Sweet as Sugar

Sweet as Sugar Chapter Forty

Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather is fantabulousstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Jstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Thanks everyone for being so patient with my class=SpellE>herky jerky updating… *shakes fist at school and Real Life ™.
*  There’s just
a handful left… and that handful includes hot and sweaty smutstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'>  ;)  Previous
chapters can be found here on this NSFW site: 
http://tv.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=544190551

            Jack wished
for one blinding moment that he were back in his cozy little office, smelling
the stale pizza and cold coffee aroma wafting from the lab…style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Instead, he thought with a vague twist of a
smile, he was running down yet another alien corridor with the Doctor, trying
to save two of the most important people in his life.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Three, if he counted himself.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “Out of curiosity,” he asked over his
shoulder, “do you know where we’re going?”

The Doctor in that particular
incarnation smiled.  “Of course I
do.  I know where I am at all times.
Saves trouble later.”  He grabbed Jack class=GramE>by  the elbow and
dragged him to a halt.  “The important
question is, do you know where YOU are?”

Jack snorted.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “Of course.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  I’m…” The niggling thought that had occurred to
him earlier exploded into full bloom. Exactly where *was* he?style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Nothing was what he thought anymore, not in
this world.  He was used to upheavals and
shifts but this was verging on insane.  “Why
don’t you tell me where YOU think we are…”

            “Clever,”
the Doctor muttered, pushing his fingers through his riot of curls.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “Clever man.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  You think we’re still in the Domes of Venus
but we’re not.  We’re on a satellite
planet, orbiting a massive gravity jar.”

            “…a class=SpellE>whowhatnow?”

            “Gravity class=GramE>jar.  Oh, that’s not class=GramE>it’s real name but they always looked like jars to me.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  It’s a massive construct, looks a bit like a
jar of preserves but all metallic and such. 
It provides artificial gravity to massive construction projects, like start
up solar systems and such.”

            class=GramE>“Ah, the gated communities of the future.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Or the present,” Jack sighed, rolling his
eyes heavenward.  “I thought those had
been banned by just about ever government in the galaxy.”

            “Yours,
maybe,” the Doctor shrugged.  “It’s
deceptively easy to miss, unless you know what you’re looking for, but the
TARDIS picked up on it immediately, as soon as she wound up here before Rose
got drawn into the entire mess.”  He
paused, brows drawing together.  “It’s
odd, isn’t it?  Me being me and him being
me and her being who she is… I know everything he knows and he knows everything
I know, even if he won’t acknowledge some of the finer things like Jelly Babies
and that fantastic scarf tucked away belowstairs…style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  But here I am.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  The TARDIS spewed us all out…”

            “I was
gonna save that question for later,” Jack said conversationally, motioning the
Doctor to take the lead and falling into step behind him as they wended their
way at a steady clip down the corridor.  “But
since you brought it up… what the fuck is that about?”

            class=GramE>“Ah, language, my American friend.”style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  He shot Jack a look.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “At least my friend who
passes for American.  Time Lords
are connected to their 
TARDIS in a rather symbiotic fashion… we’re part of it and it’s
part of us.  We share a seed, as it were…”

            class=GramE>“Hmm.  On class=SpellE>Gallifrey, the TARDIS is in YOU,” Jack muttered, only half
joking.  The Doctor barely shrugged in
response as they took a hard right, the temperature of the passageway growing noticeably
cooler. 

            “Something
shifted in the continuum…something isn’t as it should be anymore.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  We used to monkey with time and continuity on
a regular basis but this is big, big enough to set that seed of being into
overdrive, sprouting things willy
nilly.”

            “So…you’re
not a hologram,” Jack put in for lack of anything else to add at that
moment.  The corridor was sloping
downwards, pitching gently towards a darkness several
hundred yards before them.  Their steps
slowed and Jack edged ahead, pulling his gun out from the hidden holster at his
side.  “So there’s something wonky going
on in time and space, moreso than usual, and the
TARDIS is trying to fix it by spewing you lot out?”style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  They were moving slowly now, voices barely
above a whisper as they hugged the wall, approaching the darkness which was
resolving itself to be a door of some sort, painted
darker than the surrounding walls, designed to be ominous.style='mso-spacerun:yes'> 

            “…something
like that. 
Rather more like the cock up has sent her circuits into a tizzy and she’s
spewing us out—lovely image by the bye—to fix her.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  You missed something glaringly obvious, Jack,
something you should have seen the minute you jumped into the TARDIS to play
cowboy and save Rose and…well, me.”  He
laid a long fingered hand on Jack’s shoulder, making him pause in his
progress.  His lips practically on Jack’s
ear, he whispered, “What did you see when you looked at the map on the TARDIS?”

            “The Domes,”
he shot back.  “New
Venus.  We never really left…”

            “Think
harder.  That was just part of the
map.  Did you not see the new, twinkling
light shining in the sky?  class=GramE>The shimmering globe that wasn’t there before?”style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  He released Jack and straightened just
slightly.  “Gallifrey
has been resurrected.  We’re on it.”

            “That’s
impossible,” Jack sputtered, shaking off the Doctor’s hand.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “He…you saw it destroyed.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  YOU were there!”style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  He cocked his weapon, the faint hum of class=GramE>it’s energy cell like an insistent bee in the otherwise
quiet hall.  Jack did not look back at
the Doctor as he padded softly towards the darkened door.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “Even if it is a
constructed planet, who would have built it back?style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  It’s not like you can just people the planet
with human hybrids and call them Time Lords…”

            “No, but
you can loom us,” the Doctor noted.  “And
human DNA can be added to the Looms, sort of a filler.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  Especially human DNA that isn’t quite human
anymore.” 

            Jack did
stop then, so close to the door that he could all but feel it.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “But I…” he paused.style='mso-spacerun:yes'>  “Oh. 
Oh, no.  Rose…”

            “Oh no Rose
indeed,” The Doctor remarked.  “Go in
with guns blazing and she’s dead.  Sneak
in and she’s loomed.  Which is it to be
then, Jack?”

A/N Next chapter, Ten does
something Very Not Well Advised.