Entry tags:

story: tardis

Title: A Truthy TARDIS Crew's Christmas (3/5)
Rating: PG-13
Series: The Colbert Report, Doctor Who
Spoilers: Anything DW/TW/SJA is fair game.
Summary: Sarah Jane passes on the bad news about Gallifrey, Jon is introduced to the idea of psychic alien sex, Luke continues to win at Scrabble, and the (much-anticipated) final visitor arrives to the party.

Beta by the gracious stellar_dust. Table of contents, and footnotes, here.


A Truthy TARDIS Crew's Christmas
Part Three


13 Bannerman Road: December 23, 2009.

After breakfast, Luke and Maria headed out to spend the day with Clyde and Rani. The others would be spending Christmas Day with their own families, of course; but Clyde had been eager to see Maria again, and she and Rani were looking forward to meeting in person.

Sarah Jane waited until they were out of the house before taking a plate of gingerbread cookies and tracking down Stephen. He was on the couch again, holding a low conversation that must have been with the Wørd.

Jon would be upstairs for a while. He had promised to call his kids, and what with the smoothness of Mr. Smith's lightning-fast connection, Sarah Jane wouldn't be surprised if they lost track of time completely.

"There's something you should know. Both of you," she said, offering the plate.

Stephen took a cookie with one hand and held up the psychic paper with the other. What's Up? it read.

"I don't know if you'll run into the Doctor again, but just in case . . . ."

This time she outlined, as best she knew, the story of the last great Time War.

They had met Daleks only once while Stephen was on the TARDIS, but he didn't need any reminding about what they were like. A few grisly thumbnail sketches that flashed on the paper showed the Wørd hadn't forgotten them either. So she went right to the destruction of Gallifrey, the genocide of two species, and the time-lock that kept any of it from being changed.

Both the man and the papilløn listened closely, then began pressing her with questions. Yes, that meant Romana, the Master, the Rani, and all the others were gone. Yes, the Master had made it out, but she wasn't sure how, and anyway he had died soon after.

No, the girl across the street was not the Rani. Yes, they had checked.

No, you couldn't travel to any point in time and fix it.

And no, she didn't understand how the Time Lords could be dead in all eras, when Stephen and the Wørd (not to mention Sarah Jane herself) had clearly met them in some era. It was a level of temporal complexity that only the Doctor understood these days . . . .

"Okay," interrupted a voice from the door, "who else is in here?"


⇔

Stephen had that guilty look on his face again when he met Jon's eyes.

He and Sarah Jane had been chatting almost normally, but there was something bizarre in the rhythm of their conversation. They kept pausing together, and sometimes one of them would break off when the other hadn't interrupted, or answer a question that nobody had asked.

In spite of the oddness, Sarah Jane was completely unruffled. "Come on in, Jon. Have a seat."

Jon looked to Stephen. There had been an awkwardness between them all morning, so achingly familiar that he half expected to be pushed away no matter what, the way he would have been a year ago. "Can I?"

"Go ahead. The kids are out."

"You don't have to worry about Luke and Maria," remarked Sarah Jane from her armchair as Jon joined Stephen on the couch, too close to be casual but not quite touching. "They're already keeping much bigger secrets than your relationship."

A cloud passed over Stephen's face. Jon changed the subject. "I don't mind. Really. But, listen, is there someone in here I can't see? Because it sure sounded like I was only getting part of the conversation."

"Okay, shut up, I'm telling him," snapped Stephen, addressing thin air. "Sarah Jane, can you—?"

"I'll leave you two be," she agreed, standing up and handing Jon some kind of little white card in a thin leather holder. "You'll need this."

Jon frowned at the card as Sarah Jane left the room. It was blank except for two printed words: About Time!


⇔

Privately, Jon was surprised at how quickly he adjusted to this mode of conversation. Sure, he had watched the Wørd segment on the show plenty of times, eyes flicking between Stephen's face on one half of the screen and the bullet points on the other—but he never would have expected to be in a situation where it (she!) would talk back.

Even the story itself wasn't hard to follow. He was getting the hang of time loops by now.

As the telling wound down, Jon spoke up. "So, wait . . . you repopulated the whole species? All by yourself?"

I'm Hot Stuff, replied the paper smugly.

"Aren't you worried about, I don't know, inbreeding or something?"

Psychic Entities Don't Have Genes.

"Oh. Right."

But I Had Every Available Guy, Just In Case.

"Every—? Uh, how long were you there?"

"Only a couple of hours," put in Stephen. "You understand, Jon, they don't have any physical limitations, so they can, um, have a lot going on at once."

"How many . . . ?"

Stephen twitched. "Couple of dozen at a time . . . maybe hundreds overall. I kinda lost track." He looked away. "This . . . isn't easy to talk about."

"I believe it," murmured Jon. You find out that you're the only person who can save a planet, but to do it you have to submit to being mentally gang-banged by aliens? "God, Stephen, that must have been so . . . "

". . . so hot."

Jon did a double-take. "Wait. What?"



"Because she loved it," continued Stephen, taking a shuddery breath and crossing his legs. "I got her experience of it, and for her species that's like the ultimate sexual fantasy. Even me thinking about it turns her on, and then that turns around and starts affecting me . . . hey!"

Jon glanced down at the paper to see what Stephen was reacting to. Stephen Likes It Rough Too, it informed him.

"Oh, geez," he muttered, feeling his face turn red. "You're there for our sex."

I Get Stephen's Experience Of It. He Loves It, Don't Worry.

