Engendered Change

Chapter 4

Jack stood back, watching as this new Doctor ran around the consul crying, “No, no, no, no, no!” S’he reached for something and pulled, only to jerk h’er hand back when it sparked. “Come on!” s’he cried, whapping the side of the consul (whether in an effort to fix it or through frustration wasn’t clear), “Don’t do this! Not here, not now!”

“Problem, Doc?” Jack asked, moving from his position slouched against a wall to take a close look. It was disconcertingly familiar and alien to watch the Doctor be so…Doctor-y despite the changed appearance. Last time he had seen the Doctor change, he had had to get used to completely new mannerisms. Now the Doctor looked different but moved the same. Finally, the Doctor stopped h’er frantic dance to fix things and h’er shoulders slumped.

“So…” Jack said, attempting to retain an atmosphere of loose casualty, despite the growing tension, “how long are we stuck here for?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor admitted. “She’s being…stubborn.”

Jack had suspected as much and refrained from the urge to stroke the consul. In the first place, he didn’t want the Doctor to see them as plotting together. In the second, she was still quite hot and would likely burn his hand. He also resisted asking the Doctor more questions. S’he wouldn’t answer, and it would only put h’er on edge. Thanks to the TARDIS they had time.

“Well then,” Jack said in lieu of the questions, “why don’t we take a look around?”

The Doctor finally turned to face him again, h’er expression a cross between puzzled, angry, and scared. It slowly morphed into a more familiar expression, somewhere between schoolboy playing hooky (girl now, really) and manic glee.

“Well, why not?” s’he asked as s’he pulled on a coat that looked far too large for h’er but was small enough that it wouldn’t trip h’er or fall off. “Alright then, allons-y!” And s’he marched out the door. A bit bemused by the sudden change in attitude, Jack followed.

The Doctor, for his part, was feeling a strange reversal to the desperation that had made him avoid leaving the TARDIS. Now that he was almost assured of not running into anyone who would recognize him or remark upon the changes (except for Jack, of course, but he was kind of stuck with him) the TARDIS suddenly felt confining. An adventure was just what he needed to break in this new form and stop acting so…girly. Maybe by the end of it he would even get used to it.

It helped with his new adventurous outlook that there were no people outside the TARDIS waiting to gawk at his feminine charms. Nothing but trees and flowers anyway he looked. It rather confirmed that this trip wasn’t nearly as accidental as the TARDIS had tried to claim. But no matter, perhaps it was for the best. An easy adventure that wasn’t really an adventure at all was just what he needed. She needed. Perhaps he should start by trying, at least, to embrace his new form. Her new form. This was going to take some getting used to. As a start, he could at least stop thinking in Sakoorian. Besides, their understanding of two genders was rather limited and they tended to speak of alien genders as ‘two people who are as one’. And he really wasn’t comfortable thinking of Jack in those terms. She wasn’t.

“Well, Doc, this looks pretty tame,” Jack said. “Not Cardiff, I see.”

“You know you just jinxed it, right?” the Doctor answered, ignoring the Cardiff bit. “Good thing I found these running shoes. Not my usual style, of course, but it couldn’t be helped.”

Jack only snorted in response, and together they walked through a nearby grove and over a moderately steep hill. The Doctor almost felt disappointed when they met nothing more threatening than a rather splendid view of a lake on the other side. There were no signs of people, or even animals. The trees were empty of birdsong and any rustling they could hear clearly came from the wind. There wasn’t even the buzz of insects.

“Now this reminds me of something…” the Doctor frowned, eyeing the peaceful scene with trepidation. Perhaps the lake would turn out to be acid or the home to a tentacled particularly hungry toad of some sort. He found himself caressing one of the flowers just to make sure it wasn’t stone. The world sounded so empty of anything but green.

“There is something odd,” Jack pointed out. “Why flowers if there are no insects?”

“Maybe they’re nocturnal,” the Doctor suggested, sounding intrigued. He…she looked more closely at one of the blossoms. It smelled sweet and it didn’t look particularly alien. The Doctor felt more comfortable now that there was the vague threat of creatures coming out in the night. Perhaps a camping trip was in order, just to wait and see.

They reached the lake with no trouble and little conversation. Despite his very pointed lack of questions, the Doctor could still feel Jack’s eyes boring into his…her back whenever his/her back was turned. The atmosphere between them still felt tense; the Doctor knew Jack wasn’t going to leave it alone but he/she was just as determined to not talk about it. What would talking help? It was done, the Doctor would get over it and life would go on. He was already getting over it. She.

“Well,” Jack said, “should we try out the lake?” He stripped off his coat and started on his top. Knowing Jack, he wasn’t planning to stop there.

“Do you really think that’s wise?” the Doctor asked when Jack had gotten his shoes off and had started to pull down his suspenders. Still trying to act nonchalant to Jack’s streaker tendencies, no matter what the reality was, he/she added, “You don’t know what’s in there. Or if it’s really water.”

“I think I’ll take my chances,” Jack answered, and without even a modicum of modesty he pulled the rest of his clothes off and waded into the lake. The Doctor stood frowning on the bank, watching Jack without looking at him. Jack did have a fine body (particularly for his age…had he reached two centuries yet? Normally the Doctor’s time sense could detect a person’s age with no difficulty, but Jack’s status as a fixed point screwed that up). The Doctor allowed him/herself to be distracted by considering his age, and pondering the fact that a concept he had found painful and…wrong in the beginning he was beginning to find a bit comforting. Jack was a solid rock in a turbulent stream. As much as he disrupted things, he was something strong. And he did have a nice body (and didn’t he know it to?) The Doctor snorted to him/herself, stubbornly sure that he/she was not going to look, and then looked anyway.

Jack was mostly underwater by then anyway. As he wasn’t screaming in agony and was still grinning, the Doctor deduced that the lake wasn’t acid after all, and so far appeared devoid of lurkers in the depths ready to pull the unwary to a watery grave. Or in Jack’s case, at the very least a very unpleasant experience.

“Come on, Doc!” Jack called him. “At least take off your shoes!”

“Right,” the Doctor answered. “And the minute I do some great driggliodon of a creature will come upon us and I’ll have to run barefoot all the way back to the TARDIS.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Jack answered. “Driggliodons can’t swim.”

“I said like,” the Doctor pointed out. But he did finally sit down and remove the shoes and socks. The reptilian creatures with sharp teeth and no buoyancy failed to appear.

Jack continued to swim, enjoying the break while conjuring the Doctor to join him. He didn’t expect h’er to actually remove h’er clothes, (he wouldn’t have as a man, and was even less likely to as a woman), but he hoped he’d at least get h’er to wade a bit with h’er clothes on. It was warm enough that s’he would dry quickly afterwards. So Jack was very surprised when the Doctor started pulling down h’er trousers.