment of my self that could be... well anyone in battered armour. The accent and vocabulary go with the clothes, helping me become this man I am just for today and all the todays that follow us closely. If Rose truly understood what I am, she'd be lost. Worse, she'd probably fear me. How can her mind comprehend what I've seen? The choices I've made? The beings I've killed? My actions and inactions. Sometimes, in the great symphony of this infinite expanding universe, the survival of a flower is more important than ten thousand sentient lives. Sometimes the willful destructive behaviour of the many cannot be stopped and the few who see things differently are lost in chaos. And sometimes a child that was born is saved and the most important thing is a mother's love.

In the inside pocket of his battered leather flying jacket, Jack has a picture of his mother. It's a real twentieth century photograph, taken on an antique relic of a camera by a boy whose friends probably had holomajs instead of antiquated cameras. Its bottom corner is bent and curling from the willful, loving caress of his fingers. It's fading slightly and would benefit from reprinting or from being digitised. But that would scuff the magic of that tangible memory. It's a part of Jack's life he can't bear to forget and yet can't bear to remember.

How do I know? The picture is still tucked in the pocket of that fly-boy jacket. The TARDIS would happily have found him a picture frame to honour the memory of the woman who bore him and loved him and yet he hasn't asked. Would have slept on the floor with the fly-boy jacket for a pillow, if the ship hadn't found him a berth that he was willing to call his own. It's narrow and barely comfortable and if he was willing to accept a gift of the TARDIS' love the narrow strip of his room would no doubt change. I'm not the only one she plays surprising tricks on.

In the days before there was laughter and camaraderie, in the days of silent rage and tears and unceasing footsteps, I slept on a mattress. Sheets and a pillow materialised before I forced myself to start eating again and by the time I was willing to take note of my surroundings, gifts surrounded my island mattress. A book of poetry, a lava lamp, woven oversized cushions, boxes made of different materials - all neatly stacked in a parody of a cityscape - shells and ribbons. I had texture to reawaken fingertips that had rubbed themselves numb on unwashed sheets, colour to remind me that the universe wasn't monochrome in it's conception and words brimming with pain and spilling with wisdom. The poetry of Gerard Manley was on hand to guide me through the dark night that was my soul.

Why did she choose relics which only originated on Earth? Hindsight can tease you with a fragment of knowledge, foreshadow a fragment of memory and be utterly wrong. For a while I thought the gifts left adjacent to my rectangular resting place heralded Rose crossing my path. I was wrong, completely, utterly, wrong. They were a feast for my atrophied senses. And they heralded the banquet that is Jack. That knowledge fell into place in the space of a firm handshake and then had to be overlooked as we struggled to prevent disaster. Desperate to justify how he scavenged his survival, Jack was loud and brash. When he came aboard we tiptoed around each other. He grated against my starved senses, danced around Rose. Flirted, cajoled and tried to protect himself from my turbulent displeasure.

To me the TARDIS is home. Yet she is also womb and carapace. I should not have been surprised that she would choose to offer such protection to Jack. Should not have been, but was. How did I know when he capitulated and chose to accept what she was gifting him with? Functional shower rooms were swept aside to become claw-footed bathtubs and his sleeping berth? He woke one morning, his narrow berth a colonial four poster bed.

-fin-