Almost Human

Jack

     I nursed my sore shoulder and went in search of something medicinal, I didn't dare wander this place without directions- I was certain the medical bay was further away from the control room than it had been- I'd counted doors, so I went to find the Doctor.
"Does the medbay move?" He straightened up from where he'd been poring over the console,
"The ship can rearrange it's interior." I had a mental image of dancing rooms gyrating around a floor plan,
"That's.."
"Fantastic. Yes." The Doctor grinned,
"You got any more painkillers or strong alcohol or something? I'm not sure what to take."
"Ah," the Doctor made a face, "should probably bring you up to speed on that."
"Speed?" he was marching off down the corridor, he pushed open the first door on his right and walked into the medbay, I eyed it suspiciously, this was going to take some getting used to,
"How do you know what room's going to be where?"
"I'm in mental contact with my ship, I tell 'er where to put something and she does it." He grinned again, opened a cabinet and started hunting around within, pulled out a tube and tossed it to me, I missed the catch and leant down to pick it off the floor,
"Your ancestors," he said in some amusement, "survived the rigours of their day to day environment by dint of their manual dexterity."
"Well, not this monkey." The Doctor gave me a big grin, I looked at the tube in my hand in growing perplexity, I didn't recognise the script,
"What's it say?" He peered over my shoulder,
"Apply directly to skin, do not allow contact with mucous membranes, do not ingest, advise cleaning applicators appendages after use."
"Wash your hands after?" He nodded, smiling, "What sort of script is it?" I flipped the cap of the tube,
"Argolinan." Silly question, didn't mean a damn thing to me, I spread the pale odourless gloop over my shoulder under my shirt, it spread well and seemed to sink in instantly. "That should speed the regeneration of damaged tissue, now, lets see about a pain killer." And he strode off again, I slung the tube back in the cupboard and hurried after him.
The Doctor led me down the corridor to the library, I looked longingly at the tall ranks of books hoping some of them would be comprehensible to me, the Doctor wandered back from the recesses of the room with a cut glass decanter of something brown,
"Can I read these?" he handed me a glass, poured me a measure of what smelt like brandy,
"If you promise not to get mucky fingerprints on them." I smiled,
"I mean, are there some in english script?" he filled his own glass,
"There's a translator function." He plumped down in an armchair, set the decanter on a side table beside him, crossed his long legs and looked smug.
"Fantastic."

     Near the end of the brandy he said, "You know, you're going to have to be a bit careful with medicines from now on, "he had my entire attention, and I really rather wished I didn't have any brandy at all in my system, "the changes in your metabolism make some common earth medicines a bad idea."
"Changes?" My adrenaline started to spike and I'm sure that sounded more aggressive than I meant,
"You were right," the Doctor said imperturbably, "your genetic structure had been destabilised, I stabilised it, but it's changed."
"How changed?" He tapped a finger on his glass, he looked uncomfortable,
"Different processes, different strengths and susceptibilities.."
"We better go through these." I better make notes,
"Your life expectancy has been increased," I'm sure I looked alarmed," to about 200 years."
Oh hell,
"Terran literature is full of tales of striving for longer life," the Doctor mused, "the central reward of several quite popular religions is eternal life, and yet you don't look happy at all."
Truth to tell I felt a bit sick,
"I've never understood why anyone would want tolive forever- to be free of aches and limitations of old age- I get that, and I'm sure when it comes to it I'll be wanting a bit more of what I know before the inevitable trip into the unknown.. but to live so long to see everybody you know die?" Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Doctor wince, "Everything you know change? In the bad ways, I mean." I reminded myself there'd been a time before vaccines, as well as before pollution, "For me," I strove for clarity, "this strains the bonds with my home world, moves me further from the natural cycles which I was born into. Probably because," I rubbed my eyes tiredly, "I am less human than I was."
"Is that a problem?" the Doctor asked sharply,
"I'm fond of my home planet's ecology, attached  to it." I said lamely, I was pretty sure I hadn't said that right but it was a first approximation, I rubbed my face, "How does Jack deal with it?" I muttered,
"Jack?" said the Doctor, something in the quality of his voice made me stop, I had his complete, unblinking attention,
Because Jack doesn't deal with it yet, does he?
Oh hell.
What are the chances of a super-intelligent being not working this out?
"I met Jack further down his timeline." I know something you, perhaps, should not know, yet,
"Go on." Said the Doctor, evenly,
"Should I tell you this?" I burst out, "You're not supposed to know it yet!"
"Timelord." He said, "I'll be the judge of that."
Fair enough,
"Something happened to Jack, he doesn't know what, when he dies he spontaneously resurrects a few minutes later, fatal injuries clear up, he's lived a long time." The Doctors eyebrows shot up,
"That's almost unheard of." I heard a slight emphasis on almost, the Doctor was silent a few minutes, deep in thought,
"When you caught him, you thought he was immortal. "Said the Doctor,
"Yes."
"Yet you still caught him."
"I didn't say it wasn't painful." I watched that sink in,
"You don't even like him." he said accusingly,
"Yeah, but I'm not a cunt."