"Um, thanks? I didn't realize there was a snarky alien voyeur involved."

It's The Only Action I Get These Days. Cut Me Some Slack?

"I'll try," said Jon weakly.

And Seriously, Try Manhandling Him A Bit Some Time.

Blushing furiously, Stephen snatched the paper out of Jon's hands. "Stop that!" he hissed, stuffing it in the pocket of his sweatshirt.

"It's okay, you know," said Jon tentatively. "I mean, if you want to try something new in bed, all you have to do is ask."

Stephen looked away; then his head jerked sharply towards the window. Jon followed his gaze to see a gaggle of teenagers coming up the driveway: Luke, Maria, and two others.

"Later," he said brusquely, and scooted to the other side of the couch fast enough to give himself rug burn.


⇔

Jon managed to coerce Stephen into joining his team for that night's Scrabble game, only to find that Stephen still refused to sit too close when the kids were in the room.

The chance for physical contact was the real reason Jon had asked. Vocabulary had never been Stephen's strong suit: he was more prone to making up new words than bothering to learn the old ones. And while Jon was quick with his letters, and Maria no slouch herself, this was clearly Luke's game.

So it was a little startling when, as Jon stared blankly at their first seven letters, Stephen exclaimed, "Got one!"

"What? Are you serious?"

Stephen triumphantly laid the tiles down: J₈E₁T₁H₄R₁I₁K₅. "Hah! Twenty-one points, plus the bonus for using all the letters, plus—"

"That's not a word," interrupted Maria.

"Sure it is!"

"You know proper nouns aren't allowed, right?"

"It's not a proper noun, Maria. It's a rare mineral that forms a vital component of certain types of warp drive."

The doorbell rang. "I'll get it," said Sarah Jane, rising. Nobody paid her any attention.

"Bet it's not in the official Scrabble dictionary," Maria declared.

"Books!" cried Stephen dismissively. "Don't look things up in books. They're all fact, no heart. Look them up in your gut."

"K-9 stores everything on the circuits in his body," observed Luke. "So technically, he looks everything up in his gut. Even books."

Stephen looked like he couldn't decide whether to be awed or horrified. Jon tried to hold steady, but he caught a glimpse of Maria's smirk and lost it completely.

They were all laughing too hard to take note of the voices in the hall. Even Stephen was allowing himself to look slightly less peeved when Sarah Jane came in behind them. "The game only just started," she was saying, "so I'm sure there'll be room if you want to join in."

"That's all right," said a roguish American-accented voice. "I like to watch."

Stephen sat bolt upright so fast that Jon made sure he was okay before turning around to check out the newcomer.

The man was tall, fit, and handsome: strong chin, blue eyes, brown hair that fell over his forehead just so. His pale-blue button-down shirt and dark slacks hit that happy medium between casual and respectable, and he walked with the easy grace of someone who is confident that he can handle anything in his path.

"Jack?" breathed Stephen, now hanging over the back of the couch as he leaned towards the doorway.

Oh, great. This chiseled charmer was also the secret agent who couldn't die.

Jack broke into a grin that could have melted the Arctic, revealing perfect teeth in the process. "Hello, stranger."

Clambering over the couch, Stephen sprinted across the room and, while Jon looked on in utter disbelief, flung himself with unrestrained joy into Jack's arms.




⇔

Long after the rest of the assembled had gone to bed, Jack sat up in front of the fireplace and tried not to worry.

The whole team in Cardiff had urged him to accept Sarah Jane's invitation. Martha told him in no uncertain terms that he was working too hard. Gwen insisted that they could manage without him for a few days. And Ianto promised that if they honestly needed him, they would call.

Still, relaxing was easier said than done. (You try being buried alive for almost two thousand years, see how much you like sitting still after that.) And it wasn't like he had to worry about working himself to death.

Jack put another log on the fire. There was no way he could be comfortable these days without some kind of motion and change around him. The crackling flames, slowly turning wood into ash, weren't much, but they did the job.

The floor creaked behind him, and a voice said, "Jack?"

"Hey," said Jack softly. "Care to join me?"

Stephen settled down on the floor beside him, leaning against the foot of the couch. He had the face of the adult Jack had seen on TV a few times, but he cuddled up against Jack's side just like the kid he had been a couple of decades or a couple of millennia before.

"Trouble sleeping?" asked Jack presently.

"Jet lag."

"Ah."

The fire sparked and crackled.

"I should tell you something," Stephen added.

"Go ahead."

"You know when I introduced Jon, how I said he was my friend? Well, he is, but that's not all he is, if you know what I mean." He paused. "We're having sex, is what I'm saying."

Jack smiled. "I kind of figured."

"Oh, good. Do you—like him?"

"Hard to say. Don't know him that well yet. Does he take good care of you?"

"I grew up," pointed out Stephen, sitting up. "I can take care of myself now."

"Right," said Jack, abashed. "Sorry."

They fell silent, listening to the flames. Then Stephen rested his head on Jack's shoulder.

"It's weird, I know," he murmured. "Seeing me so much older, when it's only been a year for you."

Jack hesitated before replying. He didn't want to lie, even by omission; but this was a hard story to hear, and exactly the sort of thing he had always tried to shield Stephen from.

On the other hand, Stephen was an adult now.

"It's . . . been a little longer than that," he admitted.

"Really? How come?"

"It's a long story. And not a happy one."

"I've got all night," offered Stephen.

Nodding slowly, Jack took a deep breath.

"Remember when I told you that I lost my brother . . . ?"