     Jack liked me though, he grinned at me when I ran into him in the kitchen, damp from his shower, in singlet and rumpled jeans,
"Hey, Kate. Want a cup of coffee?"
"Got any tea?" he fished around in the cupboards, water still beaded on his shoulders from his hair, a drop caught my eye as it ran down his rather well defined tricep, stop that!  He splashed water into a cup and turned around to put it, with the milk and sugar, on the table, the singlet was kinda tight, I'd never seen this much of Jack before- a well developed chest does something distracting to my hind brain,
"For my favourite lady." He presented me with a teaspoon, which just made me laugh, and embarrassed me because he'd definitely noticed me being preoccupied, he smiled,
"Do you like fish?"
     It was huge, dark walled, glass tank-lined, with curved walls, the water behind dappled with light- swirling with life, startling fish, silvered or luminous colours, flashing in and out of the light, squid like creatures jetted past, I swear one examined me closely,
"Are these live creatures?"
"No, records held in the TARDIS matrix from Enlandia, a water planet, three intelligent species- each with a language, and interspecies communication."
     I followed him through dappled light past the memory tanks to where someone had put aspidistras in pots on stands at either end of a white sofa in the middle of the room, he sat down, patted the seat beside him, "How's the shoulder?"
"It's not so bad." I shied back slightly from the implied intimacy,
"Well, mine's killing me," he said, rotating the shoulder I'd caught him by, "could you...?"
     So I did, I'm no professional, but I can find a knot, watch a face for winces, he stripped the singlet off, "The Doc's got this stuff," I said, "tissue regenerator, in the med bay, worked a treat on mine."
"Hmmm?" He leaned further into my fingers, laid his head to one side, inviting application to his neck, I had a feeling I was being carefully led, and I knew where...
"That's nice," he sighed, "c'mon, let me have a go at your shoulder." We turned and he stuck his thumbs in the neck of my t-shirt, and oh, he knew what he was doing- my neck and shoulders are always stiff, he wasn't long discovering how sensitive the skin on my back and shoulders is either, one light trace of a finger can make me shiver uncontrollably, I didn't actually notice when his mouth joined the sensations on the back of my neck, by the time I did it was too late. The sofa, it seemed, flattened out into a bed, and I went willingly where surely many had gone before.

     The Doctor looked across at me,
"He's not the same man you met, is he?"
I took a deep breath, shook my head, "No."
This new-er Jack was nice, sunny, guileless, and I liked him, and he seemed to like me. Why was the Jack I met before so different? He must have known me.
In the shopping centre- noise, terror, disbelief, running, a hand spins me round and shoves me against a wall, Jack's face peering into mine, he goes to yell something- the roof explodes.
"He knew me, I didn't know him." He'd got over the shock of that while I was in hospital- while I couldn't hear him, the strange interviews when he'd tried to slip me a Retcon- anamnesia pill- and I'd been just too suspicious- he must have wondered if I really knew anything- had it been driving him nuts? Lights went on in dark corners of my time at Torchwood, it was speculation, I'd never know for sure- unless I crossed his timeline again. He'd wanted me out of it- was he afraid he'd screw up the circumstances in which we met now? And when the future Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, he was surprised to see me- because he knew me? Then Jack and he had words, Jack had protested- or was upset? -and the Doctor made him take me on at Torchwood.
Because?
What was it needed to happen? Did I need some experience put on me, or did I simply need to be somewhere at the right time?
Was the explosion that landed me on Ryanax an accident?
"Doctor, how did I come to be on Ryanax?"
He turned that bland face to me, the one that masked a lot of thinking, "I don't know."